Threats of Nuclear Sabotage Against Pakistan – Analysis

Source: Eurasia Review

Muhammad Jawad Hashmi

As a nuclear weapons’ state, Pakistan faces a number of challenges, which if  unaddressed could cause a severe damage to Pakistan’s international image as well as to the safety and security of nuclear weapons of Pakistan.

It is acknowledged secret that Pakistan has a robust command control system with its weapons kept unassembled and dispersed at different places with multilayered security arrangements. As a result potential terrorists would have to toil a lot to obtain access to those weapons. These are extremely complex challenges and next to impossible for the terrorists to cross all the thresholds and layers of security undetected. Thus, the strict security arrangements around nuclear facilities and lack of nuclear knowledge may hinder terrorists to steal fissile material and attempt to manufacture a workable nuclear weapon. In a more plausible scenario it could be that terrorists may assemble an RDD (radiological dispersal devices) or dirty bombs.1 For the said purpose, terrorists would need fissile material and a lot of technical know-how to fabricate such device.

A Case Building Scenario: Threats of Nuclear Sabotage against Pakistan

Immense hype by global media, presence of agents like Raymond Davis and private forces like Blackwaters and DynCorp in Pakistan are the crucial reasons to forecast the alarming scenario vis-à-vis security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The literature reveals that US opinion makers like David Albright, David Sanger, Frederick Kagan and Michael O’Hanalon, Thomas Ricks and Peter Wonacott has raised the same kind of queries over the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.2 The following discussion reveals the western efforts and covert agenda by the different tactics to discard Pakistan’s security arrangements. Thus, the prospects of filing a case of nuclear material’s theft/transfer or sabotage against Pakistan could be built.

Global Media Hype over Insecurity of Pakistan’s Nuclear Assets

Osama Bin Laden episode and PNS Mehran attack has added fuel in the ongoing crisis in Pakistan. The global media started raising questions about the role of Pakistan in WOT as dual or suspicious. There had been number of evidences which reveal that global media is creating sensational hypes to tag Pakistan as rogue state. For instance Mariot Leslie, who was the director general of Defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office but is now Britain’s ambassador to NATO said that recent intelligence indicates that Pakistan is not going in a good direction. He believed that “The UK has deep concerns about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and China could play a big role in stabilizing Pakistan.”3 According to Wikileaks, UK, USA, and France have raised high concerns that Pakistani nuclear assets may fall into the hands of terrorists. The leaked documents revealed that in 2008, the US ambassador to Islamabad, Anne Patterson, cabled to Washington that a rogue scientist in the Pakistani nuclear programme could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon for a terrorist group.4 In another cable released by the Wikileaks, concerns has been raised that two main sources from which nuclear materials or a weapon could be obtained are Pakistan and the states of the former Soviet Union.5

Twisted Logic Of Using Violence To Achieve Peace

Source: Eurasia Review
Ramzy Baroud

‘Sooner or later, there will be no escape from conducting a significant operation [in Gaza],’ said Israeli army Chief of Staff Lieutenent General Benny Gantz on December 27, the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead.

Gantz’s chillingly casual remarks were cited as just another nonchalant declaration of war against a besieged, impoverished, overcrowded and routinely bombarded stretch of land. From the Israeli military and political point of view, Gaza merely exists as an opportunity for the Israeli army to test its latest weapon technology and send political messages to Israel’s foes in the region.

As if to validate Gantz’s logic, the ardently rightwing Israeli Jerusalem Post elaborated on December 28: “The Israel Air Force, working with the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], fired a missile at Gaza terrorists [fighters] involved in recent attacks on Israel, killing one and injuring two others.” They were ‘terrorists’ because Israel has designated them so. There was no due process and none was expected. When it comes to reporting on Israel/Palestine, corporate media largely relies on Israeli lies and propaganda. And one moral crisis begets another. The Israeli propaganda is predicated mostly on racism, not just in its view of Palestinians in Gaza, but of all Arabs.

Let’s examine the curious logic of Yuli Edelstein, Israel’s Propaganda and Diaspora Minister. In a recent talk in Or Yehuda, the man laid out his understanding of how peace can be achieved. “As long as the Arab nation continues to be a deplorable nation, which continues investing in infrastructure for terrorism, education to hate, and welfare for the families of shaheeds [martyrs], there will be no peace,” he said, according to Yossi Gurvitz in +972 online magazine.

Gurvitz further wrote: “I phoned the minister’s office for comment, and asked his spokesman: ‘Are you aware of the fact there are some 80 million Arabs in the world, from Sudan to Syria?’ He replied: ‘Yes, there are — and the minister meant them all.’”

I must admit that cogent political analysis becomes difficult when a country’s foreign policy and military strategy are constructed on unabashed racism, ignorance and a reproduction of 19th century Orientalism. How is one to forecast the possibilities of a just peace in Palestine when a well-regarded Israeli minister places a condition on the ‘Arab nation’ to become less deplorable? How can Gaza avoid another ‘Operation Cast Lead’ if its fate has already been sealed, with the ambiguous timeframe of ‘sooner or later’?