American Double Standards on China & Pakistan (Declassified)

WASHINGTON: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s visit to China, which he declared his country’s best friend, makes it harder to sell an angry US public on aid to Islamabad, a key US senator said on Tuesday. “Frankly, I’m getting tired of it, and I think Americans are getting tired of it as far as shovelling money in there at people who just flat don’t like us,” said Republican Senator James Risch. Continued aid to Pakistan, Risch argued, was “a hard sell to the American people” when cash-strapped Washington sends assistance to Islamabad, only to see “the head of Pakistan go to China and… stand up and say ‘you\re our best friend’.” His comments came during a US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on sour US-Pakistan ties in the wake of the raid in which elite US commandos killed Osama bin Laden in a military academy town not very far from Islamabad. And they follow Mr Gilani’s arrival in China. Asked at the hearing about the visit, former White House national security adviser Jim Jones said Washington must work to ensure that Mr Gilani’s visit to China does not worsen his country’s already strained India ties. “If any part of Pakistan thinking is that better relations with China make India mad, and that’s therefore a good thing to do, then that’s flawed thinking,” said Jones. “We need to try to ensure that we can make sure that relations don’t get worse as a result of this kind of trip and this kind of rhetoric,” said Jones. He also said Washington must strive to convince countries like China, Brazil and India “that with this great economic power that they’re about to have, and already have in some cases, there comes some great responsibilities in terms of making the world a better place.”—AFP REFERENCE: US senator criticises China visitFrom the Newspaper Yesterday http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/18/us-senator-criticises-china-visit.html

James Risch is a member of following Committees:

Energy and Natural Resources, Member

Foreign Relations, Member

Select Committee on Ethics, Member

Select Committee on Intelligence, Member

Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Member

Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Member

Subcommittee on Energy, Ranking Member

Subcommittee on European Affairs, Member

Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and

International Environmental Protection, Member

Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South and Central Asian Affairs, Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Member

Subcommittee on Water and Power, Member

RICHARD NIXON TAPES- China & Changing the World (Kissinger)

Courtesy: http://youtu.be/J4n2P_fZB08

Henry Kissinger February 14, 1972 -- 10:32 PM 020-092 White House Telephone


"QUOTE"

September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

Last week, President Bush visited Beijing on the anniversary of Richard Nixon's visit in February 1972, the first presidential trip to China.(1) To commemorate further the Nixon trip, the National Security Archive and the George Washington University's Cold War Group of the Elliott School of International Affairs are publishing recently declassified U.S. documents on the Sino-American rapprochement. This material documents Nixon's efforts to make contacts with Beijing during 1970-1971 as the basis for rapprochement after decades of hostility. Most of the documents, held in the files of the Nixon Presidential Materials Project at the National Archives, were released in April 2001; they are only the tip of an iceberg of very rich material in the Nixon papers. The new releases make it possible to publish here for the first time, a nearly-complete record --some pages are still classified--of the historic talks between Zhou Enlai and Henry Kissinger during the latter's secret trip to China in July 1971. September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

This collection opens up with documentation on Nixon's and Kissinger's efforts to establish communication with China in the fall of 1970. Since the beginning of his presidency in early 1969, and even earlier, Nixon had been interested in changing relations with China, not least to contain a potential nuclear threat but also, by taking advantage of the adversarial Sino-Soviet relationship, to open up another front in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It took time, however, for Nixon and Kissinger to discover how to carry out a new policy toward Beijing and such complications as the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970 created detours in White House efforts to sustain a dialogue with Beijing.(2) September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

Earlier efforts to make contact with China having gone nowhere, in September 1970 Nixon directed Kissinger to renew the effort. An October 1970 meeting with Pakistan's ruler Yahya Khan (see document 3) had some potential for expediting contacts because Pakistan had provided a channel for earlier Sino-American communication in 1969.(3) Nevertheless, as the documents show, Kissinger was also trying other channels, such as the Romanian government and an old friend, Jean Sainteny, who had connections at the Chinese embassy in Paris. The Pakistani channel produced an important message from Zhou in December 1970, which quickly generated a White House response (see documents 5 and 7). In April 1971, both sides were engaged in important signaling---the Chinese with "Ping Pong diplomacy" and Nixon with public statements of interest in visiting China--while Kissinger was waiting for Beijing's response to the message sent in December. On 27 April 1971, he was about to make another effort to contact Sainteny when the Pakistani ambassador delivered Zhou Enlai's belated reply (see document 16). Mao Zedong's and Zhou's interest in receiving a visit from Nixon laid the way for Kissinger's secret trip in July 1971 and the beginning of the U.S.-China effort to discuss the issues that had divided them over the years. September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

The documents show that general agreement on the Taiwan problem was the sine qua non for Nixon's trip and diplomatic normalization generally, although Kissinger elided that issue altogether in his memoirs. Nixon was reluctant to give up too much on Taiwan (see item 32), but he knew that the success of the trip depended on U.S. admission that it did not seek "two Chinas or a "one China, one Taiwan solution." In his talk with Zhou on 9 July, Kissinger did not use Zhou's formulation that "Taiwan was a part of China" but he nevertheless acknowledged it when he declared that "we are not advocating a `two Chinas' solution or a `one China, one Taiwan' solution."(4) Kissinger's declaration prompted Zhou to say what he had not yet said, that he was optimistic about Sino-American rapprochement: "the prospect for a solution and the establishment of diplomatic relations between our two countries is hopeful" (see document 33 at p. 13). As important as this exchange was, in his 1979 memoir Kissinger misleadingly wrote that "Taiwan was mentioned only briefly during the first session."(5) Yet some 9 pages, nearly 20 percent, of the 46-page record of the first Zhou-Kissinger meeting on 9 July 1971, include discussion of Taiwan, with Kissinger disavowing Taiwanese independence and committing to withdraw two-thirds of U.S. military forces from the island once the Vietnam War ended. Moreover, Kissinger told Zhou that he expected that Beijing and Washington would "settle the political question" of diplomatic relations "within the earlier part of the President's second term." Kissinger did not say what that would mean for U.S. diplomatic relations with Taiwan but undoubtedly Zhou expected Washington to break formal ties with Taipei as a condition of Sino-American diplomatic normalization. September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

Undoubtedly, Kissinger hoped that the Taiwan problem would gradually fade away, with peaceful "evolution" uniting China and its wayward province, but Taiwan proved resilient and the downgrading of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship remained a sore point for Republican Party conservatives during the 1970s. Indeed, Nixon's resignation in 1974 and the political weaknesses of his successor, Gerald Ford, made it impossible for Kissinger to complete the U.S.-PRC normalization process. Ford could not break ties with Taiwan without raising the ire of the Republican right. Undoubtedly, when Kissinger published his memoir he did not want to provoke the conservatives, much less Taipei, by disclosing what he had said to Zhou about Taiwan. September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

The U.S. documentation represents only a partial record of a more complex reality. While Chinese archival sources are largely unavailable, a growing body of scholarship in China and the United States draws upon Chinese language sources to show that Beijing was just as energetic as Washington in trying to signal interest in a new relationship. For example, in his recent book, Mao's China and the Cold War, University of Virginia historian Chen Jian discusses in fascinating detail the internal deliberations in Beijing during the late 1960s and early 70s.(6) One intriguing episode in Chen's account is the story of the four marshals whom Mao instructed in 1969 to report on trends in world politics, especially U.S-Soviet, Sino-Soviet, and Sino-American relations. Worried about a dangerous confrontation with Moscow, two of the marshals, Chen Yi and Ye Jianying, proposed that Beijing play "the card of the United States" to provide leverage with Moscow. During the last decades of the Cold War, top U.S. officials would sometimes recommend playing the "China card," but it is a rare policymaker who understands that the United States may also be the object of other nations' card playing.(7) September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

As useful as the new Chinese materials are in elucidating the story of the rapprochement, for the most part Bejing's archives are closed to all but party insiders. It may be too optimistic to hope that the availability of U.S documentation from the highest levels of the Nixon administration will induce Chinese authorities to disclose their record of these historic developments. Whether archival openness will depend on other steps toward a more politically open society remains to be seen, but until a new archival regime emerges in Beijing, both American and Chinese historians will have to rely on an incomplete U.S. record. September 1970-July 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 66 Edited by William Burr, February 27, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB66/

"UNQUOTE"

US Declassified Document before the Fall of Dhaka: Handwritten note from President Richard M. Nixon on an April 28, 1971, National Security Council decision paper: "To all hands. Don't squeeze Yahya at this time - RMN" The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971 REFERENCE: The Tilt: The U.S. and the South Asian Crisis of 1971 National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 79 Edited by Sajit Gandhi

December 16, 2002 http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB79/

‎

"An statement of an Honest General who was absent minded too" President Yahya Khan On East Pakistan [KEEP IN MIND THE RECENT RANT OF REVOLUTION IN PAKISTAN WITH THE HELP OF HONEST GENERAL]

As per Ms. Anjum Niaz

(Sealed off as 'Top Secret' by the State Department and CIA, now after three decades, 46 declassified documents - some 'sanitized' - and a audio clip of Nixon-Kissinger offer a compelling peek at President Nixon and his security advisor Henry Kissinger giving a sly wink to the Pakistan army to kill, rape and terrorize innocent East Pakistanis during the 1971 India-Pakistan crisis) 

Inside the Oval Office, August 2, 1971, an exasperated President Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger curse India for wanting to pick up a fight with Pakistan. Actually, the timing is skewed for Nixon who has clandestinely taken a shine to Chou En-Lai facilitated by Pakistan President Gen.Yahya Khan. But the "god-damn Indians" - as Nixon and Kissinger call them - are giving the Americans a run for their money by refusing to sit and watch silently the two siblings - East and West Pakistan - slug it out with each other. 

"We have already given 100 million dollars to India for the refugees (pouring in from E. Pakistan)," Kissinger informs Nixon who is convinced the US is "making a terrible mistake" by heaping dollars on New Delhi. "India is economically in good shape, but no one knows how the god-damn Indians are using this money. They are not letting any foreigners enter the refugee areas. Any foreigners, and their record is outrageous!" keens Kissinger. 

The White House conversation comes the day after the Beatle George Harrison and his soul mate Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar player hold a "Concert for Bangladesh"(months before its birth) to raise money for the refugees escaping the reign of terror unleashed by Pakistan army after Mujibur Rehman's Awami League has swept the polls in East Pakistan during the 1970-71 general elections but is now being outlawed. 

"So who is the Beatle giving the money to - is it the god-damn Indians?" asks a frustrated Nixon. "Yes," says Kissinger flatly, adding that Pakistan has also been given $150,000 food aid but the major problem "is the god-damn distribution." Nixon jumps in, "we have to keep India away". Kissinger couldn't agree more: "we must defuse the refugee and famine problem in East Pakistan in order to deprive India (read Indira Gandhi) of an excuse to start the war with Pakistan." 

"We have to avoid screwing Pakistan that outrageously. It could blow up everything," concurs Kissinger. And the solution according to him is: "we should start our god-damn lecturing on political structures, as much as we can and while there will eventually be a separate East Bengal in two years (he says it so very casually) but it must not happen in the next six months." REFERENCE: When America looked the other way By Anjum Niaz Friday, January 03, 2003
http://www.zcommunications.org/when-america-looked-the-other-way-by-anjum-niaz

NEW DELHI, Dec 18: Newly-declassified papers of the US government reveal that the then President Richard Nixon had ordered his aides not to hamper Gen Yahya Khan’s war effort in East Pakistan, despite warnings from his Dhaka envoy that American weapons were being used to carry out a massacre there, Star News reported on Wednesday. In what was billed as an exclusive report, the New Delhi- datelined report quotes American documents as saying that the then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Nixon were poised to cut off diplomatic ties with New Delhi in the middle of the 1971 conflict but they were stopped by Pakistan’s surrender and the ceasefire declared by India. Two days ago, India celebrated Vijay Diwas or Victory Day — the day in 1971 that Pakistan forces agreed to surrender in Dhaka. “Now 31 years later, the US has declassified 46 documents on its role during the crisis,” Star News added.

It quoted the documents as saying showing “how America blatantly violated its own arms embargo in arming Pakistan, despite ground reports of a systematic genocide by Pakistani forces in East Pakistan,” the report said. “To all hands, don’t squeeze Yahya at this time,” said a handwritten note by President Richard Nixon in April 1971 — perhaps the clearest indicator of US interests in backing Pakistan’s military dictator. Only a month earlier in March 1971, the American consul-general in Dhaka wrote to his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger saying: “Am deeply shocked at massacre by Pakistani military in East Pakistan, appalled at possibility these atrocities are being committed with American equipment, and greatly concerned at United States vulnerability to damaging allegations of association with reign of military terror.” With the American administration choosing to ignore such warnings it was up to the Indian government to internationalise the killings in East Pakistan, the report added. “The genocide in East Pakistan caught the world media’s attention because world media happened to be in West Bengal for the elections and we who were in eastern command would send them to places where they could shoot for themselves,” said Star News quoting India’s Gen Sethna, former Vice Chief of Army Staff, as saying.

Despite the media pressure Richard Nixon continued to support Yahya Khan sometimes for reasons, which seem implausible. “In all honesty, Dr Kissinger pointed out, the President has a special feeling for President Yahya. One cannot make policy on that basis, but it is a fact of life,” says an extract from the Memorandum of Conversation: Henry Kissinger, Assistant to the President to Kenneth Keating and US ambassador to India. It was perhaps this “fact of life” which saw the US completely disregarding its own arms embargo by transferring F-5 fighters then considered state of the art to Pakistan, less than 10 days after the ceasefire. According to the American embassy in Tehran: “Three F-5A fighter aircraft with Pakistani markings and piloted by Pak pilots transited Tehran en-route from Turkey to Pakistan on December 26. Aircraft were noted by several employees including a Pakistani who spoke with one Pak pilot and the reported pilot indicated, that the aircraft had come from US.” As Indian armed forces gained upper hand in the war, the mood in the White House grew increasingly desperate. The documents show both Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had decided on breaking diplomatic ties with the India but the Pakistani surrender and the Indian ceasefire brought a quick end to the Indo-US diplomatic standoff, the agency said. REFERENCE: Don’t squeeze Yahya Khan, Nixon told aides in 1971 By Jawed Naqvi December 19, 2002 Thursday Shawwal 14, 1423 http://www.dawn.com/2002/12/19/top11.htm


DHAKA: March 25, 1971. We didn’t know about that until the next morning. I was then living in an apartment in a multi-ethnic, middle-class locality of Dhaka. For years we had lived in amity with our neighbours sharing each other’s joys and sorrows. But feelings were changing. Friendships were giving way to animosity. Suspicion and distrust soured relationships. When the curfew was lifted for a few hours in the morning of March 26, I stepped out of my apartment to shop for some food for the family. Suddenly I was stopped by a car that screeched to a halt besides me. The occupants asked me brusquely where I was going. When I told them why I was out on the street at a time when most preferred the safety of their homes, they offered to take me to the market which was not far and insisted that I accompany them. I realised that all was not well and they were looking for easy targets. I then began talking to them in highly Persianised Urdu to establish my ethnic identity. I was wearing a kurta and pyjama that was and still remains the attire of Muslim Bengalis. By then the urban population had discarded the lungi which previously distinguished the natives from the migrants. After driving a short distance, my ‘benefactors’ realised that this was a case of mistaken identity. They lost interest in including me in their wild killing spree. Hurriedly, they dropped me by the roadside saying they had an urgent chore and therefore could not take me to the market. I thanked my stars. We never came to know how many people were killed on that terrible night. Later we learnt that among the unfortunate victims were leading intellectuals, writers, professors, artists, poets and exceptionally bright professionals. Among those innocent people were Prof Guha, Prof Thakur Das and Munier Choudhry. They were patriots working tirelessly for the improvement of their homeland. The list of potential victims had been meticulously prepared with the help of the leaders and activists of some newly formed organisations called Al Shams and Al Badr. Though such allegations were refuted vociferously by the government, it was generally believed that there was a great deal of truth in the rumours that were circulating. The bodies of the slain were later discovered scattered in the vicinity of Mohammadpur, a housing colony which was founded by Field Marshal Ayub Khan for the rehabilitation of Muslims uprooted from India. The massacre of March 25 backfired. The public anger at the killing of Bengali intellectuals exposed the minority Urdu-speaking population to the vendetta that was inevitable. They were isolated and thereafter lived in perpetual fear that instilled in them a ghetto mentality they could never shed. For years they had chased illusions and false images while claiming a sham superiority in number and intellect that simply did not exist. REFERENCE: March 25 — a watershed By Akhtar Payami March 25, 2008 Tuesday Rabi-ul-Awwal 16, 1429 http://archives.dawn.com/2008/03/25/op.htm#4 

Aal-e-Saud, USA and Wahabis!

Continuation of my earlier posts [watch the documentary]


1 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis.html


2 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-2.html

3 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-3.html

4 - Who are Wahhaabis?

Is the article below not an eye opener?

King's Ransom by Seymour M. Hersh How vulnerable are the Saudi royals? 16 October 2001 [appeared in The New Yorker] READ MORE..

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-4.html

5 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-5.html

6 - Who are Wahhaabis?

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-6.html


7 - Who are Wahhaabis?

I wonder if you have exercised your American Made Constitutional Right to criticize the below mentioned US-SAUDI POLICY. READ MORE


http://chagataikhan.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-are-wahhaabis-7.html



Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 1

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 2

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 3

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 4

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 5

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 6

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 7

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 8

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 9

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 10

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 11

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 12

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 13

Oil Wars The Kingdom Part 14

Benazir Bhutto: Before her death - 9

The Chilean Military Dictator General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte [November 25, 1915 – December 10, 2006)

American Backers of Military Dictator Pinochet [President Robert Nixon and Zionist US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger]

Genuinely Elected President of Chile Salvadore Allende [Just moments before his death after the American Backed Military Coup]


The Chilean Military Dictator General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte [November 25, 1915 – December 10, 2006) overthrew Salvador Allende, the elected President of Chile and leader of the Chilean Socialist Party (1970-1973) of course with the help of US CIA, Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. On the death of Pinochet Ms. Isabel Allende the daughter of Allende said that the latter's death must not end attempts to secure justice and compensate victims of his dictatorship. Thousands of judicial cases still open against Pinochet 17-year rule marked by thousands of disappearances and alleged human rights abuses, and Isabel Allende insisted attempts to provide legal recompense for his victims should continue. “Justice must continue its work” for the sake of “dignity,” Ms Allende said in an address at the Madrid headquarters of Spain's ruling Socialist Party. Ms Allende said Pinochet's rule had been a “betrayal” of Chile and lamented that he never had to face justice. [1] and [2].


Isabel Allende - Courtesy: Daily Dawn - http://www.dawn.com/

That is not the case with our so-called Daughter of the East [but quoted as Daughter of the Beast by Additional Commissioner Election Commission Pakistan Ms Nasreen Parvez in her book on Benazir Bhutto namely Salma Ka Muqqaddama].

General Ziaul Haq in 1977 in almost similar manner overthrew Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto's government offcourse withe the help of Henry Kissinger and US CIA. And after his death Bhutto's daughter shook hands with the remnants of General Zia for the sake of power and public office. All the sacrifices of those who gave their lives in those Brutal [American Supported] days of General Zia were went down drain.

When General Zia died in 1988 plane crash and power came into the hands of Lt. General (Retd) Aslam Beg, Lt. Gen (Retd) Hameed Gul and of course Ghulam Ishaq Khan , the then Federal Finance Minister Dr. Mehboobul Haq [a toady of World Bank/IMF who served General Zia, IMF and World Bank very well] signed several accords with the IMF and World Bank and he signed these accords when there wasnot any representatvie elected government in the country, to be precise Dr Mehboobul Haq enslaved the people of the Pakistan through this accords. Comes Benazir Bhutto as the first elected Woman Prime Minister of Pakistan and she was told by the three above and Robert Oakley the then American Viceroy of Pakistan that she will have to accept and honour the Accords signed by Mehboobul Haq with the IMF, and many other things like accepting Sahibzada Yaqoob Khan as Foreign Minister and Ghulam Ishaq Khan as the President and the so-called Daughter of the East Ms. Bhutto accepted all the demands to be ousted from power from the same group in August 1990 and now General Beg and General Hameed Gul have the audacity to lecture all of us about Islam, Democracy, Pakistan and Loyalty. Benazir Bhutto is doing the same again in 2006.

How can we forget the Filthy, Parochial and Anti Islamic too, slogan which was raised in an Election Campaign of Nawaz Sharif against Benazir Bhutto i.e. Jaag Punjab Jaag Teri Pag Nu Lag Gaya Dagh "Wakeup and attention O Punjabi your honour is at stake" [a Brainchild of Former ISI Chief Lt. General Retd. Hameed Gul who is now harping the tune of Past Glory of Islam is about to come and would overtake all the world like an storm. The Nawaz Sharif and his last administration caused to unemployment of more than 20, 000 employees in different organiztion which he sacked in the name of so-called Downsizing, Rightsizing and Retrenchments [a policy given by World Bank and IMF] and many amongst those died on the spot as soon as they got the retrenchment letters. The only thing on which Nawaz Sharif is doing politics is Anti-Musharraf Rhetoric. There is another buffon who is jumping from place to another the one and only Former Cricketer Imran Khan who recently delivered a message of Qazi Hussain Ahmed [MMA-Jamat-e-Islami, just keep in mind that Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Benzair Bhutto and Imran Khan before 12 Oct 1999 had declared Nawaz Sharif a Security Risk] to Nawaz Sharif regarding movement of restoring democracy.

Lets take a quick look of this Buffon we have as a politician i.e. Imran Khan [also a brainchild of Lt General Retd. Hameed Gul] who ruined the career and lives of three gentlemen cricketers just ask Qasim Omar, Younis Ahmed and Iqbal Qasim. To boot, he was never a great fielder. Qasim Omar had even alleged that Imran used to smuggle drugs in gloves to the Western countries where they used to play cricket. He almost became a Prime Minister of Pakistan after 2002 General Elections in the same Musharraf Government. Lo and Behold! there is another skeleton in the closet of Imran Khan which was spin doctored by Mushaid Hussain Syed when he was Media Advisor of Nawaz Sharif from 1997-1999. The highlighted news on Imran Khan and his illegitimate Child used to appear in leading newspapers and magazines like Jamat-e-Islami backed Jasarat, Takbeer and Ummat. But Imran has no shame neither Sardar Mumtaz Ali Khan Bhutto who meet and receive Imran Khan with fervour whereas we forget the role Mumtaz Ali Bhutto played while serving the several caretaker governments at the behest of Establishment. Read the news on Imran Khan's Love Child and Love without Wedlock with Ms Sita White. And Guess what Imran Khan love they way Talibans used to run the affairs in Afghanistan [Tuesday Review of Dawn].

Qazi Hussain Ahmed - Jamat-e-Islami and Imran Khan


Sita White's will gives Imran parental rights over Tyrian: Paper

London, May 18 (ANI): The will left behind by Sita White, the mother of Imran Khan's illegitimate daughter Tyrian, stipulates that Imran gets custody of Tyrian after her death, a London-based newspaper "Mail" reported Tuesday. It further said regardless of denials by Imran Khan about taking custody of his love child Tyrian, a London-based newspaper "Mail" claimed that he arrived in Los Angeles Sunday night to bring home his illegitimate girl child. "Her will says Imran gets full and complete parental rights over Tyrian if anything happened to Sita. Tyrian and Imran now have a strong bond despite his reluctance to acknowledge her during her early years," one of Sita's close friends was quoted as saying in the said report, The Nation reported. According to the paper, Imran and his wife Jemima Khan are understood to have discussed bringing the 12-year-old to live with them and their sons - Sulaiman (7) and Qasim (4) in Britain.

Meanwhile, according to the report, Jemima told a friend: "We are committed to doing whatever is best for Tyrian and we are both very happy for her to move to the UK and live with us if that's what she wants." Quoting some unidentified sources close to the Sita's family, the report also played down reports saying that Tyrian would not be welcomed into the family by Jemima. "What Imran and Jemima care most about is the fact that a 12-year-old girl has tragically lost her mother. Although Jemima never met Sita, they were in regular contact about Tyrian. They had a very good relationship," they said. Jemima met Tyrian for the first time three years ago. She spent six weeks in the summer of 2001 with the Khans. She has returned to the UK and stayed with the Khans every summer since then, said the paper. According to it, Tyrian was seen playing quietly with her dog outside the family house in LA. About one picture with her mother while she was infant, she reportedly said: "I know that picture. That is my favourite of mummy and me. I know what has happened. And it's okay. I'm okay." (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/040519/139/2d6bd.html

Imran to take custody of 'love child'

Pakistan's cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan will take custody of his 12-year-old 'love child' following the sudden death of her mother in the United States on Thursday. Imran flew to Los Angeles on Saturday night to bring home Tyrian after her multimillionaire mother Sita White collapsed, having apparently suffered a heart attack near her home in Beverly Hills, a report said in London on Sunday.

Quoting her friends, The Mail on Sunday said the 43-year-old Sita, a fitness fanatic, had taken steroids, which exacerbated an existing heart condition. For years, the 51-year-old cricketing legend refused to acknowledge Tyrian, born in 1992, as his child until Sita won a paternity suit in 1997. He finally met his child the following year. Imran and his wife Jemima are understood to have discussed bringing the 12-year-old to live with them and their sons Sulaiman, 7, and Qasim, 4, in Britain.

Sita's will stipulated that Imran got "full and complete parental rights over Tyrian if anything happened", her friend was quoted as saying. "Tyrian and Imran now have a strong bond despite his reluctance to acknowledge her during her early years," the friend said. Imran also had the support of Jemima in bringing Tyrian to live with them, The Mail said. Jemima, according to the tabloid, told a friend: "We are committed to doing whatever is best for Tyrian and we are both very happy for her to move to the UK and live with us if that's what she wants."

"What Imran and Jemima care most about is the fact that a 12-year-old girl has tragically lost her mother. Although Jemima never met Sita, they were in regular contact about Tyrian. They had a very good relationship." Jemima met Tyrian for the first time three years ago. The child spent six weeks in the summer of 2001 with the Khans. She has returned to the UK and stayed with the Khans every summer since then. The eldest daughter of billionaire businessman Lord 'Gordy' White, Sita was born into a world of privilege at the family's London home in Eaton Square. But she died alone on the floor of a one-storey yellow concrete yoga studio in Santa Monica.

She had been working as a yoga instructor for five years. Friends say she spent the last months of her life obsessed by a desperate desire to maintain her muscular six-foot frame. It was a desperation that, one source said, may have driven her to drugs. Sita was married twice -- to Italian photographer Francesco Venturi and to Marlboro model Alan Marshall. She met Imran in 1985 and ended their affair a year before Tyrian's conception in 1991. According to the report, Sita always maintained that it was the result of one final night of love with Imran in Los Angeles.

http://in.rediff.com/cricket/2004/may/16imran.htm

Notes

Allende’s daughter says trial must go on [1]

http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/12/int11.htm

Ex-Chilean dictator Pinochet dies [2]

http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/11/int11.htm

Musharraf ahead of Benazir, Nawaz in popularity poll By Amir Wasim

http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/16/top1.htm

Who are Wahhaabis? - 7

Faiz wrote:

Dear Aamir Sahib,

The Western governments are, by and large, NOT oppressive. The US people are proud of it and try their level best to honor it, protect it and keep it that way. I think your logic of “moving out of the Land of oppression” applies more to a "Muslim" country, such as "Saudi Arabia" where Christians and other religions cannot even build a place of worship

Irfan
=======================================

Dear Irfan Sahab,

I wonder if you have exercised your American Made Constitutional Right to criticize the below mentioned US-SAUDI POLICY.

King George, Prince Abdullah, Global Warming, and the Torture of Thomas Jefferson May 01, 2005 By Paul Street

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/6369

"The period of history which is commonly called 'modern,'" wrote Bertrand Russell in 1945, "has a mental outlook which differs from that of the medieval period in many ways. Of these, two are most important: the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of science." "The culture of modern times," Russell added, "is more lay than clerical," so that "states increasingly replace[d] the Church as the ...authority that controls culture." These "modern" states, partly under the influence of science, tended, Russell felt, toward democracy, which first became "an important force" in "the modern sense" with the American and French Revolutions (1).


Last Monday, nearly 230 years after the modern democratic American Revolution challenged the Divine Right of Kings and "made the rights of man known to all of Europe" (Condorcet), a curious meeting took place in the vacation home of the President of the United States. News of this summit in Crawford, Texas sent Kant, Voltaire, Condorcet, Thomas Jefferson and other leading thinkers of the Ages of Reason and (bourgeois) Revolution spinning in their coffins a little faster than usual.


In one chair sat George W. Bush, the "messianic militarist" (Ralph Nader's description) United States (U.S.) president who once invoked "Christ" as his favorite political philosopher ("because he changed my heart") and who announced his imperialist war(s) on terror and the Arab world as "a crusade" (2). A friend of school prayer and the death penalty and a religiously based opponent of abortion rights, gay rights, civil rights, evolutionary science, and stem-cell research, Bush is probably the nation's most theocratic president to date. He finds critical electoral support among the highly mobilized group of Americans - equaling perhaps a third of the first "modern" nation's citizenry - who call themselves Fundamentalist Christians and who therefore tend to believe literally in such biblical prophecies as Armageddon, and the Second Coming. These beliefs, taken from the book of Revelation, "imply acceptance," as David Harvey notes, "of the horrors of war (particularly in the Middle East) as a prelude to the achievement of God's will on earth"(3).


Bush is probably the most authoritarian U.S. president since at least the turn of the 20th century. He has exhibited extreme disdain for democratic institutions and values in numerous ways, including chronic deception of the American public (most dramatically in regard to the reasons for, and achievements of, his Iraq occupation and nature of his "middle-class" tax cuts), denial of citizen access to public White House records, and a determination to enact regressive, corporate plutocratic domestic policies opposed by most Americans.


Sitting in the other chair at Crawford was Crown Prince Abdullah, neo-medieval monarch of the most reactionary and doctrinaire nation on earth. According to Gilbert Achcar in 1997, "democratic" America's longstanding client state Saudi Arabia "is the antithesis of democracy. It is a country where the Koran and Sharia are the only basic law and which is run by ultra-puritan Wahhabi [fanatically extremist and arch-authoritarian] Muslims. It is incontestably the most fundamentalist state in the world, the most totalitarian in political and cultural terms, and the most oppressive of the female half of the population" (4).


Things have not improved much in Saudi Arabia (from an Enlightenment perspective, at least) over the last eight years. The kingdom still enjoys a continuing "positive relationship" with the United States despite, or because of, its continuing terrible record of antidemocratic actions. It still practices the wholesale denial of civil, political, and human rights. Despite the Bush administration's pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric about bringing "freedom" and "democracy" to the Arab world, the "totalitarian" Saudi state remains a close US ally, receiving ample support from the Pentagon.


The secret to this "positive relationship," of course, is oil. Saudi Arabia has the largest petroleum reserves on the planet, a factor of great significance to the architects and maintainers of American empire. "In 1945," Noam Chomsky notes, U.S. State Department officials "described Saudi-Arabian energy resources as 'a stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in history.'" Thanks mainly to its vast oil endowments, President Dwight Eisenhower considered the oil-laden Persian Gulf (where Saudi Arabia remains the petroleum-soaked crown jewel) to be "the most strategically important area of the world." By controlling Saudi and other Arab oil resources and production, U.S. policymakers have long hoped to attain significant "veto power" over the economic, military, and diplomatic conduct of rival states and regions, who depend significantly on external (and especially Middle Eastern) energy supplies(5).


The relevance of that "strategic" and "veto" power is accelerated for those policymakers by America's growing dependence upon foreign oil imports and the emergence of more functional state-capitalist systems in Western Europe and East Asia as superior economic competitors. Increasingly unable to keep up (on purely economic terms) with their world capitalist rivals, the deeply indebted and highly "defense" (military)-addicted U.S. empire relies like never before on its vast military might (a source of power and weakness at one and the same time) to shore up its challenged economic strength by keeping an armed boot on the global oil spigot (6).


At the same time, American imperialists rightly consider control of that spigot as vital to their declared project of preventing the surfacing of any conceivable challenge to U.S. global military hegemony. As Harvey notes, "the military runs on oil. North Korea may have a sophisticated air-force, but it cannot use it much for lack of fuel. Not only does the U.S. need to ensure its own military supplies. But any future military conflict with, say, China [which U.S. planners consider to their greatest strategic military rival in coming decades, P.S.], will be lopsided if the U.S. has the power to cut off oil supplies to its opponent." (7)


Thanks to the State Department's early understanding of oil-rich Saudi Arabia's "stupendous" strategic relevance, U.S. imperial architects made a critical deal with the kingdom after WWII. The U.S. was granted decisive control over the Saudis' economic and external affairs (including oil production and pricing), along with military basing rights. In return, the U.S. agreed to guarantee the security of the regime from internal (democratic and otherwise) and external threats.


Buttressed by its initially small share of the oil wealth that American corporations extracted from its soil, the Saudi state managed to keep the Ages of Reason and Revolution at bay into the 21st Century. As Achcar notes, "the perpetuation and installation" by the US of "a pre-modern tribal dynasty in Saudi Arabia" - a process replicated by the US and other western nations (principally England) in other Arab oil states - has "contrasted strongly with colonialism's project of overturning traditional structures in other parts of the world and setting up models emulating political modernity. The 'civilizing mission' of the West in the establishment of state institutions did not extend to [Saudi Arabia and other oil monarchies]. On the contrary, here the project was to consolidate backwardness in order to guarantee unfettered exploitation of hydrocarbon resources by the imperial power" (8).



And exploit Saudi oil the US did. American corporate petroleum authorities pumped out and processed enormous amounts of the kingdom's "black gold" and sold it at remarkably low prices - down to $1.29 per barrel by 1969 - to fuel the dazzling expansion of leading core state (Western and Japanese) economies during the 1950s and 1960s.


It is true that Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other Arab oil states including Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait dramatically increased oil prices and Arab wealth by forming a producers' cartel (OPEC) that brandished the boycott weapon to great effect in the 1970s. By the end of that decade, Middle Eastern oil had risen to $25 per barrel, with Arab elites now receiving most of the revenue. Nonetheless, as Middle Eastern historian Rashid Kahlidi points out, "the American companies continued to enjoy a privileged position in their relations with the Saudi oil industry" and "the United States continued to enjoy its strategic privileges in the country, such as rights to military bases. American industry and services also had great advantages in access to the lucrative Saudi market, which in light of the new oil wealth was insatiable in its demand for construction, consumer goods and most profitably of all expensive weapons systems far too complex to be used without the very expensive training and maintenance provided by American companies." The fantastic new oil revenues made the Saudi regime more powerful than ever in its ability to repress dissent, including that of those who wish to deny the US special privileges in and around the kingdom (9).


Which brings us to the reason for the Crown Prince's presence in Crawford. He came to discuss the expansion of Saudi oil output, required by the American overlords to reduce what Bush and his advisors consider the "unreasonably" high ($55 a barrel) price of oil. The corporate-petrocratic White House does not mind high oil prices; no true "oiligarchy" would. But the administration is worried that current prices at the American pump are so elevated that they threaten US economic growth and endanger the Republican Party's ability to effectively push its expensive, regressive, and reactionary policy agenda. It was, by all appearances, a successful meeting for Bush: Prince Abdullah committed his kingdom to investing $50 billion to increase Saudi oil production over the next decade.


To show concern for the embattled American consumer, the White House had the monarch sit down briefly with some ordinary folk in a dingy Crawford diner. "Heck," Bush wanted the American people to know, "ole Abdullah" (we do not know if Dubya has given him a personal nickname yet) "is a regular fellow...wants to sit down and order a burger too" - just like our pseudo-populist, blue-blooded president. Gas prices and not human rights were the discussion topic during this little appearance, we can be sure.


Responsible journalists might find the administration's push for increased Saudi oil production (and lower oil prices) highly interesting in light of Bush's disastrous, illegal, and immoral occupation of Iraq. Among other things, this brazen imperial action was supposed to bring Iraq's vast petroleum reserves on line, helping keep oil prices within America's definition of "reasonable." But two years after Bush's proto-fascistic "Mission Accomplished" PR stunt (featuring the "top-gun" president landing in a flight suit on a U.S. aircraft carrier off the California coast), this and other declared "Operation Iraqi Freedom" objectives remain woefully unfulfilled. The war on Iraq has "succeeded" only in killing perhaps 100,000 Iraqi civilians, sacrificing more than 1,500 (predominantly working-class) US service persons (and maiming many more), shattering civil authority within Iraq, and tearing down standard civilized norms and institutions of international law and decency. It has deeply alienated Arab (including Iraqi) and world public opinion, fanned the flames of Islamic fundamentalism, and sparked an impressive Iraqi resistance movement that has naturally targeted oil pipelines in its effort to force the invader's departure.


For a significant number of Americans of Fundamentalist sentiment (maybe even the president himself), however, this may all be largely for the good. After all, the bible calls for a final war beginning in the Middle East as prelude to the return of Jesus Christ Our Savior and the ascendancy of non-sinners to Heaven.


Also meriting critical journalistic attention is the meaning of Bush's call increased Saudi (and global) oil production in relation to the broad scientific consensus which concludes that planetary temperatures are dramatically elevating thanks primarily to human society's massive discharge of petroleum-based emissions. This "global warming" problem carries numerous disastrous consequences - many already well underway - for human beings and other living things. As John Bellamy Foster has recently noted, "not only has global warming emerged since the 1980s as the greatest threat yet to the biosphere as we know it, but the problem has gotten rapidly worse. The prospect of only a very limited rise in average world temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels - an amount of increase thought to separate non-catastrophic from catastrophic levels of global warming - will soon become unstoppable."


There is "growing fear among scientists," Foster adds, "of runaway global warming due to cumulative effects associated with a lessening of the carbon-absorbing capacities of the oceans and forests - a probable consequence of global warming itself. In Antarctica glaciers are melting and ice shelves thinning, pointing to a rise in sea levels. All ecosystems on earth are now in decline. Species are facing extinction at levels not seen for 65 million years. Global shortages of fresh water are looming. The toxicity of the earth is increasing."


"All this and more is to be expected," Foster adds, " now that the rational regulation of the environment under capitalism has been shown to be a dangerous fantasy" in "the age of neoliberal globalization," when the world's unchallenged military superpower refuses to sign even the mild anti-warming Kyoto Protocol (10).


The last thing this developing eco-catastrophe calls for is increased production and consumption of petroleum.


Bush's brazen indifference to the looming problem of anthropogenic global warming (seen in his suppression of government reports documenting climate change as well his rejection of the Kyoto accord) is certainly related to his corporate-petrocratic background and connections. Real (or onetime wannabe) Texan oil men don't lose sleep about the externalized costs of their poisonous industry. But another part of the administration's disregard for growing concerns about planetary warming is more cosmological in nature. The nation's Fundamentalist Christians have little reason to care about the excessive heating (human-generated or not) of the climate. When it's all about the end of the world and getting to be one of The Chosen People who doesn't get "Left Behind" (the name of a best-selling series of apocalyptic fundamentalist novels in the US) on the fleeting and sinful earth, after all, global warming is no problem. From a literalist biblical perspective, the ongoing climate change might actually be welcome: it will help the world burn faster when Judgment Day comes.


I have no idea what Saudi religious doctrine tells Prince Abdullah to think about the melting of the planet. It seems safe to assume, however, that his government's efforts to maintain high oil prices have had less to do with protecting a livable climate than maintaining the wealth and power of his tribal, arch-reactionary state.


The leading minds of the Age of Reason would be horrified by the spectacle of boy-king George and his good friend Prince Abdullah meeting to accelerate the disastrous overheating of humanity's only available climate. More than two centuries after the American Revolution heralded the arrival of "modern" (at once rational and democratic) statesmanship, these two dynastic and fundamentalist heads of states' selfish contempt for democracy, science, and the greater common good should disqualify them from serving as toxic arbiters of our environmental fate. Should, that is...in an even moderately rational and democratic world.


Would Enlightenment leaders be surprised? At least one, perhaps, would not. As Chomsky has reminded us on repeated occasions, Thomas Jefferson in his later years warned that the early US Republic's "banking institutions and moneyed corporations" (Jefferson) would, "if not curbed, become a form of absolutism that would destroy the promise of the democratic revolution." Subsequent developments, Chomsky notes, "have more than fulfilled" Jefferson's "most dire expectations." The nation's great and inherently (and legally, in fact) pathological corporations and the concentrated structures of political power they tend to control "have become largely unaccountable and increasingly immune from popular interference and public inspection while gaining great and expanding control over the global order." Ruled by massive, profit-addicted, and militantly hierarchical institutions - modern "managerial" corporations - that were given "the rights of immortal persons" under early 20th century US law, American global state capitalism has occasionally been compelled to temper its underlying tendencies towards savage inequality, tyranny, oppression, empire, militarism, and ecological as well socioeconomic imbalance. Beyond occasional moments of rational, socially responsible, and democratic reform and regulation, however, the system's deeper and irresistible drift is always towards the destructive and chaotic concentration of unaccountable power and the ceaseless pursuit of wealth and control for the most privileged members of the owning, investing, and exploiting (business) class (11). The advance of "whatever works" (in policymakers' eyes) to serve those basic, dark imperatives is the basic rule of life and policy under the soulless regime of the "moneyed corporations"


Thanks to this harsh reality, there's no particular commitment on the part of those in power to scientific rationalism and/or democratic modernism per se. The dominant values are profit, power, empire, and the never-ending quest for capital accumulation - guiding principles that lead often enough to the embrace of atavistic, "pre-modern" barbarism and blatant disregard for humanity and its environmental and other needs. Embodied by such science-friendly national founding heroes as Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson, the legacy of the Age of Reason becomes little more than a means to reactionary, selfish, and unreasonable ends.


Rational, scientifically informed thinking is embraced and empowered only insofar as it serves the deeper autocratic imperatives of empire, profit, and inequality. It is employed in the rapacious capitalist extraction of the planet's fossil fuels. It is disregarded, however, when it comes to understanding and confronting the grave ecological price that is paid for excessive, unregulated carbon emissions. It is put to profitable and strategic imperial use in the sophisticated arming of a vicious, medieval monarchy that happens to support the United States' neo-medieval determination effort to rule the world on the basis of a sheer preponderance of force.


But then, this is what happens when the democratic revolution gives way to the absolutism of state capitalist autocracy. Only those who do not understand the inherently antisocial irrationality of American imperial capitalism - living embodiment of the Thermidorian nightmare that Jefferson glimpsed - should find it odd that two reactionary, aristocratic petro-Fundamentalists like King George and Prince Abdullah are empowered to push the overheated planet's temperature higher even as the preponderant majority of the world's scientifically trained climate experts say "STOP."


References


1. Bertrand Russell, The History of Western Philosophy (NY: 1945), p.491.


2. David Corn, The Nation (January 19, 2000); James Carroll, Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War (NY: 2004)


3. David Harvey, The New Imperialism (NY: 2003), pp.190-191. Many of Bush's military "crusaders" are "recruited," Harvey adds, "from the [US] South, where such views are prevalent." Consistent with Harvey's opinion that the influence of the religious right on US politics "should not be underestimated," the Crawford meeting took place one day after Republican US Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist (who wishes to follow some of Bush's evangelical footpaths to the White House in 2008) went on Christian fundamentalist television to support the elimination of the 200-year-old (thereby dating from the Age of Reason) Senate filibuster rule - the last remaining tool for the more "secular humanist" Democratic Party to block the appointment of fanatically rightist anti-abortion (and simultaneously hyper-neoliberal[economically deregulatory]) judges to the federal courts. See Paul Street, "The Nuclear Option and the One Party State," ZNet Magazine (April 23, 2005), available online at

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=7710.


4. Gilbert Achcar, The Clash of Barbarisms (NY: 2002), p.46.


5. Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (NY: 2003), p.150.


6. Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, pp. 145-152; Harvey, The New Imperialism, pp. 24-25, 84-85, 198-206.


7. Harvey, p.25; Chomsky, p.152.


8. Achcar, p.45


9. Rashid Khalidi, Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East (Boston, MA: 2004), p.110.


10. John Bellamy Foster, "The End of Rational Capitalism," Monthly Review (March 2005): 10-11.


11. Noam Chomsky, Powers and Prospects: Reflections on human Nature and the Social Order (bastion, 1996), p. 72; Joel Bakan, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (NY, 2004); Foster, "The End of Rational Capitalism," pp. 1-13.



Paul Street (pstreet99@sbcglobal.net ) is the author of Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9.11 (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2004) and Segregated Schools: Race, Class, and Educational Apartheid in the Posat-9/11 Era (New York, NY: Routledge, 2005)

Who are Wahhaabis? - 6

Dear Aamir Sahib,

These stupid ignorant Wahhabis who have occupied the Haramain in the Prophet's country must have been a constant source of agony for the blessed soul of the Prophet because of what they put out to the world in the name of Islam! It is because these degusting individuals that Islam is viewed everyday so negatively in the West--impressions that we, living in the West, have to put up with.

Irfan
=========================================================

Dear Irfan Sahab,

Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] have no contact with this world after his death therefore there is no question of agony on the acts of Wahhaabis. You before opening your mouth regarding the agony of the soul of Prophet Mohammad [PBUH] learn something about soul from Quran since Quran alone is your criteria I will quote Quran

وَيَسْأَلُونَكَ عَنِ الرُّوحِ قُلِ الرُّوحُ مِنْ أَمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَا أُوتِيتُم مِّن الْعِلْمِ إِلاَّ قَلِيلاً

They are asking thee concerning the Spirit. Say: The Spirit is by command of my Lord, and of knowledge ye have been vouchsafed but little. [AL-ISRA (ISRA', THE NIGHT JOURNEY, CHILDREN OF ISRAEL) Chapter 17 - Verse 85]

By the way the very same Wahhaabis i.e. Aal-e-Saud are the biggest partner of the USA [your country of origin and please lodge the protest with the US State Deptt and drag Saudi Govenrment in any US Court of Law on their Human Rights Violation] and see what happens.

I say Aal-e-Saud and Wahhaabis did the right thing in occupying Saudi Arabia and sacking the descendant of Ahl Al Bayt i.e. Sharif of Makkah i.e. Great Grand Father of Shah Hussain of Jordan because Sharifs of Makkah had allowed 4 Imams [School of Thoughts which as per you are deviant and Quran Illiterate] to lead pryares in Kaaba. These Sharifs of Makkah tolerated Plastered Graves and Grave Worshipping all around the House of Allah and if that was not enough right outside the Makkah Magicians and soothsayers [Kaahin aur Munaajim] fleecing people and playing with their faith and even if that wasn't enough there were several 'ALLEGED HOLY TREES' in and around Makkah and Median where childless women used to rub their vagina for issues/children.

Now shall you allow all these things as per your logic of Quran's religious freedom as per [2:256]

Any aesthetic sense [when one is taling about Quranic Islam] which promote Shirk [Polytheism] is not aesthetic at all [Irfan Sahab you now even deny your Quran alone logic]. For example People used to eat and suck/lick dirt [Khak-e-Shifa with a belief that dirt of Medina can give cure to sick] from a wall in Prophet Mohammad [PBUH]'s Mosque so the wall has to go as well as houses of the Companions [May Allah be pleased with every one of them], Old Mosques, and other such Historical Treasure of Saudi Arabia [related with Prophet Mohammad - PBUH] Era] which basically [if allowed to remain intact] would have opened doors of Fitnah [Anarchy i.e. Shirk]. These Monuments of Aesthetic Value in Saudi Arabia were obstructing the development of the two cities and two Mosques [Haramain of Makkah and Medina] due to millions of visitors every years therefore it was good step to do away with those Aesthetic Value Monument and similarly it was a good step to Buldoze THE GRAVEYARDS OF JANNATUL BAQEEH [Medina] AND JANNATUL MUALLAH [Makkah] and this should be done in every Muslim Country where a poor person cannot even afford a grave [present price of a single grave is 20 to 30 thousand Pak Rupees in Pakistan] due to Plastered Graves.


By the way where has gone your Quranic Wisdom concocted by your Quran Alone Logic by defending Religious Freedom for the Sufis like Hallaj and Ibn Arabi and denying Shias the same freedom of expression regarding Religion because in one of your message you have declared them Idol Worshippers!


However, what should be the concern for Muslim World regarding Saudi Arabia is this behaviour and every Muslim should protest on this:

THE PRINCE AND THE PORTFOLIO Monday, Dec. 01, 1997 By SCOTT MACLEOD/RIYADH


As the nephew of King Fahd and grandson of Saudi Arabia's founding father, Ibn Saud, Alwaleed, 40, initially availed himself of the leverage those connections provide. But he has become truly, singularly wealthy through a series of shrewd deals, most famously the headline-making rescue of Citicorp in 1991. The $590 million he pumped into Citi is now worth $5.1 billion. The prince also became a rich uncle for the floundering Disneyland Paris in 1994.

Perhaps a better name for him might be the Prince of Fallen Angels. Alwaleed has taken substantial stakes in companies that are out of favor. He took a bite of Apple because he loved the product. In Britain he bought Canary Wharf, an early '90s real estate disaster that nearly wiped out the billionaire Reichmann family of Canada, after the bottom had fallen out of the market. It takes great courage to invest in the Korean conglomerate Daewoo, given that country's economic troubles, but Alwaleed just bought 5.9% of it. Retailing was ailing in 1992 when he bought heavily into the holding company that owns Saks Fifth Avenue. Upscale retailing took off soon after. He recently bought 7% of Donna Karan International, a design house in disarray. He's even the de facto manager of singer Michael Jackson, a dying supernova that Alwaleed just might reignite.

As much as any other investor today, Alwaleed seems to be exploiting the advantages of an age in which even a man in the desert can be instantly plugged in to the world's information networks. "He is a very dynamic force. He brings tremendous energy to everything he gets involved in," says Robert Earl, Ceo of Planet Hollywood International. "He is totally tuned in to everything." Alwaleed is a master franchiser for Planet Hollywood's concepts, as well as a holder of Planet Hollywood stock. He tracked down Earl on the beach in Barbados, a business-suited entourage in tow, to make the deal.

Although the Planet Hollywood business may look like just another indulgence of an eclectic entrepreneur, it ties into other businesses, including the News Corp. investment. In the Middle East, Alwaleed is the producer of top Arabic recording artists, including Najwa Karam and Kathem al Saher, and he has a major share in one of the most popular Arabic satellite TV networks, called Arab Radio and Television. Planet Hollywood is a great place to promote music and television stars.

One sector where synergy is working well for Alwaleed is hospitality. He has quietly become one of the largest private investors in, and owners of, hotels. And not coincidentally, hotel values and returns are soaring, as the recent battle for ITT Corp. (Sheraton) has demonstrated. His goal is to create, with international partners, a web of four- and five-star hotels around the world. He currently owns 50% of the Fairmont group, 30% of Movenpick, a Swiss chain, and 25% of the upmarket Four Seasons chain. He is the sole owner of the deluxe George V in Paris and owns half of the Inn on the Park in London and the Plaza in New York, plus 17 other luxury hotels. His blueprint calls for 42 new hotels in 15 countries, in addition to plans to develop 40 new franchises for Planet Hollywood in the Middle East and Europe. Says Alwaleed: "Three years ago, I started to get into the hospitality industry. It was really in the doldrums. The hotel industry had been
hammered badly, especially the five-star hotels. Now everybody is talking about the hotel industry."

Alwaleed's success is partly explained by the blend of Saudi, Lebanese and American influences that have shaped his relatively short career. By his own reckoning, his investment savvy draws on a Bedouin's instinct for caution, a Levantine's flair for a bargain and a bean counter's fondness for the bottom line. "He has an extremely agile mind," says U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Wyche Fowler. "He is always two or three jumps ahead of you." Alwaleed can negotiate in Arabic, English and French.

The Prince's ultrarich uncles, the eldest sons of Ibn Saud, who rule Saudi Arabia today, have accumulated their wealth mainly by diverting huge sums, directly or indirectly, from the government's extravagant oil revenues. As a Riyadh businessman puts it, Alwaleed's branch of the Saud family tree has always been considered a little smoother and a little straighter than the rest. His father Talal, a former Ambassador to France, was one of the "free princes" who demanded democratization and went into temporary exile during the troubled 1953-64 reign of King Saud. Alwaleed's mother, Princess Mona, is the daughter of Riad Solh, the first Prime Minister of independent Lebanon.

Alwaleed's parents divorced when he was barely school age. Growing up with his mother's family in swinging, pre-civil war Beirut made him into a wild and, at 189 lbs., seriously paunchy teenager. Talal yanked him back to Riyadh and reality and installed him at the King Abdul Aziz Military Academy. Alwaleed credits the experience for giving him his strong personal discipline. Later, business and social science degrees from Menlo College in California and Syracuse University gave Alwaleed the know-how to make his start.

He likes to tell the tale of how he made his first billion or so out of a $15,000 gift from his father. Talal had also given his son a house worth $1.5 million, which Alwaleed mortgaged to raise capital. Along the way, he used some of the money to play that favorite game of Saudi royalty, land speculation, and quickly turned a $150,000 investment into a $2 million profit.

Alwaleed demonstrated his grasp of American business tactics when he launched the first successful hostile takeover of a bank in Saudi Arabia, winning the United Saudi Commercial Bank. Alwaleed believes the takeover made his name in Saudi Arabia while simultaneously giving him a vantage point for branching out into other businesses.

By 1991 Alwaleed had the itch to diversify overseas. Sagging oil prices had produced a severe recession in the kingdom, creating a feeling of unease made worse by Saddam Hussein's invasion of neighboring Kuwait. Alwaleed already owned 4.9% of Citicorp--a percentage that allowed his ownership to be anonymous. But with the bank wobbling and the stock falling, he soon made his name known by tripling his stake.

As of last week, his holding company was pursuing some 160 investment opportunities. Overseeing all this is an investment staff of 20 employees from Saudi Arabia and seven other countries. His payroll also includes a former White House communications expert--this is, after all, a man who spends $80,000 a month on phone bills--as well as a camel caretaker, a muezzin who calls the Muslim faithful to prayer from a minaret, and 18 soccer players whom Alwaleed pays to play games with his son, at his son's private field.

To keep his operation lean yet opportunistic, he outsources his consultants--Citicorp for investment banking, Arthur Andersen for company advice, Saatchi & Saatchi for p.r. and Hogan & Hartson, a Washington law firm, for legal matters. (Alwaleed is the first to notice that the initials of these firms form the acronym CASH.)

Alwaleed does not have what you would call regular hours. He arrives at his bank and slides behind the chairman's desk at 10 a.m. Three hours later, he heads across town to his office at Kingdom Holding. There he juggles scores of projects through meetings, phone calls and faxes until 3 a.m. the next day.

In between he takes a three-hour break, returning to his palace health club--an expansive aquamarine spa with an Olympic-size pool, tennis courts and a bowling alley--for a buffet lunch and light workout. When the job is finally finished, he takes a walk in the moonlight, has a light meal and sleeps five hours. On weekends he drives to a private desert encampment 45 miles from Riyadh, where he eats supper on a rug with Bedouin retainers called khawian, some armed with silver-handled Colt .38s.

Of course, the life of a desert billionaire does have its perks in addition to its quirks. Twice divorced (he has two children, Khalid, 18, and Reem, 14), Alwaleed is not currently linked with any woman. He laughs sheepishly when people tell him, as they frequently do, that he is the world's most eligible bachelor. In contrast to the stereotype of the whoring petro-sheik, he calls himself a "calorie counter" who doesn't drink or smoke and has an American's obsession with fitness (he now weighs in at 136 lbs.). His only vice seems to be, hardly surprisingly, an appetite for luxury. He is very fond of his 282-ft. Kingdom 5-KR, the ostentatious yacht formerly owned by Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and then by Donald Trump, who called it the Trump Princess before the banks took it back. Alwaleed keeps the boat moored in the southern French resort of Cannes. He takes about three long business trips a year and, depending on the distance, can choose from a private jet fleet that includes a Boeing 767, a Boeing 727 and a Challenger 601. He owns some 300 cars, including a blue Rolls-Royce for his daughter.

Then there is the new $100 million palace. Even in Saudi Arabia, they are not building houses like this one any longer. In February, Alwaleed and his children are scheduled to move into a sand-colored palace whose 317 rooms are adorned with 1,500 tons of Italian marble, silk Oriental carpets, gold-plated faucets and 250 TV sets. It will have four kitchens, for Lebanese, Arabic, Continental and Asian cuisines, and a fifth just for dishing up desserts, run by chefs who can feed 2,000 people on an hour's notice. Their royal highnesses will be able to swim in a lagoon-shaped pool, or catch a film in the 45-seat basement cinema.

Perhaps the clearest sign of Alwaleed's growing influence is that he is attracting serious enemies, including some of his powerful al Saud cousins. "There is jealousy, even hatred," says a Saudi source. "It bothers people that he came from almost nowhere and--zoom!--now he's way up here." Rumors have circulated that he is a front man for others, especially in the Citibank deal. Alwaleed and Western diplomats in Riyadh dismiss them as unfounded. He seems determined to let his influence grow, no matter the consequences. "I have nothing to hide," he says. "I've made $12 billion plus through hard work, and I am proud of it."

One important new area to watch, however, will be Alwaleed's political ambitions. Saudi Arabia is not a happy country. It is experiencing increasing economic and political strains--remember the 1996 bombing of the U.S. Air Force barracks near Dhahran--because of stagnation caused in part by an elderly and autocratic leadership. Although Alwaleed swears complete support for King Fahd and his other uncles, his immense wealth is beginning to give him rising influence on developments affecting the kingdom.

His business investments in the Middle East, for example, provide him with direct access to Arab heads of state, on whom he may have a moderating influence, since many of Alwaleed's international partners are Jewish and support Israel. "Religion has never been a barrier between us," says Four Seasons Hotels Inc. CEO Isadore Sharp. "He mentioned once that we have similar value systems and moral principles."

1 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-1,00.html

2 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-2,00.html

3 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-3,00.html

4 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-4,00.html

5 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-5,00.html

6 - http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,987451-6,00.html

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