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With Anti-American sentiment high in Pakistan from the continued drone strikes and the war on terror, a recent news report disclosed that the United States is planning a massive expansion of its diplomatic missions in Pakistan. While the State Department continues to claim that the expansion is to replace an already overcrowded, dilapidated and unsafe facilities and to support the “surge” of diplomatic officials in line with President Obama and Secretary Clinton’s strategy for South Asia, you have to wonder whether there is a deeper plan.

According to the report, the White House has asked Congress for $736 million for a new embassy in Islamabad, along with permanent housing and office space for US government civilians. The project is on the same scale as the US embassy in Baghdad at a cost of $740 million.

Additional expansions are planned for Peshawar, Lahore and Kabul. The plan for Peshawar includes the purchase of the Pearl Continental Hotel, Peshawar’s only 5 star hotel. Oddly, the Pearl Continental Hotel is owned by Sadruddin Hashwani – the same person that owns the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which was the target of a massive terrorist attack. Read the rest of this entry »

John Cleese, one of my favorite actors since his days in Monty Python films, gives a great analysis of the United States.

This is just funny. Stephen Colbert takes Sean “Waterboard me for Charity” Hannity’s Tree of Liberty apart.

And for those that don’t know, Sean Hannity had said that he would submit to waterboarding to prove that it was not torture. Granted, he has yet to follow through on the promise, much like his leader George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished,” we encourage him to step up to the challenge that Keith Olbermann put forward. Read the rest of this entry »

The Crusades begin in Afghanistan!

A U.S. church raised money to send Bibles, printed in the Pashtu and Dari languages, to American soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, a report on Al Jazeera documented Sunday night.

It is against military rules to proselytize — a regulation one of the soldiers filmed by the network readily acknowledged. “You cannot proselytize, but you can give gifts,” says the soldier. It is a crime in Afghanistan to attempt to convert anyone from Islam to any other religion. “I also want to praise God because my church collected some money to get Bibles for Afghanistan. They came and sent the money out.” The footage is said to be roughly a year old.

The Al Jazeera report also shows a military preacher urging army parishioners to “hunt people for Jesus.”

“The Special Forces guys, they hunt men. Basically, we do the same things as Christians. We hunt people for Jesus. We do, we hunt them down. Get the hound of heaven after them, so we get them into the Kingdom. That’s what we do, that’s our business,” he says.

Read the whole story on The Huffington Post.

You can’t script something better than what has happened to Rep. Jane Harman of California. Last month, Rep. Harman tabled a bill in the United States House of Representatives to sanction and limit any foreign aid to Pakistan based on “access to AQ Khan.” Rep. Harman called AQ Khan “Mr. Khan is again a loose nuke scientist with proven ability to sell the worst weapons to the worst people.”

Well, Rep. Harman, what should we call someone who attempts to sell out their own country to save a couple of spies? The Congressional Quarterly yesterday published a damaging story about the NSA recording Rep. Harman “was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.”

She was picked up during a court approved NSA wiretap directed at an alleged Israeli covert action in Washington, DC.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

But in reading the story, the tale that unfolds in fantastic. In 2006, the FBI had launched an investigation into “pro-Israeli lobbyists trying to get her on the Intelligence committee,” but were dropped for “lack of evidence.” Rep. Harman was appointed the head of the Intelligence committee in the House of Representatives after the 2006 elections.

As for there being “no evidence” to support the FBI probe, a source with first-hand knowledge of the wiretaps called that “bull****.”

“I read those transcripts,” said the source, who like other former national security officials familiar with the transcript discussed it only on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of domestic NSA eavesdropping.

“It’s true,” added another former national security official who was briefed on the NSA intercepts involving Harman. “She was on there.”

Such accounts go a long way toward explaining not only why Harman was denied the gavel of the House Intelligence Committee, but failed to land a top job at the CIA or Homeland Security Department in the Obama administration.

The identity of the “suspected Israeli agent” could not be determined with certainty, and officials were extremely skittish about going beyond Harman’s involvement to discuss other aspects of the NSA eavesdropping operation against Israeli targets, which remain highly classified.

But according to the former officials familiar with the transcripts, the alleged Israeli agent asked Harman if she could use any influence she had with Gonzales, who became attorney general in 2005, to get the charges against the AIPAC officials reduced to lesser felonies.

AIPAC official Steve Rosen had been charged with two counts of conspiring to communicate, and communicating national defense information to people not entitled to receive it. Weissman was charged with conspiracy.

AIPAC dismissed the two in May 2005, about five months before the events here unfolded.

Harman responded that Gonzales would be a difficult task, because he “just follows White House orders,” but that she might be able to influence lesser officials, according to an official who read the transcript.

As you read the article, you start to think one thing… coverup at the highest levels… apparently everyone from the FBI Director to the Attorney General helped to make sure that this Representative was not admonished for her behavior.

But here is my question, if you call AQ Khan a loose scientist for trying to build a weapon to defend his home country – what do you call someone who conspires with foreigners to help people escape espionage charges against their home country?

Should it matter if they are Israeli?

Not saying that it comes as a surprise, but another Democrat has tied conditions to military aid going to Pakistan. Jane Harman, California Democrat has placed a new bill before the House of Representatives that requires the Government of Pakistan to give unfettered access to Abdul Qadeer Khan and assurances that he will continue to be monitored in order to get any assistance for our military.

In a prepared statement from Representative Harman’s office, she stated:

In 1974, following India’s first nuclear test, Mr. Khan offered his expertise to Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Later that year, Mr. Khan’s company assigned him to work on Dutch translations of advanced, German-designed centrifuges – data to which he had unsupervised access for 16 days.

By 1975, the damage appears to have been done. Pakistan began to purchase components for its domestic uranium enrichment program from European suppliers, and Mr. Khan was transferred away from enrichment work due to concern about his activities.

Convicted in absentia by the Dutch government for nuclear espionage, beginning in the mid-1980s, Mr. Khan is widely believed to have provided nuclear weapons technology to Iran, North Korea, Libya and possibly Syria and Iraq. His network involved front companies and operatives in Dubai, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland and Turkey. Though much of the network was taken down following Mr. Khan’s confession, there is no conclusive evidence that it was destroyed.

And Mr. Khan is again a loose nuke scientist with proven ability to sell the worst weapons to the worst people.

What to do? Read the rest of this entry »