Accidents of Melting Siachen Ice

The tragic incident at Ghayari, Siachen, where a 25-meter high hurtling wall of snow smothered a battalion headquarters and trapped 138 officers and men of the Pakistan Army under it, has riveted the national attention on this rather ignored battle front where more casualties are the result of natural disasters than the enemy action. Deployment at 180,000 to 22,000 feet covers an area that is unnatural for human habitation and full of unpredictable and invisible dangers.

Accidents are unavoidable rather inevitable and in line with the military culture, stoically accepted as a professional hazard in line of duty. Yet, the size and scale of the recent disaster have managed to bring the Siachen issue from the periphery of national consciousness to the centrestage of public attention. A debate has been kindled as to what pressing circumstances and vital national objectives have forced a deployment that necessitates such perilous presence and why the two countries cannot dismantle this costly and painful confrontation that, to start with, is a consequence of India’s stealthy aggression.

It was in 1984 that India moved the belligerent pursuit of the Kashmir dispute to the Siachen Glacier by occupying positions along Soltoro Ridgeline in an area, which had remained demilitarised ever since the Kashmir operations in 1948. Even when the Ceasefire Line (CFL) in Kashmir [dubbed Line of Control (LoC) vide Simla Agreement - 1972] between India and Pakistan came into force following the Karachi Agreement in 1949, as a consequence of the UN supervised ceasefire, it could not be extended to the glacier due to extreme constraints of an inhospitable terrain and inaccessibility. Its delineation ended at the last mutually agreed upon point in the northern area; village of Khor on the Shyok River, which was changed to a map reference point; NJ9842 during the Tashkent Conference. From Khor onwards, the Karachi Agreement then described alignment of the CFL as going “thence north to the glaciers”, leaving the ‘Line’ north of this point yet to be defined and demarcated. Pakistan considered the onwards continuation of the CFL to Karakoram Pass, which demarcated the Siachen glacier within Pakistani territory; a position on which the Pak-China Accord of 1963 was based and which was tacitly accepted by India. Other occasions of articulating the Indian dissenting position presented themselves later as well. India had an opportunity to challenge Pakistan’s claim at the time of Tashkent Conference in 1965 where the two countries agreed to change the terminal point of CFL and, more so, at Simla in 1972 when it had the chance to dictate terms; the CFL, now dubbed LoC, still terminated at NJ9842, despite small changes made to the erstwhile alignment of the CFL.

Following Simla, Pakistan continued to exercise administrative control over the Siachen glacier and opened it for international mountaineering expeditions in the mid-seventies. Various international atlases also reflected the Siachen glacier as part of Pakistan by showing the LoC as proceeding north eastwards towards the Karakorum Pass. However, the threat of an Indian aggression was surreptitiously taking shape in the manner of earlier occupation of the Kashmir valley by military aggression in October 1948; an Indian brigade strength force was landed on the northern end of the Siachen glacier in April 1984 to initiate another bleeding wound in the saga of Kashmir tragedy. Pakistan rushed in its troops to contain the Indian aggression and so began a senseless and costly conflict, shorn of any worthwhile strategic or military considerations that could justify the loss of life and heavy expenditure involved in maintaining troops in an area that is regarded as the highest battle ground in the world.

An extension of Indian hegemonic designs, the Indian occupation of the Siachen glacier remains an act of blatant aggression. It is a gross violation of not only the Karachi Agreement of 1949 but also Simla Agreement whose Para 4(2) stipulates: “In Jammu and Kashmir, the line of control resulting from the ceasefire of December 17, 1971, shall be respected by both sides without prejudice to the recognised position of either side. Neither side shall seek to alter it unilaterally, irrespective of the mutual differences and legal interpretations. Both sides further undertake to refrain from the threat or the use of force in violation of this line.”

Heavy intermittent clashes ensued in the following years without affecting any significant change in the ground situation. Artillery duels continued to take place, even as the two sides refrained from introducing air power to further expand the zone of conflict. A modicum of rationality prevailed after five years when after an initial meeting of the military commanders the Indian and Pakistani delegations began talks for resolving the dispute in July 1989; a process that after 13 rounds of talks has yielded no tangible progress even as the earlier rounds were marked by anticipation that the area would be returned to a status quo ante, returning troops to a deployment prevailing in the area prior to the Indian aggression in 1984.

Notwithstanding the considerable common ground that should facilitate movement on Siachen, the Indian posturing has not been very encouraging; in fact, the later rounds of talks have indicated a marked degree of inflexibility in the Indian stance. Instead of rolling back aggression from Siachen, the Indians have insisted upon verifying the existing positions of opposing forces stationed at the glacier; introducing; in addition to international boundary, working boundary, LoC, and CFL, a new term in the lexicon on Kashmir called the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL). For Pakistan, these demands are unacceptable because once this line is acknowledged it would be tantamount to validating the Indian aggression in Siachen and by extension in Kashmir as well. While it is desirable that sufficient flexibility be exhibited by Pakistan in resolving the Siachen dispute by making concessions that would prevent costly loss of life, it is another matter to agree to mark an Indian dictated line in Siachen and for good reasons.

India’s aggression in Siachen is a military blunder, which needs to be retracted to avert the senseless loss of life and stop the haemorrhaging of resources. There is a dire need to demilitarise this conflict zone. In such a scenario, a major role can be played by the UNMOGIP (UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan) observers in demilitarising the treacherous landscape. These observers, who are mandated by the UN under the authority of a UNSC resolution to monitor the CFL, are present on ground and can perform a positive and active role in overseeing demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier and assuming a post evacuation supervisory role. Perhaps, this is the only way of melting the glacial ice of frigid Indian hostility in Siachen.

India and Pakistan agree to hold more talks:

As predicted, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan agreed during a meeting in Bhutan that their countries should hold further talks to try to repair relations strained since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.  Foreign secretary Nirupama Rao told reporters at a regional summit in Thimphu that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani had decided their foreign ministers and foreign secretaries (the top diplomats) should meet as soon as possible.

In agreeing to hold more talks, India and Pakistan have overcome the first major obstacle in the way of better ties – the question of what form their dialogue should take. Pakistan had been insisting on a resumption of the formal peace process, or Composite Dialogue, broken off by India after the attack on Mumbai which it blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group. India had been seeking a way back into talks which stopped short of a full resumption of the composite dialogue.

The prime ministers, who last met in Egypt last July, appear to have sidestepped that problem by agreeing to hold dialogue on all issues, without specifically labeling this as the Composite Dialogue (which incidentally is meant to cover all issues.)

Having dealt with the form of their talks, the hard parts – issues of substance – now lie ahead.

Any easing of tension between the two countries is unlikely to have any immediate impact on the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, where India and Pakistan have been rivals for influence for decades. Pakistan had already moved significant numbers of troops last year from its Indian border in the east to fight Pakistani Taliban militants on its western border with Afghanistan during a brief thaw between the two nuclear-armed countries last summer. According to a Pentagon report released this week, it may have redeployed as many as 100,000 troops from east to west. But that means it is unlikely to redeploy any more right now, particularly given its concerns at what it sees as an Indian military build-up on its eastern boarder.

But the talks between India and Pakistan could ultimately pave the way for a scaling down of the proxy war which the two countries’ intelligence services have been accused of waging in Afghanistan. Over time, that will have a major impact on Pakistan’s willingness to tackle the Afghan Taliban and force them to the negotiating table. (Pakistan’s fight against militants so far has been concentrated on tackling the Pakistani Taliban on its border with Afghanistan rather then those fighting U.S. led forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials complain that India is using its presence in Afghanistan – which grew substantially after the fall of the Pakistan-backed Taliban government in 2001 – to destabilize Pakistan.  They say India’s Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) is giving money and weapons to Baluch separatists in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. They also argue that R&AW agents are indirectly destabilizing Pakistan’s tribal areas on the Afghan border by providing funding to militants via Afghan’s NDS intelligence service. India denies the accusations and has so far refused Pakistani demands that it close down its consulates in the Afghan cities of Kandahar and Jalalabad near the Pakistan border.

Afghanistan has been a haven for years for proxy wars between rival intelligence agencies, often working with little real oversight from national capitals, so it is hard to work out exactly what is going on.  What is clear, however, is that whenever you ask a Pakistani official or diplomat about Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan, they will invariably tell you that they expect in return that the country's security interests vis-a-vis India are met.

With its arrest of Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Pakistan has demonstrated it is in a uniquely powerful position to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table – making it for now the favored ally of the United States over India. Crucial to watch, therefore, in the months ahead will be whether Pakistan makes headway in its demands for a scaling back of India’s presence in Afghanistan, as the price for its cooperation on bringing the Afghan Taliban to heel. India in turn is unlikely to give much ground on Afghanistan unless it believes it will win concessions elsewhere, either from Pakistan itself or from the United States.

But the battle over Afghanistan, for all its complexities, is the easiest of the issues for the two countries to resolve. In theory, both have a mutual interest in a stable and neutral Afghanistan which neither threatens Pakistan nor is used as a haven for militant groups targeting India.  On paper, both countries have an opportunity to narrow their differences. And while the huge trust deficit between the two usually makes any progress on any subject extremely difficult, their row over Afghanistan is pragmatic rather then existential.

Where it becomes much more emotional between India and Pakistan is the dispute over Kashmir, which goes to the heart of both countries’ identities.  As an Islamic country, Pakistan has always considered Muslim Kashmir should have naturally been part of its territory after partition in 1947; as a secular country, India will not tolerate any territorial changes based on religion. And while India and Pakistan made progress in resolving their dispute over Kashmir in 2007,  you can find plenty of people who are cynical about whether a deal worked out between Indian Prime Minister Singh and former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf would ever have worked.  And significantly, the civilian government which took over from musharraf has virtually disowned it.

Adding fuel to the fire is a row over the role of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which according to those I spoke to in Pakistan, is unlikely to be disarmed any time soon. Officials say Pakistan cannot risk taking on the Punjab-based militant group while its army is fighting the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas. Those who do not speak for the government or the security services give both that reason and another – why should Pakistan disarm a group which is fighting for what many Pakistan see as the liberation of Kashmir?

Last, but not least, is a dispute over dwindling, and erratic, water supplies as the Himalayan glaciers which feed rivers in both countries melt, and growing populations in both countries use up more and more water for irrigation.  This is perhaps the most troubling row since it is the one that both countries have least control over. Yet both will be more inclined to blame the other rather than the force of nature or global warming. (For a reality check, do get hold of a copy of this report published in 2005, which predicted that water would become an issue in 2010.)

Compared to the power of the Himalayan and Karakoram rivers; or indeed to the bitter identity-driven debate over Kashmir, the battle for influence between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan looks comparatively simple. If the Thimphu thaw between India and Pakistan leads anywhere, I’d probably expect to see it in Afghanistan first.

This is the truth of how Osama Bin Laden was killed

This is the truth of how Osama Bin Laden was killed. The secret Illuminati connection.

Osama Bin Laden's Compound. If these walls could talk!

Reference to the earlier attempt on the life of Osama Bin Laden.

On May 2nd 2011 in the Pakistani city of Abbott Abad Osama Bin Laden died. The story that was officially released by The Obama Administration is that he was shot dead in a mission conducted by American navy seals, and that, after facial recognition techniques were used to establish his identity, the body of Osama Bin Laden was given a burial at sea, in accordance with American understanding of Islamic rites.

Of course, already there are those who are saying that this is a big hoax. Some people believe that Osama Bin Laden has been dead for many years. The range and the longevity of the conspiracies that will arise covering the events of May 2nd 2011, can only be stopped one way. That way is for The American Government to be as absolutely truthful as it is possible to be, (something unlikely); and for them to release the photographs that were taken of the dead Bin Laden.

This latter is something that will never happen, and not for the reasons given out by Barack Obama.

If you want to find out the real reason why the photos must be kept hidden, and the truth of what really happened in Abbott Abad that night read on.

The truth is definitely stranger than fiction in the story of the death of Osama Bin Laden.

To establish the reality of what happened that night, I have first to remind you that I am The President of The Ancient Society of Secret Historians, and that my knowledge of the secrets of the statesmen/women knows no bounds.

I then need to draw your attention to a Hub I published in August of last year, in which I stated that Bin Laden was living in a town in Pakistan; and my account then of the assassination attempt that was made on him in 2002.

Because of certain failings in intelligence, this operation was aborted. But it was decided to try again in 2011.

The leader of the mission to eliminate Bin Laden this year, was the same intrepid hero who was involved in 2002. I speak, of course, of The Cheshire Cat.

The Cheshire Cat has given great service to The United States over a period of many years. He is a shape shifting alien, who was originally captured in the bedroom of the late Director of The FBI, J Edgar Hoover. He is currently resident in a rather plush prison in Area 51 in Nevada. He has given his parole to the US government, and will not try to escape as long as his many kittens are looked after by the state.

As well as the earlier attempt on the life of Osama Bin Laden, he has given other services to America. He almost succeeded in killing Fidel Castro during the nineteen sixties, and he also succeeded in assassinating Lenin in the nineteen twenties.

He is also the maternal grandfather of the current President of The United States, Barack Obama.

The Cat who killed Osama Bin Ladin.

Hilary Clinton was the first to realize it had all gone horribly wrong.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden, and what went wrong.

Much of what you have been told about what happened the night Bin Laden met his end is not true. The fact that the government had to change the story is enough to raise suspicions. Something so unexpected did happen that all arrangements were thrown into chaos, and it is only due to some quick thinking on the part of The Cheshire Cat, that great embarrassment wasn’t caused to the Obama administration.

What you were told about a raid by navy seals is only partially correct. When they told you that Osama Bin Laden got shot dead, you were being lied to. He was actually killed by cyanide poisoning. It was administered by The Cheshire Cat.

There was a raid on the compound by the navy seals. They were not there, however, either to kill or capture Osama.

They were only there to clear the way for the entrance of The Cheshire Cat. They were further directed to search the compound for any useful intelligence. But that was only after the brave feline had done the dirty deed.

Everything went really smoothly at first. The crash landing of one of the helicopters was a slight hitch. The navy seals engaged in a diversionary gunfight with Bin Laden's courier, who lived in a small guesthouse close to the main house. The courier and his wife got killed.

This gave a chance for The Cheshire Cat to sneak upstairs in the main house to where Osama Bin Laden was watching.

Osama bin Laden watches himself on TV

Mr Bin Laden was addicted to watching "schoolgirl" movies. In fact it was this obsession that almost got him killed in 2002.

This time The Cheshire Cat had not shape shifted. He stayed in his feline form. The plan was for him to gain access to the room where Osama sat drooling at girls in gymslips, and then to jump on his neck, and scratch him with claws well laced with cyanide. Not dissimilar to how he dispatched Lenin, only this time death was to come almost instantaneously.

Of course the entire Obama cabinet was watching this enfold in real time through film relayed from a small camera affixed to the cat's forehead.

Of course, something had to go wrong. The problem arose after the killing. That part went really smoothly.

The escape from assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

First attempt to kill Bin Laden. Bin Laden now dead.

The location of Osama Bin Laden in 2002.

Osama Bin Laden. The plot to kill him revealed.

In the history of the twenty first century one name will be remembered, especially in the western world, as the personification of evil malevolence. That name is Osama Bin Laden. When we recall the blowing up of The World Trade Centre, or the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, that left thousands dead. When people speak of The Bali Bombings, the Madrid outrage, or remember the people that were murdered on the London Underground in 2007, one name is always on everyone's lips. That is the name of the man, who if he did not directly order all of those atrocities, at least inspired the perpetrators. The name Osama Bin Laden will forever be associated in peoples minds with these atrocities It is the name of a middle aged Saudi Arabian man who is presently supposed to be in hiding somewhere in the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is believed to be consumed with an absolute hatred of the west and it's values, and to use his considerable fortune to finance the proliferating Islamist terrorism that is at present afflicting the world. Billions of Dollars have been spent on futile attempts to capture him and bring him to justice. So far Osama Bin Laden has managed to remain free. There are some who maintain that he is dead, and that recent videos of him are hoaxes, created by elements within the American secret service. These videos are said to have been produced in order to provide justification for a continuance of the war in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden after he survived the attack

I have to say here that none of that is true. Osama Bin Laden is alive, and he is still somewhere in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is one secret that you are not being told about however, and that secret is that the world's arch terrorist did come within an a hair's breath of being killed in 2002. It is only due to one of those fluke occurrences that happen when "intelligence" is not quite as good as it should be that he managed to escape. I should now like to reveal the exact story of what happened when we almost managed to rid the world of this menace. It is a story of great bravery and daring, that unfortunately was spoiled by a combination of the secret predilections of the a fore mentioned Osama, and a serious failure on the part of United States Intelligence that did not have access to all the salient facts. Our story does have a hero, and that hero is none other than The Cheshire Cat who has made many contributions, both great and small to the history of The United States since the second world war.

For those of you unacquainted with this remarkable feline I will digress for a few lines. The Cheshire Cat is a shape shifting alien that has been incarcerated in Area 51 since the nineteen fifties. He is also the maternal grandfather of President Barack Obama, and he once went on a secret mission to Cuba to assassinate Fidel Castro; he also managed to rid the world of Lenin. More details about the life of this courageous cat can be found by consulting.

The decision to assassinate Osama Bin Laden.

We all know how in the wake of the 9/11 bombings President George W Bush in concert with his allies invaded Afghanistan in order to oust The Taliban Regime, who had been harboring Bin Laden. It was also the intention to kill or capture him if at all possible. The war went quite well in that The Taliban government was defeated, but no amount of searching produced Osama himself. It was assumed that he must have escaped the invasion forces, and the best intelligence indicated that he was holed up somewhere in the border area either in Afghanistan or Pakistan. In July 2002 reliable intelligence was received that Osama Bin Laden was living in a town some one hundred kilometers from the border, but in Pakistan not Afghanistan. The decision was taken at the highest level that he should be eliminated as soon as possible. But because Pakistan was an ally of The United States, it was considered out of the question to invade, and because he was hiding in a rather populous town, it was decided that it would be too risky to bomb him because of civilian casualties.

But President Bush knew of another alternative way of doing the deed. He knew the secret of the prisoner of Area 51.He also was aware of how The Cheshire Cat had killed Lenin, and also almost got Castro. He knew that if Osama Bin Laden was to be done away with, the intrepid pussy was the ideal agent to use. The only problem was that he did not want his prisoner to go free, as the American government still wanted the secret of shape-shifting which so far the cat had refused to divulge. But there was one way to exert pressure on The Cheshire Cat To return to Area 51.

 

The assassin in Pakistan.

It had been decided during the presidency of Bill Clinton, who appreciated the benefits of an active sex life, to allow occasional visits to the prisoner of female cats from around Area 51. I think that President Clinton also believed that this might soften up The Cheshire Cat, and make him more inclined to talk to the team of interrogators that were always on hand in case he decided to reveal the secrets of his powers. Anyway by the time of the Bush first term there were about seven kittens growing up in Area 51 that could claim paternity from the shape-shifting alien. (None of them had special powers however). The President telephoned the cat. He told him that if he helped in the matter of Osama Bin Laden his conditions of captivity would be considerably lightened. It was further intimated to him that if he failed to return to his prison afterwards he would never see his kittens again. The Cheshire Cat refused to consider this proposition, but when the threat to his offspring was withdrawn, and replaced with a promise that they would be re-homed to some of the best families in America he agreed to undertake the mission.

Infiltrating the home of Osama Bin Laden.

Accordingly The Cheshire Cat was dropped by parachute near the outskirts of the town where the world's most wanted man was living. He made his way to the street where the house of Bin Laden was. He was still in his feline form. The plan was quite simple really. American intelligence had found out that the supposed very strict islamic fundamentalist Osama Bin Laden had a secret weakness. He fantasised over girls in fishnet stockings and saucy schoolgirl outfits. Pictures had been taken, by very high definition satelite cameras, of him relaxing from planning the slaughter of millions by pouring over stills from The St Trinians Movies. What the assassin intended to do was to wait outside the house until all had went to bed. Then he would shapeshift into a fifteen year old "Slutty" schoolgirl and materialise in Osama's bedroom. He had a special capsule of cyanide hidden in his mouth. The coating on this capsule was resistant to feline dna, so could do the cat/slutty schoogirl no harm, but it was designed to dissolve instantly on contact with human saliva.The idea was that he/she should french kiss the terrorist, thus transfering the poison to his mouth. In this way the world would be rid of one of mankind's greatest enemies.

Around midnight all the lights went off in the house. The Cheshire Cat immediately transformed. He had been briefed previously as to the location of Osama Bin Laden's bedroom. In less than a second he was in. There was a large double bed in the room, and in the bed was the sleeping form of his intended victim. There was the sound of gentle snoring. The Cheshire Cat/slutty schoolgirl gave a kind of girly giggle. Osama opened his eyes in a rather sleepy fashion. Then he closed them again and opened them for the second time, with a surprised look on his face. He rubbed them, and then a lascivious grin started to spread itself across his visage as the object of his every waking fantasy started to climb into his bed.

How this assassination attempt on Osama Bin Laden went wrong.

This is where it all started to go wrong. I did say earlier that a failure of intelligence spoiled the mission. This is what that was. The American secret service are very good when it comes to taking and studying satellite images. That after all is how they were able to spot Osama Bin Laden drooling over schoolgirl pieces on mountain tops in the North West Frontier. But they were deficient in one thing. Because they relied too much on technology for their information they were often unaware of the exact domestic details of the people they choose to spy on. They did not have the agents on the ground that could give them the more intimate info that can sometimes make or break a mission. That was what spoiled things now. The one thing about Osama that was completely unknown to the outside world was that he always wore silk pyjamas in bed. Sometimes they were blue ones. Sometimes they were green ones, and sometimes if he was in a frivolous mood he wore pyjamas with Disney characters embroidered on them. But they were always silk. Silk, as those of you who have read the other accounts of The Cheshire Cat's life will know, is the only material that can neutralize his powers. Therefore immediately that the slutty schoolgirl/ Cheshire Cat touched against the silk pyjamas he resumed his original form. When Osama Bin Laden found himself in bed with a large grinning cat he kicked out and immediately started screaming and shouting at the top of his voice.

Within seconds the room was filled with gun toting guards. There was now no prospect of administering the poison. With his shape-shifting powers disabled from contact with the terrorist mastermind's pyjamas The Cheshire Cat was in a perilous position. He was saved because there was an open window. While the guards tried to figure what exactly their wildly gesticulating leader was going on about the clever cat dived out the window. After a further series of adventures, which I am not going to relate here he arrived back in Nevada and resumed his stay in Area 51, in accordance with the parole that he had given to President Bush.

 

George W Bush authorized the assassination.

No further assassination attempts have been made on Osama Bin Laden, as far as I know.There will be those amongst you who will be inclined to disbelieve my account of what happened in 2002, but I can show you some proof. Look at the pictures that I have published with this hub. You will see a radical change of appearance in the pictures of Mr Bin Laden. Many theories have been put forward for the differences in these photographs. Some say that he is dead and some of the pictures are of actors. Conspiracy fanatics will believe any old rubbish. But as The President of the Ancient Society of Secret Historians, and the keeper of all the things that are hidden, I can reveal the truth to you. They are "Before" and "after" pictures. Osama Bin Laden changed purely due to the shock that he got that night in 2002 when he had a close encounter with The Cheshire Cat. 

The announcement being made.

The spokesman for The Cheshire Cat announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden successfully assassinated.

2nd May 2011.

Today it was announced that American special forces conducted an operation in Pakistan that resulted in the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

I can confirm here that the planning this operation was based on information received from The Cheshire Cat, and that the remarkable feline was involved at every stage of the successful enterprise. This has been not only a great victory in the battle against international terrorism, but it has also been a family triumph, as Barack Obama is, of course, the grandson of The Cheshire Cat.

Let us all hope that the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, will finally be the service that will earn freedom from Area 51 for The Cheshire Cat.

For the complete truth on how Osama Bin Laden met his end read next page.

( This is the truth of how Osama Bin Laden was killed )