Friday, December 9, 2016

Christine Fair's Anti-Pakistan Rants: Unfair? Unhinged?

Carol Christine Fair is an associate professor at the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS), part of Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She has only recently wised up to the opportunity to profit from sale of books attacking Pakistan in India, the world's third largest and currently the fastest growing market for books written in the English language.


Fair on India's Secret War in Pakistan:

Before writing and promoting "Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War", a virulently anti-Pakistan book, Dr. Fair said this in 2009:

"Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan".

Former US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has essentially confirmed Fair's above statement when he said: "India has always used Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. India has over the years been financing problems in Pakistan".

On what basis did Chuck Hagel make the statement about India's use of Afghan territory to attack Pakistan? Was he, too, just another victim of conspiracy theories? Off course not. Secretary Hagel had the benefit of intelligence briefings by the CIA given to him in multiple capacities: first as US Senate Intelligence committee member and then as US Defense Secretary.

Fair is Self-Proclaimed "Rambo B**ch":

In recent years, Christine Fair has become a strong advocate of continuing the disastrous neoconservative policies that found favor in former President George W. Bush's administration after 911 terrorist attacks.

Fair has  called herself a "Rambo B**ch"; she supports US military interventions around the world; she encourages India's hawkish Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi to invade Pakistan.

In a Facebook post, Fair called Pakistan “an enemy” and said “We invaded the wrong dog-damned country,” implying the U.S. should have invaded Pakistan, not Afghanistan, according to Salon magazine.

In another Facebook post, Fair insisted that “India needs to woman up and SQUASH Pakistan militarily, diplomatically, politically and economically.” Both India and Pakistan are nuclear states.

Fair Supports US Drone Killings:

Fair strongly supports the US drone killing program that has been questioned even by senior US military commanders who have served in Afghanistan. One such commander is General Michael Flynn who has now been picked by President-elect Donald Trump as his national security advisor.

“When you drop a bomb from a drone… you are going to cause more damage than you are going to cause good,” remarked Michael T. Flynn. The retired Army lieutenant general, who also served as the U.S. Central Command’s director of intelligence, says that “the more bombs we drop, that just… fuels the conflict.”

Summary:

C. Christine Fair's anti-Pakistan rants show that she is a warmonger masquerading as a serious scholar.  She calls herself a "Rambo B**ch".  She wants both US and India to invade Pakistan knowing that all three countries have nuclear weapons. She strongly supports US drone killings which, in the words of General Michael Flynn, "fuel the conflict".

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Modi's Covert War in Pakistan

India is World's Fastest Growing Book Market

Are Iran and Russia Supporting Taliban in Afghanistan?

Gen Petraeus Debunks Allegations of Duplicity Against Pakistan

Gall-Haqqani-Paul Narrative on Pakistan

Pakistan-China-Russia vs India-US-Japan

Robert Gates' Straight Talk on Pakistan

16 comments:

Mohammad said...

A word about Ms. Carol Christine Fair. She is a scholar of international repute but like some could be susceptible to sale to the highest bidder. At one stage she was considered a friend of Pakistan and had been a regular visitor at the invitation of the Pakistan Army and has authored a number of books and features on Pakistan and the Pakistan Army. Her current vitriolic condemnation and outburst against anything concerning Pakistan could well be a result of her personal experience in the country where she claims she has been victimized and threatened; or perhaps the anti-Pakistan lobby has either out rightly purchased her loyalty or are financing and promoting her writings and books. While her analyses are based on well documented verifiable data, the manner she responded to the questioner she appeared like an accomplished prosecution trial lawyer who presents only one side of the picture by cherry picking of evidences to portray an already made up mindset. No matter what an academic might claim, when a study or a book is financed by a particular institution or organisation, to maintain true impartiality and absolute fairness is almost impossible.

http://www.globalaffairs.com.pk/dr-carol-christine-fair-on-pakistan/

Riaz Haq said...

DC Insider Speaks Candidly About Pay-for-Play at Think Tanks
Investigative reporter Ken Silverstein recently spoke with an unnamed think tank insider who has been a donor to think tanks and held multiple board positions at various think tanks. Here are some excerpts:

He who pays the bills, calls the tune, as much as people try to deny it. There’s a vicious competition in this town for money. The foreign segment is relatively new and important. Before most of that money was Israeli but now it’s much more diverse and you begin to see more and more donors pushing for very distinct and specific causes.
The competition is getting tougher and tougher and so think tanks are becoming more and more reckless. Things are done now that would’ve been impossible in the past. The boundaries are being eliminated.
The means of payment are sophisticated. There is no straightforward bribery. Maybe you work at a think tank but you also have a position at another unrelated company or maybe you have a girlfriend who has a business that’s totally unrelated to the think tank. Maybe you have a company that holds events around town and that company gets hired and is overpaid for some unrelated work by 25%. The money doesn’t go directly to the think tank, it goes to one of these other projects and the money moves from some offshore Singapore account to that unrelated company account.
Think tanks are now weapons of personal and mass destruction. They have become part of the lobbying community; that was always the case to some extent but now they’ve become very specific lobbying weapons.
Governments and gangsters are the two biggest clients for these think tanks — not corporations but governments, and not European Union governments but Third World governments.

Wow. That is some pretty strong language.

Mr. Silverstein said that more is coming soon from this person (will he go on record?), so we are definitely looking out for that...

In the meantime, here (and here and here and here and here and here and here) is some more from Mr. Silverstein on pay-for-play at think tanks.

Pay-for-play at think tanks has gotten a significant amount of renewed attention after a damning New York Times exposé in August unveiled fresh examples of just how rampant the problem has become.

http://www.thinktankwatch.com/2016/11/dc-insider-speaks-candidly-about-pay.html

Riaz Haq said...

From Wikipedia entry for Christine Fair:

Fair's work and viewpoints have been the subject of prominent criticism.[5] Her pro-drone stance has been denounced, and called "surprisingly weak" by Brookings Institution senior fellow Shadi Hamid.[5] Journalist Glenn Greenwald dismissed Fair's arguments as "rank propaganda", arguing there is "mountains of evidence" showing drones are counterproductive, pointing to mass civilian casualties and independent studies.[6] In 2010, Fair denied the notion that drones caused any civilian deaths, alleging Pakistani media reports were responsible for creating this perception.[7] Jeremy Scahill wrote that Fair's statement was "simply false" and contradicted by New America's detailed study on drone casualties.[7] Fair later said that casualties are caused by the UAVs, but maintains they are the most effective tool for fighting terrorism.[8]

Writing for The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf challenged Fair's co-authored narrative that the U.S. could legitimize support in Pakistan for its drone program using 'education' and 'public diplomacy'; he called it an "example of interventionist hubris and naivete" built upon flawed interpretation of public opinion data.[9] An article in the Middle East Research and Information Project called the work "some of the most propagandistic writing in support of President Barack Obama’s targeted kill lists to date."[10] It censured the view that Pakistanis needed to be informed by the U.S. what is "good for them" as fraught with imperialist condescension; or the assumption that the Urdu press was less informed than the English press – because the latter was sometimes less critical of the U.S.[10]

Fair's journalistic sources have been questioned for their credibility[11] and she has been accused of having a conflict of interest due to her past work with U.S. government think tanks, as well the CIA.[5] In 2011 and 2012, she received funding from the U.S. embassy in Islamabad to conduct a survey on public opinion concerning militancy. However, Fair states most of the grants went to a survey firm and that it had no influence on her research.[5] Pakistani media analysts have dismissed Fair's views as hawkish rhetoric, riddled with factual inaccuracies, lack of objectivity, and being selectively biased.[11][12][13][14] She has also been rebuked for comments on social media perceived as provocative, such as suggesting burning down Pakistan's embassy in Afghanistan or asking India to "squash Pakistan militarily, diplomatically, politically and economically." She has been accused of double standards, partisanship towards India, and has been criticized for her contacts with dissident leaders from Balochistan, a link which they claim "raises serious questions if her interest in Pakistan is merely academic."[13]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._Christine_Fair#cite_note-Ahmad-11

Riaz Haq said...

#India leads global #defense growth with $56.5 billion budget in 2018 to be #3 (after #US, #China ) #Modi https://www.ft.com/content/8404e57a-bfa1-11e6-9bca-2b93a6856354?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fhome_us%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct … via @FT

● $38.17bn: Indian defence spending in 2010
● $64.07bn: Indian defence spending (projected) in 2020
● $1.6tn: global defence spending in 2016
Source: Jane’s

India’s drive to modernise its military has helped it to oust Russia from the world’s top five spenders on defence this year, while the country is set to push Britain from the number three spot by 2018.

----------

India this year surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the fourth biggest defence budget, spending $50.7bn against Russia’s $48.5bn and the UK’s $53.8bn. After three years of budgetary constraints, Jane’s is forecasting that Indian spending will surpass Britain’s, rising from $38bn in 2010 to a forecast $64bn in 2020, against expectations of $55bn for the UK.

Meanwhile, China’s defence spending continues to accelerate and the Jane’s analysts predict the shift from territorial protection to power projection, along with rising tensions around the South China Sea, could prompt faster budget growth in the Asia-Pacific region. Between 2011 and 2015, states surrounding the South China Sea spent $166bn on defence equipment. Between 2016 and 2020, that will rise to $250bn, the review states.

China’s defence budget will have doubled within 10 years from $123bn in 2010 to $233bn in 2020, the report predicts. In 2016, China spent $191.7bn. By 2020, China will be spending more than the whole of western Europe and by 2025, more than all states in the Asia-Pacific region combined.

Ravi_Krishna said...

In case you are not aware, she has fallen out of favor even with many indians now. Reason being, her double standards when it comes to Islam vs Hinduism. She never utters a word against Islam because her university (Georgetown Univ) is funded by Saudi. Her other place of work (Brookings Institute) is funded by Qatar. So looks like while Saudi is fine with her giving gaalis after gaalis to Pakistan, they are sensitive to any criticism of Islam (which is what drives Pakistan's hatred for India).

Singh said...

C. Fair is an oddity (and, putting it mildly, lets just leave it at that). If you read her earlier reports, rants and periodic ravings, it becomes clear that she was once in “bed” with the pakistanis only to turn against them (maybe the checks dried up?). She speaks urdu along with the curse words, the official pakistani language. Now she is universally despised by the pakistani fan boy establishment. It may be timing – must be the saudi/qatari love-hate relationship with the pakls.

Watch out for her.

Riaz Haq said...

Christine Fair calls Asra Nomani "chutiya", "bevkuf", says "F**K YOU", tells her to "GO TO HELL"in Twitter rants
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4069936/Georgetown-prof-C-Christine-Fair-went-meltdown-Muslim-ex-colleague-Asra-Q-Nomani-admitted-voting-Donald-Trump.html

In her Washington Post article, Nomani said she was motivated by a distaste for Obama's edging around using the phrase 'Islamic extremism', the cost of Obamacare and what she saw as Obama's failure to help poor and rural Americans.
According to Nomani, on November 22, 12 days after her article was published, Fair began a sustained period of abuse on Twitter and Facebook.
In a letter of complaint to the university, Nomani said that Fair told her 'F**K YOU, GO TO HELL', and called her a 'wench', a 'fraud' and a 'fame-mongering clown show'.
Nomani added that Fair had called her 'chutiya,' or 'the equivalent of a "f**ker" in my native Urdu', and 'bevkuf', another Urdu word meaning 'idiot'.
The letter also included images of Tweets apparently sent by Fair.
One tweet, dated November 22, read: 'Yes, @AsraNomani, I've written you off as a human being. Your vote helped normalize Nazis in DC. What don't you understand, you cluless [sic] dolt?'

That same day Nomani asked her to 'take a deep breath and step away from the keyboard'.
Fair reportedly replied: 'I know you. You're a fame-mongering clown show. You voted 4 a hateful bigot. U now want civility and respect. You are responsible for this.'
At present, Fair's Twitter account is visible to her friends only.
On December 2, Nomani wrote a letter of complaint to Georgetown about Fair, whom she had previously considered to be 'a friend'.
Over the next two days, she told the Daily Caller, the letter was escalated to Professor Irfan Nooruddin, faculty chair of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.
Nooruddin promised to speak to Fair.

Nomani says that Fair sent another tweet, calling her a 'crybully', on December 22 - one month on from the initial barrage.
But it was the last insult that was the most startling, Nomani says.
In a tweet from December 23 that is included in her letter of complaint, Fair is seen telling her: 'And you told me you were an atheist when you were at my home. Guess you've changed your opinion, or is this another publicity stunt?
Being called an atheist 'amounts to being an apostate in Islam, something that has carried a death sentence for atheists in Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,' Nomani says - adding that Fair is aware of that fact.
'I am not an atheist although I respect those who choose atheism. I am a Muslim woman whom Prof Fair has targeted for attack, using my race, religion and political views against me.'
Nomani is calling for an investigation by the university, a public apology from Fair and training from her 'on engaging in civil discourse.'


Riaz Haq said...

Chuck Hagel’s Indian Problem
Said allied nation is funding attacks on Pakistan in Afghanistan in previously unreleased 2011 speech

http://freebeacon.com/politics/chuck-hagels-indian-problem/

Secretary of defense nominee Chuck Hagel suggested in a previously unreleased 2011 speech that India has “for many years” sponsored terrorist activities against Pakistan in Afghanistan.

“India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan” in Afghanistan, Hagel said during a 2011 address regarding Afghanistan at Oklahoma’s Cameron University, according to video of the speech obtained by the Free Beacon.

The controversial comments mark a departure from established United States policy in the region and could increase tensions between the Obama administration and India should the Senate confirm Hagel on Tuesday, according to experts.

------

Hagel’s 2011 remarks at Cameron University were released to the Free Beacon under the Oklahoma Open Records Act. The university had initially stated that Hagel would have to personally authorize the speech’s release, though no authorization was ultimately granted.

Riaz Haq said...

#Georgetown prof C Christine Fair confronts #WhiteNationalist Richard Spencer at the gym. #Nazi #Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/georgetown-professor-confronts-white-nationalist-richard-spencer-at-the-gym--which-terminates-his-membership/2017/05/21/d3ff6512-3e51-11e7-8c25-44d09ff5a4a8_story.html?utm_term=.5185d0e78a10

An Alexandria gym terminated the membership of white nationalist Richard Spencer last week after he was confronted by a Georgetown University professor who recognized him and lambasted him over his alt-right views.

C. Christine Fair, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, said she was working out at Old Town Sport&Health on Wednesday when she spotted Spencer, president of the white-nationalist National Policy Institute.

Fellow gym patrons had told Fair how Spencer had been seen at the gym earlier that week, she said. When she recognized him as the man working out on the gym’s second floor, she approached him. At first, she said, Spencer denied who he was.

“Are you Richard Spencer?” she asked him, describing the encounter in an online post. “No. I am not,” he replied.

“I said, ‘Of course you are, so not only are you a Nazi — you are a cowardly Nazi,’ ” Fair said in an interview, invoking a common characterization of Spencer. “I just want to say to you, I’m sick of your crap — that this country belongs [to people like you]. . . . As a woman, I find your statements to be particularly odious; moreover, I find your presence in this gym to be unacceptable, your presence in this town to be unacceptable.”

(Spencer has denied he is a Nazi. During a white-nationalist conference in November, Spencer was seen on video shouting “Hail Trump!” as crowd members replied with Nazi salutes.)

In comments to BuzzFeed, which was first to report the encounter and the termination of Spencer’s membership, Spencer said he denied his identity because he wanted to avoid a confrontation.

“I said no because I wanted her to go away,” he told the outlet.

Spencer could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday. But he provided an image of his termination letter to BuzzFeed and told the outlet that he didn’t know why the gym revoked his membership. He described himself as a “well-behaved member” who strayed from controversy.

Riaz Haq said...

Kashmir talks: reality & myth
Riaz Mohammad KhanSeptember 11, 2017

https://www.dawn.com/news/1356915

KASHMIR is so deeply emotive that perceptions often mix reality with myth. This is true of discussions over the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, the Tashkent Declaration, the Simla Accords, the Lahore Summit Declaration and, most of all, of bilateral efforts to address the dispute.

On YouTube, I saw Prof Christine Fair snap at a Pakistani questioner who referred to the UNSC resolutions on Kashmir. She averred that Pakistan violated the UNSC Resolution 47 (1948) calling for a plebiscite by refusing to withdraw “tribesmen” from the territory of the state. This is a half-truth. Pakistan had expressed reservations to the resolution which led to the formation of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan and finally to Resolution 98 (1952) allowing Pakistan to deploy up to 6,000 troops and India up to 18,000. Pakistan accepted the resolution, but India rejected it invoking change of circumstances because of reports of an incipient Pakistan-US defence treaty.

Half-truths and political spin thus cloud agreements and talks on Kashmir. Politics was played around Tashkent and Simla. A text on Kashmir, similar to that of the Simla Accords, adopted at Lahore was projected as a pathway to a settlement. The 2005-06 backchannel negotiations drew criticism that Pakistan had abandoned its principled position. The fact is that Pakistan’s position, based on the UNSC resolutions and the Simla Accords, will remain intact until Pakistan accepts a new international legality affecting Kashmir. Neither the backchannel nor the earlier inconclusive talks changed this position. This aside, the plebiscite as conceived in the 1948 UNSC resolution is as academic today as is India’s claim based on the controversial accession document.

The first variant on the 1948 resolution came in the 1950 Owen Dixon plan for region-wise plebiscites, which was recognition of the demographic and communal realities in Kashmir. Later, Ayub Khan tried to persuade Nehru to accept a territorial adjustment; he had the Valley in mind. The Bhutto-Swaran Singh talks were not about the plebiscite. The Valley is the heart of the dispute. It represents 55 per cent of the India-held Kashmir population, where the Kashmiri people have refused to acquiesce to and have constantly agitated for freeing themselves of Indian occupation. This is the only pressure that India faces pushing it to look for a settlement. The latest youth uprising across the Valley lends fresh urgency to our moral response in support of Kashmiri rights and self-determination.

Moral principles alone provide justification for Pakistan’s position on Kashmir. Discussions sometimes meander into security considerations or the need to protect water sources, that Kashmir has tied down over half million Indian troops; and that Pakistan must remove an existential threat by securing control of rivers which pass through Kashmir. These are false arguments. Kashmiri sacrifices and suffering must not be viewed through the prism of our security; it will knock out the moral basis of our position, suggesting that we are not interested in a just political settlement. The argument negates the fact that nuclear deterrence is an equaliser which will not be altered even if India doubles its military strength. As for rivers, maps show that the upper reaches of the Indus and the Chenab lie in Ladakh and Jammu respectively, the two non-Muslim majority regions which are unlikely to accede to Pakistan under any scenario.

Riaz Haq said...

Here's a link to UNSC Resolution 80 (1952) regarding demilitarization of Kashmir:


http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/80(1950)


Calls upon the Governments of India and Pakistan to make immediate arrangements, without
prejudice to their rights or claims and with due regard to the requirements of law and order, to
prepare and execute within a period of five months from the date of this resolution a programme of
demilitarisation on the basis of the principles of paragraph 2 of General McNaughton proposal or of
such modifications of those principles as may be mutually agreed

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kashun80.htm

It refers to paragraph 2 of General McNaughton's proposal which says as follows:


DEMILITARISATION PREPARATORY TO THE PLEBISCITE

2. There should be an agreed programme of progressive demilitarisation, the basic principle of which
should be the reduction of armed forces on either side of the Cease-Fire Line by withdrawal,
disbandment and disarmament in such stages as not to cause fear at any point of time to the people
on either side of the Cease-Fire Line. The aim should be to reduce the armed personnel in the State
of Jammu and Kashmir on both side of the Cease-Fire Line to the minimum compatible with the
maintenance of security and of local law and order, and to a level sufficiently low and with the forces
so disposed that they will not constitute a restriction on the free expression of opinion for the
purposes of the plebiscite.

The program me of demilitarisation should include the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and
Kashmir of the regular forces of Pakistan; and the withdrawal of the regular forces of India not
required for purposes of security or for the maintenance of local law and order on the Indian side of
the Cease-Fire Line; also the reduction, by disbanding and disarming, of local forces, including on
the one side the Armed Forces and Militia of the State of Kashmir and on the other, the Azad
Forces.

The "Northern Area" (including Gilgit-Baltistan region through which CPEC asses) should also be included in the above programme of demilitarisation, and its administration should, subject to United Nations supervision, be continued by the existing local
authorities (Pakistani authorities).


https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/uncom3.htm

Riaz Haq said...

From Wikipedia:


The Security Council asked its Canadian delegate, General A. G. L. McNaughton, to informally consult India and Pakistan towards a demilitarisation plan. In the course of his discussion, on 22 December 1949, McNaughton proposed that both Pakistani and Indian forces should be reduced to a minimum level, followed by the disbandment of both the Azad forces and the State forces. India proposed two far-reaching amendments, in effect rejecting the McNaughton proposals. The McNaughton proposals represented an important departure from those of the UNCIP resolutions in that they made no distinction between India and Pakistan. India was averse to such an equation.[36][37]

Despite India's apparent objection, the Security Council adopted the McNaughton proposals in Resolution 80 and appointed a mediator. The mediation also ended in failure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Council_Resolution_47

Riaz Haq said...

Pro-India #American analyst Christine Fair: #Pakistan came out ahead in #Balakot #Kashmir conflict in Feb 2019. #India does not have the capability to decisively defeat #Pakistan in a short war.. https://youtu.be/erbBPdAWZQg via @YouTube

In a wide-ranging interview to ThePrint, strategic scholar from Georgetown University, Christine Fair talks about her book on Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, Balakot air strike, and India's ideal strategy towards Pakistan.

Riaz Haq said...

Christine Fair attacks Moeed Yusuf and Brig Feroz Khan as "Pakistan assets" in US

https://theprint.in/opinion/was-us-institute-of-peace-harbouring-a-pakistani-asset-the-case-of-moeed-yusuf/300386/


For several years, under the ostensible leadership of Moeed Yusuf, the Washington DC-based United States Institute of Peace –working on global conflict reduction – has furthered a relentless pro-Pakistan policy. He has been promoting Pakistan’s interests at US taxpayers’ expense.

I have complained about it many times, and have also reported him to the FBI and to every serving member of the US House Oversight Committee. The institute was founded by the US Congress, which continues to pay its bills.

---------------

The United States Institute of Peace (USIP)’s pro-Pakistan stance is evidenced in the editorials and programme documents written by Moeed Yusuf and his colleagues, including Steve Hadley, another well-known pro-Pakistan former official in the George W. Bush administration, as well as in media interviews and congressional testimonies. Persons familiar with USIP employees have told me that they note that “we [USIP] are pro-Pakistan.”

The USIP has been the premier venue for hosting a variety of Pakistani officials. The events are by invitation-only and not open to a general audience. This policy is odd given that the USIP is funded exclusively by the US government. They also explicitly preclude critics of Pakistan or of the USIP’s position such as myself.

During the last event that I was permitted to attend at USIP in 2014, the USIP hosted a Pakistan Defense delegation after which I posted a searing recount of the event. The man behind the event was an oddly well-heeled Pakistani-American Dentist named Nisar Chaudhury who latter confessed to illegally lobbying on behalf of Pakistan. (Pakistan had long ousted me from such events but Chaudhury was keen to broker some kind of a rapprochement with me and the deep state and invited me. That rapprochement did not happen, obviously.)


------------------------

The South Asia policy community first heard of Moeed Yusuf around 2008 when he was a doctoral student in Boston. Leading male South Asia scholars nurtured him. In 2010, Ambassador William B. Taylor hired Moeed Yusuf as a “South Asia Adviser”. At the time of hire, he was not an American citizen, and as per my conversations with USIP staff, he was hired as a consultant initially. Early in his tenure, I raised issues with Taylor as well as Andrew Wilder.

---------------

My concerns about Yusuf intensified when a foreign agent informed me that they believed Yusuf and/or Hadley, most likely via Hadley’s private firm, had taken funds from the Midwest Fertilizer Co. LLC in Indiana. The operations of this firm were not without controversy because its lead investor was Fatima Fertilizer Group, a Pakistan-based firm that was supplying some 80 per cent of the fertilizer that the Taliban used in its improvised explosive devices (IEDs, or bombs), which were responsible for most of the deaths of Americans soldiers and their Afghan and NATO allies. A British military officer argued that the firm should change its production method because the Fatima Group is the “lone source of the problem in Afghanistan”. The firm refused to be a part of a solution. For this reason, then-governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, suspended state support for the project.

-----------------------

Brigadier Gen. (Retired) Feroz Khan might be the most audacious placement. For more than a decade, he has been a faculty member at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in California. Khan, who was promoted to brigadier without ever commanding a brigade, was related to Pervez Musharraf through marriage. (Khan’s daughter was married to Musharraf’s son. They have since been divorced.) What makes Khan so controversial is that prior to joining the NPS, he worked for General Khalid Kidwai in Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division (SPD), which is the premier organisation responsible for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme.

Riaz Haq said...

https://blackbox.nervecenter.live/christine-fair-a-scholar-unbecoming/

Christine Fair, a prominent academic at Georgetown University is in the news again. This time for accusing Moeed Yusuf who is a respected scholar at USIP for being an asset of the Pakistani Government.

This is not the first time she has accused Yusuf or other respected scholars without evidence for espionage. This is also not the first time that her extremist views have landed her in trouble. She got into a confrontation with the German government for calling the German airport officials ‘Nazi Police’ – a deeply insensitive remark to be made in Germany given the history of the country.

When it comes to her attacks on academics and scholars, many within the scholarly community view it as an attempt to silence any opposing view to ensure her monopoly in Washington D.C. on the narrative on Pakistan.

However, Fair’s persistent attacks on Mooed are a reflection of a larger problem of racism within the scholarly community in the West. The academic and policy think tanks, especially in the International Relations discipline, have long been accused of racism due to deep Western centrism and neo-imperial tendencies.

Western centrism essentially means that the field of IR is driven primarily by the Western conception of what constitutes ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’. It is basically looking at the world through the eyes and prejudices of the Western scholars that hijack the global discourse and exclude non-Western voices as either ‘irrelevant’ or ‘compromised’. This is what Meera Sabaratnam calls the ‘West knows best’ ideology that puts the non-Western scholars as inferior and unscientific.

A journal article published by Arlene Tickner titled ‘Core, Periphery and (Neo)Imperialist International Relations’ using the Trip Survey (2011) provides extensive details on this Western centrism that exists in the academic and scholarly world.

In an already rigged scholarly world, non-Western scholars like Moeed are soft and vulnerable targets because of their background. In her tweets, Christine Fair claimed to have lodged an official complaint against Moeed to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and members of Congress to not only revoke his U.S. citizenship but also the right to work in the country.

The purpose is to exclude and silence the diversity of opinion not through academic dialogue but through vicious attacks on the credibility of non-Western scholars like Moeed Yusuf. Christine Fair, unfortunately, exhibits and reinforces the very orientalist, and extremist tendencies that she claims to fight against in Trump’s America.

Riaz Haq said...

#India #IAF Did Not Shoot Down #Pakistan F-16 in #Balakot Aftermath, Says #US Scholar Christine Fair


https://thewire.in/security/christine-fair-iaf-balakot-pakistan-f16


Fair, whose work on Pakistan is frequently cited by the Indian side, took on former air chief BS Dhanoa, saying the IAF narrative is not based on an empirical body of facts but dictated more by “things deployed by politicians to win elections".

Fair, a professor of security studies at Georgetown University who has spent many years researching in Pakistan, stirred up a heated debate at the Military Literature Festival in Chandigarh on Saturday when she went on to assert that she did not believe India shot down an F-16 fighter during the dogfight between Indian and Pakistani jets in the aftermath of the Indian airstrikes over Balakot.

“I say this clearly with 100% certitude that there was no F-16 struck down. I do not believe you did. I believe that my bonafides as a critic of Pakistan stand for itself,” she said before a stunned audience. But Fair added that she and many others in the Pentagon actually wished that the IAF had indeed shot down the F-16, because India had “a right to bomb Pakistan” in retaliation for the Pulwama attack.

She, however, questioned the IAF’s narrative about the incident, saying that it is not based on an empirical body of facts but dictated more by “things deployed by politicians to win elections…. The world outside of India does not see things the way they were said here today. Though, I wish they were true.”

Fair is the author of Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War, a brutal critique of the Pakistan army that analyses why it is a destabilising force in world politics.