Obama’s cordial encounter with Venezuelan thug Hugo Chavez and his bow of deference in London to the Saudi Arabian king are extensions of behavior we have always seen on the black left. Jesse Jackson openly embraced Chavez, as well as having maintained relations with the likes of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi and Yasser Arafat.

The government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari lacks the political will to go hard after the Islamists, especially at a time when the nation faces grave threats from the terrorists. “It (the recent release of Lal Masjid don) relates to political will and political constraints,” said Rafia Zakaria, a columnist for the Daily Times. “It’s all part of the game of attempting to co-opt the Islamists so that popular sentiment would be with the government.” At the same time, she said, the new Supreme Court was seemingly intent on reversing what it considered illegal steps taken by the former president, Pervez Musharraf.

“This court has political scores to settle,” Ms. Zakaria said. “The Lal Masjid affair was a debacle and got all sorts of sympathy for the Islamists. The civilian government is obviously trying to make amends.”

The siege and subsequent raid of the Red Mosque inflamed militant sentiment in the country. Militants claimed that hundreds of female students had been killed alongside the militants who were fighting the army. The Pakistani military denied it. Mr. Musharraf defended the raid, saying the Red Mosque had become a recruiting ground for terrorists.

Mr. Aziz used to lead Friday Prayer at the mosque. He and his allies had openly challenged government authority in the months before the siege, and had begun a campaign to impose Taliban-style rule in the capital.

During the recording, produced by Al-Qaida’s As-Sahab Media Foundation, Bin Laden condemned the decision of former Somali Islamic Courts Union (ICU) president Shaykh Shareef to join in a peace initiative with the interim Somali government. According to Bin Laden, “as a result of inducements and offers from the American envoy in Kenya”, Shaykh Shareef “changed and turned back on his heels [as an apostate], and agreed to partner infidel positive law with Islamic Shari’ah to set up a government of national unity, and this partnering is greater polytheism which expels one from Islam. How can intelligent people believe that yesterday’s enemies on the basis of religion can become today’s friends? This can only happen if one of the two parties abandons his religion. So look and see which one of them is the one who has abandoned it: Shaykh Shareef or America? ...These sorts of presidents are the surrogates of our enemies and their authority is null and void in the first place, and as Shaykh Shareef is one of them, he must be dethroned and fought.”

However, it is a great relief that Allah is no don of criminals as Laden believes and so, there is every chance that instead os terror, the better civilised world will trounce the trouble makers. Of course, the poverty stricken Somalia needs to be taken care of by the international community in a very special and caring way because its affairs are in shambles and the country holds the threat of becoming a melting pot for many criminals like Laden.

The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday at the close of a NATO meeting in Krakow (southern Polland) that his country is not bogged down by that ’surrender theory’ nor does it regard the truce between Pak and Taliban as something to be fumes at. He said, ‘We have said all along that ultimately some sort of political reconciliation has to be part of the long-term solution in Afghanistan.’ His comment had more to do with the statement of NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. He said at the defence meeting that a broader regional approach was needed to help put down the insurgency in Afghanistan. The focus would be on more involvement from Pakistan, but could include even Iran one day.

Gates’ comments contrasted with those of Richard Holbrooke, the new US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who went on reord this week with his observation that the peace deal was tantamount to surrender by Pakistan. Asked whether US would approve an agreement between Kabul and Taliban along similar lines, Gates replied:

If there is a reconciliation, if insurgents are willing to put down their arms, if the reconciliation is essentially on the terms being offered by the government then I think we would be very open to that.

Gates’ statement has made people suspect that the surrender of Afghanistan has already occurred, but US government has not not been decent enough to tell the troops about it. Once a truce is reached it won’t be long afterward that the Taliban makes the final push to victory.

Islam has always had a way of popping up self contradicting scenario. India saw Mughals, who did everything to further the cause of Islam in India. They indulged in massive massacres of human lives here just to convert Indians to Islam. Yet, it remains a fact that none of those cruel ones followed the tenets of Islam strictly. All the Mughal rulers of India had a deep fancy for alcohol - so much prohibited by Islam. Now, Taliban, the self proclaimed yet half-Muslims, are presenting the same contradicting scene.

Specially trained and equipped U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agents assigned to Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Teams (FAST), and specially trained officers assigned to the National Interdiction Unit (NIU) of the Counter-Narcotics Police of Afghanistan, successfully raided a number of remote heroin laboratories and hashish processing facilities in Afghanistan very recently.

These facilities were under the command and control of the Taliban. A traffickers compound that was successfully raided over a year ago by FAST/NIU operators resulted in the seizure of evidence that clearly showed about $170 million dollars flowing through the hands of the responsible, Taliban-affiliated drug baron in just a 10 month period. that goes to show that Taliban has turned this drugs trade into its mainstay. Indeed it is a huge source of income - it is widely believed in informed circles that Taliban is earning a revenue to the tune of some 500-600 dollars annually from drug peddling.

Thus maintaining their cash-flow at even, the Taliban are demonstrating a resilience and a ferocity that is raising alarm in Washington and in other NATO capitals, and engendering a fresh round of soul-searching over how a relatively ragtag insurgency has managed to keep the world’s most powerful armies at bay. The same is going to happen in Pakistan too because that country is neither too Islamic nor too humane.

“The stories about the children affected me the most,” said Ellison. “No parent, or anyone who cares for kids, can remain unmoved by what Brian and I saw here.”

On her first diplomatic visit abroad, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton is casting aside normal diplomatic caution. She waded into a public discussion about who will lead North Korea after ailing Kim Jong Il, known as the Dear Leader, leaves power. She even went at it with gusto, saying rumors about the reclusive Kim’s health have added to uncertainty that already swirls around nuclear-armed North Korea.

Hillary was holding a joint press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan, where the matter came up again. She broached it hours earlier on her plane flight from Indonesia to South Korea. Responding to the query if she thought her candid discussion about the topic might provoke North Korea, Clinton said candidly, ‘No, I do not...this is not some kind of a classified matter that is not being discussed in many circles. But for me, as we look at planning and contingency planning, we are taking everything into account.’

Earlier in the press conference, Clinton said Washington will deal with the Kim regime still in power in Pyongyang, but that the future holds uncertainty over who will rule North Korea. ‘It’s very clear that as Minister Yu said, when you are thinking about future dealings with a government that does not have any clear succession – they don’t have a president, they don’t have a prime minister – that is something you have to think about,’ she said, adding that the succession question is muddying the waters, as it were, in already tense diplomatic negotiations with the north.

Clinton said South Korea is particularly worried “about what’s up in North Korea, what the succession could be, what it means for them, and they are looking for us to use our best efforts to try to get the agenda of de-nuclearising and nonproliferation back in gear.”

“Everybody is trying to sort of read the tea leaves as to what is happening and what is likely to occur, and there is a lot of guessing going on,” Clinton said, referring to talks between Chinese, South Korean, Japanese and U.S. officials about the situation in the North.

Pakistan is prepared to make all the right sounds which are designer suggested to suit terrorist and criminal elements of that country. Ibrahim, Malik, interior minister of Pakistan has again started fending to provide enough space for operations to hard boiled gangsters like Maulana Masood Azhar and Dawood Ibrahim. He annonced today that these two of the most wanted criminals of the world are not living within Pakistani territory. This eyewash follows the statement of defence minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar who told an Indian news channel in December 2008 that Azhar had been detained by Pakistani authorities. It can be recalled here that in a demarche issued after the Mumbai terror attacks, India had asked Pakistan to hand over Azhar togther with Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim.

This conspicuous dilly-dallying by Pakistani government has got two ominous portentions. Pakistan has been decisively benumbed by the Taliban-fed terrorists. Later on, it was awstruck by Dawood’s overturess to strengthen its ties with a political faction of that outlawed outfit. That was enough indication from the underworld don to the government of Pakistan not to give a thought to any adventure of handing him over to India. His relationships with Maulana Fazlullah aka Maulana Radio, commander of Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), an organisation active in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, especially Swat, forced the hands of Pak government.

Secondly, His capture and handover to India might prove inconvenient for either the ISI or the CIA, or both.That’s why Ibrahim’s role is being downplayed and Lakhvi’s known role is being exaggerated. It is said that Dawood was very angry at his old CIA buddies for their turn-coat betrayal as they colluded with the Indian Government, the Pakistani secret service, ISI, and Israeli Mossad to oust him from his redoubt in Quetta, Pakistan and extradite him to India. He was so enraged he knew he could strike a blow directly at his enemies and send them a clear message in Mumbai at the Trident Oberoi Hotel, a gathering place for foreign intelligence operatives, and the Orthodox Jewish Chabad House, so he financed, planned, and supplied weapons, equipment and logistic for the multiple attacks by what now appears to be Lashkar-e-Taiyaba (LET) terrorists.