US warns of Pakistan security threat

[BanglaBhoot]

India and Pakistan face one of the most serious security threats since the end of British rule 62 years ago as Islamist militants advance towards Islamabad, Richard Holbrooke, the US special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, said on Monday.

The warning came as Pakistan said it would seek a further $4.5bn loan from the International Monetary Fund to support a fragile economy sapped by mismanagement, the global financial crisis and a militant insurgency. The funds would be in addition to a $7.6bn rescue package agreed at the end of last year to save Pakistan from a balance of payments crisis.

Speaking in New Delhi, Mr Holbrooke said the "terrifying" loss of control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan to Taliban militants highlighted the urgent need to combat a security threat of global proportions emanating from south Asia.

The push by militants into the former tourist area - barely a three hour drive from the Pakistani capital – has shocked Pakistanis and many in the international community.

“Swat has really deeply affected the people of Pakistan – not just in Peshawar but in Lahore and in Islamabad,” Mr Holbrooke said.

“What has happened in Swat demonstrates that India, the US and Pakistan all have a common threat. It’s the first time in 60 years, since independence, that your country (India), Pakistan and the US all face an enemy which poses a direct threat to our capitals, our leadership and our people.”

Mr Holbrooke was on the last leg of a three-nation tour during which he held talks with the Pakistani and Afghan leadership to forge a new approach to the region under the US administration of President Barack Obama.

His visit on Monday to Delhi coincided with a Pakistani provincial government striking a controversial agreement with Islamist militants to introduce Islamic shariah laws in return for peace.

The agreement between the government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Tanzeem-e-Nifaz Shariat Mohammadi, or the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws, calls for the introduction of Islamic courts across a northern administrative region that includes the Swat Valley.

Islamist militants have waged a year long campaign in Swat, killing local leaders, closing schools and forcing an exodus of people. They have also attacked Malam Jabba, one of Pakistan’s few ski resorts, and set it on fire.

Amir Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of the NWFP, on Monday defended the agreement, saying that it would fill a “vacuum created in the area because people were not getting timely justice”. He rejected criticism that the new shariah laws threatened to undermine Pakistan’s constitution and the country’s existing laws.

The central government has backed the deal in the hope that it can retake control of lost territory. “We needed to create a window of opportunity, a period of peace, so that the writ of the Pakistani state could be re-established in Swat,” said one government official.

Western diplomats said there was a danger that the government’s conciliatory gesture in seeking the agreement could be seen as a sign of weakness. “Are militants going to see this [agreement] as a victory to be followed by other victories?” asked one diplomat.

FT.com / Asia-Pacific - US warns of Pakistan security threat

 

[moha199]

He is right in a way

 

[IceCold]

US is the main reason we are into this mess at the first place. All this nonsense started when they left Afghanistan after the soviet withdrawal and intensified after 9/11 when the US decided to attack Afghanistan. Now they are worried, bloody hypocrites.

 

[BanglaBhoot]

Why is the US so interested in Afghanistan. What strategic significance does it have for the US that they are prepared to commit more troops and risk another quagmire like Vietnam. It also creates more hostility between Pakistan and India as the latter seems to be using the US to achieve some of its goals in Afghanistan but what is the the US objective here?

 

[Jihad]

US is the main reason we are into this mess at the first place. All this nonsense started when they left Afghanistan after the soviet withdrawal and intensified after 9/11 when the US decided to attack Afghanistan. Now they are worried, bloody hypocrites.

They screwed with us, continue to screw us, and will screw us in the future untill we stand strong and have a credible voice in the international community or not even that, but simply have strong leadership with alot of domestic support.

 

[PakistanMyPride]

Why is the US so interested in Afghanistan. What strategic significance does it have for the US that they are prepared to commit more troops and risk another quagmire like Vietnam. It also creates more hostility between Pakistan and India as the latter seems to be using the US to achieve some of its goals in Afghanistan but what is the the US objective here?

Read this article and you would get the answers


By Ahmed Quraishi

Wednesday, 21 January 2009.

Ahmed Quraishi-Pakistan/Middle East politics, Iraq war, lebanon war, India Pakistan relations



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—Publicly, America’s most immediate challenge after the government change is Afghanistan and Pakistan. Privately, in Washington’s power corridors, it is oil.



Oil, and not al Qaeda, is threatening to knock America off global leadership. President Obama takes over a country whose global economic leadership is threatened by dwindling oil reserves and a dogfight over whatever remains.



Oil is running out, fast. And the remaining oil, including new reserves, lie in other people’s lands, closer to Russia, China, Europe and other powers. America’s global supremacy rests on an economic system based on easy access to oil. If someone else gets that oil, America loses.



Jon Thompson, an American oil veteran ExxonMobil Exploration Company’s former president, has written in June 2003 that by next decade the world will need 80% more oil than we have today to keep the world going.



Luckily for President Obama, his predecessor, George W. Bush, has done an excellent job in: One, securing new oil, and, Two, warding off threat from other oil hungry powers.



Under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy, Bush’s eight years saw the biggest expansion of American military bases across the world. And the trail follows the smell of oil. This riddle is as mysterious as the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.



America’s foreign policy was also adjusted to follow the footprint of oil, going where the oil is, be it Angola, Sudan/Darfur, Central Asia, Russia, Colombia, Georgia, Venezuela, and of course Iraq. Somalia is fast becoming the latest battlefield in this secretive global dogfight over oil and transport routes.



In the words of veteran American oil industry correspondent William Engdahl, ‘U.S. military and foreign policy was now about controlling every major existing and potential oil source and transport route on earth […] One superpower, the United States, would be in a position to decide who gets how much energy and at what price.’



The Taliban government was not an enemy of America. It sent delegations to United States and lobbied for U.S. State Department’s attention. Its removal was decided much before 9/11, according to Pakistan’s former top diplomat Niaz Naik, who was told so explicitly by U.S. officials in July 2001. Taliban fell out of favor because they put terms and conditions on the pipelines that American oil giants planned to construct on Afghan territory. Taliban were replaced by U.S. oil consultants Zalmay Khalilzad and Hamid Karzai.



Pakistan was and continues to be the next target. U.S. diplomatic meddling has already disturbed the natural progression of the Pakistani government system, leading to instability and creating local players who look to America for support. U.S. military intervention is softening up the country through regular missile attacks and drone flights. The last time this method proved effective was in Iraq during the 1990s. The chatter in the U.S. think tanks and media about Pakistan’s division along ethnic lines has never been this high. Pakistan has to be subdued in order for American energy and military transport lines to become secure. America needs to secure Pakistani transport routes from the sea to the Afghan border.



Balochistan is an interesting case. Destabilizing this Pakistani province disturbs Iran’s plans to lay down pipelines to Pakistan and beyond. The instability also helps destroy China’s chances of using Gwadar, the new Pakistani port city overlooking oil-rich Gulf, to dock its commercial and naval ships. In fact, the entire area between Gwadar and the Sino-Pakistani border is up in insurgencies of all sorts, known and unknown. This is the same route that a future Chinese oil pipeline is supposed to take, linking China to oil supplies from Africa and the Gulf. This entire area was peaceful before 2005, until meddling by unknown actors began from the U.S.-controlled Afghan soil, exploiting Pakistani internal problems.


The United States is playing a big role in ‘softening’ Pakistan. It is trying to pitch the country’s elected governments against the military to reduce the military’s ability to decide Pakistani interest on Afghanistan, China and India. Outside meddling is easy thanks to Pakistan’s weak political and government structure.



Stopping American intervention in Pakistan, while continuing the cooperative relationship, is the biggest challenge facing President Obama.



Will he do it? The facts on the ground are not encouraging. After gaining unprecedented access inside Pakistan – both diplomatically and militarily – it is doubtful that an Obama administration would scale back U.S. gains.



Pakistan will have to tell the U.S. that it has legitimate security and strategic interests in the region and that it cannot allow the U.S. to decide those for Pakistan. This includes the shape of the future government in Kabul, the expansion of the Indian role in the region, and the relationship with China.



Obama’s Washington has to understand, respect and work with Pakistani interests and concerns. Any other type of relationship won’t work. President Obama needs to wean his policy planners off the idea of reproducing the pliant regimes Baghdad and Kabul.



Those things require war. And President Obama doesn’t want another war, does he?

Ahmed Quraishi.com

 

[PakistanMyPride]

They screwed with us, continue to screw us, and will screw us in the future untill we stand strong and have a credible voice in the international community or not even that, but simply have strong leadership with alot of domestic support.

Everything has some limitation. A stage comes when you can't screw more!! This stage is coming for Pakistan when it will have to say "No more". Whoever will do this, would automatically gain domestic support.