U.S. and Pakistan: different wars on terror

[RabzonKhan]

Can’t Win in Afghanistan? Blame Pakistan

by Eric Margolis
August 5, 2008

Soon after the US invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban government in 2001, I predicted that Taliban resistance would resume in four years.

My fellow pundits, who were ****-a-hoop over the US military victory over a bunch of lightly-armed medieval tribesmen, became drunk on old-fashioned imperial triumphalism, and denounced me as "crazy," or worse. But most of them had never been to Afghanistan and knew nothing about the Pashtun tribal people. I had covered the struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980’s and was well aware of the leisurely pace of warfare favored by Pashtun warriors.

"Do not stay in Afghanistan," I warned in a 2001 article in the Los Angeles Times. The longer foreign forces remained in Afghanistan, the more the tribes would fight against their continued presence. Taliban resumed fighting in 2005.

Now, as resistance to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan intensifies, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against Pakistan and its military intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence, better known as ISI.

The White House just leaked claims ISI is in cahoots with pro-Taliban groups in Pakistan’s tribal agency along the Afghan border and warns them of impending US attacks. The New York Times, which allowed the Bush administration to use it as a mouthpiece for Iraq War propaganda, dutifully featured the leaks about ISI on front page. Other administration officials have been claiming that ISI may even be hiding Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida leaders.

The Bush administration claims that CIA had electronic intercepts proving ISI was behind the recent bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul. India and Afghanistan echo this charge. No hard evidence has yet been produced, but the US media has been lustily condemning Pakistan for pretending to be an ally of the US while acting like an enemy.

President George Bush angrily asked Pakistan’s visiting prime minister, Yousuf Gilani, "who’s in charge of ISI?" An interesting question, since all recent ISI director generals have been vetted and pre-approved by Washington.

I was one of the first western journalists invited into ISI HQ in 1986. ISI’s then director, the fierce Lt. General Akhtar Rahman, personally briefed me on Pakistan’s secret role in fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. ISI’s "boys" provided communications, logistics, training, heavy weapons, and direction in the Afghan War. I kept ISI’s role in Afghanistan a secret until the war ended in 1989.

ISI was primarily responsible for the victory over the Soviets, which hastened the collapse of the USSR. At war’s end, Gen. Akhtar and Pakistan’s leader, Zia ul Haq, both died in a sabotaged C-130 transport aircraft. Unfortunately, most Pakistanis blame the United States for this assassination, though the real malefactors have never been identified and the investigation long ago shelved.

On my subsequent trips to Pakistan I was routinely briefed by succeeding ISI chiefs, and joined ISI officers in the field, sometimes under fire.

ISI, which reports to Pakistan’s military and the prime minister, is accused of meddling in Pakistani politics. The late Benazir Bhutto, who often was thwarted and vexed by Pakistan’s spooks, always playfully scolded me, "you and your beloved generals at ISI."

But before Gen. Pervez Musharraf took over as military dictator, ISI was the third world’s most efficient, professional intelligence agency. It still defends Pakistan against internal and external subversion by India’s powerful spy agency, RAW, and by Iran. ISI works closely with CIA and the Pentagon and was primarily responsible for the rapid ouster of Taliban from power in 2001. But ISI also must serve Pakistan’s interests which are often not identical to Washington’s, and sometimes in conflict.

ISI was long and deeply involved in supporting the uprising by Kashmiri Muslims against Indian rule, and has been accused by India of abetting groups that have committed bombings and aircraft hijackings inside India, including a wave of terrorist bombings against civilians in Bangalore and Gujarat over recently weeks. For its part, India’s powerful intelligence service, RAW, has mounted bombing and shooting attacks inside Pakistan.

The reason it is often difficult to tell whether Pakistan is friend or foe is because Washington has been forcing Pakistan’s government, military and intelligence services into supporting the US-led war in Afghanistan and rounding up and torturing opponents of Pakistan’s military dictatorship. Pakistan was forced to bend to Washington’s will through a combination of over $11 billion in payments and threats of war if Pakistan did not comply. The ongoing prosecution of the US-led war in Afghanistan depends entirely on Pakistan’s provision of bases and troops.

While Pakistan’s government, military and intelligence services were forced to follow Washington’s strategic plans, 90% of Pakistan’s people bitterly opposed these policies. President-dictator Musharraf was caught between the anger of Washington and his own angry people who branded him an American stooge.

Small wonder Pakistan’s leadership is so often accused of playing a double game.

The last ISI Director General I knew was the tough, highly capable Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmad. He was purged by Musharraf because Washington felt Mahmood was insufficiently responsive to US interests. Ever since 2001, ensuing ISI directors were all pre-approved by Washington. All senior ISI veterans deemed "Islamist" or too nationalistic by Washington were purged at Washington’s demand, leaving ISI’s upper ranks top-heavy with too many yes-men and paper-passers.

Even so, there is strong opposition inside ISI and the military to Washington’s bribing and arm-twisting the subservient Musharraf dictatorship into waging war against fellow Pakistanis and gravely damaging Pakistan’s national interests.

ISI’s primary duty is defending Pakistan, not promote US interests. Pashtun tribesmen on the border sympathizing with their fellow Taliban Pashtun in Afghanistan are Pakistanis. Many, like the legendary Jalaluddin Haqqani, are old US allies and "freedom fighters" from the 1980’s. When the US and its western allies finally abandon Afghanistan, as they will inevitably do one day, Pakistan must go on living with its rambunctious tribals.

Violence and uprisings in these tribal areas are not caused by "terrorism," as Washington and Musharraf falsely claimed. They directly result from the US-led occupation of Afghanistan and Washington’s forcing the hated Musharraf regime to attack its own people.

ISI is trying to restrain pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen while dealing with growing US attacks into Pakistan that threaten a wider war. India, Pakistan’s bitter foe, has an army of agents in Afghanistan and is arming, backing and financing the Karzai puppet regime in Kabul in hopes of turning Afghanistan into a protectorate. Pakistan’s historic strategic interests in Afghanistan have been undermined by the US occupation. Now, the US and India are trying to eliminate Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.

ISI, many of whose officers are Pashtun, has every right to warn Pakistani citizens of impending US air attacks that kill large numbers of civilians. But ISI also has another vital mission. Preventing Pakistan’s Pashtun, 15–20% of the population of 165 million, from rekindling the old "Greater Pashtunistan" movement calling for union of the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan and Afghanistan into a new Pashtun nation. The Pashtun have never recognized the Durand Line (today’s Pakistan-Afghan border) drawn by British imperialists to sunder the world’s largest tribal people. Greater Pashtunistan would tear apart Pakistan and invite Indian military intervention.

Washington’s bull-in-a-china shop behavior pays no heeds to these realities. Instead, Washington demonizes faithful old allies ISI and Pakistan while supporting Afghanistan’s Communists and drug dealers, and allowing India to stir the Afghan pot – all for the sake of new energy pipelines.

As Henry Kissinger cynically noted, being America’s ally is more dangerous than being its enemy.

 

[RabzonKhan]

No country has done more than Pakistan: official: Fight against terrorism

BERLIN, Sept 9: Pakistan strongly rejected western accusations that it is not doing enough to root out Taliban extremists within its borders, a high-ranking official said at a security conference here on Tuesday.

“Pakistan feels wronged when confronted by the clamour to do more, and fails to see any reasons for the trust deficit from which our friends and allies seem to be suffering in their perception about Pakistan,” according to remarks prepared for delivery by Defence Secretary Kamran Rasool and read by Islamabad’s ambassador to Berlin, Shahid Ahmad Kamal.

“No country has done more than Pakistan in fighting terrorism and no country has suffered or taken as many losses as Pakistan in this struggle.”

The remarks came a few minutes after Nato deputy secretary-general Claudio Bisogniero called for Islamabad to step up its fight against militants mounting attacks in Afghanistan, at the conference organised by German newspaper Handelsblatt.

“Pakistan has stepped up its support to the Isaf mission and this is very much appreciated by us, but we still feel that it can and should do more,” he said, referring to the Nato-led occupation force in Afghanistan.

“For as long as the border regions of Pakistan remain a hiding place for the Taliban, the security and the stability in Afghanistan, but also the security and stability in Pakistan, will remain precarious.” Afghan Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta expressed approval on Monday during a visit to Berlin of suspected US missile strikes against alleged extremist targets in Pakistan.

He said on Tuesday at the conference that he saw the new civilian government in Pakistan as ready to combat “terrorism”.

“The demilitarisation of the state in Pakistan is our chance to encourage anti-terrorist and democratic forces in our neighbouring country,” he said.

German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung, whose country has 3,300 troops in Afghanistan under Nato command, also expressed optimism about the commitment of the new Pakistani government to regional security.

Pakistan’s new President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai pledged after talks in Islamabad on Tuesday that they would stand together in the fight against “terrorism”.—AFP

 

[was]

it,s all an consiparacy actually this is the real objective of the coalition of the jews indians nato to destebalize pakistan and de nuke it.

 

[BATMAN]

There is nothing to win in Afghanistan. It was a stupid decision from the beginning.
Afghanis were not involved in any activity on any foreign land. They definitely were not a liberal western society but the life of ordinary Afghan was safe.
All the present turmoil in Afghanistan is a direct result of killing civilians and installing a dictator on majority Pushtoons who is slowly killing his own nation in order to keep his presidency.
US thinks that some day Afgahnis will be friendly to them like Vietnam.
I think that Vietnam was different time and nation. But india is seducing them to sucide mission.

 

[Kharian_Beast]

Forget America, let them keep targeting civilians and let the extremists double in number, there is no chance in hell they will "win" in Afg. In the meanwhile let's take care of an old herpes sore in the region, whose intelligence and sabotage squads are running rampant along our border and cuddling with Karzai.



Ashamed of the selection of leaders Pakistan has to choose from. Where is Imran Khan?

 

[RabzonKhan]

Defeating the Taliban

FATA morgana

Sep 18th 2008
From The Economist print edition

America will not win the war in Afghanistan by taking it across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas.

ALLIED gloom about the war in Afghanistan tends to be seasonal. The hopes of spring are dented by a summer of roadside explosions, suicide-bombings and ambushes. But this autumn they have nearly been dashed altogether. Violence is at its highest level since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001. The chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, has admitted he is “not convinced we’re winning it” in Afghanistan. On the ground the mood is bleaker. Foreign aid-workers in Kabul feel under siege. Generals grumble about needing thousands more soldiers. Some diplomats seem close to despair. For those hoping Afghanistan can soon achieve peace and stability, these are desperate times.

One desperate measure adopted by America in response has been to attack the presumed bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas from which militants mount cross-border operations (see article). Since Pakistan is failing to live up to its promise to deny the insurgents sanctuary, exasperated American generals have decided to act themselves. But launching attacks in Pakistan in defiance of its government is counterproductive.

On September 3rd American commandos mounted an attack in South Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Pakistanis say another incursion this week was repulsed, though both armies deny it. Certainly, American forces have been stepping up strikes. There have been a dozen in a fortnight.

Anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is easily provoked, and it is hard to imagine greater provocation. The government, which says the American attacks have cost civilian lives, has been fiercely critical of them. Worse, there are suspicions in Pakistan that their timing was influenced by the political calendar in Washington. The Bush administration, it is thought, is impatient for an “October surprise” in the form of the killing or capture of al-Qaeda bigwigs hiding in the FATA.

Even if these suspicions are groundless, unilateral cross-border attacks, which appear to have killed no “high-value targets”, are a bad idea. In Afghanistan itself the Taliban have been adept at duping foreign forces into becoming their recruiters through the killing of civilians. In the FATA there is the same risk: that the raids end up making the local population—and the rest of Pakistan—even more hostile to America. They certainly undermine the fragile new civilian government of President Asif Zardari. To be treated with such contempt by an ally weakens Mr Zardari’s standing at home, and makes Pakistan’s army—never tolerant of civilian direction—even less likely to heed the government.

Federally administer the tribal areas

Yet it is true that Afghanistan will never know peace while the tribal areas provide a haven for insurgents. Force will be part of the solution. But, as Mr Zardari knows, there also needs to be a comprehensive plan to develop the region—building roads and providing buses, schools and hospitals, but also dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and, eventually, integrating the FATA fully into Pakistan proper. America’s cross-border pressure may have been intended in part to impress upon Pakistan’s leaders the urgency of the military aspect.

If so, it has probably worked, and the Americans may now ease off. Indeed, Admiral Mullen, visiting Islamabad on September 17th, promised to respect Pakistani sovereignty. But Pakistan’s foreign minister complained that an American drone attack in North Waziristan that day had again been undertaken without consultation. Pakistanis will still need persuading that the fight against extremists is their war, as well as America’s. Admiral Mullen’s soothing words were but a start.

 

[RabzonKhan]

I don't agree with everything here, but there are some good points.


Commentary: Losing Afghanistan?

By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE (UPI Editor at Large)Published: September 19, 2008

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Is NATO losing the Afghan war, as the Soviet Union did in the 1980s and the British Empire in the 19th century? Notwithstanding NATO and U.S. denials, the answer is affirmative. And abundant evidence is provided in a detailed 113-page report released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The author is Anthony Cordesman, CSIS' senior strategic thinker.

The situation in Afghanistan, Cordesman writes, has been deteriorating for the past five years "and is now reaching a crisis level." Both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen have acknowledged that it is now an Afghan-Pakistani conflict "and one lacking in both military and civilian resources. It is also becoming increasingly more deadly for civilians, aid workers, and U.S. and NATO forces."

Resurgent Taliban, the report says, "have turned much of Afghanistan into 'no-go' zones for aid workers and civilians."

The Bush administration reached the conclusion in August to deny Taliban the safe havens they have long enjoyed in Pakistan's tribal belt that abuts the unmarked, mountainous Afghan border for hundreds of miles. But the first raid by Navy Seals into Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas left several dead civilians -- and provoked a stinging rebuke from Pakistan's new civilian government and the army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani.

Promoted by President Bush to the ranks of "major non-NATO ally," Pakistan has made clear its army alone would dismantle Taliban's FATA bases. But the Pakistani army is not welcome in FATA and despite its 130,000-strong presence has not made much of a dent in the Taliban's infrastructure. But the Taliban have inflicted heavy casualties on the army (1,400 killed, 4,000 injured).

The CSIS report also said Taliban guerrillas, "benefiting from a rise in poppy cultivation and safe havens in (Pakistan), are steadily expanding their capabilities and geographic reach."

Titled "Losing the Afghan-Pakistan War? The Rising Threat," the CSIS report documents "changes in the character of the threat and the rise in Afghan and allied casualties." U.N. and declassified U.S. intelligence maps detail the steady expansion of threat influence and the regions that are unsafe for aid workers. Other data show how Afghan drug growing has steadily moved south "and become a major source of financing for the Taliban."

The CSIS report shows that the next U.S. president will "face a critical challenge with a war that is probably being lost at the political and strategic level, and is not being won at the tactical level." It is clear why the senior U.S. and NATO commanders in Afghanistan are calling for substantially more troops than Bush decided to deploy this September, and the problems in this briefing are compounded by critical problems in Afghan and Pakistani governance and economic development.

Regardless of the focus of the current U.S. political campaign, says Cordesman, "these neglected challenges will have to take center stage in the first few months of the next administration. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have advocated moving substantial numbers of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, prompting pessimist commentators to suggest this could be either presidential candidate's "Vietnam."

A harsh winter followed by a drought across much of Afghanistan, a poor harvest and rising food prices have left some 9 million Afghans facing critical food shortages. In 30 years of almost continuous warfare, farmers in Bamian province say they have never seen anything this bad.

The Maldon Institute in a report on "Sympathy for Taliban in Pakistan" says Tehrek-e-Taliban, the umbrella organization for Pakistan's multiple Taliban movements, "seeks to spread its strict Deobandi interpretation of Islam to all of Pakistan."

Maldon quotes Ayesha Jalal, a prominent historian of Pakistan who recently wrote a book on the history of jihad in South Asia: "They don't just want to control FATA, but want to control the entire country." But these extremists are backed by less than 15 percent of the population, and there is zero chance they can achieve national control. But they can keep Pakistan destabilized for the indefinite future while security forces chase them up and down from Peshawar to Islamabad to Lahore to Karachi.

The nuclear power's new democratic government, backed by the military, looks on the Taliban as a greater threat to Pakistan proper than to FATA and Afghanistan. But the two fronts are inextricably linked. And the sooner Pakistan and U.S. intelligence can work together to pinpoint Taliban and al-Qaida targets in FATA, and Pakistani troops are given adequate helicopter lift capability, the sooner tables can be turned on the Taliban. As long as the United States continues unilateral strikes in Pakistan that kill civilians, the battle for hearts and minds will be lost. But there is a major stumbling block to close cooperation -- the U.S. intelligence community's lack of confidence in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

Back in the early 1990s the creation of the Taliban (student jihadis) was inspired by ISI to put an end to the civil war that followed the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. U.S. electronic surveillance has convinced the Pentagon and the CIA that either ISI or former ISI operatives are working with Taliban against the United States.

A still more ominous note was sounded by Russian Ambassador in Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov. In an interview with the BBC, he said either NATO countries stop criticizing Russia over Georgia and refrain from advocating NATO membership for the tiny country, or NATO would lose its air rights over Russia to resupply its forces in Afghanistan.

U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan now number 71,000. France is suggesting the no-fighting restrictions imposed by national parliaments should now be lifted. For the British, Dutch, Canadians and Americans doing the fighting, it won't be a moment too soon. But passage is doubtful.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Excellent article, I could not agree more.


Danger along the Durand Line

By Patrick Seale
September 21, 2008

One of the most explosive spots on Earth today is the so-called Durand Line, the 2,640 kilometer border, much of it in harsh mountain country, between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is where the United States and its NATO allies are battling the Taliban -- and are facing the possibility of military defeat.

Of all the challenges which will face the new American administration next January, the ongoing war across the Afghan-Pakistan border could be the most difficult and dangerous. It is likely to overshadow the contest with Russia in the Caucasus, the rise of Iran as a major regional power, the search for an honorable exit strategy from Iraq, the impact of the collapsing Arab-Israeli peace process, and even the horrors of global warming.

The Durand Line was a British creation. It was demarcated and then signed into a treaty on November 12, 1893 between the ruler of Afghanistan, Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, and Sir Mortimer Durand, foreign secretary of what was then British India.

The idea was to create a buffer zone to protect British India from possible Czarist Russian aggression in what was then the ‘Great Game’ between the British and Russian empires. When British India was partitioned between India and Pakistan in 1947, the Durand Line was recognized as the Pakistan-Afghan border.

However, successive Afghan rulers repudiated it. Even Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s current president, has called the Durand Line a “line of hate”, because by cutting through tribal lands it artificially divides the Pashtun people, whom Kabul would like to claim as Afghans.

The Durand Line was always something of a fiction -- and perhaps never more so than in the 1980s, when the United States and Pakistan recruited jihadis from all over the world to fight the Soviets, then occupying Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of fighters were trained, armed and funded in the Pakistan tribal areas and then infiltrated across the Durand Line into Afghanistan.

The United States and Pakistan are now reaping what they sowed. Pashtun nationalism has been aroused. Pashtun leaders on both sides of the border do not recognize the Durand Line which, in any event, has always been porous. The tribal customs, traditions and war-fighting abilities which the Americans mobilized against the Soviets have now been turned against the Americans themselves.

Large numbers of tough, brave, well-armed Pashtun tribesmen -- as well as sympathizers from many parts of the world -- have joined the resurgent Taliban movement in a determined effort to expel the invading U.S. forces and their coalition allies, just as they expelled the Russians 20 years ago.

The tribal areas on both sides of the Durand Line have always been autonomous. Anxious to safeguard this autonomy, the tribes resist control by the central government, whether in Islamabad or Kabul. For centuries, their overriding impulse has been to protect their Muslim religion and their traditional way of life from foreign interference.

They do not want a Western model of society forced upon them. The morality they live by is that of the Pashtunwali Code, which means giving asylum and hospitality to visitors and avenging any slight or attack.

When the Taliban were in power in Kabul in 2001, poppy growing in Afghanistan was greatly reduced. But President George W. Bush’s campaign against Al-Qaeda after 9/11, and the overthrow of the Taliban that followed, led to a vast explosion in poppy growing and the rise of corrupt warlords, as well as of corrupt Kabul elites.

The huge illegal traffic in drugs and arms across the Durand Line in recent years has contributed to making the tribes rich and confident, and has doomed to failure Bush’s “Global War on Terror”, at least in these crucial tribal areas.

Major mistake

A major mistake was the diversion of U.S. military effort from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003 -- a policy largely driven by neo-cons in Bush’s Administration, primarily concerned to destroy Iraq in order to enhance Israel’s security environment. But the switch of focus proved immensely costly in men and treasure. U.S. armed forces are overstretched; deficits have ballooned; the shattering of Iraq has handed Iran a strategic victory; and the Taliban have been able to regroup their forces on both sides of the Durand Line and are now a formidable force.

The U.S.-backed Karzai government in Kabul has a tenuous hold on power. The insurgency has spread to many parts of the country, indeed to Kabul itself. The military situation for the U.S. and NATO is worse today than it has been since 2001. At the same time, neighboring Pakistan has been destabilized. President Asif Ali Zardari, like his predecessor Pervez Musharraf, has to face a public which has become fervently anti-American.

Bush’s secret authorization last July -- recently revealed by the New York Times -- to launch U.S. air strikes and ground operations across the Durand Line, without consulting Islamabad, has aroused fury in Pakistan. If it were possible for the U.S. and NATO to deploy, say, an additional 150,000 troops to Afghanistan, the situation might be reversed. But there is no sign that reinforcements on this scale would be available, or that Western public opinion would tolerate the opening of such a major front.

A fundamental rethinking of Western strategy is therefore urgently required. This could include:

-- The declaration of a unilateral ceasefire.

-- Political negotiations with the Taliban and the Pashtun tribes in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the aim of separating them from Al-Qaeda. This would most probably involve guaranteeing the autonomy of the tribal areas, substantial financial subsidies, and offering the Taliban a share in government.

-- Winning support from the main regional powers for a peace settlement across the Durand Line -- Pakistan and Afghanistan, of course, but also India, Iran and even China.

The Indian-Pakistani conflict over Kashmir and their competition in Afghanistan has contributed to stoking the fires of revolt across the Durand Line. Finding a solution to the Kashmir problem should be a priority for the international community. It would rob Pakistan of a motive for promoting militancy. Afghanistan would also greatly benefit since Pakistan has covertly backed jihadis in that country, if only to counter the growing, American-encouraged influence of India. Pakistan’s perennial fear is of being squeezed between India on one flank and an Indian-dominated Afghanistan on the other.

The resolution of conflicts, rather than the use of military force -- whether in south and central Asia or in the Middle East -- is the only way to lessen, and ultimately defeat, the threat from terrorism. But it is not a lesson the United States has yet learned.

Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.

 

[jeypore]

Tuesday at the United Nations President George Bush and his Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, reaffirmed the alliance of two nations that, in some respects, are fighting two different wars under the single banner of the war on terror.

The United States has recently stepped up missile attacks against targets in Pakistan as Washington becomes convinced that the Pakistani Army lacks either the will or ability to neutralize domestic terrorists. Yet Pakistanis counter that their Army is currently engaged in two offensives so large that they have displaced 300,000 people in areas bordering Afghanistan.

The different assessments of Pakistan's effort reflect the two nations' different goals in fighting terrorism. Pakistan wants peace within its borders. America prioritizes peace in Afghanistan, where security has deteriorated significantly this year. The two aims are not always congruous, and this disconnect is a fundamental part of rising tensions between the allies.

"Within the broader interest of fighting terrorism, their goals are divergent," says Moeed Yusuf, an analyst at Boston University.

America wants Pakistan to target terrorists that Pakistan has long tolerated. Since militancy emerged in Pakistan in the 1980s – then significantly funded by the US in order to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan – Pakistan has sought to manage certain terrorist networks, not destroy them. Often, these terrorists have no grievance with Pakistan but use Pakistan as a base to attack Afghanistan.

This practice continued during the regime of former President and Army chief Pervez Musharraf, with short military campaigns to chasten militants, followed by cease-fires that let them rebuild. Yet he went largely unchallenged because the US was focused on Iraq, and Afghanistan was peaceful by comparison.

In President Zardari, the US appears to have a willing partner. On Saturday he told parliament, "Pakistan must not allow its soil to be used for terrorist attacks on other countries."

Zardari's control over the Army is questionable, though. The Army has always been Pakistan's strongest institution and loath to accept civilian oversight, meaning it could set its own agenda, regardless of what Zardari wants. Neither of the Army's current offensives – in the tribal agency of Bajaur or the Swat Valley – was initiated by civilian leaders.

The Swat Valley is a primary example of a region seen as crucial to Pakistan but only marginally relevant to the US. The fact that militants control Swat, a prime tourism spot only 90 minutes from Islamabad, is an affront and a clear danger to the populous Pakistani heartland.

"From the Pakistani Army's perspective, Swat is a part of the country" that cannot be ceded to terrorists, says Daniel Markey, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington.

By contrast, "there is a greater internal debate" in the Army as to how the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) need to be pacified, says Mr. Markey. They are only tenuously governed by Pakistan and are seen as something of a "Wild West."

Yet America says they are the source of the instability that has radiated outward into Afghanistan, Swat, and beyond. There is increasing agreement on this. After the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, Rehman Malik, head of the Interior Ministry, told reporters: "All roads go to FATA."

When the Pakistani Army decided to enter Bajaur – one of FATA's seven precincts – it did so only on the condition that it not again be called off before the job is done, says Ikram Sehgal, editor of Defence Journal.

The offensive has divided Pakistanis, who generally acknowledge the threat of terrorism but believe that massive military actions accomplish little – only stirring militant anger and killing civilians.

"What is the difference" between civilians killed by the military and the 53 people killed in the Marriott bombing? asks Khalid Rehman, an analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Islamabad. he asks.

Given this lack of broad public support for the offensive in Bajaur – which Pakistanis think is just the sort of action America says it wants, Army officers are becoming disenchanted with America's lack of support, says Mr. Sehgal.

"All the militants that the Pakistani Army is fighting in FATA – how come America never targets them" with missile strikes? he asks.

While the targets of the missiles fired from American drone aircraft are not confirmed, reports suggest that there is indeed a divergence between who America is targeting and who Pakistan would like them to target.

The Sept. 8 attack clearly pinpointed Jalaluddin Haqqani: One of his daughters and one of his wives were killed. Mr. Haqqani is an example of a terrorist that Pakistan has tolerated, though his network was purportedly behind the assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Similarly, the US appears to be targeting Taliban leadership long ignored by Pakistan – something it "never did before," says Ahmed Rashid, author of "Taliban."

It suggests that America is no longer willing to wait for Pakistan. "They trusted Musharraf and he didn't deliver," says Mr. Yusuf of Boston University. "That frustration is playing in policy now."

Yet Pakistan cannot share America's desire for quick results if it is to succeed, says analyst Mr. Rehman. To defeat terrorism, Pakistan will have to win over its own people first, rather than make unilateral Army decisions under US pressure.

"They have to discuss everything in parliament and take the people along with them," says Rehman.
U.S. and Pakistan: different wars on terror | csmonitor.com

 

[pkpatriotic]

Pakistan: just so much collateral damage?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Shireen M Mazari
The Marriott devastation has traumatised Islamabad as never before, despite having seen violence and terrorism with regularity over the last few years – especially since last year. Perhaps it was the widespread damage far beyond the Marriott, which in itself was as tragic as it was horrific, or perhaps it was the live television coverage that took the horror to everyone’s home. Anger, rage, condemnation, fear and helplessness are certainly some of the emotions that have been brought to the fore.

Anger and rage over the act itself and the timing – the month of Ramazan and just when Muslims were ending their fast; anger and rage also at those who have the gall to call themselves Muslims and then kill their fellow Muslims, indeed their fellow human beings, through such barbaric acts of violence; anger and rage at the total failure of the security apparatus of the state, despite the hotel being in the Red Zone of high security; anger and rage at the continuing disconnect within the government, with even the prime minister and interior adviser at cross purposes in their pronouncements – even now the disconnect continues with the interior minister declaring that the official Iftar party was initially to be held at the Marriot while the hotel staff has categorically stated that there was no such arrangement. And, there is anger over the inadequacy of emergency response equipment and procedures, despite the capital having gone through an earthquake and earlier acts of terror. Some of us had always critiqued the CDA’s elitist focus under Lashari and once again Islamabad has paid a heavy price for this.

There is condemnation for the state leaving its citizenry at the mercy of the terrorists – both from within and from outside. The total focus of the state on the ruling elite was evident in the immediate aftermath of the Marriott attack when representatives of the official party came on television and pronounced that the security arrangements had saved the lives of the ruling elite safely ensconced in the Prime Minister House – what insensitivity at the devastation of the rest of Pakistan and its citizenry. Moreover if we are to believe the national security adviser that the official iftar party venue was changed at the last minute, did this justify a security lapse in terms of protecting the Marriott since the government seemed to have known of an impending attack? Certainly no condemnation can be too strong for the state looking merely to its own and leaving the rest of the population as cannon fodder for the terrorists.

The fear and helplessness have been growing within ordinary Pakistanis since our state went into the US war in Afghanistan. Fear that this war, if fought on US terms would extol a heavy price from Pakistan and helplessness in the face of our state’s non-responsiveness to the voice of its own people. As the US war has drawn Pakistan into a deathly vortex of a new home-grown terror of suicide bombings and Iraq-imported Improvised Exploding Devices (IEDs), more space is being created for extremists and terrorists from within us – as the state has yet to project credibility over its own war against terrorism.

If we in Islamabad feel all these intense emotions in the aftermath of the Marriott attack, can we not for one second step back and reflect on how the people of the FATA region have been feeling when confronted with death and destruction at the hands of foreign military power with their own state a seemingly helpless bystander? Is it any wonder that impressionable young youth have offered their lives in the face of the death and destruction of their families and homes – especially when they see their state do nothing? Can we not see that it takes little for the evil preachers of hate and nihilism to convert such people to taking their own lives along with many innocent others? Is there to be no rage, anger, condemnation, fear and helplessness amongst these local people when they see innocent families wiped out by US drones, missiles and now ground troops, as their own state does nothing? And, is it any wonder, that in the settled areas like Swat violence and militancy have flourished because the hapless locals are convinced the state offers no security against the hate teachings of the extremists?

The misguided and fearful people of these extremist-infested areas are the human shields for the terrorists and this phenomenon has now spread as the internally displaced people (IDPs) have moved far beyond their homes. Leaving aside our emotions, a reality check will show how our state has to create the space between itself and the US if it is to mobilise support for its own war against terrorists and extremists within the country. Yes, we do have a war on our hands but it is different from the US war which has its own agenda, and it has to be fought differently – within an overarching political strategy and economic and military tactical prongs. Effectiveness of such a war will depend on establishing credibility for it and that cannot come unless we create space from the US.

Over a year ago, in these columns I had written about strange American personnel going in the direction of Warsak and now we have a disturbing story of US marines with questionable baggage, which was not screened and one has to wonder why, on the fourth floor of the Marriott – where the fire first started. Were their some weapons or incendiary devices which the Marines had brought in? The time has come for the government to come clean on this and stop such covert US activities for the future. As for US "advisers" or "trainers" coming in, our people and leaders should recall that that is how the US began its military invasion in South Vietnam – advisers followed by troops!

If we can officially create space between the US and ourselves, and there can be no covert assent to US access in Pakistan as was the case with the previous government – something that was consistently criticised in these columns – at least the nation will rally around the state and allow it to make an effective beginning to a long term strategy to deal with extremism and violence. Such a strategy has to first recognise that terrorism in Pakistan has a number of differing origins: there is the most violent one that is rooted in distorted religious extremism and is linked to Al Qaeda and seeks indiscriminate destruction for impact. This is not about winning hearts and minds so much as creating fear in hearts and minds. But there is also the political sub-national violence and terrorism, such as in Balochistan, which is also abetted by external forces but has indigenous political roots, and discriminates in its targeting. This attempts to win hearts and minds and so targets are selective – security forces and strategic installations – and is susceptible to a political solution. Clearly an overarching strategy would need to make these distinctions.

In the context of FATA, any strategy would have to include, alongside a delinkage with the US, a genuine and immediate political and economic outreach to the people of FATA and other violence affected areas of Pakhtunkhwa, under the umbrella of military protection. People who do not support extremist militancy must be given protection and positive incentives to remain steadfast while the fence sitters must be shown benefits of coming over to the state’s side and costs for not doing so. Protect the locals so that they can shun the extremists without fear of retribution.

Beyond FATA, there is a need to seriously implement the much-touted but not enforced policy of madressah reform. In this context, all foreign funding for any form of educational or charitable project needs to be transparent and public. Similarly, local donations to schools and charities should be made public.

And, while we are seeking to fight our own terrorists, let us not forget that we also confront an equally menacing threat from the US which has already infiltrated our country at multiple levels. That is why winning over our own people and exposing the many-headed enemy has to be the starting point. Otherwise Pakistan is in danger of being reduced to just so much collateral damage!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

One analysis after another, and the only rational conclusions one finds while reading between the lines is that unilateral action by the US is a bad idea -

The US is pushing this unilateral escalation for its own interests and goals, which seem to be limited to Afghanistan, rather than comprehensive regional peace.

Again, the idea of a dumb behemoth rolling around destabilizing one nation after another, and then trying to put out each successive blaze it starts, comes to mind.

 

[pkpatriotic]

‘WOT is already Running Out of Time’
Pakistan’s military is threatening to shoot American troops if they launch another raid into Pakistan’s territory. Whether the threat is real or meant solely for domestic consumption, there is a real danger of miscalculation that would be catastrophic for both countries.

President Bush’s decision to authorize Special Operations forces in Afghanistan to go after militants in Pakistan’s lawless border region was a desperation move. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, admitted earlier this month that America and its allies were “running out of time” to save Afghanistan.

We certainly share his alarm and his clear frustration that the Pakistanis are doing too little to defeat the extremists or stop their attacks into Afghanistan. But Mr. Bush and his aides should be just as alarmed about Pakistan’s unraveling — Saturday’s horrific bombing at Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel is only the latest sign — and working a lot harder to come up with a policy that bolsters Pakistan’s fragile civilian government while enlisting its full support in the fight against extremists.

If an American raid captured or killed a top Qaeda or Taliban operative, the backlash might be worth it. But if there is any chance of permanently rooting out extremists from the tribal areas, that will have to be done by Pakistan’s military, backed up with sustained programs for economic and political development.

For that, Washington must finally persuade Pakistan’s leaders that this is not just America’s fight but essential to their own security and survival as a democracy. And Pakistan’s leaders must persuade their citizens.

We fear that a rising number of civilian casualties, on both sides of the border, is driving more people into the hands of the repressive Taliban and other extremist groups. These attacks are also making Pakistan’s new president, Asif Ali Zardari, look weak and irrelevant.

He is an undeniably flawed leader, with little political experience and a history tainted by charges of corruption. But he deserves a chance, and American support, to fulfill his promises to bolster democracy, clean up Pakistan’s intelligence services and work with the United States to defeat terrorism.

Mr. Zardari made a start, inviting President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to his inauguration. In a speech to Parliament on Saturday — hours before the bombing — he said his government would not allow terrorists to launch attacks on any neighbor from Pakistani soil, nor would it tolerate further American military incursions. Admiral Mullen made a fence-mending trip to Pakistan last week and Pentagon officials say they are reviewing the overall strategy. Any revised plan must do a lot more to avoid civilian casualties and support, rather than undermine, Pakistan’s civilian leaders. Congress can do its part by approving a $7.5 billion aid package, intended to strengthen Pakistan’s democratic institutions and its counterinsurgency capabilities.

The Pentagon also needs to quickly come up with a better strategy in Afghanistan. Commanders warn that Mr. Bush’s promise to send 4,500 additional troops falls far short. We fear that Admiral Mullen is right: there isn’t much time left — on either side of the border.

 

[jeypore]

One analysis after another, and the only rational conclusions one finds while reading between the lines is that unilateral action by the US is a bad idea -

The US is pushing this unilateral escalation for its own interests and goals, which seem to be limited to Afghanistan, rather than comprehensive regional peace.

Again, the idea of a dumb behemoth rolling around destabilizing one nation after another, and then trying to put out each successive blaze it starts, comes to mind.

Mr. Agnostic,

I am going to play devils advocate here

First of all US military is fraustrated regarding specific target, which Pakistan did not take any action. Secondly they are also fraustrated that Musharaff did not deliver. Know these are the main bases for US fraustration that I know off, that started the incursions in the Pakistan.

 

[Omar1984]

The Pakistani army and our inteligence agency is the only thing holding up Pakistan right now. The U.S. is hating on both our army and intelligence, which means U.S. cant be trusted at all and Zaid Hamid predicted this would happen months ago.

 

[dr.umer]

US adds fuel to Pakistan crisis​

24 Sep 2008

The deadly blast in Islamabad at the weekend was a revenge attack for what has been going on over the past few weeks in the badlands of the north-west frontier of Pakistan. It highlighted the crisis confronting the new Government in the wake of intensified United States strikes in the tribal areas on the Afghan border.

Hellfire missiles, drones, special operation raids inside Pakistan and the resulting deaths of innocent people have fuelled Pashtun nationalism. It is this spillage from the war in Afghanistan that is now destabilising Pakistan.

Pakistan's de facto Prime Minister, Rehman Malik, an unelected crony of President Asif Ali Zardari and now his chief adviser, said, ''our enemies don't want to see democracy flourishing in the country''.

This was rich coming from him, but in reality it has little to do with all that. It is the consequence of a supposedly ''good war'' in Afghanistan that has now gone badly wrong. The director of US National Intelligence, Michael McConnell, admits as much, saying the Afghan leadership must deal with the ''endemic corruption and pervasive poppy cultivation and drug trafficking'' that is to blame for the rise of the neo-Taliban.

The majority of Pakistanis are opposed to the US presence in the region, viewing it as the most serious threat to peace. Why, then, has the US decided to destabilise a crucial ally?

Within Pakistan, some analysts argue this is a carefully coordinated move to weaken the Pakistani state by creating a crisis that extends way beyond the frontier with Afghanistan. Its ultimate aim, they say, would be the extraction of the Pakistani military's nuclear fangs. If this were the case, it would imply the US was determined to break up Pakistan, since the country would not survive a disaster on that scale.

However, in my view the expansion of the war relates far more to the Bush Administration's disastrous occupation in Afghanistan. It is hardly a secret that President Hamid Karzai's regime is becoming more isolated each passing day, as Taliban guerrillas move ever closer to Kabul.

When in doubt, escalate the war, is an old imperial motto. The strikes against Pakistan represent (like the decisions of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, to bomb and then invade Cambodia) a desperate bid to salvage a war that was never good, but has now gone badly wrong.

It is true that those resisting the NATO occupation cross the Pakistan-Afghan border with ease. However, the US has often engaged in quiet negotiations with them.

Several feelers have been put out to the Taliban in Pakistan, while US intelligence experts regularly check into the Serena Hotel in Swat to meet Maulana Fazlullah, a regional pro-Taliban leader.

Pashtuns in Peshawar, hitherto regarded as secular liberals, told the BBC only last week that they had lost all faith in the West. The decision to violate the country's sovereignty at will had sent them in the direction of the insurgents.

While there is much grieving for the Marriott hotel casualties, some ask why the lives of those killed by Predator drones or missile attacks are considered to be of less value. In recent weeks about 100 innocent people have died in this fashion. No outrage and global media coverage for them.

Why was the Marriot targeted? Two explanations have surfaced in the media. The first is that there was a planned dinner for the President and his cabinet there that night, which was cancelled at the last moment.

The second, reported in the respected Pakistani English-language newspaper, Dawn, is that ''a top secret operation of the US Marines [was] going on inside the Marriott when it was attacked''.

The report also said, ''Well-equipped security officers from the US embassy were seen on the spot soon after the explosions. However, they left the scene shortly afterwards.''

Pakistan's largest newspaper, the News, also reported on Sunday that witnesses had seen US embassy steel boxes being carried into the Marriott at night on September 17. The paper reported that when the steel boxes were carried in they were permitted to circumvent security scanners stationed at the hotel entrance.

Mumtaz Alam, a member of parliament, witnessed this. He wanted to leave the hotel but, owing to the heavy security, he was not permitted to leave at the time and is threatening to raise the issue in parliament. These may be the motivations for this particular attack, but behind it all is the shadow of an expanding war.