Pak Army lacks resolve to fight Taliban

[jeypore]

Even though Pakistan has initiated a military offensive against the Taliban under immense international pressure, and the Army has claimed sanitizing scores of militants, Pakistan's military is divided in its resolve to root out the extremists from country's soil, a leading US daily said.

A report in the New York Times said that amid the chaos in Pakistan, the United States, which has expressed concerns about the 'existential threat' and has vowed to provide huge financial aid to thwart it, still remains unpopular in Pakistan.

Furthermore, the report said that despite the increasing Taliban threat some religious parties still sympathize with the outlawed outfit.

The now 'tattered' Swat peace deal was popular among the people of the region because they hoped that the accord will bring peace to the restive Valley which had been facing a war like situation for the last two years.

Large numbers of people, who are now forced to flee from regions like Buner and Swat, have criticized the military operation as it has left them homeless.

Now that the peace deal has been broken, it is also evident that TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad does not have any control over the militia.

The extent of unwillingness of some of the military officials to fight against the Taliban can be gauged from the statements of a Supreme Court lawyer Anees Jillani.

Jillani recently visited Swat and found out that there were many Army officials who were hesitant to fight against the extremists.

"When you ask them why you are not defeating them, they ask: 'Why should we?' And you ask about Sufi Muhammad, they say: 'What's wrong with him?" the newspaper quoted Jillani, as saying.

Some political parties are also against the offensive, and have blamed the government of breaking the deal.

General secretary of the Jamiat-u-Ulama-i-Islam-S, Yousuf Shah said the government failed to keep its part of the Swat deal that is why the TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad failed to convince the Taliban fighters.

"For 20 years these people have been struggling peacefully for Shariah, but it was no use. It is a natural thing when democratic avenues are not working to take up arms," Shah said.


Pak Army lacks resolve to fight Taliban | India.com

 

[white_pawn]

PA soldiers are well trained to get rid of Taliban, but there are some higher level officers from GOP and PA who are sympathic view towards Taliban due to which PA is not fighting against taliban at its full potantial, or else this war would been ended long back. We didnt have to wait for 8 + year for the result.

 

[Sprint]

Even though Pakistan has initiated a military offensive against the Taliban under immense international pressure, and the Army has claimed sanitizing scores of militants, Pakistan's military is divided in its resolve to root out the extremists from country's soil, a leading US daily said.

A report in the New York Times said that amid the chaos in Pakistan, the United States, which has expressed concerns about the 'existential threat' and has vowed to provide huge financial aid to thwart it, still remains unpopular in Pakistan.

Furthermore, the report said that despite the increasing Taliban threat some religious parties still sympathize with the outlawed outfit.

The now 'tattered' Swat peace deal was popular among the people of the region because they hoped that the accord will bring peace to the restive Valley which had been facing a war like situation for the last two years.

Large numbers of people, who are now forced to flee from regions like Buner and Swat, have criticized the military operation as it has left them homeless.

Now that the peace deal has been broken, it is also evident that TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad does not have any control over the militia.

The extent of unwillingness of some of the military officials to fight against the Taliban can be gauged from the statements of a Supreme Court lawyer Anees Jillani.

Jillani recently visited Swat and found out that there were many Army officials who were hesitant to fight against the extremists.

"When you ask them why you are not defeating them, they ask: 'Why should we?' And you ask about Sufi Muhammad, they say: 'What's wrong with him?" the newspaper quoted Jillani, as saying.

Some political parties are also against the offensive, and have blamed the government of breaking the deal.

General secretary of the Jamiat-u-Ulama-i-Islam-S, Yousuf Shah said the government failed to keep its part of the Swat deal that is why the TNSM chief Sufi Muhammad failed to convince the Taliban fighters.

"For 20 years these people have been struggling peacefully for Shariah, but it was no use. It is a natural thing when democratic avenues are not working to take up arms," Shah said.


Pak Army lacks resolve to fight Taliban | India.com

From an Indian perspective we can do nothing if pak army has any resolve in crushing taliban or getting in bed with them. India possibly cannot do anything except raising the issue at various fourms unless these elements knocks our door. So India should do something more proactive to ensure swift and leathel action against when they reach our border.

I am least moved by idea of RAW/ISI or any other intelligence agency petronising them. In my opinion this is absolutely fair play. Intelligence agencies are meant to do so so why cry.
However, do we have any national policy to handle this problem once talibans reach our border. Otherwise, at that time, adding to our woo, our internal problems would also start rising and soon we would be dealing with the same kind of condition what pakistan is facing now. So India need to start addressing internal problems at a war footing. Then we would have one problem to handle (the easier one) when we are faced with taliban, because unlike pakistan where pashtun armymen have relatives in taliban (blood is thicker than water), India has no such issue and Indian army would be less hesitant in taking them out.

 

[TOPGUN]

It doesnt lack anything Pak army's might is great one of the most powerful & biggest armies in the world ! the only thing it lacks is orders from up top to finish these coward terrorist bastards i hope things are clear now!

 

[fhassan]

salaam o alaikum

I think you need to consider that ultimately - the Army is being asked to wage war on it's OWN soil (for whatever reason that may be), and they risk killing their own civilian population.

No soldier will want to go in all guns blazing and with an erection, like Israeli soldiers in Gaza.

 

[Solomon2]

Although the Pakistani Army is said to be on the offensive, the Taliban report no fatalities of their own and continue to advance. Neither photographs nor non-military eyewitness accounts indicate any army success at engaging the Taliban, just the creation of thousands of civilian refugees.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

the Taliban report no fatalities of their own and continue to advance.

Did you know that Taliban claim far fewer fatalities than the US claims to have inflicted on them in Afghanistan as well?

Plus, they also claim far greater US and ISAF casualties than US or ISAF officials admit. Under your logic the US and ISAF would be lying and putting on a show.

On the issue of images, the area is closed to journalists, who do you expect to provide images?

Please stop dissembling and pushing a terrorist agenda by giving greater credence to Taliban statements over official GoP/PA statements.

If you do wish to give the Taliban greater credence, then do the same in Afghanistan as well.

 

[Solomon2]

Did you know that Taliban claim far fewer fatalities than the US claims to have inflicted on them in Afghanistan as well?

Of course. But unlike Pakistan, no one suspects that the U.S. is dithering and secretly wants the Taliban to take over, yes?

On the issue of images, the area is closed to journalists, who do you expect to provide images?

Exactly! All the more reason for improved coverage, even if the PA has to do it themselves.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Of course. But unlike Pakistan, no one suspects that the U.S. is dithering and secretly wants the Taliban to take over, yes?

The US is also not fighting a war against her own citizens, dealing with potentially volatile ethnic tensions, a far weaker economy and a newly elected and struggling civilian government.

So the comparison is inapt and the conclusion flawed - after all, the litany of perfidious US actions in the world (a list of which I already gave you elsewhere) hardly put faith in US intentions and credibility.

Finally, whatever the credibility of the US and Pakistan, and the different situations they face and the resulting different response, the Taliban are essentially the same are they not?

So why should you believe the Taliban in one instance (Pakistan) and not the other (Afghanistan)?

Exactly! All the more reason for improved coverage, even if the PA has to do it themselves.

I think the PA's objectives revolve around a successful military operation and not on providing real time images. You may disagree , but all Army's and governments operate differently.

The lack of images does not automatically mean that no operation is going on - that line of logic is utterly absurd.

 

[Solomon2]

Whose comparison is flawed? Yours? Mine? Both? Maybe we should just drop it.

That leaves the credibility issue. Whatever the American flaws, why should they serve as an excuse for the PA's failures, rather than lessons about what to avoid? Americans have been lied to by Pakistani officials so often, and perhaps the greatest shock was learning that some "no strings attached" funds from the U.S. were used by Pakistan to support the Taliban. It will probably take pictures of dead Talibs and a series of real victories against the Taliban to convince Americans - and the thousands of Pakistani refugees - otherwise. It shouldn't be up to foreigners to chart the front lines between the Taliban and Pakistani forces every day; Pakistanis should be doing it themselves.

 

[TOPGUN]

These failures are US 's my friend cuz of the US we are in this damn mess while you sit back in your lazy chair and critize Pak on this and don't even you dare say things as such cuz its not your countires men on the damn line in this story u made the mess and now we have to clean it up look wat it has turned into cuz your country was once again playing the int'l police man ! you seem to know it all about the WOT perhaps u should start giving us secert intel so we can follow that just leaving lines here is not gona do it and putting our countries army and people down wont be tolrated at all cost so wats it gona be ??

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Whose comparison is flawed? Yours? Mine? Both? Maybe we should just drop it.

If you give the Taliban credibility in one location and refuse to do so in another then I would say your comparison is flawed.

If the Taliban statements are accurate in Swat, then they are also accurate as they relate to US/ISAF actions in Afghanistan.

Be consistent.

That leaves the credibility issue. Whatever the American flaws, why should they serve as an excuse for the PA's failures, rather than lessons about what to avoid? Americans have been lied to by Pakistani officials so often, and perhaps the greatest shock was learning that some "no strings attached" funds from the U.S. were used by Pakistan to support the Taliban.

There is no evidence that funds from the US were deliberately used to aid the Taliban.

We do know, from a US Army officer himself, that US funds disbursed by the US are routinely funneled to the Taliban in Afghanistan, and possibly elsewhere.

In one case, a young LT paid 20K for a mud hut that was supposed to function as a shower for the ANA. The contract was for far too much for the work initially. The contractor put up some rock walls and some plumbing and then left with the money. Intelligence later confirmed that the money was given to HiG forces that the contractor was working with.
http://www.defence.pk/forums/war-terror/26079-behind-closed-doors-coin-chatter-afghanistan.html

So, are US forces in collusion with the Taliban? Are the 'paying off' Hekmetyar and other Taliban commanders? Possibly even Mullah Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud?

It will probably take pictures of dead Talibs and a series of real victories against the Taliban to convince Americans - and the thousands of Pakistani refugees - otherwise. It shouldn't be up to foreigners to chart the front lines between the Taliban and Pakistani forces every day; Pakistanis should be doing it themselves.

Sorry, but I see no reason to convince you beyond what our Military and Government has to say. If you wish to believe the Taliban over the GoP, then do the same in Afghanistan.

Your side after all has offered absolutely no evidence to back up any of the allegations made from your end about PA/ISI complicity, and you have a long history of perfidy and deception around the globe.

 

[Solomon2]

its not your contires men on the damn line in this story u made the mess...cuz your contry was once again playing the int'l police man !

How can it be both?

perhaps u should start giving us secert intel

I have none to give, though I think the U.S. tried that for years only to discover that information given to the Pakistani military was forwarded - very quickly - to the Taliban.

 

[linkinpark]

Change We Can’t Believe In

Pakistan's military has lost every conventional war. It's far better at guerrilla wars.

Fareed Zakaria
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 18, 2009

Finally, we are told, the Pakistani military has gotten serious about the threat that militants pose to its country. The Army is now fighting back for real, sending troops to dislodge the jihadists who had spread out of the Swat Valley. We hear this from Pakistani commanders, of course, but also from civilian leaders as well as from U.S. officials, including the secretary of defense, Robert Gates. In an interview with me for CNN, Gates said, "I think the movement of the Taliban so close to Islamabad was a real wake-up call for them."

Maybe. It was only a few years ago that Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani diplomat who recently became ambassador to Washington, wrote a brilliant book arguing that the Pakistani government—despite public and private claims to the contrary—continued "to make a distinction between 'terrorists' … and 'freedom fighters' (the officially preferred label … for Kashmiri militants)." He added: "The Musharraf government also remains tolerant of remnants of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, hoping to use them in resuscitating Pakistan's influence in Afghanistan." The Pakistani military's world view—that it is surrounded by dangers and needs to be active in destabilizing its neighbors— remains central to Pakistan's basic strategy.

While President Musharraf broke with the overt and large-scale support that the military provides to the militant groups, and there have continued to be some moves against some jihadists, there is no evidence of a campaign to rid Pakistan of these groups. The leaders of the Afghan Taliban, headed up by Mullah Mohammed Omar, still work actively out of Quetta. The Army has never launched serious campaigns against the main Taliban-allied groups led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar or Jalaluddin Haqqani, both of whose networks are active in Pakistan. The group responsible for the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba, has evaded any punishment, morphing in name and form but still operating in plain sight in Lahore. Even now, after allowing the Taliban to get within 60 miles of the capital, the Pakistani military has deployed only a few thousand troops to confront them, leaving the bulk of its million-man Army in the east, presumably in case India suddenly invades. And when the Army does attack the Taliban, as it did a couple of years ago in the same Swat Valley, it bombs, declares victory and withdraws—and the jihadists return.

The rise of Islamic militants in Pakistan is not, Ambassador Haqqani writes, "the inadvertent outcome of some governments." It is "rooted in history and [is] a consistent policy of the Pakistani state." The author describes how, from its early years, the Pakistani military developed "a strategic commitment to jihadi ideology." It used Islam to mobilize the country and Army in every conflict with India. A textbook case was the 1965 war, when Pakistan's state-controlled media "generated a frenzy of jihad," complete with stories of heroic suicide missions, martyrdom and divine help.

Pakistan was created as an Islamic state, with a population that shared little geographically, ethnically and linguistically. The country's rulers have maintained power using religion as an ideology. And then the region's geopolitics—the tensions with India and the battle against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan—helped create deep links between the Pakistani military and Islamic militant groups. The Pakistani military has lost the wars it has fought via traditional means. But running guerrilla operations—against the Soviets, the Indians and the Afghans—has proved an extremely cost-effective way to keep its neighbors off balance.

Has this all changed? The ambassador's book, "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military," marshals strong evidence that, at least until recently, the Pakistani military made the pretense of arresting militants in order to get funds from Washington. But it never shut down the networks. "From the point of view of Pakistan's Islamists and their backers in the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence]," Haqqani writes, "jihad is on hold but not yet over. Pakistan still has an unfinished agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmir."

The book concludes by telling how Pakistan's military has used the threat from these militant groups to maintain power, delegitimize the civilian government and—most crucial of all—keep aid flowing from the United States. And the book's author has now joined in this great game. Last week Ambassador Haqqani wrote an op-ed claiming that Pakistan was fighting these militant groups vigorously. The only problem, he explained, was that Washington was reluctant to provide the weapons, training and funds Pakistan needs. He has become a character out of the pages of his own book.

In truth, Haqqani is a smart and honorable man with an impossible job. In its first months, Pakistan's democratic government has been overruled by the generals every time it has asserted its authority. If Washington hopes to change Pakistan's world view, it will have to take a much tougher line with the military while supporting the country's civilian leaders, whose vision of Pakistan's national interests is broader and less paranoid, and envisions more cooperation with its neighbors. The $15 billion Biden-Lugar bill, designed to help develop Pakistan's civil society, is a big step in that direction.

Perhaps, as Haqqani's op-ed implies, the strategy of the past six decades has suddenly changed. But I recall what Warren Buffett once called the four most dangerous words in investing: "This time it's different."

URL: Zakaria: Has Pakistan's Army Changed Its Stripes? | Newsweek Voices - Fareed Zakaria | Newsweek.com

 

[linkinpark]

The ambassador's book, "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military," marshals strong evidence that, at least until recently, the Pakistani military made the pretense of arresting militants in order to get funds from Washington. But it never shut down the networks. "From the point of view of Pakistan's Islamists and their backers in the ISI [Pakistan's military intelligence]," Haqqani writes, "jihad is on hold but not yet over. Pakistan still has an unfinished agenda in Afghanistan and Kashmir."

Look, who is making allegations against the PA, none other than Pakistan's US ambassador, Hussain Haqqani.