Pakistan-America bilateral relationship worsening.

[Dhruv V Singh]

Kayani lays stress on national interest at Nato meeting | Newspaper | DAWN.COM

ISLAMABAD: Stalemate between Pakistan and the United States over sanctuaries of the Haqqani network in tribal areas, which is threatening to stall normalisation of frayed bilateral relations, appears to be worsening.

Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani virtually ruled out on Friday an imminent full-scale action against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan.

“He reiterated the resolve and commitment of Pakistan in the struggle against terrorism while underlining Pakistan’s sovereign right to formulate policy in accordance with its national interests and the wishes of the Pakistani people,” an ISPR statement said of Gen Kayani’s speech at a meeting of Nato chiefs of defence in Seville, Spain.

Gen Kayani told a foreign news agency that he doubted Afghanistan would be ready for international troops to leave by 2014 as planned.


Although there was no allusion to the Haqqani network in the statement released by the ISPR to the media, the comments were understood to have been made in reference to the terror group which returned to the limelight after Tuesday’s 20-hour long assault near the US Embassy and Nato Headquarters in Kabul.

After the attack the US renewed pressure on Pakistan to act against Haqqani safe havens. The government and the military leadership have so far avoided an all-out military operation in North Waziristan, citing “capacity constraints”.

Gen Kayani was also expected to meet US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen on the sidelines of the conference to discuss fresh strains. However, there were contradictory claims about the meeting. An ISPR statement said the two commanders had met in Seville, but Mullen’s spokesman, till filing of this report, said the meeting “hasn’t happened …will happen soon”.

Admiral Mullen had in an interview with Dawn in April described the Haqqani network as “core irritant” in the troubled Pak-US relations.

While US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta had warned Pakistan of doing everything possible for ending threat posed by the network, the most potent insurgent group, Ambassador Cameron Munter upped the ante in an interview with Radio Pakistan, saying further attacks would not be tolerated. “We will not allow this to happen again,” he said, adding that proofs of involvement of the group in Tuesday’s attack in Kabul would be given to Pakistan.

“Obviously‚ we are going to defend ourselves. We have always said we will‚ and we always have because when our soldiers are attacked‚ when our diplomats are attacked we are not going to let that happen. The way we want to see that is through working with our Pakistani friends to deal with this group,” Mr Munter said. He said all peace-loving people of the region should unite to fight against the Haqqani network as it posed a threat not only to the US and its allies, but also to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Reuters adds: Gen Parvez Kayani said he doubted Afghanistan would be ready for a planned international troops’ pullout by 2014. “Frankly, I have my doubts,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Nato military committee conference in Seville. He said he thought an alternative deadline might be possible. “No date can be a final date.”

Gen Kayani said he thought relations between the United States and Pakistan were satisfactory. “Relations are good. They are improving.”

On Thursday, the Pakistan foreign ministry said a US warning on militants based in Pakistan, blamed by Washington for this week’s attack on the US Embassy in Kabul, worked against counter-terrorism cooperation between the two allies.

 

[aarizahmad]

Good post, I liked it

 

[TruthSeeker]

U.S. says Pakistan's ISI using group for "proxy war"

WASHINGTON | Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:58am EDT

(Reuters) - The United States has accused Pakistan's intelligence agency of using the Haqqani Network to wage a "proxy war," hardening its criticism of Islamabad's ties with Taliban-allied factions fighting NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that in a discussion with Pakistan's army chief that lasted about four hours, he had pressed Pakistan to break its links with the militant group.

"We covered ... the need for the Haqqani Network to disengage, specifically the need for the ISI to disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that they're fighting," he said in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Tuesday.

"The ISI has been doing this - working for - supporting proxies for an extended period of time. It is a strategy in the country and I think that strategic approach has to shift in the future."

Washington blames the Haqqani Network, one of the most feared Taliban-linked groups fighting in Afghanistan, for last week's attack on the U.S. embassy and other targets in Kabul.

It has in the past suggested that Pakistan's powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) maintains ties to the network to guarantee that it has a stake in any political settlement in Afghanistan when American troops withdraw.

Accusing the ISI of using the Haqqanis to wage a "proxy war" goes further, and risks fuelling tension between Islamabad and Washington, which have been running high since al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a surprise U.S. Navy SEALs raid in Pakistan in May.

The United States has repeatedly pressed Pakistan to go after the network, which it believes enjoys sanctuaries in Pakistan's mountainous North Waziristan region on the Afghan border.

The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had delivered an ultimatum to Islamabad in recent days, warning that if it did not cut ties with the Haqqani Network and help eliminate its leaders then "the United States will act unilaterally."

There has been no public statement suggesting that the United States could itself mount a full-scale offensive against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan, and the official line in background briefings is only that all options are on the table.

The mountainous terrain would make it extremely difficult to launch a military operation in North Waziristan.

While keeping the pressure on Pakistan over its links to insurgent groups, U.S. officials are also trying to shore up relations with a nuclear-armed country it considers a strategic ally in the fight against Islamist militancy.

"What I believe is the relationship with Pakistan is critical," Mullen said. "We walked away from them in the past and ... I think that cut-off has a lot do with where we are."

A senior U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday that, despite the strains over last week's attack in Kabul, there had been incremental improvements in the relationship in recent weeks.

"I don't have a sense right now that its falling off the cliff again," he said.

(Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. says Pakistan's ISI using group for proxy war | Reuters

---------- Post added at 01:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:06 PM ----------

Haqqanis are sons of the soil, no more in Pakistan: Rehman Malik

By Reuters, Published: September 21, 2011

WASHINGTON: Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Wednesday that the Haqqanis were the product of the Afghan war with the Soviet Union, and we were partners and they are sons of the soil.

Malik was speaking to reporters after a meeting with US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller in Islamabad on Wednesday.

He added, “But I assured him (Mueller) they are not on the Pakistani side, but if there is any intelligence which is provided by the US, we will definitely take action.”

The meeting took place in Islamabad where relations between Pakistan and the United Stated and issues of regional importance were discussed.

Speaking to the media after the meeting, Rehman Malik said both sides had agreed on sharing information on the Haqqani network.

Robert Muller said the war against terrorism was also discussed in the meeting.

Earlier amidst growing pressure on Pakistan to act against the Haqqani Network, Pakistan ISI chief General Ahmed Shuja Pasha visited Washington DC quietly on Tuesday for a one day visit to meet with his CIA counterpart General David Petraeus.

The Washington Post had reported that the Haqqani Network was the focus of their discussions.

Prior to this, on Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had met with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar in New York, where the first and last thing discussed was the Haqqani Network.

On Friday, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen had met COAS General Kayani in Seville, Spain for four hours, where he also reiterated his desire for Pakistan to take action against the group.

Haqqanis are sons of the soil, no more in Pakistan: Rehman Malik – The Express Tribune

 

[lem34]

Do americans not understand english. Pakistanis will do what whatever it has to do to protect pakistani interest. In any event they are just looking for scapegoats and pakistan is a convenient one for them

 

[TruthSeeker]

US Agrees to Limit Troops in Pakistan


Posted Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 12:20 pm

The United States has agreed to limit the number of military personnel stationed in Pakistan.

Pakistan called for the reduction after U.S. special forces killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2. The raid further strained ties between the United States and Pakistan.

This week, U.S. officials, who did not want to be named, told news agencies that a new agreement between the two countries cuts the number of U.S. troops allowed in Pakistan by half, to between 100 and 150.

The number of elite special operations trainers will also be drastically reduced — from around 140 to as few as a dozen.

Immediately after the U.S. raid on bin Laden's compound, Pakistan called for the U.S. to withdraw personnel who were helping train Pakistan's military in counterinsurgency.

In June, Pakistani security officials said that about 90 of the approximately 130 U.S. trainers had been sent home.

US Agrees to Limit Troops in Pakistan « VOA Breaking News

 

[muse]

America’s SPECTRE syndrome in Afghanistan
By Ejaz Haider
Published: September 20, 2011

Ernst Stavro Sirajuddin Blofeld Haqqani is now running SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion), renamed in Afghanistan as the Haqqani Network.

All the troubles of the US and its allies stem from this reincarnation of SPECTRE. The only entity that can take care of this shadowy organisation is Pakistan. The capacity of this organisation to trouble America is exclusively owed to its ability to retire to North Waziristan after striking inside Afghanistan, sometime as deep as in Kabul. Its members seem to be able to fly in and out of Afghanistan, undetected, despite the presence there of US, Nato and Isaf troops.

It’s the only entity that is hampering the US from neatening up Afghanistan. Get rid of the Network and Afghanistan will be fine — the government will work, the Taliban will vanish, corruption will end, pluralism will flourish, democracy will take root, Afghan society will enter the 21st century, America will be safe and everyone will live happily ever after.

Am I being reductive? Please read the long report by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point which argues that the most “underappreciated dimension” of the Haqqani network is its “global character” and the “central role it has played in the evolution of al-Qa’ida and the global jihadi movement”. Read also the report about the meeting between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar ,where the “first and last thing” on the agenda was the Haqqani Network and the September 13 Kabul attack.

The fact is that the Afghanistan problem is not just about the Haqqani Network. Afghanistan has multiple problems, most of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the Haqqanis. Even if the Haqqani Network were entirely taken out, Afghanistan would remain largely the same. In fact, if the only stumbling block between an Afghanistan gone bad and an idyllic Afghanistan were the Network, Afghanistan would have been a piece of cake, not the wicked problem it has become.

Secondly, if the insurgency in Afghanistan was only run by the Haqqanis, JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) would not be conducting thousands of night operations for the last year-and-half across all of Afghanistan, operations that are terribly unpopular.

Thirdly, if use of force was the only answer to Afghanistan’s problems, the US would have, by now, brought it under control. But the use of force, by itself, is clearly not enough. As Mr Abdullah Abdullah told me in April in Washington, what is missing is the ability of the Afghan government to reach out to its people. It is common knowledge that the Afghan governors cannot even survive in their respective vilayats without striking some kind of deal with the Taliban commanders in the area.

Fourthly, the three spectacular attacks in recent weeks, beginning with the downing of a Chinook carrying a SEAL team, the suicide attack that injured 70 US troops, both in Maydan Wardag, and now the September 13 Kabul attack clearly show that the line of communication of the insurgents cannot stretch back to North Waziristan. All these attacks have happened deep inside the Afghan territory and indicate the steady loss of control of territory by the Afghan government and the foreign troops.

If, for the sake of the argument it is conceded that the Taliban line of communication does extend back to North Waziristan, then the ability of the fighters to go deep in and mount attacks makes an utter mockery of the military and intelligence capabilities of the US and its allies despite the tremendous resources at their disposal.

Fifthly, as should be clear from Sirajuddin Haqqani’s interview to Reuters, his fighters are not based in North Waziristan. It makes eminent sense for him to have relocated to the Loya Paktia given the heightened frequency of the drone attacks in North Waziristan and the fact that the Network controls the three provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika. They are also unlikely to be based either in Dande Darpa Khel in North Waziristan or Zambar in Khost, both locations known to intelligence agencies.

Finally, Siraj’s interview dispels the propaganda that the Haqqani Network is Al Qaeda. Instead, Siraj told Reuters that “we would support whatever solution our shura members suggest for the future of Afghanistan”, a clear reference to the Afghan Taliban leadership. Siraj also said that they rejected previous attempts at talks by the US and the Afghan government because those overtures were aimed at “creating divisions” among the Taliban. It is therefore misleading to suggest that the Haqqanis operate outside the overall strategic objectives of the Taliban.

Siraj’s interview and signalling is in line with Mullah Omar’s Eidul Fitr message, which dealt with three basic points: the Afghanistan-specific focus of the Taliban; their readiness to negotiate meaningfully, and a warning to the neighbours to desist from interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs. Another important motif running through that message was Taliban’s an inclusive approach to governance. In that, this year’s Eid message is very different from the one Mullah Omar delivered last year which rejected negotiations and called for the trial of President Hamid Karzai and his political coterie.

A few quick points need to be made. The US has come round to talking to the Taliban despite some opposition to this dialogue both in Washington and Kabul. Most leading Afghan experts around the world think this is the only way forward, especially — and this is crucial — if the Taliban accept that they cannot rule Afghanistan to the exclusion of other entities. There are clear indications, and Maulana Fazlur Rehman confirmed it to some of us at a recent SAFMA (South Asian Free Media Association) meeting in Lahore, that they understand and appreciate this. Given this, and given rising opposition by the Afghans, including officials, to the use of force by the US in Afghanistan, Washington should fast track this dialogue instead of asking Pakistan to open another front for itself by going into North Waziristan. The dialogue is where Pakistan needs to play a positive role because that is where its interests must converge with that of the US.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman also backed my argument that any policy needs to make a clear distinction between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP and its affiliates. The time to go into North Waziristan would be after the US-Taliban talks have reached an advanced level. That would help Pakistan greatly in dealing a blow to the TTP network.

For all the right reasons the US and Pakistan need to cooperate rather than getting into a game of brinkmanship.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21st, 2011.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Do americans not understand english. Pakistanis will do what whatever it has to do to protect pakistani interest. In any event they are just looking for scapegoats and pakistan is a convenient one for them

Do Pakistanis not understand English? America will do what whatever it has to do to protect American interest. In any event they are just looking for scapegoats and America is a convenient one for them.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Stable Pakistan in America's interest

Empowering military and intelligence services at the expense of civil society and governance is counterproductive

Los Angeles Times
Published: 00:00 September 22, 2011
Gulf News

As the US begins to scale back its combat role in Afghanistan, it needs to confront the more important question of Pakistan's future. The US has been a major player there for 60 years — more intensely so since the 9/11 attacks.

If Pakistan is dangerously dysfunctional, Washington helped it get that way. Withdrawal from Afghanistan means that the US will be less dependent on Pakistani supply lines into that country, giving Washington a rare opportunity to dramatically revise US policies and practices in the strategically important nation.

Achieving the US's interests in Pakistan ultimately depends on one thing: the security of Pakistanis. And the key to Pakistanis' security is internal reform. If Pakistanis are more justly governed, more educated, more employed and therefore more able to define and pursue a constructive national identity and interest, they will expunge terrorists to secure themselves.

This will certainly not happen if the US continues to treat Pakistan as an instrument for fighting or spying on territory around Pakistan. For decades that posture has had the undeniable effect of empowering Pakistan's grossly oversized and hyperactive military and intelligence services at the expense of the country's civil society and progress towards effective governance. Washington's collusion with the Pakistani security establishment has amounted to enablement — the indulgence and augmentation of a friend's self-destructive outlook and actions. Strategic change in Pakistan will come only when people who do not share the military's psychology and parochial institutional interests acquire real power.

Policy changes

The following four US policy changes would help. First, Washington must give up the illusion that it can change the Pakistani military's mindset and stop offering it money to do so. Pakistanis, especially in the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, see Afghanistan as America's war. And the ISI is obsessed with preventing America's new favourite friend, India, from gaining inroads there.

Neither money nor the threat of its withdrawal will motivate the Pakistani security establishment to fight Pashtuns and other warriors who threaten Afghanistan, India and the US. Rather than demand and offer to pay large sums for Pakistanis to fight people they do not think are their enemies, the US could concentrate support and funding on campaigns to counter extremist violence within Pakistan.

Washington could foster Pakistan's economic development, self-regard and confidence in American intentions by removing barriers to Pakistani textile and apparel exports to the US. Americans often profess that trade is better than aid. But to protect the tiny and unviable remaining textile and apparel sector in the US, Congress blocks efforts to lower tariffs on Pakistani imports of these goods.

By removing these protectionist tariffs, Washington would help spur Pakistan's economic growth without the psychological baggage of aid being perceived as charity.

The US also needs to correct the impression that Pakistani interests and lives mean less than the interests and lives of Indians. This demoralises and often enrages Pakistanis, undermines US credibility and makes it more difficult for progressive Pakistanis to campaign against violent extremist forces in their society. The US would be wiser to join with progressive Indians and Pakistanis in decorously speaking truth to power when India does not correct injustices that undermine regional stability.

Finally, Washington would serve American and Pakistani interests by acknowledging that well-intentioned civilian development and assistance programmes — Congress authorised $7.5 billion for these purposes in 2009 — are not working as intended.

There is enough money, but there are so many restrictions on it, and programme administrators are rotated in and out of Pakistan so frequently, that it makes the British empire look positively sensitive and innovative by comparison.

The US should stop — temporarily — making new project commitments in order to give itself time to work with multinational organisations and Pakistani civil society groups, business leaders and officials with grassroots knowledge to find a way to fund programmes that actually alleviate Pakistan's internal crises.

Pakistan's security establishment will remain an impediment to healing Pakistan's many internal injustices and conflicts. But if Washington makes its support of progressive Pakistanis clearer, there is a chance that Pakistanis can step forward and renew their own country.

George Perkovich is vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of a forthcoming Carnegie publication, Stop Enabling Pakistan's Dangerous Dysfunction.

gulfnews : Stable Pakistan in America's interest

 

[Kinetic]

U.S. says Pakistan's ISI using group for "proxy war"

WASHINGTON | Wed Sep 21, 2011 6:58am EDT

U.S. says Pakistan's ISI using group for proxy war | Reuters

The same words! US learned it but late. When Pakistan will understand that this policy is hurting itself more than its foes! Terrorism is like fire, cannot be played with it. Terror attacks and extremism are growing something more than 'good taliban' and 'bad taliban is needed.

 

[lem34]

Do Pakistanis not understand English? America will do what whatever it has to do to protect American interest. In any event they are just looking for scapegoats and America is a convenient one for them.

Well after 10 years stop wingeing about pakistan. Do what you can. I cant wait for sanctions on pakistan we survived in the 90s. Anyway americas going busty musty. Cant wait for reserve currency to go kaput. cant wait to see petrol at 100 us dollars. lol,

Long live china super power designate and welcome american demise lol

---------- Post added at 06:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:24 PM ----------

The same words! US learned it but late. When Pakistan will understand that this policy is hurting itself more than its foes! Terrorism is like fire, cannot be played with it. Terror attacks and extremism are growing something more than 'good taliban' and 'bad taliban is needed.

What policy? you go and look after your incredible india and mind your own biz. Why dosnt america deal with the root causes of terrorism and that is its unjust policies around the world?

 

[Kinetic]

What policy? you go and look after your incredible india and mind your own biz. Why dosnt america deal with the root causes of terrorism and that is its unjust policies around the world?

The policy mentioned in the heading by the US, 'using terror for proxy war'. Its resulting nothing. What is wrong with 'Incredible India'? We are doing fine. If it wouldn't have any affect on us, we wouldn't mind.


Unjust policies? What unjust policy? Whatever policy good for them they can take.

 

[muse]

Without a doubt, US has the capacity and capability to punish Pakistan, but I think US policy makers and interested observers should ponder whether the US has the capacity or capability to generate positive results - not just in Pakistan, but in a whole host of countries, primarily Muslim majority countries - See, it's not just that there is something wrong or rotten in Pakistan, but there is also something wrong and rotten in US policy that it can no longer effect the positive, but instead threaten and produce and ACCRUE, the negative - responsible people should NOT overlook this reality.

 

[VCheng]

Without a doubt, US has the capacity and capability to punish Pakistan, but I think US policy makers and interested observers should ponder whether the US has the capacity or capability to generate positive results - not just in Pakistan, but in a whole host of countries, primarily Muslim majority countries - See, it's not just that there is something wrong or rotten in Pakistan, but there is also something wrong and rotten in US policy that it can no longer effect the positive, but instead threaten and produce and ACCRUE, the negative - responsible people should NOT overlook this reality.

Well, the only problem is that "positive" and "negative" are defined in terms of what serves the US national interest, not by any other standards, particularly moral ones.

 

[muse]

Well, the only problem is that "positive" and "negative" are defined in terms of what serves the US national interest, not by any other standards, particularly moral ones.

And of course the definition of what those interests are in a globalized world is increasingly problematic - particularly for the US - after all, it's not as if there are long lists of such "successes" to demonstrate.

Positive results are those which achieve US policy goals - given that the US will now stand to have lost two wars in Muslim majority countries and while fighting in at least 4 others, coupled with the Palestinian debacle, the continued estrangement from Iran, increasingly frail popularity across the Muslim majority world - well, if that's "positive", the US can do with a whole lot less of it.

 

[Kinetic]

but I think US policy makers and interested observers should ponder whether the US has the capacity or capability to generate positive results

I agree with your view and always read your posts read them respectfully. But it may look bad to ask you the question, 'how do you think it is possible?' Who will tell the ISI/PA that there are something more in enmity/rivalry than this. Why just get rid of all sort of extremism whether it is Haqqani or LeT or any other mujaheddin and get a modern progressive enmity.