MAQzine

by Fouad Pervez Blackwater (rebranded as Xe in an effort to escape the negative publicity associated with their former name), recently received  a $100 million contract  from the CIA to secure its bases in Afghanistan . The State Department also awarded them $120 million to provide security for new diplomatic buildings, including consulates outside Kabul , giving the firm a total of $220 million in new contracts in Afghanistan . This seems remarkable, given the extremely negative image Blackwater has throughout the world. That people even know about a private security company is a bad sign in itself. Not surprisingly, CIA Director Leon Panetta had to go on the offensive to defend the contracts. The contracts are certainly problematic. But the real issue is not Blackwater itself, but U.S. military grand strategy. From a financial aspect, it is not surprising that Blackwater got the contracts. For the CIA contract alone, Blackwater bid a full $26 million below the next lowest...

May 27th, 2010 --  Age Correspondents   | New Delhi There was further reason for India to be greatly annoyed with the Canadians after it emerged on Wednesday that an Intelligence Bureau official who was to have travelled to Canada as part of preparations for the Prime Minister’s forthcoming visit to that country was denied a visa as his organisation had “engaged in violence”. The IB official, who was due to travel to Toronto, was later given a visa but only after New Delhi lodged a strong protest about the visa denial. In an understandably angry reaction, the home ministry on Wednesday wrote to the ministry of external affairs asking that Canada “apologise” for citing the reasons it had for repeated denial of visas to various officials, and also described the developments as “unacceptable”. Wednesday’s revelations only added fuel to a fire which was stoked when it became known earlier this week that a retired BSF official too was denied a Canadian visa for having served...

Posted By Shahid R. Siddiqi On October 6, 2009 - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - This article was first published at Axis of Logic - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - Driven by paranoia with resurgent Islam as a threat to the established social order in the West and their obsession to control this very important oil rich region, American strategists have toyed with the idea of redrawing political boundaries of Islamic states along ethnic lines. The American attack on Afghanistan and Iraq on false pretexts of ‘war on terror’ was the initiation of this strategy. Now they seek to legitimize their actions by labeling them as efforts to dispense justice for ‘oppressed Muslim minorities’. - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - They believe that smaller entities would be easier to micromanage through puppet regimes, enabling them to contain militancy and squeeze into extinction Jehadi outfits by choking their funding. - - - - - - o o o - - - - - - This ‘remapping’ involves splintering the Muslim w...

Pakistani youth in danger of radicalisation: study *Brookings report says US should make socio-economic aid conditional upon Pakistan’s ability to spread benefits to masses instead of tying it solely to terrorismBy Khalid HasanWASHINGTON: Pakistan’s potential for youth radicalisation is high, given a poor education system stratified along socio-economic lines and disparate economic opportunities across society, according to a study published by the Brookings Institution.Authored by Pakistani scholar and journalist Moeed Yusuf, the study, titled ‘The Prospects of Youth Radicalisation in Pakistan: Implications for US Policy’, finds warning signals that increase the likelihood for young members of society being lured towards extremist causes. The prospects of this are increased because of the presence of an extremist infrastructure, the impeccable organisational discipline and widespread social networks of Pakistan’s Islamic political and militant outfits, a failure of the moderate forc...