Pakistan turning Afghans into 'slaves': Karzai

[A.Rahman]

Pakistan turning Afghans into 'slaves': Karzai
Dec. 13, 2006. 10:06 AM
ALISA TANG ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday lashed out at Pakistan for the third time this week, accusing the neighbouring country of trying to make "slaves" of the Afghan people.

Karzai's rhetorical barrage against Pakistan started in a tearful speech Sunday, when he said terrorists from Pakistan are killing Afghan children. He ratcheted up his criticism Tuesday, directly charging the Pakistan government with supporting the Taliban.

On Wednesday, he again took direct aim at Afghanistan's eastern neighbour.

"Pakistan hopes to make slaves out of us, but we will not surrender," Karzai said in a school courtyard, in a 90-minute speech punctuated by frequent applause from several hundred students.

He said Afghan students may aspire to lofty career goals, but that "Pakistan wants you to be a gatekeeper at the hotel in Karachi."

Afghan and western officials have long blamed Pakistan for not doing enough to stop Taliban insurgents from training on its soil and then crossing the border to attack in Afghanistan. Several suspects recently arrested for allegedly planning suicide bomb attacks have come from Pakistan.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Tasnim Aslam, said the Taliban are operating well inside Afghanistan, and reiterated that Islamabad is standing up to the problem.

"Pakistan is doing whatever is needed to counter extremism and terrorism and not to allow its territory to be used for militant activities in Afghanistan," she said. "We have deployed 80,000 troops. We are taking military action."

NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has to do more, Aslam added.

If Afghan refugees living in Pakistan return to their home country, "this would remove the presence of Afghans close to the border, which appear to prompt the allegation from Kabul," she said.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said Karzai was misinformed.

"To those who say this, I would like to say that it is a common human reaction when you have difficulties, you find somebody else to blame," Kasuri said Wednesday in Islamabad, then quickly added: "I am not talking about President Karzai."

"People who are well-informed ... they know better. They know what Pakistan is doing, they know the price that Pakistan is paying," Kasuri said.

According to a tally by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan and western officials, nearly 4,000 people have died in war violence during 2006 — mostly militants but also including about 300 civilians.

 

[SADA GEO PAK]

hmm
this afghan president is to nerves anti pakistan and blaming for nothing he is a great actor and a dirty politician when he is crying and say i cant stop pakistan from trtaining taliban and nato forces to bomb than what the hell are u in your seat just for barking bla bla againt pakistan i havent seen any other role played by this man never heard of any except than barking against pakistan i would like to say when paksitan was formed this was the first islamic country to say no to paksitan and accept it when russians were killing them like dogs we were there to help him america supported taliban through paksitan karzai barkes that the country brought taliban in power still backing them yup we were to bring your fathers and grand father in power when helped u kick russians out now u peoples have made it issue because america using u as thier base in this region and dont forgot we said that please leave or rigester in paksitan never said u to come and work in pak no never just get the fkkk out of paksitan this is not for pashtoon o rpathan only for afghans pathans and pushtoons which live in paksitan are paksitani we resprct them and i will say to u afghans that please dont try to make young paksitani boys addicted to drugs which is your largest business in paksitan and please put your girls in cages we dont want to have aids in paksitan bloch , punjabi.sindhi,pathan ais parcham ka saya tala hum eak hain hum eak hain sanjhi apni kushyian aur gham eak hain hum eak hain of afghans keap on dreaming u will never see paksitan turned in afghanistan

Yeh Pak Watan hai Ghar Apna, Hum is ko Sawarien gaye, Mushkilon mein La-ilaha pukaraien gaye.

love u paksitan sada ka liya kuch nahi tum SADA GEO PAK

 

[Janbaz]

This pathetic retard cannot stop whinining. He thinks we are unfair to his people when at the dawn of Pakistan these people openly and outrightly rejected our state. So he better shut the hell up and get lost because:GUNS:

 

[Neo]

Sunday, December 17, 2006

We’re living on Afghans’ support, not Pakistan’s: Taliban

SPIN BOLDAK: The Taliban on Saturday denied accusations by Afghan leaders the group was being sponsored by Pakistan, an issue souring relations between the two nations.

A senior rebel commander, Hayat Khan, said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was trying to hide his own failure and the Taliban movement lived only on the support of ordinary people. “Karzai’s allegations are baseless. We neither have any links with Pakistan nor is the country helping the Taliban,” Khan told Reuters by satellite phone from a secret location.

“The Taliban movement is continuing only with the support of the Afghan people.”

“Instead of shedding crocodile tears, Hamid Karzai should resign and join the Taliban ranks for jihad against the infidel occupiers to liberate Afghanistan,” he added, referring to Karzai crying during a speech about civilian deaths this week. The hardline Islamists have regrouped since their ouster in 2001, helped by safe havens and militant allies in Pakistan and money from the booming illegal opium industry.

About 4,000 people have died this year, a quarter of them civilians. Relations between the neighbours, both key allies in the US war on terrorism, have deteriorated sharply this year over the question of cross-border incursions.

In his strongest comments yet, Karzai said this week “terrorist nests” operated from Pakistan. Pakistan was once the Taliban’s main sponsor but officially dropped support for the group after the September 11 attacks on the United States. Pakistan denies it supports the insurgents but acknowledges some militants are crossing the rugged, porous border. reuters

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\12\17\story_17-12-2006_pg7_2

 

[ali ahmad]

this is reward for feeding 4 lakh afghani's by their president...
stable afghanistan is in intrest of pakistan then why should pakistan do this all...

 

[Owais]

Afghan general held for alleged Pakistan espionage


KABUL (updated on: December 18, 2006, 19:19 PST): Afghan intelligence agents have arrested an army general on charges of spying for Pakistan, officials said on Monday, fuelling a row over Islamabad's alleged attempts to destabilise its western neighbour.

General Khair Mohammad was detained within the past week after he was found to be selling information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the press office of the Afghan national intelligence agency alleged.

"We've arrested Khair Mohammad over an act of treason against his country and working for Pakistan's ISI," an intelligence agency spokesman claimed seeking anonymity.

"Mohammad has confessed to working for ISI and has met ISI officers in Peshawar three times," the official added.

The spokesman alleged the general who worked in the Afghan Defence Ministry provided Pakistani agents with information about the ministry's formation, a list of high-ranking officials and their contact numbers.

He was also tasked to give details of Western military bases and headquarters in the capital Kabul, the unnamed spokesman accused.

The general had confessed to receiving hundreds of thousands of Pakistani rupees (thousands of dollars) from his handlers, the spokesman claimed.

"He has also told us that he has been regularly meeting with one of the Pakistani diplomats in the Pakistani embassy in Kabul," he claimed.

http://brecorder.com/

 

[Neo]

Our relations with Afghanistan

By Tahir Mirza

IT IS strange that the Pakistan government has come out with little specific comment on the recent statements made by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. This could be a show of contempt for Mr Karzai, implying that he talks nonsense, or an effort not to publicly say things that would worsen Pakistan-Afghanistan relations.

But Mr Karzai’s remarks, which have been quite stinging, have coincided with a report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) that says that the Musharraf government’s appeasement of Taliban sympathisers in Waziristan has resulted in a base in Pakistan’s tribal areas that militants are using to stoke instability both at home and in Afghanistan. One of the ICG’s directors is quoted as saying: “Over the past five years, the Musharraf government has tried brute force, then appeasement. Both have failed. Islamabad’s tactics have only emboldened pro-Taliban militants.”

A State Department spokesman, when asked about the situation in Waziristan and the Taliban infiltration into Afghanistan, was neutral in his comments, and it is absolutely possible that Mr Karzai’s latest remarks have been inspired by the US, which itself is reluctant to publicly criticise Islamabad at this particular juncture.

But on Friday, the Washington Post reported Mr John Negroponte, director of America’s National Intelligence, as saying that with new fighting expected to break out next spring in the border region, Pakistan would have to decide what it could do about the tribal authorities who had not been living up to their agreement to prevent Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters from moving back and forth across the border.

He said a growing Al Qaeda and Taliban presence had de facto sanctuary in Pakistan, a major presence in the east and south, and a growing presence in western Afghanistan.

The position appears to be that the deal entered into by the Pakistan government, primarily of course the military, with the tribals and the Taliban in the tribal areas has now lost credibility although initially it was cautiously supported by Washington and even the Nato force in Afghanistan. There has been a sharp change in the situation although its precise determination is not really clear because of lack of information. The ICG report even said that Pakistan’s tribal region had become a virtual ‘mini-state’ used by the Taliban and foreign militants.

Mr Karzai even linked Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s recent visit to meet him with a spate of suicide bombs. There has been no comment on this remark by the foreign office in Islamabad — and one can again presume that this is because what the Afghan president has said is considered too ridiculous to be noted.

What do we make of all this and what is really happening? Of course, Mr Karzai has his own axes to grind and has never been considered a leader of great distinction. He is certainly a protege of the US and the assumption mentioned earlier that the US, disenchanted by Pakistan’s so-called peace deal with the Taliban and militants, is using the Afghan president to speak out its own thoughts — however flawed they may be — may have some validity. The thoughts will be seen as flawed here in the sense that despite a huge infusion of US-led international military and monetary aid and political and military support, the Afghan government’s writ extends not much beyond Kabul.

No tangible security or benefits otherwise are going to the populace. Leaving a large number discontented and disappointed with the existing government and leaving the way open for other, more organised forces to fill the political vacuum cannot be the responsibility of the Pakistan government.

But there is concern among many in Pakistan also at not only the accommodation being made with the militants and the Taliban in the northern areas but also the feeling that the Pakistan Army and political hardliners remain, as ever before since independence, anxious to delve in Afghan affairs and neutralise Afghanistan. The prospect of some peace with India could reinforce thoughts that our influence in Kabul should be increased. There is also a sense among many ordinary persons here that coming to an accommodation with extremists in the tribal regions has led to the creation of a new system by them where they crush education and spread their own version of religious dominance.

No one seems worried about this in Islamabad; nor does anyone seriously consider how the northern areas can eventually be made part of the rest of Pakistan. Giving freedom to elements that hold sway now in the tribal areas and act in totally reactionary ways contrasts with the policies adopted and statements made with regard to Balochistan.

In Balochistan, attacking nationalists and militants, Gen Pervez Musharraf said earlier this month that there was only one “lashkar” in Pakistan, and that was the Pakistan army, and no other lashkars would be allowed. But in the northern, tribal areas, lashkars can be permitted and they can even start running their own states, with the military’s and the government’s connivance. Why let the Taliban have the liberty of lashkars and armed groups and running their own governments?

The reasons should at least be rationally explained so that the people can be convinced of what is happening is right. Why is it that retired seniors of the ISI continue to be accused of patronising the Taliban and seeking to create their own groups in Afghanistan? And no proper denial is made?

The old association with the Taliban, whom we created and supported against the Soviets (and of course with full US backing), has not gone away despite what they did in association with Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. We seem to prefer them to ordinary Afghan nationalist politicians and we want Afghanistan to be run in keeping with our interests. The cultural backwardness of the Taliban and their Pakistani associates doesn’t bother us. We won’t ever be able to live down our refusal to condemn the Taliban attack on the Bamiyan Buddhas.

The military has certainly used force against the militants before entering into the jirga-type agreement and lost many precious lives. But the present compromise with the Taliban type should also be sensibly reviewed — if only because of its repercussions in the political field in these months leading to our elections. Pakistan and Afghanistan must establish relations normal among all neighbours, and Islamabad should take action against people who are fighting against the Karzai government.

Political parties other than the official League do not look greatly moved by what is happening in Waziristan, other northern areas and on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Only the MMA has its quiet links with the parties in those regions.

Perhaps it is time the situation in that region was not seen as the military’s sole concern but other political parties were also involved in offering their suggestions on how to deal with the problem. This is vital if the MMA is to be prevented from now using this card in its election campaign and forcing the Musharraf-led establishment to again come to some arrangement with it rather than with moderate and progressive parties.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/18/ed.htm#4

 

[EagleEyes]

I think the statements comes when the Afghans ususally have lower class jobs in Pakistan and that is basically what they can get considering their education level and their ability. They are hard workers, and they as individuals choose to live like that, and by the way, I dont think they even consider themselves Afghani anymore.

 

[araz]

Why doesnt this wanker just look at establishing his Government in Afghanistan. The fact that he can not step out of the palace without fear for his life points to how popular he is. We should just seal the borders and send back all the "guests" his way and let him sort matters out himself. Seriously, This man is really beginning to annoy me.
WaSalam
Araz

 

[ali ahmad]

afaghanis also involved in crimes and arms smuggling. Even the cigerates are smuggled from afghanistan

 

[Janbaz]

afaghanis also involved in crimes and arms smuggling. Even the cigerates are smuggled from afghanistan

I have heard that these people cut parts like arms from dead bodies after the 2005 quake in Kashmir. Bastards!

 

[Neo]

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

VIEW: Losing the war in Afghanistan — Patrick Seale

The United States is losing control of the Afghan countryside to the Taliban. Next spring it may lose control of key cities as well, because it does not seem ready to repulse the Taliban’s widely-predicted New Year offensive

A few days ago, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan wept openly on national television. His tears were for Afghan children killed in America’s war against the Taliban and for his inability to protect them. The mounting civilian death toll is rapidly eroding his popular support.

Karzai puts the blame squarely on neighbouring Pakistan, which he accuses of supporting the Taliban. “Pakistan wants to make slaves of us,” he declared, “but we will not surrender!”

Clearly, the reconciliation between Karzai and Pakistan’s leader Pervez Musharraf, which President George W. Bush tried to bring about at a White House dinner last September, is now a thing of the past.

Western intelligence agencies confirm that Pakistan continues to provide sanctuary for Taliban fighters in the tribal agencies flanking the Afghan border. Pakistan’s military intelligence service, the ISI, is said to funnel money to the Taliban and to the tribal agencies to keep them under a semblance of control. Pakistan has also not been particularly active against Al-Qaida.

The agreement which the Pakistan government signed with the rebels of North Waziristan on 5 September seems to have made the situation worse, because it limits the government’s ability to deploy troops in the tribal areas and gives the rebels a chance to regroup and rearm, before crossing the border to attack Afghan, U.S. and NATO troops.

Some 4,000 people have died in Afghanistan this year — four times more than in 2005. They have included Taliban insurgents, Afghan soldiers and policemen, 189 foreign troops, and the victims of about one hundred suicide bombings. The figure also includes 1,000 civilians — ‘collateral’ damage of America’s dependence on air power, which is inevitably a blunt instrument when seeking to destroy rebels deeply embedded in the civilian population.

The harsh truth of counter-insurgency operations is that, if you rely on air power rather than on ground troops, you cannot attack and kill insurgents without killing women and children as well. This was amply demonstrated by Israel’s war in Lebanon last summer, when Lebanese civilian casualties numbered at least 1,300.

In Afghanistan, the numerous incidents of civilians killed by poorly-targeted air strikes are a major reason why the United States and its allies are losing the battle for Afghan hearts and minds, and why the Taliban are making steady gains.

According to Pentagon figures quoted in the Financial Times of 17 December, the U.S. air force dropped nearly one thousand bombs on Afghanistan in the past six months, more than in the first three years of the campaign against the Taliban. U.S. aircraft also fired 150,000 cannon rounds in support of NATO allies fighting in the south of Afghanistan.

One of America’s best military analysts, Dr. Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who has recently visited Afghanistan, believes the United States will lose the war unless it greatly increases reconstruction aid — from $2bn at present to $6bn — and sends in at least two more infantry battalions and more Special Forces.

He predicts that if these additional resources are not committed, “it is almost certain that the Taliban and hostile elements in Afghanistan will have a much more successful 2007 offensive than they had in 2006.”

In a briefing to the press in Washington on 13 December, Cordesman, declared: “To put it bluntly, we cannot afford to lose two wars.” He was referring to the disaster the United States is already facing in Iraq. “I think that is the path that we are headed on without urgent action,” he added.

Dr Cordesman was sharply critical of some of America’s NATO allies whom he accused of not pulling their weight. He singled out France, which is withdrawing its battalion of Special Forces from Afghanistan in January; Germany, whose programme to develop an effective Afghan police force was a “total failure”; and Spain, Turkey and Italy as well. Apart from the United States, the only NATO forces which, he said, were doing a good job were the British, the Dutch and the Canadians.

Most Western observers emphasise the need in Afghanistan to eradicate the poppy crop, a multi-billion dollar business which provides 90 per cent of the opium consumed in the West. But Cordesman attacks this received wisdom. Drug eradication simply does not work, he says. A far more urgent priority is to provide drinking water in Afghan villages, repair irrigation channels, build roads, schools and clinics. Economic aid must come before drug eradication. “If you don’t have economic aid and assistance first, you make things worse and you fail at eradication.”

The United States is losing control of the Afghan countryside to the Taliban. Next spring it may lose control of key cities as well, because it does not seem ready to repulse the Taliban’s widely-predicted New Year offensive. This Afghan situation may be taken as an example of the dramatic deterioration of America’s standing throughout the Greater Middle East. Its destruction of Iraq, its blind support for Israel, its indifference for the suffering of Lebanese and Palestinians, its failure to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict — all these have led to an unprecedented surge of anti-American sentiment across the region.

Yet Bush hesitates to act. In Iraq, in Afghanistan and in the Arab-Israeli arena, he and his advisers seem paralysed by fear, prejudice and indecision. In the meantime, Afghan and Palestinian children will continue to die.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\12\19\story_19-12-2006_pg3_5

 

[Keysersoze]

I have heard that these people cut parts like arms from dead bodies after the 2005 quake in Kashmir. Bastards!

Dude was the a bad pun joke on "arms" smuggling??? I hope so cause otherwise I gotta ask why there is a black market in arms (human ones)

 

[sparten]

That was a rumour during the earthquake. Obviously incorrect.

 

[Janbaz]

That was a rumour during the earthquake. Obviously incorrect.

I dunno, maybe just a rumor!