From Volume 37, Issue 27 of EIR Online, Published July 16, 2010
Asia News Digest

Part of the Truth About Britain's Alliance with Terrorists

July 6 (EIRNS)—On July 5, Mark Curtis of the London Guardian wrote an article which talked about a web of British covert operations with militant Islamist groups stretching back decades. Curtis admitted that, while terrorism is held up as the country's biggest security challenge, Whitehall's collusion with radical Islam is continuing. He said: Two of the four London bombers were trained in Pakistani camps run by the Harkat ul-Mujahideen (HuM) terrorist group, which has long been sponsored by Pakistan to fight Indian forces in Kashmir. Britain not only arms and trains Pakistan, but in the past provided covert aid benefitting the HuM. There are credible suggestions that Britain facilitated the dispatch of HuM volunteers to fight in Yugoslavia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Earlier, British intelligence MI6's covert war in Afghanistan involved the military training of various Islamist groups to counter the Soviet occupation of the country. Many HuM militants were instructed by an insurgent faction that Britain was covertly training and arming with anti-aircraft missiles.

What Curtis did not say, was that Britain harbors, nurtures, and uses two major, Britain-based terrorist groups, Tabligh I Jamaat and Hizb ut-Tahrir, which function on behalf of the British empire under the garb of fundamentalist Muslims. They are deployed against Russia, China, and India, and whomever else stands in London's way.

What Curtis also did not say, is how the British, after being deployed in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, in five of the six most important opium bazaars, used the drug traffickers' cohorts—identified by the Guardian as the "moderate Taliban"—to move the product to Dubai and elsewhere to keep the City of London's coffers jingling.

That is the truth, but Curtis cannot say that. If he did, the old hag in Buckingham Palace would keel over and die.

China, India Propose Joint Infrastructure Projects in Afghanistan

July 6 (EIRNS)—China and India are discussing joint projects in other countries, including desperately needed infrastructure in Afghanistan. Indian National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who is in Beijing July 4-7 as the representative of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has met with Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, to discuss expanding economic relations by going into new areas of international cooperation, specifically infrastructure projects in Afghanistan and developing Afghan mineral resources, The Hindu reported yesterday.

The discussions with Menon are being greeted as very positive by his Chinese hosts. He will also discuss the Chinese-Indian border issues, and Indian reservations about China's proposal to provide two nuclear reactors to Pakistan. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari will arrive in Beijing on July 6, an indication of easing relations concerning Pakistan between China and India.

Yang Jiechi told Indian journalists that the two sides "even talked about the possibility of cooperating in certain subjects in other countries, whether three-party or four-party collaborative projects, in the economic field as well." China already has a $3.5 billion contract to develop the Aynak copper mine in eastern Afghanistan, and is ready to invest in road and rail projects, including a line which would link Turkmenistan with Pakistan's Gwadar port. India has also already invested over $1.3 billion in developing infrastructure in Afghanistan, including a key road linking Afghanistan to Iran.

Blackwill: Split Afghanistan To Keep U.S. Fighting Long War

July 9 (EIRNS)—Robert Blackwill, George W. Bush's ambassador to India, called for splitting Afghanistan into a Taliban-controlled Pushtun South, and a separate North and West, as the way to ensure long-term U.S. military involvement in the region. In a commentary published in Politico July 7, Blackwill proclaimed that "de facto partition" of Afghanistan is the "best policy option available to the United States and its allies."

The current U.S. policy in the Afghan War is clearly failing, and only such a withdrawal from direct combat with the Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan would prevent "strategic defeat," Blackwill wrote. U.S. and NATO air power and special forces would enforce partition of the country over several months, he proposed; but at the same time, the U.S. must announce "we will retain an active combat role in Afghanistan for years to come." Continued targetting of al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan and efforts to contain the Taliban in their part of the country, "might mean a longtime residual U.S. military force in Afghanistan of about 40,000 to 50,000 troops"—supposedly to be supported by the Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, and other Afghans, as well as NATO partners.

Such an operation would reduce U.S. casualties, thus easing domestic opposition and the cost of the war, Blackwill claimed. Then Washington could fixate on other "problems"—China, Iran, and Iraq. But getting this "strategy" through will be difficult, he admits. Afghanistan's Karzai government and Pakistan would both resist creation of such a Pushtunistan. And, Blackwill had to acknowledge, it would be a "daunting challenge" to get any regional nations to go along with this insanity.

New Opposition Group in Myanmar Has Sense of Actual Democracy

July 10 (EIRNS)—The National League for Democracy (NLD), the "democratic" opposition to the Myanmar (Burma) government, gathered around Aung San Suu Kyi, split earlier this year over the issue of participating in the upcoming national election. Sui Kyi and her loyalists remained with the NLD, while others felt that there was much to be gained from being involved in the election, and formed a new party, which they named the National Democratic Force (NDF).

Myanmar's military government opened the door yesterday for the NDF to enter the poll, when it granted the group formal permission to register as a party.

Dr. Than Nyein, chairman of the NDF, urged citizens to vote in the first election Myanmar will have had in two decades. "People should assume that this election could possibly bring change," he said in an interview with AFP. "They should vote at this election to do their duty by choosing the party or the person who can really work for the people and the country."

"We formed our party with the aim to continue the democracy struggle under the law," he said. "Meantime, we are also trying to solve the social and economic problems that are happening at the moment in the country."

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