Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label NY Times. Show all posts

Sunday, August 30, 2009

NY Times Harpoon Aims at Heart of Pak Aid Bill

The New York Times is quoting unnamed senior Obama administration and Congressional officials as claiming that the United States is accusing Pakistan of illegally modifying American-made Harpoon anti-ship missiles to expand its capability to strike land targets, a potential threat to India.

American military and intelligence officials reportedly say they suspect that Pakistan has modified the Harpoon antiship missiles that the United States sold the country in the 1980s, a move that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act. Pakistan has denied the charge, saying it developed the missile itself. The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying American-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, another violation of United States law that the Obama administration has protested.

According to a senior Pakistani official, Pakistan has taken the unusual step of agreeing to allow American officials to inspect the country’s Harpoon inventory to prove that it had not violated the law, a step that the US administration officials praised.

Independent experts are also skeptical of the alleged American claims, according to Asian Defense blog. Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, a yearbook and Web-based data service, has said the Harpoon missile did not have the necessary range for a land-attack missile, which would lend credibility to Pakistani claims that they are developing their own new missile. Moreover, he said, Pakistan already has more modern land-attack missiles that it developed itself or acquired from China.

According to Tech Lahore blog, Pakistan's Raa’d missile has been mated with Mach 2 capable Mirages and is now being integrated with Pakistan’s new fighter, the JF-17. The missile can be launched from a stand-off distance of almost 500km and employs more sophisticated guidance than the Harpoon. This raises the question as to why would Pakistan want to attack land targets with a slow, bulky aircraft like the P-3, firing shorter range Harpoon missiles, when it’s air force already has almost 175 Mirage aircraft with Raa’d cruise missiles and recently added in-flight refueling capability?

“They’re beyond the need to reverse-engineer old U.S. kit,” said Mr. Hewson about Pakistan's current capabilities. “They’re more sophisticated than that.” Mr. Hewson said the ship-to-shore missile that Pakistan was testing was part of a concerted effort to develop an array of conventional missiles that could be fired from the air, land or sea to address India’s much more formidable conventional missile arsenal.

Recently, the US has signed a nuclear cooperation deal with India and offered to sell over $2 billion worth of sophisticated weaponry, further enhancing India's military might.

Coming just a week before the $7.5 billion aid-to-Pakistan bill goes to the US senate, it is clear that the timing and the motives of Eric Schmitt and David Sanger of the New York Times “leak” are highly suspicious. It fits a pattern of "leaks" in Washington to either defeat or add poison pill amendments to any legislation likely to aid to Pakistan. Such well-timed "leaks” to the New York Times, known for similar well-timed "leaks" about Iraq WMDs prior to the ill-conceived US invasion of the middle eastern nation, are most likely inspired by the Israeli and Indian lobbies in Washington who are irrevocably opposed to any US assistance to Pakistan.

Past hypocritical denials of US weapons to Pakistan while offering modern offensive weapons to India has been a blessing in disguise for Pakistani military and its defense industry. Every time US has embargoed or quibbled over some insignificant little "arms control" violations with Pakistan, Pakistanis have responded to the challenge by developing their own indigenous capabilities. Such developments not only help strengthen the nation's defenses, domestic defense production also aids in developing human skills, enhancing arms exports and providing badly-needed jobs to many.

Here's a video clip about Pakistan's arms expo IDEAS 2008:

Sunday, April 20, 2008

US Media Military Analysts Tainted

"Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance" reports The New York Times in today's issue.

The Times goes on to say, "The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."

Implicated in this scandalous PR and pay-off campaign by the Pentagon are the big name media such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox and Wall Street Journal. Each claims they weren't aware of the conflicts of interest of the retired military officers who were presented as "independent analysts". These "independent analysts" names include retired generals Barry McCaffery,Jeff McCausland, Wayne Downing, Paul Valley, Joseph Ralston, Don Shepherd,Montgomery Meigs, and Thomas G. McInerney. Many of these "independent analysts" were flown to Guantanamo, described as the "gulag of our times" by Amnesty International, and they tried to help the administration whitewash the US misdeeds at the notorious and illegal prison. The NY Times breaking this tainted analysts story has had its own journalists such as Judith Miller involved in promoting the Iraq war using false information about WMDs provided by the Bush administration prior to the Iraq invasion.

The big US media share major responsibility for the misguided policies of President George W. Bush. They became the cheerleaders for the Iraq war immediately after 911 in spite of the fact that Iraq had no role in it. They remained "in bed" with the Bush officials for a long time and only recently have they begun to criticize the current administration as the disastrous results of Iraq became apparent.

It seems that the current administration truly believes in Alexander Hamilton's proclamation that "the masses are asses". At least, that's the conclusion one can draw from their attempts to use the media to mislead the American people to support their wrong headed policies. However, they must remember the words of another great American: Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."