U.S. Weighs Strikes Into Baluchistan

[Omar1984]

No other region of Pakistan would have the right, since they all were signed to join Pakistan unconditionally. FATA did not join unconditionally afaik.

That's not the reason for the problems we see in FATA today. The problems we see in FATA today is because of security issues and foreign elements in the surrounding areas.

If joining Pakistan was an issue, then we would have seen turmoil and chaos in FATA before 2001 which we never saw.

 

[S-2]

"it is understandable if we over-estimated a superpower’s ability and commitment to deal with a rag-tag zealot militia particularly with what the world was expecting after 9/11..."

I'm uncertain that we could have effected a more rapid collapse of a nation. Our first CIA elements didn't arrive in-country until Sept. 21. By early November, we had altered the political landscape of Afghanistan. However shocked my nation was on September 11th by early December we had the Bonn accords.

Nonetheless, whatever misconceptions you have about our ability or need to deploy a force equivalent in size to your army over 6,000 miles to a land-locked nation, I remain convinced that your deployment difficulties were less. I also believe that the crisis created a compelling need on the part of your military to overcome those perceived or actual impediments.

However alien the FATA tribespeople would be to those recruited from Gilgit, I'd imagine them to be more familiar than any of our troops relative to afghan tribes they've come to know.

"...and making enough mistakes for the both of us."

You rant.

"Sure we made some miscalculations and took some missteps..."

As have we.

...but that doesn’t validate the context or proportion or nature of the insinuations you’re found [sic] of making...

Depends. Most damning is the now entrenched nature of a then nascent threat to your nation. Nature, context, and proportion have now manifested themselves to levels heretofore unseen within Pakistan. If you find my criticism harsh WRT to your actions/inaction in late 2001/early 2002, ask yourselves what might you have done better to preclude what is upon you now and what occurred in the interim to permit this evolution.

"...particularly given your complete inability to indulge in self-appraisal."

Irrelevant. If the shoe fits, wear it. I'll be happy to discuss our mistakes. America has made plenty. The question is what could you have done in late 2001 that might have precluded or mitigated today's conditions away or to an acceptable level?

I've accused your nation of deploying inadequate numbers of forces with an insufficient urgency. I see now it's impossibility, though not for the reasons you propose. I don't believe a perfect seal of your border is possible. I DO believe that it can be made a damned difficult area for insurgents to cross through and one that offers great danger to them. I certainly think, then or now, that your army is entirely capable of identifying the key routes (not the largest btw) and promptly deploying to these areas.

I was wrong then. Two possible reasons- 1.) You had no intent to do so and would have seeked counter-vailing measures to events in Afghanistan by preserving this force while making a suitable display of arrests on the highway crossing site in Khyber and/or, 2.) you became infected with the same hubris beginning to creep into our perception that late fall of 2001. I know that we were amazed and collectively dis-oriented by the rapid taliban collapse. Perhaps you too.

We dropped our guard and took our thinking hats off just when we really needed them the most. It's possible that you did too. Clearly, the threat couldn't be perceived as immediate and profound.

Anyway, some thoughts...

 

[S-2]

Babur, I think you're wrong WRT American views on Baluchistan. Can you provide any policy papers from prominent American think tanks to this effect? How about comments or policy papers from the GAO, CRO (Congressional Research Office) or CBO (Congressional Budget Office), key governmental leaders or legislator comments?

I think you refer to a Ralph Peters article and map. It's something of a cause celebre' and has assumed mythic status without substantiation.

Has it done so with you also?

Please make your case that my government wishes to see anything but the full development of Baluchistan to Pakistan's benefit-including Gwadar? I ask this knowing that you'll mention Pakistan's desire to provide basing rights to PLAN vessels as a threat to the U.S. Navy. I agree that will entail a modest change in geo-strategic conditions but only modest. Know that we view more importantly PLAN's operational maturation to fully exploit the Gwadar opportunities.

In any case, nothing involving the PRC would constitute the United States assuming such a threatening posture for Baluchistan. This isn't Cuba and it isn't 1961.

I'll look forward to your evidence from these prominent American policy institutions as your accusations come as a complete surprise outside of Ralph Peter's musings.

Peters is provocative and entertaining but NOBODY in America gave his thoughts serious play after they were published-including this neo-con. The same can't be said in Islam.

Ralph had never known such "popularity" there.

Thanks.

 

[Energon]

Re: S2's post: In terms of our (US') "failure" in Afghanistan, or us having under estimated a rag tag bunch of militants and other such misplaced romanticized notions of the David vs Goliath scenario... lets not leave out the most important and critical aspect... that the militia fighters in question after having been routed in 2001, slipped across the border and sought refuge in Pakistan where they regrouped and resumed launching cross border attacks back into Afghanistan. Other than some occasional predator drone attacks, western Pakistan is essentially off limits for US and NATO troops (when compared to the kinds of operational abilities they have in Afghanistan) where these groups are virtually free to operate and sustain themselves.

 

[muse]

Babur

Sir, you say the trouble maker in B'stan are "Nationalists" - this is both iinaccurate and a great disservice -- The NATION here is Pakistan, there is bit one nation in the territory of Pakistan - there is only Pakistani nationalism, all others are it's challengers.

Think about it if these troublemakers are Balouchi "nationalists" doesn't that mean you are confering Nationhood on B'stan - why then have a beef against the American??

Unfortunately so many, incredibly, so many, seem unable to understand the reality they are constructing when they use words like "nationalists" when referring to a bunch insurrectionist mercenaries.

It would be "strawberry fields..." if nation building did not involve the employment of will - in Pakistan, among Pakistanis, the Will to be Pakistanis is not expressd against those who challenge that will but instead against those who seek to fortify it and allow it's expression. Don't be counted among the former.

 

[qsaark]

Other than some occasional predator drone attacks, western Pakistan is essentially off limits for US and NATO troops (when compared to the kinds of operational abilities they have in Afghanistan) where these groups are virtually free to operate and sustain themselves.

Yet the occupation forces can’t roam freely in any part of Afghanistan, even in the vicinity of Kabul. I was watching Margaret Warner on The Online NewsHour a few days back. She interviewed Mullah Zaeef (former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan). She asked how much of Afghanistan is controlled by Taliban?, Zaeef replied "go outside, you'll know". Now if this kind of control the occupation forces have achieved in Afghanistan after "kinds of operational abilities they have in Afghanistan", complaining about Pakistan is nothing but laughable.

 

[S-2]

qsaark,

Maj. Gen. Mart de Kruif, commander of RC-SOUTH has remarked that in his extensive travels the most notable quality he's observed is the vast emptiness of the nation. Nobody controls it.

However eager you are to embrace the thoughts of Mullah Zaeef, he knows that his cohorts and him are dead men each time they face ISAF. It's a simple and largely indisputable fact that you can easily check by reviewing the reported contacts.

Another and more gruesome way is to review the nature of ISAF casualties. How many by gunshot? How many be IED attack?

No. We dominate where we go. Can we find more to do so such that we can clear, hold, and build? That's the issue. There's nowhere we CAN'T go. The Pakistani Army doesn't appear to be able to claim the same at present...

...on it's very own lands.

That makes me sad.

 

[muse]

Babur - take note - see if you can tell what word Ejaz is using to represent WILL:

Outsourcing balls
Ejaz Haider


Two developments have restored my faith in Pakistan’s future. No, I am not referring to the great battle won by Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and his lawyer cohorts. My optimism springs from the positive trend on display in Swat where the state, in keeping with the modern business strategy of outsourcing, has asked the reigning Islamic scholar, one Sufi Muhammad, to run the area as he pleases, thank you.

This is just the beginning. I am informed by the NWFP chief minister, Ameer Haider Hoti, that the nongovernment in Peshawar is giving a deep-think to the idea of subsequently extending this outsourcing to the rest of the province.

Mr Hoti is a smart man and he has the support in this venture of other smart men across Pakistan, most of them leaders of various political parties and the media. All of them believe in democracy and negotiations. Hoti can ultimately be the chief minister without having to lift a finger to do state work because all his functions, a la Swat, will have been outsourced. Reminds me of Bahadur Shah Zafar, except that Hoti, to my knowledge, can’t even write bad poetry.

You want to look into the merits of this. Here goes.

Democracy is about the voice of the people; remember the old adage, vox populi, vox dei. If the people don’t like the state to do its work, what should a benign, democratic state do but to bow to their wish and let them be ruled by those they want to be ruled by and through laws they prefer.

Of course, by the very logic of deregulation, or shall I say decentralisation, the outsourcing exercise cannot be consistent in its application of the laws or even the groups to which state work must be outsourced. Monopolies we don’t want. The Aurakzai Agency, for instance, will have its own ruling group and exegesis of shariat while we could contract in the Khyber Agency the group most powerful there.

This exercise could be replicated in other parts of NWFP and in the remaining tribal agencies.

Imagine the money we will save. Pakistan will have no need for a single, monolithic army that has been such a heavy burden on the exchequer. Within their respective areas, the ruling groups will run everything. It’s almost like companies getting contracts for maintaining and streamlining parking space in front of shopping plazas or levying toll for the use of bridges and turnpikes etc.

What is so sanctimonious about central state control anyway? In fact, I am very seriously thinking of raising a militia and having my own local fiefdom by “requesting” the state to outsource its functions to me in the area that I could, so far theoretically, control.

My suggestion is that if this exercise succeeds in the NWFP, as it surely would, it may be extended to other parts of Pakistan. In some ways Pakistan has always been like this. Local control in interior Sindh; local control of a city like Karachi by the “middle class”; local control of areas in Balochistan by the democratic sardars; local control of Lahore by the democratic brothers and so on.

The future, dear reader, lies in the twin concepts of deregulation and outsourcing. If the model works in the realm of economy and business (the current trend towards governmental control is just a passing phase), why can’t it be made to work in the political realm?

Ok, I know there is a bit of a problem when it comes to theories of state. Philosopher after philosopher has talked about the state as being the one entity that cannot be allowed to be outsourced. They think that one of the foremost attributes of state is its monopoly of violence. To put this philosophical concept in plain Punjabi, the state must be able to “teri maa’n di...” anyone who challenges it.

Constitutional and juridical constraints may have changed the manner in which a state can do this but this attribute remains, whether it is to be exercised through “exception”, “emergency”, “bio-power”, “bio-political” or whatever else. The state ultimately embraces the living being in its most extreme form: it can and does kill.

For some scholars, this is what distinguishes the “political” from every other sphere of life, not just in terms of a mere distinction but by subjugating all other human activities — individual and collective — to the political.

But despair not. Truly democratic that we are, these concepts we do not believe in. The model we are putting in place is the one that liberates — maybe not the people, but at least the present bunch of rulers. It liberates them from running the state.

As for what the groups contracted to do the state’s work will do, this is what will happen:

Because effective control requires that they make the “political” decision, they will kill when necessary. Each group will also consider the other the out-group. That means, yes, the friend-enemy distinction. They will fight until one group dominates and brings other areas under its control. That too is the attribute of a state.

Replicate this across Pakistan where chunks of territory have been outsourced to whoever could challenge the withering and withered state. The scenario that I can see is the emergence of a new state, ready to kill internally as well as externally. Talking of bio-power or bio-political, you can’t get more “bio-whatever” than slitting people’s throats jugular backwards and then smiling on camera while holding aloft the severed head.

The damn philosophers are right after all. But don’t worry. We shall do what liberal humanism suggests (who cares if our humanism springs from sh*tload of idiocy and the inability to run a state). What the groups do after we have entrusted them with the running of the state is their doing. I just bought a nice apartment in Park Avenue anyway.

They may kill but we abhor killing our own brothers. Plus, this business of running a state is kinda masculine. It involves having what the Italians euphemistically call “attributi” and plain English “balls”.

Since we don’t have them, our model of outsourcing the state to those who have them is the only way out. The Lord be praised!

Ejaz Haider is Consulting Editor of The Friday Times and Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times. He can be reached at sapper@dailytimes.com.pk

 

[TruthSeeker]

muse, sir, I thought that the Forum looked with a jaundiced eye at sarcasm ^^^. Nonetheless, bin Laden said in the tape that many here think was faked that "the people" support "the strongest horse". So, maybe the people of Pakistan want the strongest horse, in each of their towns and villages, to reign? I would hope not. But do you think this is the reality of present day Pakistan?

 

[muse]

TruthSeeker

I think Ejaz's article is not sarcasm at all - it's the truth about our political elite.

In the last 2 decades, withthe exception of Musharraf's rule, Pakistanis had the sh..it kicked out of them - they really have the economy is in ruins, the same politiicans who brought it to ruin are today celebrated as great "democracts".

Pakistanis are deeply religious and they wanted to be good Muslims, from their own colonial experience they wanted to see others struggling to be free to attain that freedom - Islamist politicians and state elements seized upon this "sentiment" and fed it -- Pakistanis felt that this was a great service to other Muslims, but much like road paved with good intentions (from their point of view, good intentions)

Today, the political elite do not have the WILL, the BALLS to do what must be done if Pakistan is to survive as a nation state - see Pakistanis did have it right in my opinon, in the sense that Pakistan is a great nation and it can serve as a model, a beacon of hope of hundredsof millions of others -- but the public is beaten down, they cannot tell right from wrong, cannot tell good from bad -- and being a deeply religious even if that religiousity is more geared to outward appearance of religiousity - it is very difficult for them to see even this Islamist hope as vain, empty and murderous.

For my money, Ejaz is spot on, it takes WILL - but you note here on this forum, where we have lovely, educated, patriotic, good spiritied and well meaning persons, an inability ot see things clearly - so difficult is it for them that they cling to whatthey know is a failure and a murderous one.

Among themselves the criticism we read here is kid gloves stuff, they know the truth, but false pride takes it toll - they are then compelled to come to the defense of that which is indefensible.

I was going over Ahmad Rasheed's "Jihad" which is a sort of primer on Islamist movements in Central Asia and I wa struck by how much Pakistan is beginning ot seem like Tajikistan and while Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan is much reviled, Uzbekistan did not suffer to the extent that Tajikistan did - other friends may enjoy the read -- Once again, the mix of "idealist democracts", "islamists" and expectations seem to reduced the ordinary tajik to minced meat - the number deaths, the per capita deaths, all in the name of Islam, the greater good of Muslims - today, blindly for most Pakistanis, we are treasding that path.

From a distance it may sem that Pakistan's demise is immenent - Pakistan is a huge country and a resilent one, however; like tajikistan it is being reduced to minced meat - while our "democractic" "Menshiviks" argue and express "democracy" in the streets, Islamists muddy the waters and wait for Pakistan to drop like ripe fruit in thier hands -- yes, it may be optimistic from the point of view of some, but it is a real possibility -- one that so scares Pakistanis that they escape into denial.

Ejaz is right, it takes "attributi" - something Pakistanis do not put forward, it has been kicked in it's "attributi" every time it has put them forward.

 

[S-2]

Always nice to see you so openly expressive.

Well said.

 

[SSGPA1]

Several administration and military officials stressed that they continued to prod the Pakistani military to take the lead in a more aggressive campaign to root out Taliban and Qaeda fighters who are attacking American forces in Afghanistan and increasingly destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan. ... But with Pakistan consumed by political turmoil, fear of financial collapse and a spreading insurgency, American officials say they have few illusions that the United States will be able to rely on Pakistan’s own forces. However, each strike by Predators or ground forces reverberates in Pakistan, and Mr. Obama will be weighing that cost.

A truck load of hog wash! Tell Obama that USA needs to stop India from launching anti Pakistan actions from Afghanistan and things will certainly change on Pakistani side of the border!

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on “The Charlie Rose Show” on PBS last week that the White House strategy review addresses the “safe haven in Pakistan — making sure that Afghanistan doesn’t provide a capability in the long run or an environment in which Al Qaeda could return or the Taliban could return.”

What about role of Indian RAW in Afghanistan?? What about safe haven against Pakistan in Afghanistan?
Are you still shipping drugs to US in coffins?

How about burning all the Opium fields? There will be no funds for the Talibans!

His core decision may be whether to scale back American ambitions there and simply assure that it does not become a sanctuary for terrorist groups. “We are taking this back to a fundamental question,” a senior diplomat involved in the discussions said. “Can you ever get a central government in Afghanistan to a point where it can exercise control over the country? That was the problem Bush never really confronted.”

A second option, officials say, is to significantly boost the American commitment to train Afghan troops, with Americans taking on the Taliban with increasing help from the Afghan military. President Bush pursued versions of that strategy, but the training always took longer and proved less successful than plans called for.

A third option would involve devoting full American and NATO resources to a large-scale counterinsurgency effort. But Mr. Obama would be bound to face considerable opposition within NATO, whose leaders he will meet with early next month in Strasbourg, France. At the very time the United States is seeking to expand its presence in Afghanistan, many of the allies are scheduled to leave.

Stick with the first option and get the hell out of Afghanistan while you have a chance! China, Russia and Iran are not happy with your presence and may end up playing the role which US played during the USSR invasion.

Missile strikes or American commando raids in the city of Quetta or the teeming Afghan settlements and refugee camps around the city and near the Afghan border would carry high risks of civilian casualties, American officials acknowledge.

Please destroy all Delta movie series DVDs in the Pentagon and start respecting the armed forces of Pakistan ... these numb nuts actually think they can fly to Quetta, take action and then get back to Afghanistan!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Two possible reasons- 1.) You had no intent to do so and would have seeked counter-vailing measures to events in Afghanistan by preserving this force while making a suitable display of arrests on the highway crossing site in Khyber and/or, 2.) you became infected with the same hubris beginning to creep into our perception that late fall of 2001. I know that we were amazed and collectively dis-oriented by the rapid taliban collapse. Perhaps you too.

We dropped our guard and took our thinking hats off just when we really needed them the most. It's possible that you did too. Clearly, the threat couldn't be perceived as immediate and profound.

As an addendum to (1),

(a) Consider that Kargil had occurred only two years prior, and though of our initiation, the fact that the Indians had committed similar aggression in Siachen in the eighties would have meant that the PA was rightfully vary of possible retaliatory Indian aggression again, especially if Pakistan was distracted in the West.

(b) The parliament attack in India in Dec 2001, and the subsequent Operation Parakram - again, the PA was extremely justified in focusing on the East.