IS OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD?

Why does President Obama talk about killing or capturing Osama bin Laden when speculation is that the terrorist died soon after Tora Bora. Logic dictates that a sick man with a bad kidney needing regular dialysis could not possibly have survived this long in the rugged mountains.

There were reports suggesting that his funeral took place soon after he escaped from US attack on Tora Bora. He has certainly not been seen ever since though there have been a couple of video tapes. The last one showing him a lot younger with a totally black beard. There have also been occasional audio tapes, but both the videos and audios appear highly suspect.

With all the resources at their disposal, should US intelligence agencies not know whether he is dead or alive? And if he is dead then why is "killing or capturing" bogey still being paraded around?

President Obama came to office on a platform of change. Should he not tell the American public what he knows?

And if intelligence agencies do not know whether OBL is dead or alive, then it does not say much for their intelligence gathering. Then what are US troops doing in Afghanistan, when it is not even known whether enemy number one exists or not?

Perhaps it is time to pull all troops out of Afghanistan and let the Afghans decide their own fate.

IRAQ - CHEMICAL ALI'S HANGING

The hanging of Ali Hassan al-Majid better known as 'Chemical Ali' was uneventful. He was equally barbaric and cruel as his cousin Saddam Hussain. He put down a Kurdish uprising in Halabja, Northern Iraq by gassing thousands of innocent people to death. A method not very different from the one deployed by Nazis against the Jews.

This should be a lesson to future dictators in Iraq and elsewhere that when you occupy the seat of power, you don't own it. It is the people who own it and one day you will have to pay for your crimes and excesses.

One aspect of this whole sordid affair that should have been discussed openly and has not been by the US and Western media is, how did Iraq get hold of these chemical weapons? There are allegations that in the eighties, Donald Rumsfeld and the US Government of the time provided these to Iraq for use in the Iran/Iraq war. That was the time when on a visit to Baghdad Donald Rumsfeld parised Saddam Hussain as "a Great Leader". If it is true that Rumsfeld supplied chemical weapons to Iraq, then is he not also complicit as a co-conspirator in war crimes and should he not be tried?

Unlike the British, who are holding an open and an independent inquiry into legality of Iraq War, the US Congress does not have the courage or the willpower to hold an open and a fair enquiry to determine whether Rumsfeld is guilty of these crimes.

Would Mr. Rumsfeld like to voluntarily submit to International Court of Justice to clear his name?

PAT ROBERTSON AND THE TALIBAN

A 'Deal with the Devil' is what the insensitive Pat Robertson has to say about Haiti's earthquake. He has said similar things in the past after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. Do these 'God's agents' have no shame. People are dying in Haiti and need help from the world community and all he can think of is a deal with the devil? Who has given this man the right to malign other human beings? Another evalengical preacher claimed recently that "God hates a lot of people". I guess God came down to give that information to him personally!

If one looks closely, there many similarities between the extreme right wing preachers and the Afghan Taliban. They want to impose their will on majority, so do the Taliban. They believe they are right and everyone else is wrong, so do the Taliban. They believe they are the only ones who will go to heaven, so do the Taliban. They believe it is their moral duty to set all erring people straight, so do the Taliban. They believe God has given them a mission to root out sin from the world, so do the Taliban.

LET IRANIAN SYSTEM IMPLODE ON ITS OWN, ANY HINT OF A CIA INVOLVEMENT COULD BACKFIRE BADLY

The ongoing unrest in Iran, almost daily demonstrations and the death of Mousavi's nephew shows that Iranian clergy is losing its stranglehold over Iran's political system.

Ever since the replacement of Shah's dictatorial rule with an even worse regime imposed by the Mullahs on Iranian public, the question has not been; will it fail, but rather when will it fail?

The Iranian public has been held hostage by religious extremists who see things only their way and no other way. The lack of tolerance, the pressure on young men to grow beards and on women to dress in a certain manner has the public looking for alternatives and freedom of expression.

The recent demonstrations could possibly have been encouraged and supported by outside players. The news coming out of Iran and carried by Western media seems to have a strange similarity to it, be it on CNN, BBC, ABC, NBC or CBS, as if the story is being fed from a single source. However genuine, many in public tend to view authenticity of such stories with some suspicion.

It was always a question of time when the Mullahs would run out of gas and Iranians would want a free and a democratic system of governance with fully restored civil liberties. It is best to let the Iranian public deal with this and not meddle with their internal affairs. Any hint of a CIA involvement in the anti Government demonstrations could backfire badly, possibly resulting in the current regime clamping down even harder and delaying the inevitable.

AFGHANISTAN VOTE RECOUNT IS A COMPLETE FARCE AND A FRAUD

The Afghan Presidential elections were rigged in many ways, however the vote recount is even bigger farce. It seems that EU & US representatives conducting this exercise had a pre-determined goal to bring Hamid Karzai's vote below 50% in order to call a run off election.

The two Afghan individuals involved with recount effort resigned in disgust a few days ago, when they discovered the real mandate of EU representatives. It is amazing how Mr. Karzai's vote has been brought down to 49.6% (just below 50%) to order a recount. First the elections were a farce and now the recount is an even bigger farce.

If the intention is to establish democracy and rule of law in Afghanistan, then this is a total violation of all democratic norms. The Afghan populace has no interest whatsoever in these goings on as they don't see their life changing either under Karzai or Abdullah. After all these two gentlemen have been center stage for last eight years and are responsible for the failure of Afghan civil and military administration. Efforts are now afoot by EU & US to get Karzai to form a coalition with Abdullah, a sure recipe for disaster.

In the last elections, less than 30% Afghan electorate voted and when fraudulent votes are counted out, the count is probably less than 25%. In a run off election less than 20% are likely to vote. If President Obama and Hillary Clinton are betting on this democratic move, then it is doomed to failure.

What is needed is to rescind the fraudulent elections, disqualify Karzai and Abdullah for they represent drug and crime syndicates, form a Government of national unity of all Afghan ethnic groups for a period of one year and then have fresh elections. That would allow for healing to take place in fractious Afghan society and also for new leadership to emerge. The people of Afghanistan need to be inclusive in this process, they are then likely be more involved in the democratic process.

A foreign imposed formula is only likely to bring more chaos, more ethnic rivalry and destabilization of the region resulting in foreign troops having to stay longer than they need to. Do the US public have the stomach for US forces to stay there another five years and can the US Military sustain continued war, I think not.