Steve Coll, whose understanding of the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan has to be considered superb, has published in the Atlantic an estimate of the consequences of our “failing” in the war against that Taliban and AlQaeda. Anything he says needs to be considered carefully. Here is a fine statement of the implications of giving up or otherwise “failing” in the South Asian war. This, he says, is what would happen:
The Nineties Afghan Civil War on Steroids:
Momentum for a Taliban Revolution in Pakistan:
Increased Islamist Violence Against India, Increasing the Likelihood of Indo-Pakistani War:
Increased Al Qaeda Ambitions Against Britain and the United States:
He concludes this last section with the following:
"As 9/11 and the current creativity of the regionally focussed Taliban amply demonstrate, their potential should not be complacently underestimated. If they did get through and score another lucky goal, it is easy to imagine the prospective consequences for American politics and for the constitution."
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Mutawakil's hint: Is negotiation possible?
On CNN Mullah Wakil Ahmed Mutawakil, former foreign minister for the Taliban, said that negotiation with the Taliban was possible. Also, Taliban commander Mullah Toor Jan has recently said that the Afghan Taliban had no connection with Al Qaida or with Pakistan’s Tehrik-i Taliban, the Taliban that have challenged the Pakistani military. Comments to make us wonder.
As for Mutawakil, what he says is worth taking seriously because he seems to be -- even now -- a key link between the leadership of the Taliban and the American military. I went back to the transcript, to be sure of what he actually said. Not a lot, it turns out, but it is enough to be suggestive: Is it a hint of a chance of a deal with the Taliban? [Click on the title for a link to the CNN site it comes from.] Here are the key statements:
This, let us hope, is a possible opening. But it is clear, as Mutawakil intimated, that Mullah Muhammad Omar does not control all of the groups that call themselves "Taliban"; indeed, Mutawakil specifically rejected any point in talking to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Mujahedin leader against the Soviets and now a leader of one of the "Taliban" factions. And he admits that many young people have come under the influence of the more extreme of the Islamists connected with the Taliban; presumably there is no negotiating for them either.
So, if it means anything it means only that some Taliban might be willing to talk.
As for Mutawakil, what he says is worth taking seriously because he seems to be -- even now -- a key link between the leadership of the Taliban and the American military. I went back to the transcript, to be sure of what he actually said. Not a lot, it turns out, but it is enough to be suggestive: Is it a hint of a chance of a deal with the Taliban? [Click on the title for a link to the CNN site it comes from.] Here are the key statements:
MUTAWAKIL (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): The common Taliban do not believe in the peace process. They don't trust it.
LAWRENCE: (voice-over): But Mutawakil says its leadership is open to negotiation. ...
MUTAWAKIL: We are not a danger to the world. We can be flexible.
MUTAWAKIL (through translator): Only reconciling with Hekmatyar will not solve the problem. If they do not negotiate with the representative of Mullah Omar, it will be useless.
LAWRENCE: (voice-over): Mutawakil says the Taliban realize they can't turn back the clock to early 2001.
(on camera): Could they accept a government where women are granted rights, women can -- are allowed to go to school?
MUTAWAKIL (through translator): They will won't believe in co- education, but there can be separate education while wearing veils. This will be different.
LAWRENCE: (voice-over): He says the current Taliban leadership is more focused on driving out foreigners than Islamic crusade, but admits a lot of young Afghan fighters have been influenced by years of contact with the foreign jihadists.
MUTAWAKIL (through translator): The new generation of Taliban, the young boys who joined with them, they are different. (END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: The mullah told me that some American diplomats have already visited him to talk about Afghanistan's future. But he says the price of any deal could be taking the bounty off the heads of some Taliban leaders or even giving them control of some provinces . . . .
This, let us hope, is a possible opening. But it is clear, as Mutawakil intimated, that Mullah Muhammad Omar does not control all of the groups that call themselves "Taliban"; indeed, Mutawakil specifically rejected any point in talking to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Mujahedin leader against the Soviets and now a leader of one of the "Taliban" factions. And he admits that many young people have come under the influence of the more extreme of the Islamists connected with the Taliban; presumably there is no negotiating for them either.
So, if it means anything it means only that some Taliban might be willing to talk.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
BBC interview with a child "suicide bomber"
I have for some time believed that it takes a huge degree of inhumanity, wickedness, to train children to become suicide bombers. It appears to be an industry among the Taliban/Al Qaeda. So many bombers have been produced that the process cannot exist without a number of adults being involved and other numbers being willing to ignore it. For me, it is easy to believe that eventually this activity will create such revulsion among the communities being mined for their children that there will be an extreme reaction. How can a society, once fully aware of the practice, continue to allow it? Given my faith on the subject, I am encouraged by the report of a 14 year old boy who was "recruited" to be a suicide bomber. The whole report follows below. RLC
'I agreed to become a suicide bomber' Thursday, 12 November 2009 BBC News
A 14-year-old boy in the tribal region of Bajaur, in north-west Pakistan, says he was detained by Taliban forces who tried to turn him into a suicide bomber. The boy is now in army hands.
He provided a detailed account to BBC correspondent Orla Guerin. His story cannot be independently verified.
"There were five people who came after me from a place in Bajaur. They tricked me. They told me they were going to behead my father.
I went with them but my father wasn't there. They tied me up.
They said: 'You have two choices. We will behead you, or you will become a suicide bomber.' I refused.
There were two more guys of my age. They were also training to be suicide bombers. If we refused they would tie our hands behind our backs, blindfold us and start beating us.
They brainwashed us and told us we would go to heaven. They said 'there will be honey and juice and God will appear in front of you. You will have a beautiful house in Heaven'.
We used to ask them to let us out to pray. They would reply 'you are already on your way to heaven. You don't need to pray.'
They beat me hard for five days. I wasn't given any food. While they were beating me I agreed to become a suicide bomber. They separated me from the other boys.
Mosque mission
They took me to a dark room and started giving me pills. I was handed over to Maulvi Fakir [the Bajaur Taliban commander]. After all this preparation they said I was to go and do the job in a mosque.
It was an ordinary mosque but the cleric there used to talk against the Taliban, and they declared him their enemy. They told me the cleric was a non-believer, a non-Muslim.
They took off my shirt and put the jacket on my shoulders. There were two hooks on my chest. They told me that when you go there you say'Allahu Akbar' [God is Great] and then you pull apart these two hooks. Then they took me there, showed me the mosque and went off.
I was drugged and I couldn't feel anything. I only came to my senses when I arrived in the mosque. I saw the peaceful kind face of the cleric, and I saw the mosque was full of holy books. I saw the people praying. And I thought, they are all Muslims. How can I do this? I decided not to and I came out.
I sat under a tree outside the mosque and waited for prayers to be over. After that I made my way back to the Taliban. Then they called me 'a son of a bitch' and asked why I had come back without doing it.
I told them I could not do it because they were carrying out body searches of all the people entering the mosque. They took off my vest and handed me over to Maulvi Fakir.
They tied me up but I told them to give me another chance and I would do it. They trusted me. I was roaming around with them for a couple of days. I got to the road, found transport and came home. They followed me to my house. They wanted to know if I was still there or had run somewhere else.
The Taliban had beaten me so harshly my back was scarred. When my parents saw that my mother started to cry, and told me not to go back to them. My father asked them why they were after his son. One day he took his weapon and went after them. But they wanted to kill him so he came back home and closed the door.
Before the Taliban came we used to enjoy freedom. We used to play, and go to our schools. There were no restrictions on us. Morning and evening we used to play games, and sit and chat with friends. We used to listen to music on our mobile phones. They banned that. They stopped us doing anything. They stopped us playing cricket and going to school. We felt like prisoners.
I want to join the army because they are the defenders of the land. They are fighting for the right cause. I want to fight against the Taliban. I have no other intention except to defend my country. The Taliban should be eliminated.
I want to tell the Taliban that they are cruel, and what they did to me was unjust. I can't kill innocent Muslims.
I am not afraid of them. I am only afraid of God. I am answerable only to Him."
'I agreed to become a suicide bomber' Thursday, 12 November 2009 BBC News
A 14-year-old boy in the tribal region of Bajaur, in north-west Pakistan, says he was detained by Taliban forces who tried to turn him into a suicide bomber. The boy is now in army hands.
He provided a detailed account to BBC correspondent Orla Guerin. His story cannot be independently verified.
"There were five people who came after me from a place in Bajaur. They tricked me. They told me they were going to behead my father.
I went with them but my father wasn't there. They tied me up.
They said: 'You have two choices. We will behead you, or you will become a suicide bomber.' I refused.
There were two more guys of my age. They were also training to be suicide bombers. If we refused they would tie our hands behind our backs, blindfold us and start beating us.
They brainwashed us and told us we would go to heaven. They said 'there will be honey and juice and God will appear in front of you. You will have a beautiful house in Heaven'.
We used to ask them to let us out to pray. They would reply 'you are already on your way to heaven. You don't need to pray.'
They beat me hard for five days. I wasn't given any food. While they were beating me I agreed to become a suicide bomber. They separated me from the other boys.
Mosque mission
They took me to a dark room and started giving me pills. I was handed over to Maulvi Fakir [the Bajaur Taliban commander]. After all this preparation they said I was to go and do the job in a mosque.
It was an ordinary mosque but the cleric there used to talk against the Taliban, and they declared him their enemy. They told me the cleric was a non-believer, a non-Muslim.
They took off my shirt and put the jacket on my shoulders. There were two hooks on my chest. They told me that when you go there you say'Allahu Akbar' [God is Great] and then you pull apart these two hooks. Then they took me there, showed me the mosque and went off.
I was drugged and I couldn't feel anything. I only came to my senses when I arrived in the mosque. I saw the peaceful kind face of the cleric, and I saw the mosque was full of holy books. I saw the people praying. And I thought, they are all Muslims. How can I do this? I decided not to and I came out.
I sat under a tree outside the mosque and waited for prayers to be over. After that I made my way back to the Taliban. Then they called me 'a son of a bitch' and asked why I had come back without doing it.
I told them I could not do it because they were carrying out body searches of all the people entering the mosque. They took off my vest and handed me over to Maulvi Fakir.
They tied me up but I told them to give me another chance and I would do it. They trusted me. I was roaming around with them for a couple of days. I got to the road, found transport and came home. They followed me to my house. They wanted to know if I was still there or had run somewhere else.
The Taliban had beaten me so harshly my back was scarred. When my parents saw that my mother started to cry, and told me not to go back to them. My father asked them why they were after his son. One day he took his weapon and went after them. But they wanted to kill him so he came back home and closed the door.
Before the Taliban came we used to enjoy freedom. We used to play, and go to our schools. There were no restrictions on us. Morning and evening we used to play games, and sit and chat with friends. We used to listen to music on our mobile phones. They banned that. They stopped us doing anything. They stopped us playing cricket and going to school. We felt like prisoners.
I want to join the army because they are the defenders of the land. They are fighting for the right cause. I want to fight against the Taliban. I have no other intention except to defend my country. The Taliban should be eliminated.
I want to tell the Taliban that they are cruel, and what they did to me was unjust. I can't kill innocent Muslims.
I am not afraid of them. I am only afraid of God. I am answerable only to Him."
Friday, November 13, 2009
Pakistani double-speak. Ingress? Dominate?
Former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf has complained that Afghanistan is "under the influence of Indian intelligence." He clearly indicates that the ISI are somehow connected with the Taliban:
At the end of this article he says that we should "defeat Al Qaeda" and "dominate Taliban." Hmm. Not defeat the Taliban; only dominate them.
Ingress. Dominate. These terms leave us unsettled as to what Pakistan is really committed to. What the Pakistani military are not fully committed to is a complete defeat of the Taliban. As Musharraf says, some of them are useful.... What follows, at least, is the version of India's Economic Times. The whole article follows below. RLC
Afghan is under influence of Indian intelligence:
Musharraf
The Economic Times (India) - Nov 08 9:21 PM WASHINGTON:
Acknowledging that there is "An ingress of the ISI in every terrorist group", former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has alleged Afghanistan is under influence of Indian intelligence agencies and he has documentary evidence against it.
"Afghan intelligence, Afghan President, Afghan Government. Don't talk of them. I know what they do. They are, by design, they mislead the world. They talk against Pakistan, because they are under the influence of Indian intelligence, all of them," Musharraf said in an interview yesterday.
"The Afghan intelligence (is) entirely under the influence of Indian intelligence. We know that," Musharraf said when asked that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is in the Quetta city of Pakistan.
"Whatever I am saying, I am not saying it here (for the first time). I have given documentary evidence of all this to everyone. There is the documentary evidence. And we know the involvement of Indian intelligence, in India, with their intelligence," Musharraf, currently in London, charged.
"I have given documentary evidence to everyone from top to bottom. Everyone knows it. And we have the documentary evidence," the former Pakistan Army chief said.
Musharraf denied reports and statements coming from the US leaders that ISI still has contacts with the terrorists.
"They (ISI) will not support it (terrorists). That was not the government policy. That was not the military policy. However, there was ingress," he said.
"Always, in every group, there is an ingress of the ISI. And that is the efficiency, the effectiveness of the ISI. You must have ingress, so that you can influence all organizations. And it is this ingress of theirs, which doesn't mean that they are supporting them, but they have ingress. They have some contacts, which can be used for their own advantage," Musharraf said.
He said foreign troops are not welcome in Afghanistan, but now since they are there, they should win the battle against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"Foreign troops are not welcome there (in Afghanistan). But now that they are there, we have to win. And quitting is not an option at all," he said.
"Anyone who is talking of quitting doesn't understand the ramifications of quitting. He must sit down and analyze what will happen if he were to quit there without a solution.
We have to defeat the al-Qaida, we have to dominate the Taliban, and we have to introduce a credible, legitimate government in Afghanistan. But we cannot leave before that," he said.
"They (ISI) will not support it (terrorists). That was not the government policy. That was not the military policy. However, there was ingress," he said.
"Always, in every group, there is an ingress of the ISI. And that is the efficiency, the effectiveness of the ISI. You must have ingress, so that you can influence all organizations. And it is this ingress of theirs, which doesn't mean that they are supporting them, but they have ingress. They have some contacts, which can be used for their own advantage," Musharraf said.
At the end of this article he says that we should "defeat Al Qaeda" and "dominate Taliban." Hmm. Not defeat the Taliban; only dominate them.
Ingress. Dominate. These terms leave us unsettled as to what Pakistan is really committed to. What the Pakistani military are not fully committed to is a complete defeat of the Taliban. As Musharraf says, some of them are useful.... What follows, at least, is the version of India's Economic Times. The whole article follows below. RLC
Afghan is under influence of Indian intelligence:
Musharraf
The Economic Times (India) - Nov 08 9:21 PM WASHINGTON:
Acknowledging that there is "An ingress of the ISI in every terrorist group", former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has alleged Afghanistan is under influence of Indian intelligence agencies and he has documentary evidence against it.
"Afghan intelligence, Afghan President, Afghan Government. Don't talk of them. I know what they do. They are, by design, they mislead the world. They talk against Pakistan, because they are under the influence of Indian intelligence, all of them," Musharraf said in an interview yesterday.
"The Afghan intelligence (is) entirely under the influence of Indian intelligence. We know that," Musharraf said when asked that Taliban leader Mullah Omar is in the Quetta city of Pakistan.
"Whatever I am saying, I am not saying it here (for the first time). I have given documentary evidence of all this to everyone. There is the documentary evidence. And we know the involvement of Indian intelligence, in India, with their intelligence," Musharraf, currently in London, charged.
"I have given documentary evidence to everyone from top to bottom. Everyone knows it. And we have the documentary evidence," the former Pakistan Army chief said.
Musharraf denied reports and statements coming from the US leaders that ISI still has contacts with the terrorists.
"They (ISI) will not support it (terrorists). That was not the government policy. That was not the military policy. However, there was ingress," he said.
"Always, in every group, there is an ingress of the ISI. And that is the efficiency, the effectiveness of the ISI. You must have ingress, so that you can influence all organizations. And it is this ingress of theirs, which doesn't mean that they are supporting them, but they have ingress. They have some contacts, which can be used for their own advantage," Musharraf said.
He said foreign troops are not welcome in Afghanistan, but now since they are there, they should win the battle against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
"Foreign troops are not welcome there (in Afghanistan). But now that they are there, we have to win. And quitting is not an option at all," he said.
"Anyone who is talking of quitting doesn't understand the ramifications of quitting. He must sit down and analyze what will happen if he were to quit there without a solution.
We have to defeat the al-Qaida, we have to dominate the Taliban, and we have to introduce a credible, legitimate government in Afghanistan. But we cannot leave before that," he said.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Sober Foresight: The International Energy Agency Report, 2009
Human beings are the most sentient creatures on the earth, the most capable of foresight and planning, the most adaptable and adjustable. At least so we tell ourselves.
The reality may be otherwise. We seem able to see ahead but as a species we – the industrial world especially -- seem unable to correct our social practices enough to spare our planet from ecological collapse. Could Jared Diamond be a prophet? Is it because we are unable or unwilling?
Anyway, I wonder how many people will read the just-released executive summary of the International Energy Agency’s “World Energy Outlook 2009”. Sobering as it is, the industrial world is likely to go on more or less as it has, primarily driven by immediate and local practical interests. That seems to me the most sobering, and unstated, features of the report.
In order to help circulate the sense of how serious the world ecological trend is I reproduce here merely the topic sentences of the executive summary. Actually the whole report is not long and the details are the most sobering feature of the report; click on the title for a link to the whole Executive Summary.
Just so you don't miss it: Here is how it ends:
Saving the planet cannot wait. For every year that passes, the window for action on emissions over a given period becomes narrower — and the costs of transforming the energy sector increase. We calculate that each year of delay before moving onto the emissions path consistent with a 2°C temperature increase would add approximately $500 billion to the global incremental investment cost of $10.5 trillion for the period 2010-2030. A delay of just a few years would probably render that goal completely out of reach. If this were the case, the additional adaptation costs would be many times this figure. Countries attending the UN Climate Change Conference must not lose sight of this. The time has come to make the hard choices needed to turn promises into action.
Read, and wonder. Some of us also will pray.
International Energy Agency, “World Energy Outlook 2009” [executive summary]
The past 12 months have seen enormous upheavals in energy markets around the world, yet the challenges of transforming the global energy system remain urgent and daunting. How we rise to that challenge will have far-reaching consequences for energy markets. The scale and breadth of the energy challenge is enormous — far greater than many people realise. But it can and must be met.
Households and businesses are largely responsible for making the required investments, but governments hold the key to changing the mix of energy investment. This Outlook presents the results of two scenarios: a Reference Scenario, which provides a baseline picture of how global energy markets would evolve if governments make no changes to their existing policies and measures; and a 450 Scenario, which depicts a world in which collective policy action is taken to limit the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent (ppm CO2-eq), an objective that is gaining widespread support around the world. © OECD/IEA, 2009 World Energy Outlook 2009
The financial crisis brings a temporary reprieve from rising fossil energy
use
• Global energy use is set to fall in 2009 — for the first time since 1981 on any significant scale — as a result of the financial and economic crisis; but, on current policies, it would quickly resume its long-term upward trend once economic recovery is underway.
• Fossil fuels remain the dominant sources of primary energy worldwide in the
Reference Scenario, accounting for more than three-quarters of the overall increase in energy use between 2007 and 2030.
• The main driver of demand for coal and gas is the inexorable growth in energy needs for power generation.
• The use of non-hydro modern renewable energy technologies (including wind, solar, geothermal, tide and wave energy, and bio-energy) sees the fastest rate of increase in the Reference Scenario.
Falling energy investment will have far-reaching consequences
• Energy investment worldwide has plunged over the past year in the face of a tougher financing environment, weakening final demand for energy and lower cash flow.
• In the oil and gas sector, most companies have announced cutbacks in capital spending, as well as project delays and cancellations, mainly as a result of lower cash flow.
• Falling energy investment will have far-reaching and, depending on how governments respond, potentially serious consequences for energy security, climate change and energy poverty.
• The financial crisis has cast a shadow over whether all the energy investment needed to meet growing energy needs can be mobilised. Current policies put us on an alarming fossil-energy path
• Continuing on today’s energy path, without any change in government policy, would mean rapidly increasing dependence on fossil fuels, with alarming consequences for climate change and energy security.
• Non-OECD countries account for all of the projected growth in energy-related CO2 emissions to 2030.
• These trends would lead to a rapid increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
• The Reference Scenario trends also heighten concerns about the security of energy supplies.
• Expanding access to modern energy for the world’s poor remains a pressing matter.
Limiting temperature rise to 2°C requires a low-carbon energy revolution
• Although opinion is mixed on what might be considered a sustainable, long-term level of annual CO2 emissions for the energy sector, a consensus on the need to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C is emerging.
• The reductions in energy-related CO2 emissions required in the 450 Scenario (relative to the Reference Scenario) by 2020 — just a decade away — are formidable, but the financial crisis offers what may be a unique opportunity to take the necessary steps as the political mood shifts.
• With a new international climate policy agreement, a comprehensive and rapid transformation in the way we produce, transport and use energy — a veritable lowcarbon revolution — could put the world onto this 450-ppm trajectory.
Energy efficiency offers the biggest scope for cutting emissions
• End-use efficiency is the largest contributor to CO2 emissions abatement in 2030, accounting for more than half of total savings in the 450 Scenario, compared with the Reference Scenario.
• Measures in the transport sector to improve fuel economy, expand biofuels and romote the uptake of new vehicle technologies — notably hybrid and electric vehicles — lead to a big reduction in oil demand.
New financing mechanisms will be critical to achieving
low-carbon growth
• The 450 Scenario entails $10.5 trillion more investment in energy infrastructure and energy-related capital stock globally than in the Reference Scenario through to the end of the projection period.
• The cost of the additional investments needed to put the world onto a 450-ppm path is at least partly offset by economic, health and energy-security benefits.
• It is widely agreed that developed countries must provide more financial support to developing countries in reducing their emissions; but the level of support, the mechanisms for providing it and the relative burden across countries are matters for negotiation.
Natural gas will play a key role whatever the policy landscape
• With the assumed resumption of global economic growth from 2010, demand for natural gas worldwide is set to resume its long-term upwards trend, though the pace of demand growth hinges critically on the strength of climate policy action.
• The outlook to 2015 differs markedly from the longer-term picture.
• In the 450 Scenario, world primary gas demand grows by 17% between 2007 and 2030, but is 17% lower in 2030 compared with the Reference Scenario.
Gas resources are huge but exploiting them will be challenging
• The world’s remaining resources of natural gas are easily large enough to cover any conceivable rate of increase in demand through to 2030 and well beyond, though the cost of developing new resources is set to rise over the long term.
• The non-OECD countries as a whole are projected to account for almost all of the projected increase in global natural gas production between 2007 and 2030.
• The rate of decline in production from existing gas fields is the prime factor determining the amount of new capacity and investment needed to meet projected demand.
Unconventional gas changes the game in North America
and elsewhere
• The recent rapid development of unconventional gas resources in the United States and Canada, particularly in the last three years, has transformed the gas-market outlook, both in North America and in other parts of the world.
• The extent to which the boom in unconventional gas production in North America can be replicated in other parts of the world endowed with such resources remains highly uncertain.
A glut of gas is looming
• The unexpected boom in North American unconventional gas production, together with the current recession’s depressive impact on demand, is expected to contribute to an acute glut of gas supply in the next few years.
• The looming gas glut could have far-reaching consequences for the structure of gas markets and for the way gas is priced in Europe and Asia-Pacific.
ASEAN countries will become a key energy market
• The ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are set to play an increasingly important role in global energy markets in the decades ahead.
• Many hurdles will need to be overcome if Southeast Asia is to secure access to the energy required to meet its growing needs at affordable prices and in a sustainable manner.
Turning promises into results
• The upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will provide important pointers to the kind of energy future that awaits us.
• A critical ingredient in the success of efforts to prevent climate change will be the speed with which governments act on their commitments.
The final comment:
Saving the planet cannot wait. For every year that passes, the window for action on emissions over a given period becomes narrower — and the costs of transforming the energy sector increase. We calculate that each year of delay before moving onto the emissions path consistent with a 2°C temperature increase would add approximately $500 billion to the global incremental investment cost of $10.5 trillion for the period 2010-2030. A delay of just a few years would probably render that goal completely out of reach. If this were the case, the additional adaptation costs would be many times this figure. Countries attending the UN Climate Change Conference must not lose sight of this. The time has come to make the hard choices needed to turn promises into action.
© OECD
The reality may be otherwise. We seem able to see ahead but as a species we – the industrial world especially -- seem unable to correct our social practices enough to spare our planet from ecological collapse. Could Jared Diamond be a prophet? Is it because we are unable or unwilling?
Anyway, I wonder how many people will read the just-released executive summary of the International Energy Agency’s “World Energy Outlook 2009”. Sobering as it is, the industrial world is likely to go on more or less as it has, primarily driven by immediate and local practical interests. That seems to me the most sobering, and unstated, features of the report.
In order to help circulate the sense of how serious the world ecological trend is I reproduce here merely the topic sentences of the executive summary. Actually the whole report is not long and the details are the most sobering feature of the report; click on the title for a link to the whole Executive Summary.
Just so you don't miss it: Here is how it ends:
Saving the planet cannot wait. For every year that passes, the window for action on emissions over a given period becomes narrower — and the costs of transforming the energy sector increase. We calculate that each year of delay before moving onto the emissions path consistent with a 2°C temperature increase would add approximately $500 billion to the global incremental investment cost of $10.5 trillion for the period 2010-2030. A delay of just a few years would probably render that goal completely out of reach. If this were the case, the additional adaptation costs would be many times this figure. Countries attending the UN Climate Change Conference must not lose sight of this. The time has come to make the hard choices needed to turn promises into action.
Read, and wonder. Some of us also will pray.
International Energy Agency, “World Energy Outlook 2009” [executive summary]
The past 12 months have seen enormous upheavals in energy markets around the world, yet the challenges of transforming the global energy system remain urgent and daunting. How we rise to that challenge will have far-reaching consequences for energy markets. The scale and breadth of the energy challenge is enormous — far greater than many people realise. But it can and must be met.
Households and businesses are largely responsible for making the required investments, but governments hold the key to changing the mix of energy investment. This Outlook presents the results of two scenarios: a Reference Scenario, which provides a baseline picture of how global energy markets would evolve if governments make no changes to their existing policies and measures; and a 450 Scenario, which depicts a world in which collective policy action is taken to limit the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent (ppm CO2-eq), an objective that is gaining widespread support around the world. © OECD/IEA, 2009 World Energy Outlook 2009
The financial crisis brings a temporary reprieve from rising fossil energy
use
• Global energy use is set to fall in 2009 — for the first time since 1981 on any significant scale — as a result of the financial and economic crisis; but, on current policies, it would quickly resume its long-term upward trend once economic recovery is underway.
• Fossil fuels remain the dominant sources of primary energy worldwide in the
Reference Scenario, accounting for more than three-quarters of the overall increase in energy use between 2007 and 2030.
• The main driver of demand for coal and gas is the inexorable growth in energy needs for power generation.
• The use of non-hydro modern renewable energy technologies (including wind, solar, geothermal, tide and wave energy, and bio-energy) sees the fastest rate of increase in the Reference Scenario.
Falling energy investment will have far-reaching consequences
• Energy investment worldwide has plunged over the past year in the face of a tougher financing environment, weakening final demand for energy and lower cash flow.
• In the oil and gas sector, most companies have announced cutbacks in capital spending, as well as project delays and cancellations, mainly as a result of lower cash flow.
• Falling energy investment will have far-reaching and, depending on how governments respond, potentially serious consequences for energy security, climate change and energy poverty.
• The financial crisis has cast a shadow over whether all the energy investment needed to meet growing energy needs can be mobilised. Current policies put us on an alarming fossil-energy path
• Continuing on today’s energy path, without any change in government policy, would mean rapidly increasing dependence on fossil fuels, with alarming consequences for climate change and energy security.
• Non-OECD countries account for all of the projected growth in energy-related CO2 emissions to 2030.
• These trends would lead to a rapid increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
• The Reference Scenario trends also heighten concerns about the security of energy supplies.
• Expanding access to modern energy for the world’s poor remains a pressing matter.
Limiting temperature rise to 2°C requires a low-carbon energy revolution
• Although opinion is mixed on what might be considered a sustainable, long-term level of annual CO2 emissions for the energy sector, a consensus on the need to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C is emerging.
• The reductions in energy-related CO2 emissions required in the 450 Scenario (relative to the Reference Scenario) by 2020 — just a decade away — are formidable, but the financial crisis offers what may be a unique opportunity to take the necessary steps as the political mood shifts.
• With a new international climate policy agreement, a comprehensive and rapid transformation in the way we produce, transport and use energy — a veritable lowcarbon revolution — could put the world onto this 450-ppm trajectory.
Energy efficiency offers the biggest scope for cutting emissions
• End-use efficiency is the largest contributor to CO2 emissions abatement in 2030, accounting for more than half of total savings in the 450 Scenario, compared with the Reference Scenario.
• Measures in the transport sector to improve fuel economy, expand biofuels and romote the uptake of new vehicle technologies — notably hybrid and electric vehicles — lead to a big reduction in oil demand.
New financing mechanisms will be critical to achieving
low-carbon growth
• The 450 Scenario entails $10.5 trillion more investment in energy infrastructure and energy-related capital stock globally than in the Reference Scenario through to the end of the projection period.
• The cost of the additional investments needed to put the world onto a 450-ppm path is at least partly offset by economic, health and energy-security benefits.
• It is widely agreed that developed countries must provide more financial support to developing countries in reducing their emissions; but the level of support, the mechanisms for providing it and the relative burden across countries are matters for negotiation.
Natural gas will play a key role whatever the policy landscape
• With the assumed resumption of global economic growth from 2010, demand for natural gas worldwide is set to resume its long-term upwards trend, though the pace of demand growth hinges critically on the strength of climate policy action.
• The outlook to 2015 differs markedly from the longer-term picture.
• In the 450 Scenario, world primary gas demand grows by 17% between 2007 and 2030, but is 17% lower in 2030 compared with the Reference Scenario.
Gas resources are huge but exploiting them will be challenging
• The world’s remaining resources of natural gas are easily large enough to cover any conceivable rate of increase in demand through to 2030 and well beyond, though the cost of developing new resources is set to rise over the long term.
• The non-OECD countries as a whole are projected to account for almost all of the projected increase in global natural gas production between 2007 and 2030.
• The rate of decline in production from existing gas fields is the prime factor determining the amount of new capacity and investment needed to meet projected demand.
Unconventional gas changes the game in North America
and elsewhere
• The recent rapid development of unconventional gas resources in the United States and Canada, particularly in the last three years, has transformed the gas-market outlook, both in North America and in other parts of the world.
• The extent to which the boom in unconventional gas production in North America can be replicated in other parts of the world endowed with such resources remains highly uncertain.
A glut of gas is looming
• The unexpected boom in North American unconventional gas production, together with the current recession’s depressive impact on demand, is expected to contribute to an acute glut of gas supply in the next few years.
• The looming gas glut could have far-reaching consequences for the structure of gas markets and for the way gas is priced in Europe and Asia-Pacific.
ASEAN countries will become a key energy market
• The ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are set to play an increasingly important role in global energy markets in the decades ahead.
• Many hurdles will need to be overcome if Southeast Asia is to secure access to the energy required to meet its growing needs at affordable prices and in a sustainable manner.
Turning promises into results
• The upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will provide important pointers to the kind of energy future that awaits us.
• A critical ingredient in the success of efforts to prevent climate change will be the speed with which governments act on their commitments.
The final comment:
Saving the planet cannot wait. For every year that passes, the window for action on emissions over a given period becomes narrower — and the costs of transforming the energy sector increase. We calculate that each year of delay before moving onto the emissions path consistent with a 2°C temperature increase would add approximately $500 billion to the global incremental investment cost of $10.5 trillion for the period 2010-2030. A delay of just a few years would probably render that goal completely out of reach. If this were the case, the additional adaptation costs would be many times this figure. Countries attending the UN Climate Change Conference must not lose sight of this. The time has come to make the hard choices needed to turn promises into action.
© OECD
Monday, November 09, 2009
Nemat Sadat's creative case for pursuing the project in Afghanistan
As people search for analogies by which to interpret developments in Afghanistan they have often turned to ones that seem to me quite useless -- suggestions that "empires" have always been bogged down there [they forget the Mongols and Babur's Moghals, and Tamerlane, etc.]. Nemat Sadat has provided a different analogy by which to make the case for how significant the Afghanistan war is for the world in general. Because his argument is so crucial I reproduce it entirely here. It is refreshing to read someone who has original things to say about a world that is changing fast and careening into the future rather than into the past. [The source page can be reached by clicking on the title above.] RLC
Why Afghanistan is the new post-Cold War Berlin
From the OhMyGov! website
By Nemat Sadat Oct 30 2009, 11:04 AM
Twenty years ago today, the fall of the Berlin Wall, brought German re-unification, revolutionary marches throughout Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union's disintegration. While the war of ideas that shattered the Iron Curtain was waged in Europe, Afghans fought the bloody battle against communism and demoralized the Brezhnev doctrine.
The Afghan vs. Soviet proxy war paralyzed Afghanistan with a million dead, millions of displaced refugees, and countless millions disabled. As the Red Army withdrew forces, the U.S. in turn shifted its attention away from Afghanistan. Who would have imagined that sole remaining superpower would return to Afghanistan and find itself bogged down in a long military conflict? Or that this landlocked nation would become the new schwer punkt, the new focal or resistant point of the post-Cold war battle against terrorism - in short, the new Berlin.
When the Berlin Wall fell, many predicted market expansion into former Eastern bloc states, but few would have predicted the nexus of events converging on Afghanistan. The arms race between India and Pakistan resulting in nuclear testing, energy rich Central Asian states proclaiming independence. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda network launching terrorist operations in Afghanistan. Iran's drive for nuclear enrichment, India and China's growing influence in Asia. And the re-emergence of a market-oriented Russian Federation. Landlocked Afghanistan, flanked by resource-rich and nuclear-armed neighbors transitioned as the center of gravity.
The anarchy in Afghanistan beginning in the post-Cold War created unmitigated desperation, and soon Afghanistan emerged as the world largest exporter of opium and refugees. In the vacuum of the chaotic fighting between mujahideen warlords, the Taliban rose to power. Sure enough, the Taliban brought security but with no semblance of civilization - no basic rights, no civic institutions, no functioning economy, no freedom of religion, and no recovery from war.
Plain and simple: No front is more important than Afghanistan where the stakes of descent into chaos poses a severe threat to the region and U.S. strategic interests. An Afghanistan or nuclear-armed Pakistan overrun by extremists endangers the entire world. The potential loss in human life and treasures from a nuclear strike is unquantifiable. I'm no economist by any means but I can assure you that nuclear fallout will be more than the $243 billion price tag on Afghanistan since 2001 and more than the $2 trillion cost of the September 11 attacks.
But misguided pundits have been sold on the tactical idea of Afghanistan as not worth the fight. Dismissing the necessary war as a 35-year civil war, or blindly making the Vietnam analogy ignores the facts. The Afghanistan War is the central front in a cross-border and global conflict. It is by no means a local war. How can the foreign intervention and militarization of Afghanistan during the Cold War, the rise of Islamic extremism that rose out of the ashes of the Afghan-Soviet War, and the 9/11 terrorist planning on Afghan soil that targeted the symbols of world commerce and U.S. national security murdering thousands en masse, only make it an Afghan conundrum?
Afghanistan has more in common with Cold War Berlin than it does with Vietnam. The Vietnam comparison of the Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda neglects the fundamental difference that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese never posed any direct threat to the U.S. homeland. The U.S. was able to strike a peace accord with the Vietnamese in Paris, but is it possible to negotiate with leaders Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders whom we've labeled terrorists and targeted for the last eight years? Maybe, if we could only find them.
In the last decade, the Taliban's brand of Islamic doctrine has evolved to a transnational jihadi movement, bent on chasing out the international community out of the region and establishing a pan-Islamic state. That would certainly give Al Qaeda an unfettered safe haven. Allowing the Taliban to return to power would be an enormous victory for Al Qaeda's propaganda and Islamists around the world.
Battling terrorism with aerial bombings into the Afghan plains or in neighboring Pakistan is not going to address the issues that breed extremism and recruit the next generation of extremists. In western Europe, communism was "contained" with a Marshall Plan that rebuilt the continent. Addressing human rights issues and building the civil capacity of the region with a viable development plan will quell the insurgency. Sustainable peace is possible but it will take time for a new generation to transform the breeding ground of terror into a beacon of freedom.
In August 2008, while running for president, Barack Obama warned a Berlin crowd of 250,000 of the dangerous currents in Afghanistan. "For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now," Obama said. Americans, with British and French allies, created a miracle in fortress Berlin and rescued a devastated Europe after World War II. Today with NATO's first mission outside of Europe, a UN mandate, a majority of Afghans' support, and nearly all the world powers supporting the U.S. led mission in Afghanistan, we have an opportunity to remake the world as the post-World War II generation did so a half century ago.
Why Afghanistan is the new post-Cold War Berlin
From the OhMyGov! website
By Nemat Sadat Oct 30 2009, 11:04 AM
Twenty years ago today, the fall of the Berlin Wall, brought German re-unification, revolutionary marches throughout Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union's disintegration. While the war of ideas that shattered the Iron Curtain was waged in Europe, Afghans fought the bloody battle against communism and demoralized the Brezhnev doctrine.
The Afghan vs. Soviet proxy war paralyzed Afghanistan with a million dead, millions of displaced refugees, and countless millions disabled. As the Red Army withdrew forces, the U.S. in turn shifted its attention away from Afghanistan. Who would have imagined that sole remaining superpower would return to Afghanistan and find itself bogged down in a long military conflict? Or that this landlocked nation would become the new schwer punkt, the new focal or resistant point of the post-Cold war battle against terrorism - in short, the new Berlin.
When the Berlin Wall fell, many predicted market expansion into former Eastern bloc states, but few would have predicted the nexus of events converging on Afghanistan. The arms race between India and Pakistan resulting in nuclear testing, energy rich Central Asian states proclaiming independence. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda network launching terrorist operations in Afghanistan. Iran's drive for nuclear enrichment, India and China's growing influence in Asia. And the re-emergence of a market-oriented Russian Federation. Landlocked Afghanistan, flanked by resource-rich and nuclear-armed neighbors transitioned as the center of gravity.
The anarchy in Afghanistan beginning in the post-Cold War created unmitigated desperation, and soon Afghanistan emerged as the world largest exporter of opium and refugees. In the vacuum of the chaotic fighting between mujahideen warlords, the Taliban rose to power. Sure enough, the Taliban brought security but with no semblance of civilization - no basic rights, no civic institutions, no functioning economy, no freedom of religion, and no recovery from war.
Plain and simple: No front is more important than Afghanistan where the stakes of descent into chaos poses a severe threat to the region and U.S. strategic interests. An Afghanistan or nuclear-armed Pakistan overrun by extremists endangers the entire world. The potential loss in human life and treasures from a nuclear strike is unquantifiable. I'm no economist by any means but I can assure you that nuclear fallout will be more than the $243 billion price tag on Afghanistan since 2001 and more than the $2 trillion cost of the September 11 attacks.
But misguided pundits have been sold on the tactical idea of Afghanistan as not worth the fight. Dismissing the necessary war as a 35-year civil war, or blindly making the Vietnam analogy ignores the facts. The Afghanistan War is the central front in a cross-border and global conflict. It is by no means a local war. How can the foreign intervention and militarization of Afghanistan during the Cold War, the rise of Islamic extremism that rose out of the ashes of the Afghan-Soviet War, and the 9/11 terrorist planning on Afghan soil that targeted the symbols of world commerce and U.S. national security murdering thousands en masse, only make it an Afghan conundrum?
Afghanistan has more in common with Cold War Berlin than it does with Vietnam. The Vietnam comparison of the Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda neglects the fundamental difference that the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese never posed any direct threat to the U.S. homeland. The U.S. was able to strike a peace accord with the Vietnamese in Paris, but is it possible to negotiate with leaders Mullah Omar and other Taliban leaders whom we've labeled terrorists and targeted for the last eight years? Maybe, if we could only find them.
In the last decade, the Taliban's brand of Islamic doctrine has evolved to a transnational jihadi movement, bent on chasing out the international community out of the region and establishing a pan-Islamic state. That would certainly give Al Qaeda an unfettered safe haven. Allowing the Taliban to return to power would be an enormous victory for Al Qaeda's propaganda and Islamists around the world.
Battling terrorism with aerial bombings into the Afghan plains or in neighboring Pakistan is not going to address the issues that breed extremism and recruit the next generation of extremists. In western Europe, communism was "contained" with a Marshall Plan that rebuilt the continent. Addressing human rights issues and building the civil capacity of the region with a viable development plan will quell the insurgency. Sustainable peace is possible but it will take time for a new generation to transform the breeding ground of terror into a beacon of freedom.
In August 2008, while running for president, Barack Obama warned a Berlin crowd of 250,000 of the dangerous currents in Afghanistan. "For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now," Obama said. Americans, with British and French allies, created a miracle in fortress Berlin and rescued a devastated Europe after World War II. Today with NATO's first mission outside of Europe, a UN mandate, a majority of Afghans' support, and nearly all the world powers supporting the U.S. led mission in Afghanistan, we have an opportunity to remake the world as the post-World War II generation did so a half century ago.
For the Taliban/Al Qaeda smaller training camps
One of the features of the Al Qaeda / Taliban movement in Pakistan is its ability to produce recruits, most strikingly recruits for suicide bombing. Now we hear that the units of training are getting ever smaller, and thus less easily discovered and targeted.
Lolita Baldor of AP reports on the new trend [11/9/09; click on the title for a link; highlights follow below].
> Training camps are growing smaller and more mobile, inside small compounds.
> The trainers are from al-Qaida who take their instruction on the road.
> Altogether the trainers number between 100 and 200 "hard-core al-Qaida leaders and operatives" who filter in and out of these small bases near the border.
> They are even active in Punjab province, where some militant groups have stronger ties to the Pakistani government.
> Their agendas are not primarily to train insurgents but to train "terrorists for deployment to the west."
> Some madrassas are part of the insurgent network in the sense that they will pass on information to prospective participants: "People within those nonviolent organizations, he said, will say, "if you want to be violent, you have to leave us, but here's an address and a letter of introduction" for a recruiter from one of the militant groups."
> Perhaps as many as 100 to 150 westerners have gone to the Pakistan border region for terror training in the last year.
Lolita Baldor of AP reports on the new trend [11/9/09; click on the title for a link; highlights follow below].
> Training camps are growing smaller and more mobile, inside small compounds.
> The trainers are from al-Qaida who take their instruction on the road.
> Altogether the trainers number between 100 and 200 "hard-core al-Qaida leaders and operatives" who filter in and out of these small bases near the border.
> They are even active in Punjab province, where some militant groups have stronger ties to the Pakistani government.
> Their agendas are not primarily to train insurgents but to train "terrorists for deployment to the west."
> Some madrassas are part of the insurgent network in the sense that they will pass on information to prospective participants: "People within those nonviolent organizations, he said, will say, "if you want to be violent, you have to leave us, but here's an address and a letter of introduction" for a recruiter from one of the militant groups."
> Perhaps as many as 100 to 150 westerners have gone to the Pakistan border region for terror training in the last year.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
A view of Pakistan by a Muslim from India: Giving thanks
A medieval state
Zafar Agha
October 16, 2009
Thank God, I am not a citizen of the Islamic state of Pakistan. Imagine if my parents had been enamoured of Jaswant Singh's newfound hero Mohammad Ali Jinnah and migrated to the Islamic State of Pakistan.
What a tragedy could have befallen my family and me! I could have either myself turned into a bigot or my kids could have taken up guns in the pursuit of a puritanical Islamic state like Saudi Arabia. I am extremely indebted to my parents for sticking to their roots in Allahabad and happily accepting the citizenship of 'Hindu India' instead of saltanat-e-khudadad-e-Pakistan (godly kingdom of Pakistan. Ironically, there is nothing godly or saintly about Pakistan today. Pakistan could never become a modern republican state. So the state eventually withered away and got out of everyone's control. There was a time not too long ago when the world believed that it was the Pakistan army whose writ ran the country. How naive was this understanding.
Once considered the most powerful power centre, the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi is now under attack from Pakistani jihadis. The world also thought that the Punjabi elite had a tight grip over Pakistan establishment. Now the Punjabis themselves are not secure in their beloved town of Lahore where terrorists' strike at will.
Who then controls Pakistan? Is it the democratic establishment led by Asif Zardari? No, not at all! There is no consensus between Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif, the two leading rival democratic parties, even in these moments of grave internal crisis. Are the executive and judiciary now acting as the watchdog? Well, both sympathise with the likes of Hafiz Saeed and nuclear technology smuggler AQ Khan more than the state of Pakistan. Saeed and Khan are the two ideological masters of Pakistani jihadi philosophy.
All the Pakistani terror groups revere them. So it is neither army, nor the Punjabi elite that controls Pakistan any longer. Instead it is men like Saeed and Khan who do, ideologically at least.
You cannot arrest Saeed in Pakistan because he is the ideological pope of jihad. You cannot prosecute him either. The police would make such a weak case that it won't stand in a court of law for a minute. The judiciary would let him walk out because of his 'heroic services' in 'destabilising India'. And even America cannot harm Khan.
After all, he delivered a nuclear bomb to the insecure Pakistanis, stealing and smuggling nuclear technology from all over the world. The world is convinced that he smuggled dreaded technology to North Korea and Iran. He is the last hope of the jihadis who believe that Khan would one day deliver them a nuclear device to destroy their hated enemy, America.
Pakistan is today controlled by the syndicate of Taliban, al Qaeda and Punjabi terror outfits like Jaish e Mohammad. But why is it that Pakistan has failed in modern sense of the word state? A modern state in the post renaissance and post industrial revolution world is essentially run by the will of the people through democracy.
Pakistan has nothing to do both with renaissance and industrial revolution. Its ideological frontier very soon after its inception was a medieval Islamic state whose only function was to destroy India.
So the people were always kept at the margin of state affairs. Pakistan elite facilitated the military takeover of the establishment to fight India and 'liberate Muslim Kashmir from Hindu hands'.
When the entire Pakistani establishment failed to harm an emerging modern Indian state and got truncated in 1971, it vengefully came up with the idea of jihad against India 'to bleed India in Kashmir'.
A jihad genie like Jaish e Mohammed was created with the ideological training from men like Saeed and Talibani madrasas spread across the tribal belt of Pakistan to harm India. The genie is now out of the bottle consuming the state that created it.
A medieval Pakistani state, run by an army and ideologically driven by myopic people like Saeed and terror outfits like Jaish, has had to finally come to this pass where no one now understands who runs Pakistan.
Pakistan shunned renaissance wisdom and post-industrial democratic institutions. Such a medieval state has had to run out of steam sooner or later. So it is now imploding and being consumed by the medieval and tribal hatred it nurtured against India.
Thank you mom and pop, for not migrating to Islamic state of Pakistan because I would have also exploded if not imploded by the jihadi forces that are consuming Pakistan now.
The writer is a commentator on political affairs
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/main-article_a-medieval-state_1299884
URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamIslamicWorldNews_1.aspx?ArticleID=2012
Zafar Agha
October 16, 2009
Thank God, I am not a citizen of the Islamic state of Pakistan. Imagine if my parents had been enamoured of Jaswant Singh's newfound hero Mohammad Ali Jinnah and migrated to the Islamic State of Pakistan.
What a tragedy could have befallen my family and me! I could have either myself turned into a bigot or my kids could have taken up guns in the pursuit of a puritanical Islamic state like Saudi Arabia. I am extremely indebted to my parents for sticking to their roots in Allahabad and happily accepting the citizenship of 'Hindu India' instead of saltanat-e-khudadad-e-Pakistan (godly kingdom of Pakistan. Ironically, there is nothing godly or saintly about Pakistan today. Pakistan could never become a modern republican state. So the state eventually withered away and got out of everyone's control. There was a time not too long ago when the world believed that it was the Pakistan army whose writ ran the country. How naive was this understanding.
Once considered the most powerful power centre, the Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi is now under attack from Pakistani jihadis. The world also thought that the Punjabi elite had a tight grip over Pakistan establishment. Now the Punjabis themselves are not secure in their beloved town of Lahore where terrorists' strike at will.
Who then controls Pakistan? Is it the democratic establishment led by Asif Zardari? No, not at all! There is no consensus between Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif, the two leading rival democratic parties, even in these moments of grave internal crisis. Are the executive and judiciary now acting as the watchdog? Well, both sympathise with the likes of Hafiz Saeed and nuclear technology smuggler AQ Khan more than the state of Pakistan. Saeed and Khan are the two ideological masters of Pakistani jihadi philosophy.
All the Pakistani terror groups revere them. So it is neither army, nor the Punjabi elite that controls Pakistan any longer. Instead it is men like Saeed and Khan who do, ideologically at least.
You cannot arrest Saeed in Pakistan because he is the ideological pope of jihad. You cannot prosecute him either. The police would make such a weak case that it won't stand in a court of law for a minute. The judiciary would let him walk out because of his 'heroic services' in 'destabilising India'. And even America cannot harm Khan.
After all, he delivered a nuclear bomb to the insecure Pakistanis, stealing and smuggling nuclear technology from all over the world. The world is convinced that he smuggled dreaded technology to North Korea and Iran. He is the last hope of the jihadis who believe that Khan would one day deliver them a nuclear device to destroy their hated enemy, America.
Pakistan is today controlled by the syndicate of Taliban, al Qaeda and Punjabi terror outfits like Jaish e Mohammad. But why is it that Pakistan has failed in modern sense of the word state? A modern state in the post renaissance and post industrial revolution world is essentially run by the will of the people through democracy.
Pakistan has nothing to do both with renaissance and industrial revolution. Its ideological frontier very soon after its inception was a medieval Islamic state whose only function was to destroy India.
So the people were always kept at the margin of state affairs. Pakistan elite facilitated the military takeover of the establishment to fight India and 'liberate Muslim Kashmir from Hindu hands'.
When the entire Pakistani establishment failed to harm an emerging modern Indian state and got truncated in 1971, it vengefully came up with the idea of jihad against India 'to bleed India in Kashmir'.
A jihad genie like Jaish e Mohammed was created with the ideological training from men like Saeed and Talibani madrasas spread across the tribal belt of Pakistan to harm India. The genie is now out of the bottle consuming the state that created it.
A medieval Pakistani state, run by an army and ideologically driven by myopic people like Saeed and terror outfits like Jaish, has had to finally come to this pass where no one now understands who runs Pakistan.
Pakistan shunned renaissance wisdom and post-industrial democratic institutions. Such a medieval state has had to run out of steam sooner or later. So it is now imploding and being consumed by the medieval and tribal hatred it nurtured against India.
Thank you mom and pop, for not migrating to Islamic state of Pakistan because I would have also exploded if not imploded by the jihadi forces that are consuming Pakistan now.
The writer is a commentator on political affairs
Source: http://www.dnaindia.com/opinion/main-article_a-medieval-state_1299884
URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamIslamicWorldNews_1.aspx?ArticleID=2012
President of World Bank has a scheme for Afghanistan
Here is the World Bank’s proposal for how to help the situation in Afghanistan.
What we can achieve in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Robert B. Zoellick Friday, October 30, 2009
As governments reconsider strategies in Afghanistan, stories abound about why achieving progress in this "graveyard of empires" is so challenging: The country is racked by violence and opium production; confidence in the government is weak; its neighbors meddle; and fiercely independent tribes distrust any intruder -- whether from Britain, the Soviet Union, NATO or Kabul.
The World Bank Group's experience in Afghanistan reflects all these problems. This is one of the most difficult environments in which we work. Yet we have seen real, measurable progress: in the health sector, education, community development, microfinance and telecommunications. Since 2002, the World Bank has committed nearly $2 billion to these and other projects and manages, with partners, a $3.2 billion trust fund for 30 donor countries.
Here are some of the lessons we have learned:
First, we need to "secure development" -- that is, create a strong link between security and development. Each reinforces the other, especially when we focus on communities and on resolving local-level conflict. A dysfunctional police force, justice and prison system feeds a lawlessness that breeds disillusionment with the government and sympathy for its opponents.
Second, corruption can be fought better through design than through calls for virtue or even a slew of investigations. Afghanistan's drug trade risks the criminalization of the state. But there are steps one can take to make corruption harder and less likely. Afghanistan's reform-minded finance ministers have taken practical steps to simplify government processes and add transparency to reduce opportunities for corruption, already raising government revenue 75 percent in the first part of this year. Recently the government slashed the number of steps to register vehicles from some 55 to just a few, reducing opportunities for bribes and increasing revenue.
Third, locally led projects are the most effective. The National Solidarity Program, which the World Bank helped launch in 2003, empowers more than 22,000 elected, village-level councils to decide on their development priorities -- from building a school to irrigation to electrification. So far, the program has reached more than 19 million Afghans in 34 provinces, with grants averaging $33,000. Development owned by the community can survive amid conflict: When an NSP-funded school was attacked in August 2006, the villagers defended it. The community councils also help build cooperation among villages and with the government.
Fourth, while local progress matters, government responsibility and capacity must be built at the national level. Currently, two-thirds of aid to Afghanistan flows outside the government because donors lack confidence in its competence and transparency. But this undermines those trying to build legitimate Afghan institutions. It can also grossly distort resource allocation: Some relatively secure areas are starved of money when they could be producing results. We can work with Afghans to strengthen public financial management. That said, in the absence of strong institutions, and facing considerable corruption, good results have been dependent on one-by-one partnerships with honest, reformist ministers. The new cabinet must include more such individuals.
Fifth, Afghans need to see measurable improvements to their lives, or they will not feel they owe anything to Kabul or local governments. There are success stories: More than 12,000 miles of all-weather rural roads have been built, connecting communities to markets; today, 80 percent of Afghans have access to basic health services, compared with only 9 percent in 2003; 6 million children are enrolled in school, nearly 35 percent of whom are girls, compared with about 1 million students and no girls seven years ago; competitive telecommunications networks now serve about 10 million subscribers. But a lot remains to be done.
Stability in Afghanistan also depends on good leadership -- especially in critical areas that have lagged behind, such as agriculture, energy, mining and private-sector development. The challenges of securing development so that it is self-sustaining are formidable. But progress is possible if safety is strengthened, the Afghan government assumes ownership, its partners build development through the choices of the Afghan people, and Afghanistan's neighbors decide they are better off with a successful state than with a perilous buffer zone that could send trouble back across their borders.
The writer is president of the World Bank Group.
What we can achieve in Afghanistan
Washington Post By Robert B. Zoellick Friday, October 30, 2009
As governments reconsider strategies in Afghanistan, stories abound about why achieving progress in this "graveyard of empires" is so challenging: The country is racked by violence and opium production; confidence in the government is weak; its neighbors meddle; and fiercely independent tribes distrust any intruder -- whether from Britain, the Soviet Union, NATO or Kabul.
The World Bank Group's experience in Afghanistan reflects all these problems. This is one of the most difficult environments in which we work. Yet we have seen real, measurable progress: in the health sector, education, community development, microfinance and telecommunications. Since 2002, the World Bank has committed nearly $2 billion to these and other projects and manages, with partners, a $3.2 billion trust fund for 30 donor countries.
Here are some of the lessons we have learned:
First, we need to "secure development" -- that is, create a strong link between security and development. Each reinforces the other, especially when we focus on communities and on resolving local-level conflict. A dysfunctional police force, justice and prison system feeds a lawlessness that breeds disillusionment with the government and sympathy for its opponents.
Second, corruption can be fought better through design than through calls for virtue or even a slew of investigations. Afghanistan's drug trade risks the criminalization of the state. But there are steps one can take to make corruption harder and less likely. Afghanistan's reform-minded finance ministers have taken practical steps to simplify government processes and add transparency to reduce opportunities for corruption, already raising government revenue 75 percent in the first part of this year. Recently the government slashed the number of steps to register vehicles from some 55 to just a few, reducing opportunities for bribes and increasing revenue.
Third, locally led projects are the most effective. The National Solidarity Program, which the World Bank helped launch in 2003, empowers more than 22,000 elected, village-level councils to decide on their development priorities -- from building a school to irrigation to electrification. So far, the program has reached more than 19 million Afghans in 34 provinces, with grants averaging $33,000. Development owned by the community can survive amid conflict: When an NSP-funded school was attacked in August 2006, the villagers defended it. The community councils also help build cooperation among villages and with the government.
Fourth, while local progress matters, government responsibility and capacity must be built at the national level. Currently, two-thirds of aid to Afghanistan flows outside the government because donors lack confidence in its competence and transparency. But this undermines those trying to build legitimate Afghan institutions. It can also grossly distort resource allocation: Some relatively secure areas are starved of money when they could be producing results. We can work with Afghans to strengthen public financial management. That said, in the absence of strong institutions, and facing considerable corruption, good results have been dependent on one-by-one partnerships with honest, reformist ministers. The new cabinet must include more such individuals.
Fifth, Afghans need to see measurable improvements to their lives, or they will not feel they owe anything to Kabul or local governments. There are success stories: More than 12,000 miles of all-weather rural roads have been built, connecting communities to markets; today, 80 percent of Afghans have access to basic health services, compared with only 9 percent in 2003; 6 million children are enrolled in school, nearly 35 percent of whom are girls, compared with about 1 million students and no girls seven years ago; competitive telecommunications networks now serve about 10 million subscribers. But a lot remains to be done.
Stability in Afghanistan also depends on good leadership -- especially in critical areas that have lagged behind, such as agriculture, energy, mining and private-sector development. The challenges of securing development so that it is self-sustaining are formidable. But progress is possible if safety is strengthened, the Afghan government assumes ownership, its partners build development through the choices of the Afghan people, and Afghanistan's neighbors decide they are better off with a successful state than with a perilous buffer zone that could send trouble back across their borders.
The writer is president of the World Bank Group.
The relation between Al Qaeda and the various Taliban groups
A lot of nonsense has recently been written about how distinguishable Al Qaeda is from the Taliban. This article, drawing from some knowledgeable sources, reveals several ways the two are interlinked and emphasizes how mutually dependent they are. RLC
Al-Qaida and the Taliban: Knowing your enemy
By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Senior al-Qaida leaders are forging deeper relationships with Pakistani militants and often operating from their camps inside the Pakistan border, fueling Obama administration arguments for a shift in the Afghan war strategy that more narrowly targets the terrorists.
For eight years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has focused mostly on Afghanistan's Taliban as an unabashed ally of al-Qaida.
Now, however, forced to choose between sending more troops in an intensified counterinsurgency campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban or largely maintaining troop levels and using more drone strikes to take out al-Qaida along the border, U.S. officials must first determine which enemy is the greater priority.
That dilemma is complicated by the recent rise of a Pakistani faction of the Taliban that operates in close proximity with al-Qaida - even as al-Qaida has lessened activities with its former Afghan Taliban hosts, according to some administration officials.
U.S. officials face a tough challenge in dissecting the structure and leanings of the militant organizations on both sides of the often indiscernible Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and understanding their murky and evolving ties to al-Qaida.
"You cannot meaningfully distinguish between al-Qaida and the co-linked (militant) networks - either in terms of understanding the landscape or crafting a policy response," said Vahid Brown, a researcher at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
"If you think you can kill al-Qaida leaders, as opposed to doing a broader scale effort against the militant environment, that notion is based on a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of the terrain," said Brown, describing the complexity of the networks along the border and their threat.
With concerns about Pakistani militants growing, an influential faction inside the administration that includes Vice President Joe Biden is pushing for the U.S. to concentrate more on al-Qaida and less on the Afghan Taliban.
But the push for that strategy butts up against the long-perceived union between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban, ingrained in America's consciousness since the Sept. 11 attacks and the ensuing war in Afghanistan.
The 19 al-Qaida members behind the hijackings that sent planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside plotted their attacks from Taliban-protected safe havens in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996. United in Islamic ideology, they sheltered Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida followers. Al-Qaida terrorist training camps flourished openly in the 1990s and the two groups shared weapons, financing and tactics.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration repeatedly linked al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban in rhetoric and policy, pairing them in enemies' lists and economic penalties.
President Barack Obama and his advisers are debating whether U.S. policy should sever that linkage and target al-Qaida, which has appeared to have found new allies inside the Pakistani border.
Over the past 18 months, according to analysts and U.S. counterterrorism officials, al-Qaida leaders have deepened and solidified their relationship with Pakistan's Taliban and with other violent homegrown militant groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Janghvi, that are based in the northeastern Punjab province.
Al-Qaida also has strong ties with the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj, who direct the fight against U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan from the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan.
Brown pointed to the Haqqani network operating in Pakistan's tribal areas as an example of militants linked to al-Qaida who have demonstrated a growth in technical innovation. Its increased use of roadside bombs and different types of suicide attacks, and the employment of other international jihadists are evidence of the al-Qaida influence, he said.
According to U.S. officials and analysts, al-Qaida leaders have provided training and resources to these groups in camps along the border.
The stronger ties are also evident, the analysts said, in suicide bombings and other violent battlefield tactics long known to be associated with al-Qaida that are showing up more frequently in attacks staged by those Pakistan-based groups.
Pakistan's Taliban have unloosed a spree of violence inside the country over the past year, attempting to take over the Swat Valley region before being ousted by Pakistan's army.
In recent weeks, the Pakistani Taliban, aided by other militants, have targeted military and government installations in suicide bombings aimed at forcing the government to back off from its recent push into South Waziristan, the border area where many militants are based. Despite those attacks, the offensive began last week.
At the same time, said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the monitoring team for the U.N.'s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, said there are hints of fracture between al-Qaida and its longtime Afghan Taliban allies.
Barrett said that Afghan Taliban leaders, including the reclusive, one-eyed Mullah Omar, may have changed their once-approving view of al-Qaida. Barrett said the Afghan Taliban may worry about U.S. repercussions if they "are seen as very closely wedded to al-Qaida" and likely to allow that group tore-establish sanctuaries there.
While the Afghan Taliban share many of al-Qaida's violent goals, including the defeat of the Kabul government, Barrett said, they are more regionally focused and do not hold the same global jihadist views.
Some U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, warn against underestimating the relationship between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban.
While the Taliban and al-Qaida may have differences, senior counterterrorism officials say that al-Qaida still has strong historical ties to Mullah Omar and that is not likely to go away. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is arguing for an additional 10,000 and 80,000 troops to mount a counterinsurgency campaign against the Afghan Taliban to stabilize the country and boost Afghan security forces.
But rising U.S. casualties, escalating violence and declining American support for the war have put political pressure on the White House to rethink that strategy. The counterproposal urged by Biden and others would maintain current troop levels and use special operations forces and targeted unmanned aircraft strikes against al-Qaida and other insurgents.
Recent U.S. government estimates put the number of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan at about 25,000, while analysts and other officials say there are only about 100 al-Qaida members in the country. Totals for al-Qaida in Pakistan are more difficult to pin down, but estimates are in the low hundreds, while Taliban there number also in the thousands.
Biden and others argue that if the aim is to prevent future attacks against the United States, then the goal must be to defeat al-Qaida.
Military analyst Frederick Kagan told Congress this past week that any move to defeat al-Qaida cannot be separated from efforts to defeat its allies and proxies. The Afghan Taliban may not be planning attacks terrorist against the United States now, but he said that, with continued association with al-Qaida, the Taliban eventually may pursue global jihad.
Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University and a longtime government adviser, said al-Qaida continues to work with the Taliban and other insurgents on both sides of the border, providing resources and training to bolster their fight.
He and others argue that to narrowly focus the fight on al-Qaida leaders, particularly those targeted by drone strikes inside the Pakistan border, would be to oversimplify a complex enemy, and ultimately fail.
Al-Qaida and the Taliban: Knowing your enemy
By Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Senior al-Qaida leaders are forging deeper relationships with Pakistani militants and often operating from their camps inside the Pakistan border, fueling Obama administration arguments for a shift in the Afghan war strategy that more narrowly targets the terrorists.
For eight years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has focused mostly on Afghanistan's Taliban as an unabashed ally of al-Qaida.
Now, however, forced to choose between sending more troops in an intensified counterinsurgency campaign against Afghanistan's Taliban or largely maintaining troop levels and using more drone strikes to take out al-Qaida along the border, U.S. officials must first determine which enemy is the greater priority.
That dilemma is complicated by the recent rise of a Pakistani faction of the Taliban that operates in close proximity with al-Qaida - even as al-Qaida has lessened activities with its former Afghan Taliban hosts, according to some administration officials.
U.S. officials face a tough challenge in dissecting the structure and leanings of the militant organizations on both sides of the often indiscernible Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and understanding their murky and evolving ties to al-Qaida.
"You cannot meaningfully distinguish between al-Qaida and the co-linked (militant) networks - either in terms of understanding the landscape or crafting a policy response," said Vahid Brown, a researcher at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
"If you think you can kill al-Qaida leaders, as opposed to doing a broader scale effort against the militant environment, that notion is based on a fundamental misapprehension of the nature of the terrain," said Brown, describing the complexity of the networks along the border and their threat.
With concerns about Pakistani militants growing, an influential faction inside the administration that includes Vice President Joe Biden is pushing for the U.S. to concentrate more on al-Qaida and less on the Afghan Taliban.
But the push for that strategy butts up against the long-perceived union between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban, ingrained in America's consciousness since the Sept. 11 attacks and the ensuing war in Afghanistan.
The 19 al-Qaida members behind the hijackings that sent planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania countryside plotted their attacks from Taliban-protected safe havens in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996. United in Islamic ideology, they sheltered Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida followers. Al-Qaida terrorist training camps flourished openly in the 1990s and the two groups shared weapons, financing and tactics.
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration repeatedly linked al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban in rhetoric and policy, pairing them in enemies' lists and economic penalties.
President Barack Obama and his advisers are debating whether U.S. policy should sever that linkage and target al-Qaida, which has appeared to have found new allies inside the Pakistani border.
Over the past 18 months, according to analysts and U.S. counterterrorism officials, al-Qaida leaders have deepened and solidified their relationship with Pakistan's Taliban and with other violent homegrown militant groups, including Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Janghvi, that are based in the northeastern Punjab province.
Al-Qaida also has strong ties with the network run by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Siraj, who direct the fight against U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan from the Waziristan tribal region in Pakistan.
Brown pointed to the Haqqani network operating in Pakistan's tribal areas as an example of militants linked to al-Qaida who have demonstrated a growth in technical innovation. Its increased use of roadside bombs and different types of suicide attacks, and the employment of other international jihadists are evidence of the al-Qaida influence, he said.
According to U.S. officials and analysts, al-Qaida leaders have provided training and resources to these groups in camps along the border.
The stronger ties are also evident, the analysts said, in suicide bombings and other violent battlefield tactics long known to be associated with al-Qaida that are showing up more frequently in attacks staged by those Pakistan-based groups.
Pakistan's Taliban have unloosed a spree of violence inside the country over the past year, attempting to take over the Swat Valley region before being ousted by Pakistan's army.
In recent weeks, the Pakistani Taliban, aided by other militants, have targeted military and government installations in suicide bombings aimed at forcing the government to back off from its recent push into South Waziristan, the border area where many militants are based. Despite those attacks, the offensive began last week.
At the same time, said Richard Barrett, coordinator of the monitoring team for the U.N.'s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee, said there are hints of fracture between al-Qaida and its longtime Afghan Taliban allies.
Barrett said that Afghan Taliban leaders, including the reclusive, one-eyed Mullah Omar, may have changed their once-approving view of al-Qaida. Barrett said the Afghan Taliban may worry about U.S. repercussions if they "are seen as very closely wedded to al-Qaida" and likely to allow that group tore-establish sanctuaries there.
While the Afghan Taliban share many of al-Qaida's violent goals, including the defeat of the Kabul government, Barrett said, they are more regionally focused and do not hold the same global jihadist views.
Some U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, warn against underestimating the relationship between al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban.
While the Taliban and al-Qaida may have differences, senior counterterrorism officials say that al-Qaida still has strong historical ties to Mullah Omar and that is not likely to go away. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is arguing for an additional 10,000 and 80,000 troops to mount a counterinsurgency campaign against the Afghan Taliban to stabilize the country and boost Afghan security forces.
But rising U.S. casualties, escalating violence and declining American support for the war have put political pressure on the White House to rethink that strategy. The counterproposal urged by Biden and others would maintain current troop levels and use special operations forces and targeted unmanned aircraft strikes against al-Qaida and other insurgents.
Recent U.S. government estimates put the number of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan at about 25,000, while analysts and other officials say there are only about 100 al-Qaida members in the country. Totals for al-Qaida in Pakistan are more difficult to pin down, but estimates are in the low hundreds, while Taliban there number also in the thousands.
Biden and others argue that if the aim is to prevent future attacks against the United States, then the goal must be to defeat al-Qaida.
Military analyst Frederick Kagan told Congress this past week that any move to defeat al-Qaida cannot be separated from efforts to defeat its allies and proxies. The Afghan Taliban may not be planning attacks terrorist against the United States now, but he said that, with continued association with al-Qaida, the Taliban eventually may pursue global jihad.
Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at Georgetown University and a longtime government adviser, said al-Qaida continues to work with the Taliban and other insurgents on both sides of the border, providing resources and training to bolster their fight.
He and others argue that to narrowly focus the fight on al-Qaida leaders, particularly those targeted by drone strikes inside the Pakistan border, would be to oversimplify a complex enemy, and ultimately fail.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
The case against continued involvement in Afghanistan
Yesterday I was accosted by a man who is a mechanic by profession over the situation in Afghanistan. He was incensed that we were spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan [“Billions! Billions!,” he kept saying], and from his point of view the American project there was a total waste. I wish I could have mustered a better defense of my own belief that our military can make a serious contribution to the country, one that over the long run could protect our interests. But I understand the frustration that the American people feel over the mess in Afghanistan / Pakistan, two countries far away that seem to be endemically conflicted and disorganized, even in some ways under powerful criminal influences.
The most unacceptable part of the situation is that Americans are being asked to die for an Afghanistan government that seems unable to control pervasive graft and incompetence. If the situation were better there, it would easier for me to justify our investment [Billions!] in the region, although still hard to justify the loss of American life.
I have come to believe that if the Pakistan military, who have a decisive [although relatively invisible] grip on the government, doesn’t make up its mind to stamp out all Islamic extremists, not just the ones bent on bringing down the Pakistan government, then all the American effort in Afghanistan will be wasted.
So – again – the fundamental issue, the real problem, resides in Pakistan, and in fact with those who are most powerful in Pakistan. If they make the critical commitment -- a full commitment -- then the Taliban/ Al Qaeda coalition will be toast.
Otherwise, I have to admit that the mechanic was probably right.
The most unacceptable part of the situation is that Americans are being asked to die for an Afghanistan government that seems unable to control pervasive graft and incompetence. If the situation were better there, it would easier for me to justify our investment [Billions!] in the region, although still hard to justify the loss of American life.
I have come to believe that if the Pakistan military, who have a decisive [although relatively invisible] grip on the government, doesn’t make up its mind to stamp out all Islamic extremists, not just the ones bent on bringing down the Pakistan government, then all the American effort in Afghanistan will be wasted.
So – again – the fundamental issue, the real problem, resides in Pakistan, and in fact with those who are most powerful in Pakistan. If they make the critical commitment -- a full commitment -- then the Taliban/ Al Qaeda coalition will be toast.
Otherwise, I have to admit that the mechanic was probably right.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Dr Lewis Wall's voluntary services to the health needs of Africans versus the incomes of American health insurance executives
Compare the voluntary service of Dr. Lewis Wall to the health needs of folks in Africa with the bloated benefits of the health insurance executives who claim to be serving the health needs of America.
Most of us tend to regard health professionals as providing a kind of ministry, a public service, to individuals and communities in their times of need. For that we feel they deserve remuneration fitting to their service, so we don’t begrudge the incomes of physicians, nurses, technicians, and other health professionals. But when the remuneration of executives in the health insurance industry ascends beyond amounts that seem fitting we begin to distrust them. They appear to be self serving, exploiting the sufferings of Americans for their own benefit. Likewise for the investment community: when their essential interest is in profits to be made from the illnesses of Americans we wonder if there isn’t something wrong with the way the health industry is constituted in this country.
I am thankful that my colleague Dr. Lewis Wall has been recognized by Nicholas D. Kristof (his column in today’s New York Times) for the voluntary service he has provided to African women suffering from obstetric fistulas. Through surgery he has enabled hundreds (thousands?) of women to have a normal life who had previously borne scorn and humiliation for an illness created (usually) by early age child-birth. [Click on the title for a link to Kristof's column.]
Compare Wall’s voluntary service with the salaries of top health insurance executives: salaries that run in the millions of dollars. Is it fair for executives to accept a salary of several million dollars a year for managing the health services to sick folks in this country?
This is not a comparison that Dr. Wall would likely ever make himself, but I keep wondering: Isn't there something wrong with an industry spending billions of dollars lobbying congress in its own interest when there continue to be major problems in the health care system that the insurance industry controls?
Most of us tend to regard health professionals as providing a kind of ministry, a public service, to individuals and communities in their times of need. For that we feel they deserve remuneration fitting to their service, so we don’t begrudge the incomes of physicians, nurses, technicians, and other health professionals. But when the remuneration of executives in the health insurance industry ascends beyond amounts that seem fitting we begin to distrust them. They appear to be self serving, exploiting the sufferings of Americans for their own benefit. Likewise for the investment community: when their essential interest is in profits to be made from the illnesses of Americans we wonder if there isn’t something wrong with the way the health industry is constituted in this country.
I am thankful that my colleague Dr. Lewis Wall has been recognized by Nicholas D. Kristof (his column in today’s New York Times) for the voluntary service he has provided to African women suffering from obstetric fistulas. Through surgery he has enabled hundreds (thousands?) of women to have a normal life who had previously borne scorn and humiliation for an illness created (usually) by early age child-birth. [Click on the title for a link to Kristof's column.]
Compare Wall’s voluntary service with the salaries of top health insurance executives: salaries that run in the millions of dollars. Is it fair for executives to accept a salary of several million dollars a year for managing the health services to sick folks in this country?
This is not a comparison that Dr. Wall would likely ever make himself, but I keep wondering: Isn't there something wrong with an industry spending billions of dollars lobbying congress in its own interest when there continue to be major problems in the health care system that the insurance industry controls?
“No one invests in a loser in Afghanistan”
What a great statement of how things work in Afghanistan!
This was stated by Muhammad Ismail Yoon, with respect to Abdullah Abdullah’s withdrawal. Abdullah withdrew because he knew he would lose. What Yoon says is true, and worth pondering in the case of the American project in Afghanistan.
The longer our President dithers over what to do, the more confident those against him will become.
This was stated by Muhammad Ismail Yoon, with respect to Abdullah Abdullah’s withdrawal. Abdullah withdrew because he knew he would lose. What Yoon says is true, and worth pondering in the case of the American project in Afghanistan.
The longer our President dithers over what to do, the more confident those against him will become.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Afghanistan resources: How great are they?
Much is unknown about the natural resources of Afghanistan. Here is an article that refers to some of the resources that might exist in that country. Certainly the neighboring countries to the north and west are very rich. It could be. RLC
Afghan minister seeks justice through exploitation
By Lynne O'Donnell October 19, 2009
(AFP) - KABUL - "My family name means justice and that is what I am determined to get for my country," says Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, Afghanistan's minister of mines.
In his large, plush office in a Soviet-style compound in downtown Kabul, Adel -- whose surname means "just man" in Arabic, Dari and Pashtu -- outlined how he plans to bring economic justice to one of the world's poorest countries.
"People in Afghanistan are like people lying on a bed of gold but going hungry," he told AFP.
"Afghanistan is not known for its natural resources. It is known across the world and in history as a nation of war and violence and poverty.
"But we have a lot: copper, iron ore, gold, natural gas, oil, precious and semi-precious stones, chromite, talc, salt," he said, counting on his fingers.
"Except diamonds," he grinned. "We haven't found diamonds yet, but we might."
Adel has seen other poor countries -- notably in Africa and South America -- allow foreign governments and companies to extract and export their mineral wealth, with the profits rarely remaining at home.
"Afghanistan will never be exploited in this way. The relationship between the company that invests in Afghanistan's mineral resources and the people has to be just," said Adel, who trained as a mining engineer in the former Soviet Union.
"Not more than five percent of Afghanistan's natural resources is known, 95 percent we still don't know. But I hope that in the very near future we can start exploration work.
"We are trying to develop the economy using our natural and mineral resources."
Adel, who spent time in jail and as a refugee in Pakistan before returning to Kabul and joining the ministry after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has already signed contracts developing a massive copper mine in Logar province, and a medium-sized coal mine in Bamiyan province.
But he said companies interested in Afghanistan's natural resources must make long-term and costly commitments to developing not just the underground resource, but also everything above it.
Exploitation plans must be environmentally sound and based on solid social impact studies, with development including "job creation, schools, hospitals, electricity, water," he said.
In 2007, China's state-owned metals producing giant Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a three-billion-dollar contract to develop the Aynak copper mine -- one of the world's biggest -- over the next 30 years.
First discovered in 1974, the site, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul in Logar, is estimated to contain 11.3 million tonnes of copper.
The red metal used in plumbing, heating, electrical and telecommunications wiring, is essential to China's breakneck economic development.
The region is becoming increasingly tense and insecure, and is being guarded by US soldiers.
While China's involvement in the mine is another step in its often-controversial forays into resource exploitation abroad, the terms of the contract are very much in Afghanistan's favour.
"The Aynak Copper Mines alone can bring us 500 million dollars a year just in revenues to the government," Adel said.
He said he insisted on conditions binding the Chinese in Aynak to de-mine the area and, effectively, build a city from scratch that will be centred on the mine.
The contract obliges the Chinese partner to develop a smelter, refinery and factory as well as infrastructure such as roads, houses, hospitals and schools -- similar to the cities centred on single industries that were a hallmark of China's centralised economy in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Chinese company will also build a rail link across the country, from the border with Pakistan in the southeast to the border with Uzbekistan in the north.
Thousands of jobs will be created at the Aynak mine, Adel said, adding that the company is also obliged to train Afghan engineers and geologists so that "in 10-15 years Afghans are able to work independently."
On top of these agreements, he said, MCC threw in a bonus of 808 million dollars, to be paid in three installments during the lease.
"How could we refuse that?" Adel asked. "No one else offered us anything like that."
He intends to apply the same principles to the huge Hajigak iron ore mine in Bamiyan province, north of Kabul, which is currently under tender, with one Chinese and half a dozen Indian firms vying for the contract.
The contract for exploitation of almost two billion tonnes of high-grade ore includes processing, smelting, steel production, 200 megawatts of electricity and a coking plant.
In addition, the winning firm -- expected to be announced by next July -- will help develop downstream industries such as machinery plants, he added.
Afghan minister seeks justice through exploitation
By Lynne O'Donnell October 19, 2009
(AFP) - KABUL - "My family name means justice and that is what I am determined to get for my country," says Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, Afghanistan's minister of mines.
In his large, plush office in a Soviet-style compound in downtown Kabul, Adel -- whose surname means "just man" in Arabic, Dari and Pashtu -- outlined how he plans to bring economic justice to one of the world's poorest countries.
"People in Afghanistan are like people lying on a bed of gold but going hungry," he told AFP.
"Afghanistan is not known for its natural resources. It is known across the world and in history as a nation of war and violence and poverty.
"But we have a lot: copper, iron ore, gold, natural gas, oil, precious and semi-precious stones, chromite, talc, salt," he said, counting on his fingers.
"Except diamonds," he grinned. "We haven't found diamonds yet, but we might."
Adel has seen other poor countries -- notably in Africa and South America -- allow foreign governments and companies to extract and export their mineral wealth, with the profits rarely remaining at home.
"Afghanistan will never be exploited in this way. The relationship between the company that invests in Afghanistan's mineral resources and the people has to be just," said Adel, who trained as a mining engineer in the former Soviet Union.
"Not more than five percent of Afghanistan's natural resources is known, 95 percent we still don't know. But I hope that in the very near future we can start exploration work.
"We are trying to develop the economy using our natural and mineral resources."
Adel, who spent time in jail and as a refugee in Pakistan before returning to Kabul and joining the ministry after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has already signed contracts developing a massive copper mine in Logar province, and a medium-sized coal mine in Bamiyan province.
But he said companies interested in Afghanistan's natural resources must make long-term and costly commitments to developing not just the underground resource, but also everything above it.
Exploitation plans must be environmentally sound and based on solid social impact studies, with development including "job creation, schools, hospitals, electricity, water," he said.
In 2007, China's state-owned metals producing giant Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a three-billion-dollar contract to develop the Aynak copper mine -- one of the world's biggest -- over the next 30 years.
First discovered in 1974, the site, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of Kabul in Logar, is estimated to contain 11.3 million tonnes of copper.
The red metal used in plumbing, heating, electrical and telecommunications wiring, is essential to China's breakneck economic development.
The region is becoming increasingly tense and insecure, and is being guarded by US soldiers.
While China's involvement in the mine is another step in its often-controversial forays into resource exploitation abroad, the terms of the contract are very much in Afghanistan's favour.
"The Aynak Copper Mines alone can bring us 500 million dollars a year just in revenues to the government," Adel said.
He said he insisted on conditions binding the Chinese in Aynak to de-mine the area and, effectively, build a city from scratch that will be centred on the mine.
The contract obliges the Chinese partner to develop a smelter, refinery and factory as well as infrastructure such as roads, houses, hospitals and schools -- similar to the cities centred on single industries that were a hallmark of China's centralised economy in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Chinese company will also build a rail link across the country, from the border with Pakistan in the southeast to the border with Uzbekistan in the north.
Thousands of jobs will be created at the Aynak mine, Adel said, adding that the company is also obliged to train Afghan engineers and geologists so that "in 10-15 years Afghans are able to work independently."
On top of these agreements, he said, MCC threw in a bonus of 808 million dollars, to be paid in three installments during the lease.
"How could we refuse that?" Adel asked. "No one else offered us anything like that."
He intends to apply the same principles to the huge Hajigak iron ore mine in Bamiyan province, north of Kabul, which is currently under tender, with one Chinese and half a dozen Indian firms vying for the contract.
The contract for exploitation of almost two billion tonnes of high-grade ore includes processing, smelting, steel production, 200 megawatts of electricity and a coking plant.
In addition, the winning firm -- expected to be announced by next July -- will help develop downstream industries such as machinery plants, he added.
Taliban funding sources
A Variety of Sources Feed Into Taliban's War Chest New York Times By ERIC SCHMITT October 18, 2009
WASHINGTON - The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency's coffers brimming with cash.
Estimates of the Taliban's annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials. By diversifying their revenue stream beyond opium, the Taliban are frustrating American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.
Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban's financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent.
"I don't believe we can significantly alter their effectiveness by cutting off their money right now," said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington State Democrat on the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan last month. "I'm not saying we shouldn't try. It's just bigger and more complex than we can effectively stop."
The Taliban's ability to raise money complicates the Obama administration's decision to deploy more United States troops to Afghanistan. It is unclear, for example, whether the deployment of 10,000 Marines over the summer to Helmand Province, the heart of the opium production, will have a sustaining impact on the insurgency's cash flow. And American officials are debating whether cracking down on the drug trade will anger farmers dependent on it for their livelihood.
But even if the United States and its allies were able to stanch the money flow, it is not clear how much impact it would have. It does not cost much to train, equip and pay for the insurgency in impoverished Afghanistan - fighters typically earn $200 to $500 a month - and to bribe local Afghan security and government officials.
"Their operations are so inexpensive that they can be continued indefinitely even with locally generated resources such as small businesses and donations," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service and a former analyst of the region at the C.I.A.
American officials say that they have been surprised to learn in recent months that foreign donations, rather than opium, are the single largest source of cash for the Taliban.
"In the past there was a kind of a feeling that the money all came from drugs in Afghanistan," Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in June. "That is simply not true."
Supporting this view, in his Aug. 30 strategic assessment, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, voiced skepticism that clamping down on the opium trade would crimp the Taliban's overall finances.
"Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits - even if possible, and while disruptive - would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact," General McChrystal said.
The C.I.A. recently estimated in a classified report that Taliban leaders and their associates had received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan, a figure first reported last month by The Washington Post. Private citizens from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and some Persian Gulf nations are the largest individual contributors, an American counterterrorism official said.
Top American intelligence officials and diplomats say there is no evidence so far that the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or other Persian Gulf states are providing direct aid to the Afghan insurgency. But American intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistani intelligence operatives continue to give some financial aid to the Afghan Taliban, a practice the Pakistani government denies.
The United States Treasury Department and the United Nations have for years maintained financial blacklists of those suspected of being donors to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But counterterrorism officials say donors have become savvier about disguising their contributions to avoid detection.
"The sanctions have worked to a certain extent but obviously not to the extent of being able to cut off all funds," said Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence officer now monitoring Al Qaeda and the Taliban for the United Nations.
Still, drugs play an important role. Afghanistan produces more opium than any other country in the world, and the Taliban are widely believed to make money at virtually every stage of the trade.
"It extorts funds from those involved in the heroin trade by demanding `protection' payments from poppy farmers, drug lab operators and the smugglers who transport the chemicals into, and the heroin out of, the country," David S. Cohen, an assistant secretary at the Treasury Department responsible for combating terrorist financing, said in a speech in Washington last week.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a report issued in August, said that Taliban commanders charged poppy farmers a 10 percent tax, and that Taliban fighters supplemented their pay by working in the poppy fields during harvest. The biggest source of drug money for the Taliban is regular payments made by drug traffickers to the Taliban leadership, based in the Pakistani border city of Quetta, according to the report.
Counterterrorism experts say the relationship of the insurgents to drug trafficking is shifting in an ominous direction. A United Nations report issued in August said that some opium-trafficking guerrillas had secretly stockpiled more than 10,000 tons of illegal opium - worth billions of dollars and enough to satisfy at least two years of world demand. The large stockpiles could bolster the insurgency's war chest and further undercut the ability of NATO military operations to curb the flow of drug money to the Taliban.
A third major source of financing for the Taliban is criminal activity, including kidnappings and protection payments from legitimate businesses seeking to operate in Taliban-controlled territory, American authorities say.
The United States has created two new entities aimed at disrupting the trafficking networks and illicit financing. One group, the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, is located at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul. The second group, the Illicit Finance Task Force based in Washington, also aims to identify and disrupt the financial networks supporting terrorists and narcotics traffickers in the region.
American officials say they are working closely with the Afghan government to dry up the Taliban financing, but as one senior American military officer in Afghanistan put it last week, "I won't overstate the progress."
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON - The Taliban in Afghanistan are running a sophisticated financial network to pay for their insurgent operations, raising hundreds of millions of dollars from the illicit drug trade, kidnappings, extortion and foreign donations that American officials say they are struggling to cut off.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed an elaborate system to tax the cultivation, processing and shipment of opium, as well as other crops like wheat grown in the territory they control, American and Afghan officials say. In the Middle East, Taliban leaders have sent fund-raisers to Arab countries to keep the insurgency's coffers brimming with cash.
Estimates of the Taliban's annual revenue vary widely. Proceeds from the illicit drug trade alone range from $70 million to $400 million a year, according to Pentagon and United Nations officials. By diversifying their revenue stream beyond opium, the Taliban are frustrating American and NATO efforts to weaken the insurgency by cutting off its economic lifelines, the officials say.
Despite efforts by the United States and its allies in the last year to cripple the Taliban's financing, using the military and intelligence, American officials acknowledge they barely made a dent.
"I don't believe we can significantly alter their effectiveness by cutting off their money right now," said Representative Adam Smith, a Washington State Democrat on the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees who traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan last month. "I'm not saying we shouldn't try. It's just bigger and more complex than we can effectively stop."
The Taliban's ability to raise money complicates the Obama administration's decision to deploy more United States troops to Afghanistan. It is unclear, for example, whether the deployment of 10,000 Marines over the summer to Helmand Province, the heart of the opium production, will have a sustaining impact on the insurgency's cash flow. And American officials are debating whether cracking down on the drug trade will anger farmers dependent on it for their livelihood.
But even if the United States and its allies were able to stanch the money flow, it is not clear how much impact it would have. It does not cost much to train, equip and pay for the insurgency in impoverished Afghanistan - fighters typically earn $200 to $500 a month - and to bribe local Afghan security and government officials.
"Their operations are so inexpensive that they can be continued indefinitely even with locally generated resources such as small businesses and donations," said Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service and a former analyst of the region at the C.I.A.
American officials say that they have been surprised to learn in recent months that foreign donations, rather than opium, are the single largest source of cash for the Taliban.
"In the past there was a kind of a feeling that the money all came from drugs in Afghanistan," Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in June. "That is simply not true."
Supporting this view, in his Aug. 30 strategic assessment, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, voiced skepticism that clamping down on the opium trade would crimp the Taliban's overall finances.
"Eliminating insurgent access to narco-profits - even if possible, and while disruptive - would not destroy their ability to operate so long as other funding sources remained intact," General McChrystal said.
The C.I.A. recently estimated in a classified report that Taliban leaders and their associates had received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan, a figure first reported last month by The Washington Post. Private citizens from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and some Persian Gulf nations are the largest individual contributors, an American counterterrorism official said.
Top American intelligence officials and diplomats say there is no evidence so far that the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or other Persian Gulf states are providing direct aid to the Afghan insurgency. But American intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistani intelligence operatives continue to give some financial aid to the Afghan Taliban, a practice the Pakistani government denies.
The United States Treasury Department and the United Nations have for years maintained financial blacklists of those suspected of being donors to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But counterterrorism officials say donors have become savvier about disguising their contributions to avoid detection.
"The sanctions have worked to a certain extent but obviously not to the extent of being able to cut off all funds," said Richard Barrett, a former British intelligence officer now monitoring Al Qaeda and the Taliban for the United Nations.
Still, drugs play an important role. Afghanistan produces more opium than any other country in the world, and the Taliban are widely believed to make money at virtually every stage of the trade.
"It extorts funds from those involved in the heroin trade by demanding `protection' payments from poppy farmers, drug lab operators and the smugglers who transport the chemicals into, and the heroin out of, the country," David S. Cohen, an assistant secretary at the Treasury Department responsible for combating terrorist financing, said in a speech in Washington last week.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a report issued in August, said that Taliban commanders charged poppy farmers a 10 percent tax, and that Taliban fighters supplemented their pay by working in the poppy fields during harvest. The biggest source of drug money for the Taliban is regular payments made by drug traffickers to the Taliban leadership, based in the Pakistani border city of Quetta, according to the report.
Counterterrorism experts say the relationship of the insurgents to drug trafficking is shifting in an ominous direction. A United Nations report issued in August said that some opium-trafficking guerrillas had secretly stockpiled more than 10,000 tons of illegal opium - worth billions of dollars and enough to satisfy at least two years of world demand. The large stockpiles could bolster the insurgency's war chest and further undercut the ability of NATO military operations to curb the flow of drug money to the Taliban.
A third major source of financing for the Taliban is criminal activity, including kidnappings and protection payments from legitimate businesses seeking to operate in Taliban-controlled territory, American authorities say.
The United States has created two new entities aimed at disrupting the trafficking networks and illicit financing. One group, the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, is located at Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul. The second group, the Illicit Finance Task Force based in Washington, also aims to identify and disrupt the financial networks supporting terrorists and narcotics traffickers in the region.
American officials say they are working closely with the Afghan government to dry up the Taliban financing, but as one senior American military officer in Afghanistan put it last week, "I won't overstate the progress."
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Afghan Taliban cooperate with the Tahrik-Taliban of Pakistan
The article below from the News International reveals how unwise it is to suppose that the Taliban-Pakistan are different from the Taliban-Afghanistan. They are both a part of a common movement. Yes, these groups are essentially factions who, if there were no state to fight on the outside, would probably clash among themselves, but given the situation they now have they have reason to hold together for the time being. RLC
TTP gets Afghan Taliban support
By Mazhar Tufail The News International (Pakistan) October 18, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani militants based in South Waziristan Agency committed the terrorism acts in the past couple of weeks or so with the help of the
Afghan Taliban, The News learnt here on Saturday.
"Leaders of various militant groups active in Pakistan under the banner of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have succeeded in winning support of
the Afghan Taliban for committing terror acts in Pakistan," a source in the security forces disclosed on condition of anonymity.
"They have mounted the deadly attacks in Peshawar, Bannu, Rawalpindi and Lahore with the help of Afghan Taliban," he said.
The source said the top leaders of outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have established links with the Afghan Taliban and all its operatives who have been operating
in the Punjab have reached South Waziristan or Afghanistan to evade arrests as the law-enforcement agencies have launched a crackdown on such elements in the
Punjab province.
"Initially, this group was involved in sectarian violence and has been targeting people belonging to a particular religious sect but now it is targeting the
security forces," the source said.
According to the source, the security forces have, however, launched the operation - codenamed Rah-e-Nijat - in South Waziristan with full determination to
eliminate the terrorists from the restive tribal region. He said majority of the troops participating in the operation have an extensive experience of
warfare in mountainous terrain and have earlier been fighting terrorists in Swat, Malakand and elsewhere.
"As directed by the army chief and other commanders involved in the military operation in South Waziristan, the security forces will exercise utmost care to
avoid collateral damage during the operation. The commanders are very optimistic about the completion of the operation well before the end of the stipulated
time and its positive outcome," the source said.
The Pakistan Army launched operation against the extremists in South Waziristan Agency on the night between Friday and Saturday. According to military
sources, 1,000 to 1,500 militants are present in South Waziristan and the operation has been launched after three-month siege of the militants.
The political administration of South Waziristan has, however, said that over 4,000 to 5000 terrorists are present in the area with most of them hiding in
Mahsuds-inhibited area.
South Waziristan is the nerve centre of the TTP and the main source of terrorism across Pakistan. It is from here that TTP renders support to other terrorist
groups operating from the nearby Khyber, Bajaur, Orakzai and Mohmand agencies.
"The root of the terror is in South Waziristan where this group is present. It is a must to root out this terror and curse," the source said.
After the death of Baitullah Mahsud in a drone strike on August 5, TTP is being led by Hakimullah Mahsud with the assistance of Waliur Rehman and Qari
Hussain, who runs a suicide training camp in Kotkai area of the region.
According to the source, in the last three months, the TTP militants intensified attacks on security forces deployed in South and North Waziristan agencies,
including five suicide missions in Razmak area, kidnapping of 15 security personnel, killing three of them, over 300 rocket attacks and 78 improvised
explosive device (IED) attacks.
"Given all of the recent terrorism acts in various parts of the country, a final showdown against Taliban and their al-Qaeda Uzbek allies in South Waziristan
has become an absolute necessity," the source said.
The source said no doubt the country's security forces were faced with a far stronger enemy in South Waziristan than one they have confronted and overcame in
Swat.
TTP gets Afghan Taliban support
By Mazhar Tufail The News International (Pakistan) October 18, 2009
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani militants based in South Waziristan Agency committed the terrorism acts in the past couple of weeks or so with the help of the
Afghan Taliban, The News learnt here on Saturday.
"Leaders of various militant groups active in Pakistan under the banner of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have succeeded in winning support of
the Afghan Taliban for committing terror acts in Pakistan," a source in the security forces disclosed on condition of anonymity.
"They have mounted the deadly attacks in Peshawar, Bannu, Rawalpindi and Lahore with the help of Afghan Taliban," he said.
The source said the top leaders of outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have established links with the Afghan Taliban and all its operatives who have been operating
in the Punjab have reached South Waziristan or Afghanistan to evade arrests as the law-enforcement agencies have launched a crackdown on such elements in the
Punjab province.
"Initially, this group was involved in sectarian violence and has been targeting people belonging to a particular religious sect but now it is targeting the
security forces," the source said.
According to the source, the security forces have, however, launched the operation - codenamed Rah-e-Nijat - in South Waziristan with full determination to
eliminate the terrorists from the restive tribal region. He said majority of the troops participating in the operation have an extensive experience of
warfare in mountainous terrain and have earlier been fighting terrorists in Swat, Malakand and elsewhere.
"As directed by the army chief and other commanders involved in the military operation in South Waziristan, the security forces will exercise utmost care to
avoid collateral damage during the operation. The commanders are very optimistic about the completion of the operation well before the end of the stipulated
time and its positive outcome," the source said.
The Pakistan Army launched operation against the extremists in South Waziristan Agency on the night between Friday and Saturday. According to military
sources, 1,000 to 1,500 militants are present in South Waziristan and the operation has been launched after three-month siege of the militants.
The political administration of South Waziristan has, however, said that over 4,000 to 5000 terrorists are present in the area with most of them hiding in
Mahsuds-inhibited area.
South Waziristan is the nerve centre of the TTP and the main source of terrorism across Pakistan. It is from here that TTP renders support to other terrorist
groups operating from the nearby Khyber, Bajaur, Orakzai and Mohmand agencies.
"The root of the terror is in South Waziristan where this group is present. It is a must to root out this terror and curse," the source said.
After the death of Baitullah Mahsud in a drone strike on August 5, TTP is being led by Hakimullah Mahsud with the assistance of Waliur Rehman and Qari
Hussain, who runs a suicide training camp in Kotkai area of the region.
According to the source, in the last three months, the TTP militants intensified attacks on security forces deployed in South and North Waziristan agencies,
including five suicide missions in Razmak area, kidnapping of 15 security personnel, killing three of them, over 300 rocket attacks and 78 improvised
explosive device (IED) attacks.
"Given all of the recent terrorism acts in various parts of the country, a final showdown against Taliban and their al-Qaeda Uzbek allies in South Waziristan
has become an absolute necessity," the source said.
The source said no doubt the country's security forces were faced with a far stronger enemy in South Waziristan than one they have confronted and overcame in
Swat.
Gilles Dorronsoro's doubts about a "surge" in Afghanistan
Gilles Dorronsoro is one of the few people who have done extensive anthropological research on the ground in Afghanistan in recent years so he speaks with an authority that we need to listen to. He has come out in support of Matthew Hoh's notable break with American policy. Hoh I have been less sure of. True, he has had military experience in Afghanistan and was then a foreign service officer in Afghanistan, but it is hard to tell how well he understands the wider implications of his position. All along I have been in favor of adding a lot of troops in Afghanistan -- plus forcing Pakistan to clean up their side of the border. Even so, as Dorronsoro points out, there are good reasons to wonder if it is fair to ask American young men and women to die for a regime that still countenances corruption and vote fraud. Below is what Dorronsoro has to say about the situation. RLC
Getting lost in Afghanistan Matthew Hoh's resignation as a US official in Afghanistan delivers a sharp, honest and accurate critique of the war
By Gilles Dorronsoro,
guardian.co.uk Wednesday 28 October 2009
Former US marine and foreign service officer Matthew Hoh's letter of resignation from the US state department delivers a shot across the bow of those who would escalate the American combat presence in Afghanistan. "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," Hoh wrote. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
With Tuesday's attacks making October the bloodiest month for US troops in the country in the eight years since the war began, Hoh's letter is an expression of deep moral conviction, and senior US officials, from ambassador Karl Eikenberry to vice-president Joe Biden, are taking it seriously. But the statement is more than a cri du coeur. It presents several arguments that are worthy of discussion.
"If honest," Hoh writes, "our strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaida resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc."
Hoh's argument here is weak on two accounts. First, in the other countries mentioned, the US has a degree of co-operation with the local governments, even if they cannot completely control their own territories. Afghanistan is a special case, in that its government cannot survive without western assistance. And if the Taliban succeeds in retaking Afghanistan's cities, al-Qaida could find there a perfect sanctuary, where it would be impervious to counter-terrorism operations. In the other countries Hoh mentions, that is not the case.
"Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilisation and insurgency in Pakistan," Hoh asserts.
This is absolutely correct, the only caveat being that the Pakistani government also supports the Taliban and other radical groups that are destabilising the country. As the Afghan Taliban show with their persistent practice of attacking Indian targets in Kabul, the Pakistani military support them as a weapon against India, and it offers no indication of a new policy. (The offensive in Waziristan is directed against the Pakistan and it offers no indication of a new policy. (The offensive in Waziristan is directed against the Pakistan Taliban, not the Afghan Taliban). Nonetheless, even an American withdrawal from Afghanistan would not give the US or Pakistan any insurance about the future behaviour of these radical groups, Afghan or Pakistani. Afghanistan could still become a sanctuary for groups fighting in Pakistan.
"The threat is not tied to geographic or political boundaries," Hoh says.
Hoh is right. The September 11 attacks were planned mostly in Germany, and the war in Afghanistan does not make the US more secure. At the same time, al-Qaida needs a sanctuary in order to escape from the police and counterterrorism forces. Even a loose network of individuals is vulnerable when it has no protection from police or military strikes. Afghanistan was once instrumental in lending a certain level of security to al-Qaida and similar groups, just as Waziristan is today. Al-Qaida can always move from Pakistan to another base, like Yemen, if the situation there becomes too dangerous, but that will affect its ability to operate, since Pakistan is still the best base they can hope for.
US troops, Hoh writes, were "inadequately prepared and resourced".
This point is also completely accurate, and little has changed. Western troops are not prepared to fight a counter-insurgency. They spend too little time in country, undergo no appreciable linguistic training and the Pashtuns fear their presence and reject their cultures. By contrast, the Iraq surge worked not because of counter-insurgency, but because the local tribes chose to join the US, and the insurgents they were fighting were mostly urban. So the US did not learn how to fight a rural counterinsurgency in Iraq.
Hoh writes that the war could continue for "decades and generations".
If the objective is to crush the Taliban, not to pursue the more realistic goal of leaving an Afghan government that can survive on its own, this is true. The Obama administration has made clear that its objectives are mostly limited to security, and John Kerry's speech on Monday delivered exactly that line. But Hoh has nevertheless a point here, because the strategy General Stanley McChrystal proposes is more ambitious: it aims for total military victory against the Taliban. To accomplish that, McChrystal will need a lot more than the 20,000 to 60,000 troops for which he is asking. The Taliban can continue to strike from Pakistan, and, as the US operation in Helmand showed this summer, even 20,000 soldiers cannot secure the centre of a single province in southern Afghanistan.
To what end, as Hoh asks, are we asking our young men and women to sacrifice? That is the question the White House has to answer.
Getting lost in Afghanistan Matthew Hoh's resignation as a US official in Afghanistan delivers a sharp, honest and accurate critique of the war
By Gilles Dorronsoro,
guardian.co.uk Wednesday 28 October 2009
Former US marine and foreign service officer Matthew Hoh's letter of resignation from the US state department delivers a shot across the bow of those who would escalate the American combat presence in Afghanistan. "I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," Hoh wrote. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
With Tuesday's attacks making October the bloodiest month for US troops in the country in the eight years since the war began, Hoh's letter is an expression of deep moral conviction, and senior US officials, from ambassador Karl Eikenberry to vice-president Joe Biden, are taking it seriously. But the statement is more than a cri du coeur. It presents several arguments that are worthy of discussion.
"If honest," Hoh writes, "our strategy of securing Afghanistan to prevent al-Qaida resurgence or regrouping would require us to additionally invade and occupy Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, etc."
Hoh's argument here is weak on two accounts. First, in the other countries mentioned, the US has a degree of co-operation with the local governments, even if they cannot completely control their own territories. Afghanistan is a special case, in that its government cannot survive without western assistance. And if the Taliban succeeds in retaking Afghanistan's cities, al-Qaida could find there a perfect sanctuary, where it would be impervious to counter-terrorism operations. In the other countries Hoh mentions, that is not the case.
"Our presence in Afghanistan has only increased destabilisation and insurgency in Pakistan," Hoh asserts.
This is absolutely correct, the only caveat being that the Pakistani government also supports the Taliban and other radical groups that are destabilising the country. As the Afghan Taliban show with their persistent practice of attacking Indian targets in Kabul, the Pakistani military support them as a weapon against India, and it offers no indication of a new policy. (The offensive in Waziristan is directed against the Pakistan and it offers no indication of a new policy. (The offensive in Waziristan is directed against the Pakistan Taliban, not the Afghan Taliban). Nonetheless, even an American withdrawal from Afghanistan would not give the US or Pakistan any insurance about the future behaviour of these radical groups, Afghan or Pakistani. Afghanistan could still become a sanctuary for groups fighting in Pakistan.
"The threat is not tied to geographic or political boundaries," Hoh says.
Hoh is right. The September 11 attacks were planned mostly in Germany, and the war in Afghanistan does not make the US more secure. At the same time, al-Qaida needs a sanctuary in order to escape from the police and counterterrorism forces. Even a loose network of individuals is vulnerable when it has no protection from police or military strikes. Afghanistan was once instrumental in lending a certain level of security to al-Qaida and similar groups, just as Waziristan is today. Al-Qaida can always move from Pakistan to another base, like Yemen, if the situation there becomes too dangerous, but that will affect its ability to operate, since Pakistan is still the best base they can hope for.
US troops, Hoh writes, were "inadequately prepared and resourced".
This point is also completely accurate, and little has changed. Western troops are not prepared to fight a counter-insurgency. They spend too little time in country, undergo no appreciable linguistic training and the Pashtuns fear their presence and reject their cultures. By contrast, the Iraq surge worked not because of counter-insurgency, but because the local tribes chose to join the US, and the insurgents they were fighting were mostly urban. So the US did not learn how to fight a rural counterinsurgency in Iraq.
Hoh writes that the war could continue for "decades and generations".
If the objective is to crush the Taliban, not to pursue the more realistic goal of leaving an Afghan government that can survive on its own, this is true. The Obama administration has made clear that its objectives are mostly limited to security, and John Kerry's speech on Monday delivered exactly that line. But Hoh has nevertheless a point here, because the strategy General Stanley McChrystal proposes is more ambitious: it aims for total military victory against the Taliban. To accomplish that, McChrystal will need a lot more than the 20,000 to 60,000 troops for which he is asking. The Taliban can continue to strike from Pakistan, and, as the US operation in Helmand showed this summer, even 20,000 soldiers cannot secure the centre of a single province in southern Afghanistan.
To what end, as Hoh asks, are we asking our young men and women to sacrifice? That is the question the White House has to answer.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
How to get control of South Waziristan -- so they say
A summary by Walter Pincus (Washington Post, 10.27/09) of a paper presented by Frederick Kagan, Reza Jan and Charlie Szrom on how Pakistani military have proceeded in South Waziristan reveals how fluid relations are among the Pashtuns of the Tribal Areas. Pincus presents it as a "Lesson for Afghanistan?" as if the methods used in this case could be used in Afghanistan. What he describes as the new Pakistani methods don't sound very new, but this time it appears to have been done with more resolve and more care in preparation.
My guess is that buying off various parties on the scene, as Pincus describes it here, can work among the Afghanistan folks as well, so long as it is understood that the deal is situational and temporary. Louie Dupree used to say the Afghans can be rented but they can't be bought.
So, if it works that's great, but it cannot be a long term solution to the problem in the Tribal Areas without a continuous and concerted commitment to the enforcement of law and order and the provision of necessary public services. This is another way of saying that if this Pakistani invasion into the Tribal areas is to be effective -- that is, lasting -- the Tribal Areas have to be more closely absorbed into the rest of the country. For that to take place the government must make a large financial commitment: building roads, introducing power lines and air service, and establishing medical care and education for the residents. It would be great if that would happen but it's hard to picture where the money will come from. And anyway there is the problem of whether the tribal leaders would be willing to give up their relative autonomy. Actually, after all they have been going through they just might consent to it, especially if the new arrangement would bring in the beneficial changes I listed above. We hear at least that some are pretty fed up with the intrusive and destructive presence of the Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters in their homelands.
Anyway, Pincus's article is revealing. [Selections from it are below] RLC
A lesson for Afghanistan? By WALTER PINCUS The Washington Post Tuesday, October 27, 2009
…. The 37-page analysis of the Waziristan operation provides important background for those following Pakistan's long-awaited move against the Taliban, also known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) .
… Some preparatory activities were already underway, according to the analysis by Kagan and his associates. With the paramilitary Frontier Corps in support, the Pakistani military gained control of some major road segments in the area, setting up blockades intended to separate Mehsud's Taliban in South Waziristan from its allies in North Waziristan and to block transfer of arms into the south. Aided by U.S. intelligence and Predator drones, air and ground artillery attacks also began on Taliban targets. ….
Negotiations with surrounding tribal groups went on for months. Efforts were aimed at either getting support for the move against the traditional Mehsud area, where the TTP was strongest, or having groups agree to refrain from joining the fight on the Taliban side. …. In the southeast, the Pakistanis worked with Turkistan Bhittani, a pro-government leader whose tribal fighters at least a year before had driven Mehsud Taliban elements from their territory.
Maulvi Nazir Ahmad, once considered the second-most popular militant leader in South Waziristan to Mehsud, was concerned in the past about U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Early last year, he had formed an alliance with Mehsud, according to the Kagan analysis. Since then, U.S. drones had attacked his area at least nine times this year, according to the analysis.
However, over the summer, Pakistani officers, who had years earlier formed an alliance with Nazir Ahmad, bought off his support by guaranteeing that the U.S. drone attacks on his territory would halt, the analysis said. The result: Pakistani army forces gained use of the town of Wana in Nazir Ahmad's territory for their forces moving up from the southwest.
In the north, the deal was struck with Hafiz Gul Bahadur, considered the supreme commander of the North Waziristan Taliban, who has had an on-again, off-again peace deal with the Pakistani government. He agreed to remain neutral, allowing Razmak to be the supply point for troops coming down from the north. The agreement with him was that Pakistani army units could "transit his territory in exchange for fewer bombings and patrols" in his area, according to the analysis.
The Pakistani military's invasion of the Mehsud tribal heartland -- about 40,000 soldiers supported by helicopters and fighter bombers coming from three areas -- has progressed deliberately. Kotkai, the home town of Beitullah Mehsud's successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, and his top lieutenant, Qari Hussain, has been taken and their respective homes destroyed. ….
My guess is that buying off various parties on the scene, as Pincus describes it here, can work among the Afghanistan folks as well, so long as it is understood that the deal is situational and temporary. Louie Dupree used to say the Afghans can be rented but they can't be bought.
So, if it works that's great, but it cannot be a long term solution to the problem in the Tribal Areas without a continuous and concerted commitment to the enforcement of law and order and the provision of necessary public services. This is another way of saying that if this Pakistani invasion into the Tribal areas is to be effective -- that is, lasting -- the Tribal Areas have to be more closely absorbed into the rest of the country. For that to take place the government must make a large financial commitment: building roads, introducing power lines and air service, and establishing medical care and education for the residents. It would be great if that would happen but it's hard to picture where the money will come from. And anyway there is the problem of whether the tribal leaders would be willing to give up their relative autonomy. Actually, after all they have been going through they just might consent to it, especially if the new arrangement would bring in the beneficial changes I listed above. We hear at least that some are pretty fed up with the intrusive and destructive presence of the Taliban/Al Qaeda fighters in their homelands.
Anyway, Pincus's article is revealing. [Selections from it are below] RLC
A lesson for Afghanistan? By WALTER PINCUS The Washington Post Tuesday, October 27, 2009
…. The 37-page analysis of the Waziristan operation provides important background for those following Pakistan's long-awaited move against the Taliban, also known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) .
… Some preparatory activities were already underway, according to the analysis by Kagan and his associates. With the paramilitary Frontier Corps in support, the Pakistani military gained control of some major road segments in the area, setting up blockades intended to separate Mehsud's Taliban in South Waziristan from its allies in North Waziristan and to block transfer of arms into the south. Aided by U.S. intelligence and Predator drones, air and ground artillery attacks also began on Taliban targets. ….
Negotiations with surrounding tribal groups went on for months. Efforts were aimed at either getting support for the move against the traditional Mehsud area, where the TTP was strongest, or having groups agree to refrain from joining the fight on the Taliban side. …. In the southeast, the Pakistanis worked with Turkistan Bhittani, a pro-government leader whose tribal fighters at least a year before had driven Mehsud Taliban elements from their territory.
Maulvi Nazir Ahmad, once considered the second-most popular militant leader in South Waziristan to Mehsud, was concerned in the past about U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Early last year, he had formed an alliance with Mehsud, according to the Kagan analysis. Since then, U.S. drones had attacked his area at least nine times this year, according to the analysis.
However, over the summer, Pakistani officers, who had years earlier formed an alliance with Nazir Ahmad, bought off his support by guaranteeing that the U.S. drone attacks on his territory would halt, the analysis said. The result: Pakistani army forces gained use of the town of Wana in Nazir Ahmad's territory for their forces moving up from the southwest.
In the north, the deal was struck with Hafiz Gul Bahadur, considered the supreme commander of the North Waziristan Taliban, who has had an on-again, off-again peace deal with the Pakistani government. He agreed to remain neutral, allowing Razmak to be the supply point for troops coming down from the north. The agreement with him was that Pakistani army units could "transit his territory in exchange for fewer bombings and patrols" in his area, according to the analysis.
The Pakistani military's invasion of the Mehsud tribal heartland -- about 40,000 soldiers supported by helicopters and fighter bombers coming from three areas -- has progressed deliberately. Kotkai, the home town of Beitullah Mehsud's successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, and his top lieutenant, Qari Hussain, has been taken and their respective homes destroyed. ….
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The essentializing of "Pashtunwali" is dangerous
[revised and augmented 10/28/09]
Recently, in the discussion about what to do about the war in Afghanistan, there have been several essays on how important Pashtunwali is in Afghanistan. [Outside View: Afghanistan's center of gravity, Oct. 15, 2009 By LAWRENCE SELLIN, UPI; "No Sign until the Burst of Fire -- Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier," Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason] These authors seem to have taken the things they have read about Pashtunwali and essentialized their notion of what is going on in Pashtun society. That terrifies me. What these authors are missing is how much is not known about actual social practice among contemporary Pushtun societies.
The term simply means "the Pashtun way of life" and it works well as a way of describing how in theory the various tribal peoples have managed their affairs in the absence of a state [which seeks to adjudicate disputes in its own terms]. And in that context it is helpful to understand that Pashtuns have for generations had traditions of social and political practice that were more or less coherent and that in theory they could allude to in discussions about what to do about specific situations. But to take it a a stipulated set of rules that are always followed without reference to the ways folks deal with the messy problems of actual situations is a grave mistake. [I have an article "Trouble in Birgilic" in a recent work, "Everyday Life in Central Asia" that describes a whole series of ways that some Hazaras and the presiding official in that region falsified the deals they made and the ways they talked about it. We need similar studies of similar practices among the Pashtuns.]
Much of the work on Pashtunwali was basically an essentializing project from the beginning. The Afghanistan government set up a whole institute to essentialize the concept. Let us take it as the way the Pashtuns tell themselves what their rules are, but it is often referred to after the fact, as a way of legitimizing what has been agreed on among those who have the power to make things happen. It is "orthodoxy" [not "doxa] in Bourdieu's terms. In fact, we have very few actual studies of how social and political affairs [disputes especially] are carried out in actual practice. To decide that Pashtunwali characterizes the way Pashtuns always and in every situation carry on their affairs is dangerous, for the concept has been produced by the Afghan government [in the 1960s] as a self-identifying propaganda device.
Yes, we know of situations when it looked like the "rules" were practiced as they say they should [See the second of Farid's stories at http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/Farida.pdf]. But what about the contexts in which the rules are disputed? Or situations in which various and contrary rules could be invoked? Those are the kinds of situations of which we have scarcely any actual record. And anyway, are the rules the same among all the Pashtuns?
Bourdieu has pointed out that maps are made for outsiders; for those who grew up in an area a map is not needed. And indeed a lot of what the local residents know is not on a map -- like where you can cut through for a short-cut, or where you can't go even if it looks like you are supposed to. That is, for those who have grown up with Pashtunwali there is a lot that is known about short cuts you can take and ways you can cheat on the system and contexts in which you do one thing and say you did another -- this is the stuff of actual social life, not the strict obedience to official rules. What we don't have, in fact, is many studies that describe how things actually work in a society. And those studies are, it turns out, not so useful to those who are looking for a neat, quick image of how the society works. They should look at the actual studies of what is going on -- I fear to list any for fear I will omit some of the best but here are some authors who come to mind: David Edwards, Jon Anderson, Nancy Tapper [Lindesfarne], Richard Tapper, Christine Noelle[-Rasuly], Fredrik Barth, Klaus Ferdinand, Charles Lindholm. You won't get much essentializing from these sources but what you will get is a better sense of how Pashtuns actually do things. In fact, the various peoples of Afghanistan, including the Pashtuns, are used to making deals. They make deals of various sorts for specific purposes and often they stick to them [and sometimes they don't]. So, for those who would like to project a neat image on the way of life of the Afghanistan peoples we must warn them that on the ground, in real situations they may have many surprises.
Moreover, the Taliban, a Pashtun movement who are supposed to be explained by Pashtunwali, have renounced tribal rules in favor of Sharia, and they have operationalized that in many Pashtun areas by exterminating all those elders who didn't play along with them.
This nonsense about Pashtunwali is terrifyiing.
Recently, in the discussion about what to do about the war in Afghanistan, there have been several essays on how important Pashtunwali is in Afghanistan. [Outside View: Afghanistan's center of gravity, Oct. 15, 2009 By LAWRENCE SELLIN, UPI; "No Sign until the Burst of Fire -- Understanding the Pakistan-Afghanistan Frontier," Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason] These authors seem to have taken the things they have read about Pashtunwali and essentialized their notion of what is going on in Pashtun society. That terrifies me. What these authors are missing is how much is not known about actual social practice among contemporary Pushtun societies.
The term simply means "the Pashtun way of life" and it works well as a way of describing how in theory the various tribal peoples have managed their affairs in the absence of a state [which seeks to adjudicate disputes in its own terms]. And in that context it is helpful to understand that Pashtuns have for generations had traditions of social and political practice that were more or less coherent and that in theory they could allude to in discussions about what to do about specific situations. But to take it a a stipulated set of rules that are always followed without reference to the ways folks deal with the messy problems of actual situations is a grave mistake. [I have an article "Trouble in Birgilic" in a recent work, "Everyday Life in Central Asia" that describes a whole series of ways that some Hazaras and the presiding official in that region falsified the deals they made and the ways they talked about it. We need similar studies of similar practices among the Pashtuns.]
Much of the work on Pashtunwali was basically an essentializing project from the beginning. The Afghanistan government set up a whole institute to essentialize the concept. Let us take it as the way the Pashtuns tell themselves what their rules are, but it is often referred to after the fact, as a way of legitimizing what has been agreed on among those who have the power to make things happen. It is "orthodoxy" [not "doxa] in Bourdieu's terms. In fact, we have very few actual studies of how social and political affairs [disputes especially] are carried out in actual practice. To decide that Pashtunwali characterizes the way Pashtuns always and in every situation carry on their affairs is dangerous, for the concept has been produced by the Afghan government [in the 1960s] as a self-identifying propaganda device.
Yes, we know of situations when it looked like the "rules" were practiced as they say they should [See the second of Farid's stories at http://artsci.wustl.edu/~canfrobt/Farida.pdf]. But what about the contexts in which the rules are disputed? Or situations in which various and contrary rules could be invoked? Those are the kinds of situations of which we have scarcely any actual record. And anyway, are the rules the same among all the Pashtuns?
Bourdieu has pointed out that maps are made for outsiders; for those who grew up in an area a map is not needed. And indeed a lot of what the local residents know is not on a map -- like where you can cut through for a short-cut, or where you can't go even if it looks like you are supposed to. That is, for those who have grown up with Pashtunwali there is a lot that is known about short cuts you can take and ways you can cheat on the system and contexts in which you do one thing and say you did another -- this is the stuff of actual social life, not the strict obedience to official rules. What we don't have, in fact, is many studies that describe how things actually work in a society. And those studies are, it turns out, not so useful to those who are looking for a neat, quick image of how the society works. They should look at the actual studies of what is going on -- I fear to list any for fear I will omit some of the best but here are some authors who come to mind: David Edwards, Jon Anderson, Nancy Tapper [Lindesfarne], Richard Tapper, Christine Noelle[-Rasuly], Fredrik Barth, Klaus Ferdinand, Charles Lindholm. You won't get much essentializing from these sources but what you will get is a better sense of how Pashtuns actually do things. In fact, the various peoples of Afghanistan, including the Pashtuns, are used to making deals. They make deals of various sorts for specific purposes and often they stick to them [and sometimes they don't]. So, for those who would like to project a neat image on the way of life of the Afghanistan peoples we must warn them that on the ground, in real situations they may have many surprises.
Moreover, the Taliban, a Pashtun movement who are supposed to be explained by Pashtunwali, have renounced tribal rules in favor of Sharia, and they have operationalized that in many Pashtun areas by exterminating all those elders who didn't play along with them.
This nonsense about Pashtunwali is terrifyiing.
The Taliban ask the Shanghai Cooperation Organization for help?
Xinhua news reports are a distinctive news source and sometimes they have surprising things to report. Here is an article about a request by "the Taliban" -- we would assume only one of the several groups by that name -- to the Shanghai Cooperation organization -- which includes China, Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrghizstan, and Tajikistan -- to help end the war in Afghanistan. If such a request was made, that would be a remarkable step. We wonder who the "Taliban" are. Whoever they are, whichever group, they are savvy enough about the wider world of interested parties to seek their help in working out a solution to the war in Afghanistan. Here is the report.
Taliban seeks SCO support in solving Afghan crisis
KABUL, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Taliban outfit, in a political move, tried to seek support from Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in ending the prolonged war in Afghanistan, a letter sent to the address of the body late Wednesday said.
In the open letter, it described the presence of international troops in Afghanistan as the occupation of the post-Taliban country and called on SCO to adopt a tough stance in this regard.
"We call on Shanghai Cooperation Organization to assist countries in the region against colonialists and adopt a strong stance against the occupation of Afghanistan," according to the letter readout to media from undisclosed location.
It also said that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (name of ousted Taliban regime) would establish friendly relations with allthe neighboring states after the expulsion of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
In the letter, the Taliban outfit asked the SCO "not to trust the propaganda of the colonial powers as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would not damage any country and would rather open the door for strengthening peace, stability and economic cooperation in the region."
Written in Pashtu -- one of the two official languages of Afghanistan and spoken by the majority of Taliban militants -- the letter also accused the international troops of killing Afghans, adding that "both NATO and U.S. forces in the excuse of fighting terrorists have been killing the people of Afghanistan."
Taliban militants whose regime was ousted by the U.S.-led coalition forces eight years ago have intensified their activities over the past couple of years, forcing NATO and Afghan government to seek negotiating settlement for ensuring durable peace in the war-torn country.
Taliban seeks SCO support in solving Afghan crisis
KABUL, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Taliban outfit, in a political move, tried to seek support from Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in ending the prolonged war in Afghanistan, a letter sent to the address of the body late Wednesday said.
In the open letter, it described the presence of international troops in Afghanistan as the occupation of the post-Taliban country and called on SCO to adopt a tough stance in this regard.
"We call on Shanghai Cooperation Organization to assist countries in the region against colonialists and adopt a strong stance against the occupation of Afghanistan," according to the letter readout to media from undisclosed location.
It also said that the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (name of ousted Taliban regime) would establish friendly relations with allthe neighboring states after the expulsion of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
In the letter, the Taliban outfit asked the SCO "not to trust the propaganda of the colonial powers as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would not damage any country and would rather open the door for strengthening peace, stability and economic cooperation in the region."
Written in Pashtu -- one of the two official languages of Afghanistan and spoken by the majority of Taliban militants -- the letter also accused the international troops of killing Afghans, adding that "both NATO and U.S. forces in the excuse of fighting terrorists have been killing the people of Afghanistan."
Taliban militants whose regime was ousted by the U.S.-led coalition forces eight years ago have intensified their activities over the past couple of years, forcing NATO and Afghan government to seek negotiating settlement for ensuring durable peace in the war-torn country.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
McClatchy: The Pakistani military are still dealing with the "Afghan" Taliban
In an earlier report McClatchy has reported that, even in these attacks, the Pakistani military is avoiding the Taliban who are harassing the people in Afghanistan.
"The Pakistanis, however, aren't attacking Taliban and other militants who're attacking U.S., Afghan and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Abbas confirmed that Pakistani authorities have an "understanding" with two Taliban factions based in Waziristan, led by warlords Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur, who're fighting in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan.[Click on the article for the source.]
"There was an understanding with them that they will not interfere in this war," Abbas said. "There is always a strategy to isolate your main target." He added that people "sometimes have to talk to the devil in this regard."
McClatchy: Mehsud refugees trust neither Pakistan nor the Taliban
McClatchy's Washington Bureau has published a revealing article on the attitude of some of the Mehsud tribal leaders. They claim to despise and fear the Taliban but also to be unable to trust the Pakistani military leadership.
RLC [Click on the title for the source.]
Refugees don't think Pakistan's anti-Taliban efforts are serious
Posted on Thu, Oct. 22, 2009. Last updated: October 23, 2009 08:33:37 AM
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- The Pakistani army's latest offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, probably the country's most significant anti-terror operation since 2001, so far has failed to convince residents of the frontier area that the state is finally determined to wipe out the Islamic extremists.
Tribesmen from the Mehsud clan who are flooding out to escape the fighting in the lawless region that borders Afghanistan, guardedly tell of dreadful subjugation by Taliban extremists and their al Qaida allies, who control the area.
The evacuees also remain unconvinced that the army has turned against militants. None of the roughly dozen people interviewed by McClatchy reported seeing any ground troops in the war zone.
Even the anti-Taliban militia, made up of the few Mehsuds willing to stand up to the extremists, aren't sure whether they can have faith in the army, even though their militia is quietly supported by the state.
"The government has used the people like toilet paper, used them and thrown them away," thundered the spiritual leader and founder of the anti-Taliban Mehsud militia, Maulvi Sher Mohammad, in an interview.
The Mehsud tribesmen have been forced to abandon their homes for the third or fourth time since 2004 to escape periodic army operations against the Taliban, only to see the authorities cut peace deals and to discover upon their return that their area was under even tighter extremist control. The Pakistani Taliban is based in the part of South Waziristan that's occupied by the Mehsuds.
A deep, corrosive cynicism persists even though Pakistan carried out a successful operation earlier this year that largely eliminated the Taliban from the Swat valley. The early indications of the South Waziristan ground offensive, launched on Oct. 17, are that it's more serious than anything the army has undertaken in the past.
Nevertheless, interviews suggest that Pakistan remains a long way from winning the hearts and minds of the people of South Waziristan, although doing so is essential to clearing this rugged area of Islamic extremists, Afghan insurgents and al Qaida commanders, who've all made it their sanctuary.
Many of the refugees from South Waziristan also claim that the homes of ordinary people are being bombed and that civilians are dying in an intense and indiscriminate aerial bombardment, further eroding their support for the operation.
Mohammad, a burly cleric who lives behind high compound walls in the town of Dera Ismail Khan on the edge of South Waziristan, guarded by gun-toting young men, said that he wouldn't ask his fellow tribesmen to rise up yet.
The army is hoping that a traditional militia from the tribe, known as a lashkar, will fight alongside it. Mohammad's outfit, known as the "Abdullah Group" after former Guantanamo Bay prison camp inmate Abdullah Mehsud, is the state's best hope.
"We cannot fight alongside the army because my people do not yet know whether the army and the Taliban are friends or enemies," said Mohammad. "When we see the army crush them (the Taliban), then we'll believe."
Three times in the past, the army has agreed to a ceasefire and peace terms with the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan. Each time, the Taliban took bloody revenge on those who'd sided with the state.
Mehsuds remember bitterly how in 2005, following such a deal, a Pakistani army general literally embraced the then-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, and called him "a soldier of peace." A U.S. missile strike killed the militant leader in August.
The army complains that it was never before given a solid political mandate to rout the Taliban until this year, and that Pakistani public opinion previously didn't favor fighting a movement that claimed it was acting in the name of Islam.
Critics allege that the military, especially its Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, saw strategic benefit in having Taliban guard Pakistan's northwestern border.
Few of the South Waziristan refugees interviewed by McClatchy were willing to candidly speak about the Taliban, out of fear that they'll have to go back to face the militants.
"It is 100 percent wrong to say that the Mehsud are in favor of the Taliban," said a teacher, who asked for his name not to be used and who left his home in the Ladha area of South Waziristan. "We only 'support' the Taliban when we're there (in South Waziristan) to save our lives and our property."
The leadership and foot soldiers of the Taliban are dominated by the Mehsud tribe, whose home territory occupies around half of South Waziristan. The army offensive is confined to that part of South Waziristan occupied by the Mehsud tribe. Under Baitullah, the traditional tribal leaders of the Mehsuds were systematically butchered or driven out of South Waziristan, removing a rival source of authority.
Baitullah also turned the Pakistani Taliban from a group that fought "infidel" international forces in Afghanistan to a movement at war with its own Muslim homeland, a twist of jihadist logic that came straight from al Qaida.
Many Mehsuds said they'd support an operation if they thought it was real. Instead, some of them said that the country's army acts intermittently against the Taliban just to keep U.S. aid flowing.
"This fight (in South Waziristan) is for American dollars. The government always has some deal with the Taliban. It is ordinary people who suffer," said student Zahidullah Mehsud, who thought he was around 19 years old, as he lined up at a registration center for those displaced by the operation. "This is all an ISI game."
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Pakistan presses offensive, but not against Afghan Taliban
Pakistan launches crucial assault on militant stronghold
To smooth Pakistan's feathers, Kerry clarifies aid bill
Suicide bomber kills 41 as U.S.-Pakistan relations fray
Terrorist attack in Pakistan shows how vulnerable it is
RLC [Click on the title for the source.]
Refugees don't think Pakistan's anti-Taliban efforts are serious
Posted on Thu, Oct. 22, 2009. Last updated: October 23, 2009 08:33:37 AM
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- The Pakistani army's latest offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, probably the country's most significant anti-terror operation since 2001, so far has failed to convince residents of the frontier area that the state is finally determined to wipe out the Islamic extremists.
Tribesmen from the Mehsud clan who are flooding out to escape the fighting in the lawless region that borders Afghanistan, guardedly tell of dreadful subjugation by Taliban extremists and their al Qaida allies, who control the area.
The evacuees also remain unconvinced that the army has turned against militants. None of the roughly dozen people interviewed by McClatchy reported seeing any ground troops in the war zone.
Even the anti-Taliban militia, made up of the few Mehsuds willing to stand up to the extremists, aren't sure whether they can have faith in the army, even though their militia is quietly supported by the state.
"The government has used the people like toilet paper, used them and thrown them away," thundered the spiritual leader and founder of the anti-Taliban Mehsud militia, Maulvi Sher Mohammad, in an interview.
The Mehsud tribesmen have been forced to abandon their homes for the third or fourth time since 2004 to escape periodic army operations against the Taliban, only to see the authorities cut peace deals and to discover upon their return that their area was under even tighter extremist control. The Pakistani Taliban is based in the part of South Waziristan that's occupied by the Mehsuds.
A deep, corrosive cynicism persists even though Pakistan carried out a successful operation earlier this year that largely eliminated the Taliban from the Swat valley. The early indications of the South Waziristan ground offensive, launched on Oct. 17, are that it's more serious than anything the army has undertaken in the past.
Nevertheless, interviews suggest that Pakistan remains a long way from winning the hearts and minds of the people of South Waziristan, although doing so is essential to clearing this rugged area of Islamic extremists, Afghan insurgents and al Qaida commanders, who've all made it their sanctuary.
Many of the refugees from South Waziristan also claim that the homes of ordinary people are being bombed and that civilians are dying in an intense and indiscriminate aerial bombardment, further eroding their support for the operation.
Mohammad, a burly cleric who lives behind high compound walls in the town of Dera Ismail Khan on the edge of South Waziristan, guarded by gun-toting young men, said that he wouldn't ask his fellow tribesmen to rise up yet.
The army is hoping that a traditional militia from the tribe, known as a lashkar, will fight alongside it. Mohammad's outfit, known as the "Abdullah Group" after former Guantanamo Bay prison camp inmate Abdullah Mehsud, is the state's best hope.
"We cannot fight alongside the army because my people do not yet know whether the army and the Taliban are friends or enemies," said Mohammad. "When we see the army crush them (the Taliban), then we'll believe."
Three times in the past, the army has agreed to a ceasefire and peace terms with the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan. Each time, the Taliban took bloody revenge on those who'd sided with the state.
Mehsuds remember bitterly how in 2005, following such a deal, a Pakistani army general literally embraced the then-Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, and called him "a soldier of peace." A U.S. missile strike killed the militant leader in August.
The army complains that it was never before given a solid political mandate to rout the Taliban until this year, and that Pakistani public opinion previously didn't favor fighting a movement that claimed it was acting in the name of Islam.
Critics allege that the military, especially its Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency, saw strategic benefit in having Taliban guard Pakistan's northwestern border.
Few of the South Waziristan refugees interviewed by McClatchy were willing to candidly speak about the Taliban, out of fear that they'll have to go back to face the militants.
"It is 100 percent wrong to say that the Mehsud are in favor of the Taliban," said a teacher, who asked for his name not to be used and who left his home in the Ladha area of South Waziristan. "We only 'support' the Taliban when we're there (in South Waziristan) to save our lives and our property."
The leadership and foot soldiers of the Taliban are dominated by the Mehsud tribe, whose home territory occupies around half of South Waziristan. The army offensive is confined to that part of South Waziristan occupied by the Mehsud tribe. Under Baitullah, the traditional tribal leaders of the Mehsuds were systematically butchered or driven out of South Waziristan, removing a rival source of authority.
Baitullah also turned the Pakistani Taliban from a group that fought "infidel" international forces in Afghanistan to a movement at war with its own Muslim homeland, a twist of jihadist logic that came straight from al Qaida.
Many Mehsuds said they'd support an operation if they thought it was real. Instead, some of them said that the country's army acts intermittently against the Taliban just to keep U.S. aid flowing.
"This fight (in South Waziristan) is for American dollars. The government always has some deal with the Taliban. It is ordinary people who suffer," said student Zahidullah Mehsud, who thought he was around 19 years old, as he lined up at a registration center for those displaced by the operation. "This is all an ISI game."
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Pakistan presses offensive, but not against Afghan Taliban
Pakistan launches crucial assault on militant stronghold
To smooth Pakistan's feathers, Kerry clarifies aid bill
Suicide bomber kills 41 as U.S.-Pakistan relations fray
Terrorist attack in Pakistan shows how vulnerable it is
McClatchy: An attack on a nuclear site in Pakistan
The McClatchy report on a bomb attack on a nuclear site in Pakistan could cause people to worry about setting off such a bomb. I doubt that that is possible, as I understand the various elements that make a bomb are separated. Even so, this is news. RLC [Click on the title for a link to the source page.]
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Print This Article Print This Article
Posted on Fri, Oct. 23, 2009
Bomb hits outside suspected Pakistani nuclear-weapons site
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: October 23, 2009 11:28:27 AM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber attacked a suspected nuclear-weapons site Friday in Pakistan, raising fears about the security of the nuclear arsenal, while two other terrorist blasts made it another bloody day in the country’s struggle against extremism.
Increasingly daring and sophisticated attacks by terrorists allied with al Qaida on some of Pakistan’s most sensitive and best-protected installations have led to warnings that extremists could damage a nuclear facility or seize nuclear material.
Pakistan's nuclear sites are mostly in the northwest of the country, close to the capital, Islamabad, to keep them away from the border with archenemy India, but that places them close to Pakistani Taliban extremists, who are massed in the northwest. Al Qaida has made clear its ambitions to get hold of a nuclear bomb or knowledge of nuclear technology. Several other sites associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been hit previously.
Pakistan is reeling from a wave of terrorist violence that’s coincided with the launch of a U.S.-backed ground operation by the military against the country’s al Qaida and Taliban heartland of South Waziristan, on the Afghan border.
A suicide attacker struck a checkpoint Friday morning on the boundary of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, an air force base at Kamra, about 40 miles outside Islamabad, killing eight people, including two security personnel, and wounding 15.
“There were strict security arrangements, so he (the bomber) was intercepted at the first checkpost,” local Police Chief Fakhar Sultan said.
Many of the attacks have been carried out in a deadly collaboration between Taliban extremists from the northwest and militants from Punjab, the country’s most heavily populated province.
The military is a favorite target. Earlier this month, a team of commando-style assailants shot its way into the military headquarters at Rawalpindi. This week, gunmen ambushed and killed a brigadier general in Islamabad, spraying his army jeep with bullets.
Separately on Friday, a car bomb ripped through a hotel in an upscale residential neighborhood of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, wounding more than a dozen people, while a blast also struck a bus that was carrying a wedding party in the Mohmand tribal region, close to the Afghan border. Four women and three children were among the 17 people who were killed.
“Look what’s happening in Islamabad. This (violence) can take place anywhere now,” said Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister for the North West Frontier Province. “We will not bow to terrorists ... whatever sacrifices we have to make.”
At Kamra, the bomber rode up to the checkpoint on a bicycle, explosives strapped to his body. Officials denied that the facility, the major research center for the air force, had links to the nuclear program. However, Pakistan doesn’t specify which sites are involved in the program and many independent experts think that Kamra is a nuclear air base.
The Kamra facility had been struck by a suicide bomber previously, in December 2007. In November 2007, the nuclear-missile storage site at Sargodha was attacked, while in August 2008, a team of suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance to the Wah armament factory, which is thought to be one of Pakistan’s main nuclear-weapons assembly locations.
Pakistan’s nuclear sites are tightly guarded, and the country repeatedly has denied any threat to them. While experts don't think that terrorists could seize a nuclear bomb -- the weapons aren't kept in a usable form --it's possible that they could cause a fire or explosion at a nuclear site or perhaps seize radioactive material.
After the attack on the military headquarters earlier this month, Shaun Gregory, a professor at Britain’s Bradford University and an expert on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, told McClatchy: “It is an incredible shock that terrorists can strike at the heart of GHQ (general headquarters). … Terrorists could mount this sort of assault against Pakistan’s nuclear installations.”
After the military headquarters strike, Western officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were forced to calm concerns, saying that “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and military's control over nuclear weapons." (Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Refugees don't think Pakistan's anti-Taliban efforts are serious
Taliban retake town as Pakistan offensive runs into trouble
Pakistan presses offensive, but not against Afghan Taliban
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Print This Article Print This Article
Posted on Fri, Oct. 23, 2009
Bomb hits outside suspected Pakistani nuclear-weapons site
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: October 23, 2009 11:28:27 AM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A suicide bomber attacked a suspected nuclear-weapons site Friday in Pakistan, raising fears about the security of the nuclear arsenal, while two other terrorist blasts made it another bloody day in the country’s struggle against extremism.
Increasingly daring and sophisticated attacks by terrorists allied with al Qaida on some of Pakistan’s most sensitive and best-protected installations have led to warnings that extremists could damage a nuclear facility or seize nuclear material.
Pakistan's nuclear sites are mostly in the northwest of the country, close to the capital, Islamabad, to keep them away from the border with archenemy India, but that places them close to Pakistani Taliban extremists, who are massed in the northwest. Al Qaida has made clear its ambitions to get hold of a nuclear bomb or knowledge of nuclear technology. Several other sites associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been hit previously.
Pakistan is reeling from a wave of terrorist violence that’s coincided with the launch of a U.S.-backed ground operation by the military against the country’s al Qaida and Taliban heartland of South Waziristan, on the Afghan border.
A suicide attacker struck a checkpoint Friday morning on the boundary of the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, an air force base at Kamra, about 40 miles outside Islamabad, killing eight people, including two security personnel, and wounding 15.
“There were strict security arrangements, so he (the bomber) was intercepted at the first checkpost,” local Police Chief Fakhar Sultan said.
Many of the attacks have been carried out in a deadly collaboration between Taliban extremists from the northwest and militants from Punjab, the country’s most heavily populated province.
The military is a favorite target. Earlier this month, a team of commando-style assailants shot its way into the military headquarters at Rawalpindi. This week, gunmen ambushed and killed a brigadier general in Islamabad, spraying his army jeep with bullets.
Separately on Friday, a car bomb ripped through a hotel in an upscale residential neighborhood of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, wounding more than a dozen people, while a blast also struck a bus that was carrying a wedding party in the Mohmand tribal region, close to the Afghan border. Four women and three children were among the 17 people who were killed.
“Look what’s happening in Islamabad. This (violence) can take place anywhere now,” said Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister for the North West Frontier Province. “We will not bow to terrorists ... whatever sacrifices we have to make.”
At Kamra, the bomber rode up to the checkpoint on a bicycle, explosives strapped to his body. Officials denied that the facility, the major research center for the air force, had links to the nuclear program. However, Pakistan doesn’t specify which sites are involved in the program and many independent experts think that Kamra is a nuclear air base.
The Kamra facility had been struck by a suicide bomber previously, in December 2007. In November 2007, the nuclear-missile storage site at Sargodha was attacked, while in August 2008, a team of suicide bombers blew themselves up at the entrance to the Wah armament factory, which is thought to be one of Pakistan’s main nuclear-weapons assembly locations.
Pakistan’s nuclear sites are tightly guarded, and the country repeatedly has denied any threat to them. While experts don't think that terrorists could seize a nuclear bomb -- the weapons aren't kept in a usable form --it's possible that they could cause a fire or explosion at a nuclear site or perhaps seize radioactive material.
After the attack on the military headquarters earlier this month, Shaun Gregory, a professor at Britain’s Bradford University and an expert on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, told McClatchy: “It is an incredible shock that terrorists can strike at the heart of GHQ (general headquarters). … Terrorists could mount this sort of assault against Pakistan’s nuclear installations.”
After the military headquarters strike, Western officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were forced to calm concerns, saying that “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and military's control over nuclear weapons." (Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Refugees don't think Pakistan's anti-Taliban efforts are serious
Taliban retake town as Pakistan offensive runs into trouble
Pakistan presses offensive, but not against Afghan Taliban
Najam Sethi's critique of Pakistani leadership
The NewAge Islam site is printing an article by Najam Sethi that strikes very hard at the mindset that has been cultivated by the elite and the military in Pakistan. I have appreciated some of Sethi's writing in the past and became even more admiring of him after he was imprisoned by Pakistan for giving the same lecture in Delhi that he had just given in Karachi [!]. He is not alone in being a fearless Pakistani journalist. There are several and I am so thankful for them. This, in any case is worth our notice, and I hope he and NewAge Islam will not mind that I reproduce the article here; it's worth paying attention to, and encouraging in any way we can. RLC
[Click on the title for a link to the original source.]
Islam,Terrorism and Jihad
23 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
THE ENEMY IS NOW WITHIN PAKISTAN
The stock market...is back in the bunker, cowering at the misplaced passions aroused by mindless TV anchors and poison pushing columnists fulminating against America even as the enemy within has killed over 170 Pakistanis in the last 10 days and lunged at the very heart of the military establishment in Rawalpindi. Ironically, in the latest Taliban attack on a women’s hostel at the Islamic University in Islamabad — a throwback to the bombing of over 400 girls’ schools in Swat last year — the misguided students vented their anger at the university administration and federal government instead of those who perpetrated the slaughter of innocents.
THERE IS GREATER irony in deconstructing the enemy within. Why doesn’t the Pakistani media highlight the fact that the Taliban, Lashkars and Jihadi organisations that bedevil Pakistan’s very existence as a nation- state ... were created by military dictators and “security organisations” that conjured up “enemies without” to brainwash generations of Pakistanis into giving them legitimacy and longevity? Why don’t the students of the Islamic University who protested the suicide attack by pumping clenched fists in the air against the government instead of the Taliban care to remember that their university, to which the leaders of various jihadi groups still owe allegiance, was a hotbed of radical “ Islamist” thought in the 1980s and 1990s and nurtured leaders like Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar exported from Saudi Arabia who headed the Rabita al Alam al Islami and set up the first Al- Qaeda office in Peshawar? The double irony in this case is that the Taliban group which murdered many Khassadars or local police levies in Khurram Agency during Ramzan last year and took responsibility for the suicide attack was called the Abdullah Azzam Brigade.
BUT THE ENEMY WITHIN Pakistan is not just the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network. It is a national mindset in the ruling elites that refuses to see and fight the enemy within. This is a mindset that harbours conspiracy theories of an “external hand” in every disaster that befalls Pakistan; it is a mindset that hankers for an imagined rather than real “Islamic” past; it is a mindset that is constantly trying to anchor Pakistan’s ideological moorings in the autocratic Islamic Middle East rather than democratic secular South Asia -- Najam Sethi
URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1971
-----
THE ENEMY IS NOW WITHIN PAKISTAN
By Najam Sethi
23 October, 2009
PAKISTAN is in a state of siege. But the veritable enemy is not India or Russia or Iran or America.
The enemy is within Pakistan. It is attacking our policemen and our soldiers.
It is attacking our politicians and our religious leaders. Now it is on the warpath against our students. Nothing is sacred. Who will be next? Where and when will this state of siege end? India’s prime minister has warned that “the regional situation has worsened” and another Mumbai- like attack by state and non- state actors on India is imminent.
He is pointing to a “Pakistani hand” behind the attack by the Haqqani faction of the Taliban on the Indian embassy in Kabul recently. When Mumbai was attacked last November, India seriously thought of military retaliation against allegedly complicit targets and groups in Pakistan.
But it wisely stayed its hand. Any military conflict with Pakistan could mushroom into a nuclear holocaust. However, in the event of another such attack, the pressure on India this time would be greater. If it reacts militarily across the border with Pakistan, the consequences would be unimaginably horrendous for the region. This is exactly the state of anarchy and bloodshed which the enemy within Pakistan would like to achieve because it is in such an atmosphere that it flourishes and grows.
I RAN’S president has warned of non- state actors in Pakistan’s Balochistan province who are suicide- bombing the Revolutionary Guards in Iran’s Siestan- Baloch province. Two such attacks were carried out last week, resulting in the death of 47 Iranian security persons. The chief of the Revolutionary Guards is demanding permission from Teheran to cross the Pakistan border in hot pursuit of the terrorists. Reports say that an organisation named Jundallah has tied up with the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network to destabilise Pakistan’s border with Iran just as the same network has joined hands with various groups in Punjab to foment trouble with India.
Meanwhile, the Americans are digging themselves in and around the main towns of Afghanistan and thinning their pickets on the border with Pakistan. This is CENTCOM General Stanley McChrystal’s new strategy of relocating and protecting his boots- on- the- ground until the Obama administration approves his request for 40,000 more troops. He is using drones to home into high- value targets in Pakistan’s Waziristan belt, and threatening to extend their area of operation into Balochistan while urging a greater operational role for the Pakistani army in Waziristan where Al- Qaeda and the Taliban are holed out. The implied threat is that if the Pakistani military is found wanting, then the CIA and CENTCOM may be compelled to put boots- on ground in hot pursuit of the marauding Taliban in Waziristan.
If Pakistan’s border with Iran, Afghanistan and India should heat up singly or, worse, together, and compel the Pakistan army to dilute attention on the Al- Qaeda- Taliban front, the siege within the country would definitely intensify. Already, Rehman Malik, the interior minister, says the nation is “at war”. As during war time, all schools and colleges are closed. The stock market, which had raised its head cautiously when the Kerry- Lugar Bill’s US$ 7.5 billion (Rs 62,250 crore) aid was announced, is back in the bunker, cowering at the misplaced passions aroused by mindless TV anchors and poison pushing columnists fulminating against
America even as the enemy within has killed over 170 Pakistanis in the last 10 days and lunged at the very heart of the military establishment in Rawalpindi.
Ironically, in the latest Taliban attack on a women’s hostel at the Islamic University in Islamabad — a throwback to the bombing of over 400 girls’ schools in Swat last year — the misguided students vented their anger at the university administration and federal government instead of those who perpetrated the slaughter of innocents.
THERE is greater irony in deconstructing the enemy within. Why doesn’t the Pakistani media highlight the fact that the Taliban, Lashkars and Jihadi organisations that bedevil Pakistan’s very existence as a nation- state [even General (retd) Pervez Musharraf is talking of an existential crisis in Pakistan today created by the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network] were created by military dictators and “security organisations” that conjured up “enemies without” to brainwash generations of Pakistanis into giving them legitimacy and longevity? Why don’t the students of the Islamic University who protested the suicide attack by pumping clenched fists in the air against the government instead of the Taliban care to remember that their university, to which the leaders of various jihadi groups still owe allegiance, was a hotbed of radical “ Islamist” thought in the 1980s and 1990s and nurtured leaders like Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar exported from Saudi Arabia who headed the Rabita al Alam al Islami and set up the first Al- Qaeda office in Peshawar? The double irony in this case is that the Taliban group which murdered many Khassadars or local police levies in Khurram Agency during Ramzan last year and took responsibility for the suicide attack was called the Abdullah Azzam Brigade.
But the enemy within Pakistan is not just the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network. It is a national mindset in the ruling elites that refuses to see and fight the enemy within. This is a mindset that harbours conspiracy theories of an “external hand” in every disaster that befalls Pakistan; it is a mindset that hankers for an imagined rather than real “Islamic” past; it is a mindset that is constantly trying to anchor Pakistan’s ideological moorings in the autocratic Islamic Middle East rather than democratic secular South Asia.
It is a “national” mindset that is based on “tribal” and pre- Islamic notions of honour and justice; it is a campus mindset that is riven with inferiority complexes and insecurities that find expression in false bravado and hollow claims of self- reliance. This mindset is reflected in a shallow national culture of angry exclusivism rather than natural assimilation and integration in the global economy.
Pakistan’s national security apparatus might one day succeed in weeding out the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network. But until Pakistanis can purge their mindset of the ideological demons that reside therein, they shall not be able to lift the siege within.
Source: Mail Today, New Delhi
The writer is editor The Friday Times and The Daily Times (Lahore)
URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=19671
[Click on the title for a link to the original source.]
Islam,Terrorism and Jihad
23 Oct 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com
THE ENEMY IS NOW WITHIN PAKISTAN
The stock market...is back in the bunker, cowering at the misplaced passions aroused by mindless TV anchors and poison pushing columnists fulminating against America even as the enemy within has killed over 170 Pakistanis in the last 10 days and lunged at the very heart of the military establishment in Rawalpindi. Ironically, in the latest Taliban attack on a women’s hostel at the Islamic University in Islamabad — a throwback to the bombing of over 400 girls’ schools in Swat last year — the misguided students vented their anger at the university administration and federal government instead of those who perpetrated the slaughter of innocents.
THERE IS GREATER irony in deconstructing the enemy within. Why doesn’t the Pakistani media highlight the fact that the Taliban, Lashkars and Jihadi organisations that bedevil Pakistan’s very existence as a nation- state ... were created by military dictators and “security organisations” that conjured up “enemies without” to brainwash generations of Pakistanis into giving them legitimacy and longevity? Why don’t the students of the Islamic University who protested the suicide attack by pumping clenched fists in the air against the government instead of the Taliban care to remember that their university, to which the leaders of various jihadi groups still owe allegiance, was a hotbed of radical “ Islamist” thought in the 1980s and 1990s and nurtured leaders like Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar exported from Saudi Arabia who headed the Rabita al Alam al Islami and set up the first Al- Qaeda office in Peshawar? The double irony in this case is that the Taliban group which murdered many Khassadars or local police levies in Khurram Agency during Ramzan last year and took responsibility for the suicide attack was called the Abdullah Azzam Brigade.
BUT THE ENEMY WITHIN Pakistan is not just the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network. It is a national mindset in the ruling elites that refuses to see and fight the enemy within. This is a mindset that harbours conspiracy theories of an “external hand” in every disaster that befalls Pakistan; it is a mindset that hankers for an imagined rather than real “Islamic” past; it is a mindset that is constantly trying to anchor Pakistan’s ideological moorings in the autocratic Islamic Middle East rather than democratic secular South Asia -- Najam Sethi
URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1971
-----
THE ENEMY IS NOW WITHIN PAKISTAN
By Najam Sethi
23 October, 2009
PAKISTAN is in a state of siege. But the veritable enemy is not India or Russia or Iran or America.
The enemy is within Pakistan. It is attacking our policemen and our soldiers.
It is attacking our politicians and our religious leaders. Now it is on the warpath against our students. Nothing is sacred. Who will be next? Where and when will this state of siege end? India’s prime minister has warned that “the regional situation has worsened” and another Mumbai- like attack by state and non- state actors on India is imminent.
He is pointing to a “Pakistani hand” behind the attack by the Haqqani faction of the Taliban on the Indian embassy in Kabul recently. When Mumbai was attacked last November, India seriously thought of military retaliation against allegedly complicit targets and groups in Pakistan.
But it wisely stayed its hand. Any military conflict with Pakistan could mushroom into a nuclear holocaust. However, in the event of another such attack, the pressure on India this time would be greater. If it reacts militarily across the border with Pakistan, the consequences would be unimaginably horrendous for the region. This is exactly the state of anarchy and bloodshed which the enemy within Pakistan would like to achieve because it is in such an atmosphere that it flourishes and grows.
I RAN’S president has warned of non- state actors in Pakistan’s Balochistan province who are suicide- bombing the Revolutionary Guards in Iran’s Siestan- Baloch province. Two such attacks were carried out last week, resulting in the death of 47 Iranian security persons. The chief of the Revolutionary Guards is demanding permission from Teheran to cross the Pakistan border in hot pursuit of the terrorists. Reports say that an organisation named Jundallah has tied up with the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network to destabilise Pakistan’s border with Iran just as the same network has joined hands with various groups in Punjab to foment trouble with India.
Meanwhile, the Americans are digging themselves in and around the main towns of Afghanistan and thinning their pickets on the border with Pakistan. This is CENTCOM General Stanley McChrystal’s new strategy of relocating and protecting his boots- on- the- ground until the Obama administration approves his request for 40,000 more troops. He is using drones to home into high- value targets in Pakistan’s Waziristan belt, and threatening to extend their area of operation into Balochistan while urging a greater operational role for the Pakistani army in Waziristan where Al- Qaeda and the Taliban are holed out. The implied threat is that if the Pakistani military is found wanting, then the CIA and CENTCOM may be compelled to put boots- on ground in hot pursuit of the marauding Taliban in Waziristan.
If Pakistan’s border with Iran, Afghanistan and India should heat up singly or, worse, together, and compel the Pakistan army to dilute attention on the Al- Qaeda- Taliban front, the siege within the country would definitely intensify. Already, Rehman Malik, the interior minister, says the nation is “at war”. As during war time, all schools and colleges are closed. The stock market, which had raised its head cautiously when the Kerry- Lugar Bill’s US$ 7.5 billion (Rs 62,250 crore) aid was announced, is back in the bunker, cowering at the misplaced passions aroused by mindless TV anchors and poison pushing columnists fulminating against
America even as the enemy within has killed over 170 Pakistanis in the last 10 days and lunged at the very heart of the military establishment in Rawalpindi.
Ironically, in the latest Taliban attack on a women’s hostel at the Islamic University in Islamabad — a throwback to the bombing of over 400 girls’ schools in Swat last year — the misguided students vented their anger at the university administration and federal government instead of those who perpetrated the slaughter of innocents.
THERE is greater irony in deconstructing the enemy within. Why doesn’t the Pakistani media highlight the fact that the Taliban, Lashkars and Jihadi organisations that bedevil Pakistan’s very existence as a nation- state [even General (retd) Pervez Musharraf is talking of an existential crisis in Pakistan today created by the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network] were created by military dictators and “security organisations” that conjured up “enemies without” to brainwash generations of Pakistanis into giving them legitimacy and longevity? Why don’t the students of the Islamic University who protested the suicide attack by pumping clenched fists in the air against the government instead of the Taliban care to remember that their university, to which the leaders of various jihadi groups still owe allegiance, was a hotbed of radical “ Islamist” thought in the 1980s and 1990s and nurtured leaders like Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian scholar exported from Saudi Arabia who headed the Rabita al Alam al Islami and set up the first Al- Qaeda office in Peshawar? The double irony in this case is that the Taliban group which murdered many Khassadars or local police levies in Khurram Agency during Ramzan last year and took responsibility for the suicide attack was called the Abdullah Azzam Brigade.
But the enemy within Pakistan is not just the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network. It is a national mindset in the ruling elites that refuses to see and fight the enemy within. This is a mindset that harbours conspiracy theories of an “external hand” in every disaster that befalls Pakistan; it is a mindset that hankers for an imagined rather than real “Islamic” past; it is a mindset that is constantly trying to anchor Pakistan’s ideological moorings in the autocratic Islamic Middle East rather than democratic secular South Asia.
It is a “national” mindset that is based on “tribal” and pre- Islamic notions of honour and justice; it is a campus mindset that is riven with inferiority complexes and insecurities that find expression in false bravado and hollow claims of self- reliance. This mindset is reflected in a shallow national culture of angry exclusivism rather than natural assimilation and integration in the global economy.
Pakistan’s national security apparatus might one day succeed in weeding out the Al- Qaeda- Taliban network. But until Pakistanis can purge their mindset of the ideological demons that reside therein, they shall not be able to lift the siege within.
Source: Mail Today, New Delhi
The writer is editor The Friday Times and The Daily Times (Lahore)
URL of this Page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=19671
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Yet again we hear that Pakistan's ISI is still supporting the Taliban
If you are following David Rohde's report of his escape from the Taliban in Miram Shah, Tribal Areas of Pakistan, you will, I hope, have noticed his comment about the connection between the Taliban and Pakistan's InterServices Intelligence Agency [ISI]. This is what he says [NYT 10/22/09], [Click on the title for a link.]
My suspicions about the relationship between the Haqqanis and the Pakistani military proved to be true. Some American officials told my colleagues at The Times that Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, turns a blind eye to the Haqqanis’ activities. Others went further and said the ISI provided money, supplies and strategic planning to the Haqqanis and other Taliban groups.
Pakistani officials told my colleagues that the contacts were part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan to prevent India, Pakistan’s archenemy, from gaining a foothold. One Pakistani official called the Taliban “proxy forces to preserve our interests.”
Meanwhile, the Haqqanis continue to use North Waziristan to train suicide bombers and bomb makers who kill Afghan and American forces. They also continue to take hostages.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Surprise! Dawn is reporting many security breaches in Pakistan.
Dawn is reporting a number of security breaches in Pakistan. It is heartening that the newspaper is revealing all this, but it seems scarcely surprising. It just seems like what we have been hearing about Pakistan for years. [Click on the title for a link.]
Security blunder
Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 18 Oct, 2009
At a time when militants are using all means at their disposal to attack state institutions, there is no room for security lapses. Hence the recent report that police and army uniforms and paraphernalia are being sold in Kohat despite a ban is distressing to say the least. The laxity of the law-enforcement agencies in preventing the sale of these uniforms is confounding. After the attack on GHQ in Rawalpindi, the sale of such items was proscribed. Yet the ban is being taken lightly by the authorities. Private tailors continue to sell uniforms and badges associated with the armed forces and police, while those that have stopped the open sale of these items have started selling them out of their homes instead.
Security blunder
Dawn Editorial
Sunday, 18 Oct, 2009
At a time when militants are using all means at their disposal to attack state institutions, there is no room for security lapses. Hence the recent report that police and army uniforms and paraphernalia are being sold in Kohat despite a ban is distressing to say the least. The laxity of the law-enforcement agencies in preventing the sale of these uniforms is confounding. After the attack on GHQ in Rawalpindi, the sale of such items was proscribed. Yet the ban is being taken lightly by the authorities. Private tailors continue to sell uniforms and badges associated with the armed forces and police, while those that have stopped the open sale of these items have started selling them out of their homes instead.
The battle for South Waziristan has begun
The Long War says the Pakistan military attack on the Taliban in South Waziristan. Sounds nasty. Already there are serious losses. Here is some of it. The rest can be reached by clicking on the title.
Pakistan launches South Waziristan operation
By Bill Roggio October 17, 2009 12:18 PM
The Pakistani military has launched its much anticipated ground assault into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan.
"The army has launched an operation after receiving orders from the government," Major General Athar Abbas, the top military spokesman, told AFP. "The operation was launched early in the morning. Both air and ground troops are taking part."
Infantry and armored columns have begun the advance into the Taliban-controlled regions of Lahda, Makeen, and Sararogha in South Waziristan, where forces are under the control of Hakeemullah and Waliur Rehman Mehsuh.
Large columns of troops have been reported to be moving south from Ramzak, northeast from Wana and Shakai, and northwest from Jandola. Army units are being backed by helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers.
The operation will focus on the eastern areas in South Waziristan that host Hakeemullah Mehsud's Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Other powerful Taliban leaders such as Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Mullah Nazir, and Siraj Haqqani will not be targeted.
"The headquarters of the defunct Tehrik-e-Taliban (the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan) in the agency will be surgically targeted to dismantle the network of the terror outfit," Abbas said.
The Taliban have reportedly struck at Army units as they moved from bases in Ramzak and Jandola. Three soldiers were killed in an IED attack in Ramzak, and another was killed by an IED in Jandola.
Eight Pakistani soldiers were also killed in fierce fighting in Spinkai Raghzai and Sarakai, a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.
The Pakistani military claimed that 11 Taliban fighters have been killed in airstrikes and only four soldiers have been killed so far.
The military has massed two divisions, an estimated 28,000 troops, to take on the estimated 10,000 Taliban and 1,500 foreign fighters believed to be sheltering in the area.
Some of the Taliban forces are thought to have left South Waziristan to preserve forces, a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.
"The Taliban appear to want to deny the military a decisive victory so they have pulled up some units and key leaders," the intelligence official said. "A substantial rearguard unit will be left to bleed the Army."
Pakistan launches South Waziristan operation
By Bill Roggio October 17, 2009 12:18 PM
The Pakistani military has launched its much anticipated ground assault into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan.
"The army has launched an operation after receiving orders from the government," Major General Athar Abbas, the top military spokesman, told AFP. "The operation was launched early in the morning. Both air and ground troops are taking part."
Infantry and armored columns have begun the advance into the Taliban-controlled regions of Lahda, Makeen, and Sararogha in South Waziristan, where forces are under the control of Hakeemullah and Waliur Rehman Mehsuh.
Large columns of troops have been reported to be moving south from Ramzak, northeast from Wana and Shakai, and northwest from Jandola. Army units are being backed by helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers.
The operation will focus on the eastern areas in South Waziristan that host Hakeemullah Mehsud's Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Other powerful Taliban leaders such as Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Mullah Nazir, and Siraj Haqqani will not be targeted.
"The headquarters of the defunct Tehrik-e-Taliban (the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan) in the agency will be surgically targeted to dismantle the network of the terror outfit," Abbas said.
The Taliban have reportedly struck at Army units as they moved from bases in Ramzak and Jandola. Three soldiers were killed in an IED attack in Ramzak, and another was killed by an IED in Jandola.
Eight Pakistani soldiers were also killed in fierce fighting in Spinkai Raghzai and Sarakai, a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.
The Pakistani military claimed that 11 Taliban fighters have been killed in airstrikes and only four soldiers have been killed so far.
The military has massed two divisions, an estimated 28,000 troops, to take on the estimated 10,000 Taliban and 1,500 foreign fighters believed to be sheltering in the area.
Some of the Taliban forces are thought to have left South Waziristan to preserve forces, a US intelligence official told The Long War Journal.
"The Taliban appear to want to deny the military a decisive victory so they have pulled up some units and key leaders," the intelligence official said. "A substantial rearguard unit will be left to bleed the Army."
New estimates of Taliban strength: 25,000
The new estimates of the size of the Taliban are worrisome: 25,000, not counting the criminals, of whom there appear to be many [I'm not sure how they tell the difference], and part time volunteers who for cash will plant bombs. Here are the first few lines of the article that appeared in McClatchy Newspapers on October 14, 2009.
[Click on the title above for a link to the source.]
While U.S. debates Afghanistan policy, Taliban beefs up
By Jonathan S. Landay and Hal Bernton | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- A recent U.S. intelligence assessment has raised the estimated number of full-time Taliban-led insurgents fighting in Afghanistan to at least
25,000, underscoring how the crisis has worsened even as the U.S. and its allies have beefed up their military forces, a U.S. official said Thursday.
The U.S. official, who requested anonymity because the assessment is classified, said the estimate represented an increase of at least 5,000 fighters, or 25 percent, over what an estimate found last year.
On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry assured Afghans that America would continue to fight until "extremists and insurgents" were defeated in the war-torn nation.
The new intelligence estimate suggests that such a fight would be difficult. Not included in the 25,000 tally are the part-time fighters -- those Afghans who plant bombs or support the insurgents in other ways in return for money -- and also the criminal gangs who sometimes make common cause with the Taliban or other Pakistan-based groups.
The assessment attributed the growth in the Taliban and their major allies, such as the Haqqani Network and Hezb-e-Islami, to a number of factors, including a growing sense among many Afghans that the insurgents are gaining ground over U.S.-led NATO troops and Afghan security forces.
"The rise can be attributed to, among other things, a sense that the central government in Kabul isn't delivering (on services), increased local support for insurgent groups, and the perception that the Taliban and others are gaining a firmer foothold and expanding their capabilities," the U.S. official said.
"They (the insurgents) don't need to win a popularity contest," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington. "They are actually doing a good job in creating a complex psychological brew. The first part is building on frustration with the government. The second part is increasing their own appeal or at least taking the edge off of the hatred that people had felt for them before. But on top of that they are selectively using intimidation to stoke a climate of fear. And on top of that they have momentum."
James Dobbins, a retired ambassador who served as the first U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, said the new estimate shows how the war, which entered its
ninth year this month, has been intensifying.
"It tells you that things are getting worse, and that would suggest that the current (U.S.-led troop) levels are inadequate," Dobbins said. "But it doesn't lead you to a formula that tells you what the adequate troop levels should be."
[Click on the title above for a link to the source.]
While U.S. debates Afghanistan policy, Taliban beefs up
By Jonathan S. Landay and Hal Bernton | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON -- A recent U.S. intelligence assessment has raised the estimated number of full-time Taliban-led insurgents fighting in Afghanistan to at least
25,000, underscoring how the crisis has worsened even as the U.S. and its allies have beefed up their military forces, a U.S. official said Thursday.
The U.S. official, who requested anonymity because the assessment is classified, said the estimate represented an increase of at least 5,000 fighters, or 25 percent, over what an estimate found last year.
On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry assured Afghans that America would continue to fight until "extremists and insurgents" were defeated in the war-torn nation.
The new intelligence estimate suggests that such a fight would be difficult. Not included in the 25,000 tally are the part-time fighters -- those Afghans who plant bombs or support the insurgents in other ways in return for money -- and also the criminal gangs who sometimes make common cause with the Taliban or other Pakistan-based groups.
The assessment attributed the growth in the Taliban and their major allies, such as the Haqqani Network and Hezb-e-Islami, to a number of factors, including a growing sense among many Afghans that the insurgents are gaining ground over U.S.-led NATO troops and Afghan security forces.
"The rise can be attributed to, among other things, a sense that the central government in Kabul isn't delivering (on services), increased local support for insurgent groups, and the perception that the Taliban and others are gaining a firmer foothold and expanding their capabilities," the U.S. official said.
"They (the insurgents) don't need to win a popularity contest," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington. "They are actually doing a good job in creating a complex psychological brew. The first part is building on frustration with the government. The second part is increasing their own appeal or at least taking the edge off of the hatred that people had felt for them before. But on top of that they are selectively using intimidation to stoke a climate of fear. And on top of that they have momentum."
James Dobbins, a retired ambassador who served as the first U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, said the new estimate shows how the war, which entered its
ninth year this month, has been intensifying.
"It tells you that things are getting worse, and that would suggest that the current (U.S.-led troop) levels are inadequate," Dobbins said. "But it doesn't lead you to a formula that tells you what the adequate troop levels should be."
New Details about the Taliban from David Rohde
So much nonsense about Afghanistan and the war with the Taliban and AlQaeda are being circulated in the public media these days that it is hard to know how to counter it with at least a modicum of reliable information. David Rohde's new series (NY Times beginning today) on his experience with the Taliban promises to reveal some reliable details about the Taliban who captured him and held him for over seven months. Here I note a couple of statements that stood out to me.
For one thing, much has been said [even by me] about the narrow horizons and agendas of the Taliban. I have been aware of the statements of Taliban about their concern for affairs elsewhere around the world [Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia] but I have viewed them as mere signs of the influence of Al Qaeda on the leadership of the Taliban. I did not suppose that the ordinary Taliban troops would have a horizon that reached beyond the Pashtun speaking parts of Afghanistan or Pakistan. Rohde's report suggests that by now the Taliban [at least those who took him captive] have now internalized a much larger moral project with a much wider horizon than I had supposed. Here is what he says:
Further down in the article he says these Taliban were far better informed on American activities than I would have guessed.
Also, my conception of the infrastructure of tribal areas in Pakistan was as I knew it in the 1960s: a rugged terrain with poor roads, only one telephone line along which there were few phones, only in the larger towns, etc., the tribal populations essentially living as they had been for many centuries. But Rohde's description of the Tribal Areas where he was kept reveals that much has changed there.
There is more to come in Rohde's report, so we will follow it with a close eye for signs of the world that the Taliban live in. As usual, the world keeps on changing faster than we can adequately follow it or assess the significance of affairs as they take place, at an ever accelerating pace. If there is any point I would emphasize to those who are so sure of how to deal with the situation in Afghanistan, it is that we must watch and listen carefully if we are ever to catch a clear picture of it on the wing. And even when we get it we are out of date.
For one thing, much has been said [even by me] about the narrow horizons and agendas of the Taliban. I have been aware of the statements of Taliban about their concern for affairs elsewhere around the world [Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, Bosnia] but I have viewed them as mere signs of the influence of Al Qaeda on the leadership of the Taliban. I did not suppose that the ordinary Taliban troops would have a horizon that reached beyond the Pashtun speaking parts of Afghanistan or Pakistan. Rohde's report suggests that by now the Taliban [at least those who took him captive] have now internalized a much larger moral project with a much wider horizon than I had supposed. Here is what he says:
Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.
Further down in the article he says these Taliban were far better informed on American activities than I would have guessed.
My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged. America, Europe and Israel preached democracy, human rights and impartial justice to the Muslim world, they said, but failed to follow those principles themselves.
Also, my conception of the infrastructure of tribal areas in Pakistan was as I knew it in the 1960s: a rugged terrain with poor roads, only one telephone line along which there were few phones, only in the larger towns, etc., the tribal populations essentially living as they had been for many centuries. But Rohde's description of the Tribal Areas where he was kept reveals that much has changed there.
But I was astonished by what I encountered firsthand: a Taliban mini-state that flourished openly and with impunity. The Taliban government that had supposedly been eliminated by the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was alive and thriving. … And I found the tribal areas — widely perceived as impoverished and isolated — to have superior roads, electricity and infrastructure compared with what exists in much of Afghanistan. ...
There is more to come in Rohde's report, so we will follow it with a close eye for signs of the world that the Taliban live in. As usual, the world keeps on changing faster than we can adequately follow it or assess the significance of affairs as they take place, at an ever accelerating pace. If there is any point I would emphasize to those who are so sure of how to deal with the situation in Afghanistan, it is that we must watch and listen carefully if we are ever to catch a clear picture of it on the wing. And even when we get it we are out of date.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Can there be any doubt about it? The Taliban are a criminal extension of Pakistan’s military.
The announcement by the Taliban that they were behind the attack in Kabul outside the Indian Embassy, and that the target was the embassy, reveals how the Taliban, or at least some of them, are clearly allied with Pakistan’s military interests. The Taliban otherwise have no reason to make the Indian Embassy a target. Their problem is not, in theory, India, unless in some way their viewpoint has been influenced by Pakistan’s larger geopolitical projects, which include Pakistan's war with India over Kashmir.
Note also that the Taliban have their own tally of the numbers killed. How did they get that? They must fully realize, every time a bomb is detonated in a crowded street, that civilians will be killed, perhaps many. Yet there seems to be no remorse that civilians were killed.
Without justifying those killed by American bombing we must note and condemn the murder of many innocent civilians – the number has to be in the thousands – who have been killed by suicide bombs. That the Taliban can give us the number means they know they are killing many civilians and apparently take it to be fitting to their agendas. Yes, as Karzai said, this was vicious and malicious abuse of many Afghan Muslims, in fact Afghan Muslims like the Taliban themselves, who were quite undeserving of this cruelty.
And if the Taliban are in fact carrying out Pakistan’s military projects in such a manner, what does it say of the readiness of Pakistan’s military leadership to allow, even encourage [and fund?], such criminal behavior?
This is another way to say that the issue to be resolved above all else is Pakistan's persistent struggle against India. Surge or no surge, the problem in Pakistan has to be resolved.
[Below is the CNN report on the event.] RLC
“Taliban claims responsibility for deadly suicide attack in Kabul KABUL, Afghanistan” (CNN) -- A suicide car bomb attack near the Indian Embassy killed at least 13 people and wounded 60 others on Thursday, officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying an Afghan national in a sports-utility vehicle carried out the attack.
Indian officials said the bomber had intended to strike the embassy.
"The suicide attack(er) ... attempted (to go) through one of the embassy gates," Vishnu Prakash, spokesman for India's external affairs ministry, told CNN on Thursday. "The embassy was the target."
The bomb went off at about 8:30 a.m. (4:00 a.m. GMT), just as offices and shops were opening for the day. …
There were conflicting figures on casualties from Thursday's attack. Hospital officials said 13 people were killed and 83 wounded -- including several in critical condition. Interior Ministry spokesman Ezmary Bashary said 17 were killed -- most of them civilians -- and 63 others were wounded.
The Taliban said the attack killed 35 people, including high-ranking Indian embassy officials, as well as international and Afghan police officers.
The embassy is in the center of Kabul, in a shop-lined street across from the Interior Ministry and several other government buildings.
The blast damaged a security checkpoint outside the embassy, said staffer J.P. Singh, but "there were no casualties on the Indian side." …
A statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office called the blast an obvious assault on civilians and said "the perpetrators of this attack and those who planned it were vicious terrorists who killed innocent people for their malicious goals."
About a year ago, another suicide car bomb detonated outside the embassy. Among the 58 people killed in the July 7 attack were two Indian diplomats and 14 students at a nearby school. More than 100 were wounded in that blast.
Afghan and Indian officials accused Pakistan's spy agency of involvement in that attack. Pakistan denied the accusation. …
Note also that the Taliban have their own tally of the numbers killed. How did they get that? They must fully realize, every time a bomb is detonated in a crowded street, that civilians will be killed, perhaps many. Yet there seems to be no remorse that civilians were killed.
Without justifying those killed by American bombing we must note and condemn the murder of many innocent civilians – the number has to be in the thousands – who have been killed by suicide bombs. That the Taliban can give us the number means they know they are killing many civilians and apparently take it to be fitting to their agendas. Yes, as Karzai said, this was vicious and malicious abuse of many Afghan Muslims, in fact Afghan Muslims like the Taliban themselves, who were quite undeserving of this cruelty.
And if the Taliban are in fact carrying out Pakistan’s military projects in such a manner, what does it say of the readiness of Pakistan’s military leadership to allow, even encourage [and fund?], such criminal behavior?
This is another way to say that the issue to be resolved above all else is Pakistan's persistent struggle against India. Surge or no surge, the problem in Pakistan has to be resolved.
[Below is the CNN report on the event.] RLC
“Taliban claims responsibility for deadly suicide attack in Kabul KABUL, Afghanistan” (CNN) -- A suicide car bomb attack near the Indian Embassy killed at least 13 people and wounded 60 others on Thursday, officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying an Afghan national in a sports-utility vehicle carried out the attack.
Indian officials said the bomber had intended to strike the embassy.
"The suicide attack(er) ... attempted (to go) through one of the embassy gates," Vishnu Prakash, spokesman for India's external affairs ministry, told CNN on Thursday. "The embassy was the target."
The bomb went off at about 8:30 a.m. (4:00 a.m. GMT), just as offices and shops were opening for the day. …
There were conflicting figures on casualties from Thursday's attack. Hospital officials said 13 people were killed and 83 wounded -- including several in critical condition. Interior Ministry spokesman Ezmary Bashary said 17 were killed -- most of them civilians -- and 63 others were wounded.
The Taliban said the attack killed 35 people, including high-ranking Indian embassy officials, as well as international and Afghan police officers.
The embassy is in the center of Kabul, in a shop-lined street across from the Interior Ministry and several other government buildings.
The blast damaged a security checkpoint outside the embassy, said staffer J.P. Singh, but "there were no casualties on the Indian side." …
A statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office called the blast an obvious assault on civilians and said "the perpetrators of this attack and those who planned it were vicious terrorists who killed innocent people for their malicious goals."
About a year ago, another suicide car bomb detonated outside the embassy. Among the 58 people killed in the July 7 attack were two Indian diplomats and 14 students at a nearby school. More than 100 were wounded in that blast.
Afghan and Indian officials accused Pakistan's spy agency of involvement in that attack. Pakistan denied the accusation. …
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Carol Conn's list of reasons to stick it out in Afghanistan
This statement has been around for a little while but I want to make sure it is more widely viewed. RLC
19 Reasons To Win In Afghanistan
By Carol Conn
Heritage.org 03 Oct 2009
There have been many arguments in the past four weeks to withdraw. We have compiled a short review of other social network debates to summarize the basic arguments for staying in the Afghanistan. The 19th reason has been added at the bottom.
1. Afghanistan and Pakistan - This Region is Ground Zero for Anti-U.S. Radical Islamic Violence. As the host nations for the primary terrorist organization that successfully conducted multiple attacks against the U.S. personnel and facilities, this region, by definition, is important to U.S. national security interests. Between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the preponderance of radical Islamic combatants, their recruitment base, and Al Qaeda central headquarters are current adversaries. Allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to return to power in Afghanistan, without their proper acceptance of a clear political defeat, can only: 1) embolden other U.S. adversaries, 2) increase radical Islamic recruitment, 3) undermine those Afghan civilians who supported the U.S., and 4) set back the notion of moderate Muslim governance for decades to come. This is not just a conflict to terminate Bin Laden but to ultimately diminish the future recruiting base of radical Islam. With realistic projections for a significant youth bulge Afghanistan and Pakistan, the potential for future violence is high for the near future.
2. U.S. Credibility is at stake. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations support the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. Over 500 coalition soldiers from countries other than the U.S. have died in Afghanistan. Abandoning Afghanistan could lead to significant weakening of NATO cohesion/structure and undermine potential future requests for security assistance. The Fallout from a Afghanistan withdrawal can potentially be far worse than remaining. Following the Fall of Vietnam, U.S. experienced setbacks in Cambodia, Philippines, Fall of Iran, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Egypt-Israeli conflict, Angola, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Colombia, and Nicaragua due to the loss of U.S. credibility.
3. U.S. Presence in Afghanistan has served as a proximity deterrent for Al Qaeda. >From a severely weakened position, Al Qaeda has been forced to accept the condition of awaiting more opportune circumstances before relaunching its campaign against the U.S. Having U.S. soldiers on the border of Waziristan, is a realistic deterrent from initiating offense operations that are so close to cross-border retaliation. Crossing the border into Pakistan is only one nuclear incident away. If, on the other hand, U.S. soldiers are ordered to abandoned Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will then have the freedom of action to recommence operations.
4. Counterterrorist campaigns cannot be waged from a distance. Critics of the U.S. force presence claim that there are alternatives to holding Al Qaeda at bay such as intensive intelligence, Predator drones, cruise missiles, Special Operations raids, and monetary payments to Warlords to deny safe havens. However, most specialists on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism claim terrorists cannot be confronted at a distance.
5. Abandoning Afghanistan will move the War's Frontline from Overseas to the Homeland. U.S. military forces in Afghanistan are essentially hardened targets that can easily kill far more Taliban than can be similarly inflicted on U.S. troops. Moving the frontlines from overseas to CONUS will expose the soft underbelly of the U.S. civilian population to potentially horrific casualties. While one American casualty is too many; the scope and scale of potential casualties would remain far less in relative comparison by continuing the fight overseas.
6. Cost-Benefit Analysis favors Forward Presence. Alan Greenspan recently claimed that the long term repercussions of the 9/11 attack contributed to the making of the 2008 global economic crisis, large federal government deficit spending, and the current recession. Greenspan indicated that to stimulate the economy immediately after the 9/11 attack the Federal Reserve needed to cut interest rates dramatically to spur domestic spending. Rates quickly moved from 3.5% to 1%. This reduced Federal Reserve rate helped to fuel speculative borrowing to homeowners who would not normally qualify for home mortgages. Post 9/11 interest rates were also a contributing factor leading to the real estate bubble that burst in 2007. The recent economic crisis has cost the global economy over $11.9 trillion dollars. Can the U.S. taxpayer afford another 9/11 type of attack, which coupled with nuclear devices, could have far worse second and third order effects? Spending $60 billion annually is a far less expense than a potential $11.9 trillion dollar impact related to another 9/11 incident.
7. President Obama and GEN Stanley McChrystal have both claimed that the fight to stabilize Afghanistan is winnable.
8. Today's U.S. All Volunteer force is qualitatively a more capable military force than Vietnam predecessor. Despite the challenges of facing multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, the All Volunteer force still retains advantages in education, training, hard-won experience, superior leadership and proven equipment compared to its Vietnam counterparts. Joint, Interagency and multi-national coordination has improved.
9. U.S. Precedent for Bringing Stability in Iraq and Kosovo. The U.S. government has experienced recent successes against hostile adversaries during transition phase of war. Although skeptics denounced the potential for U.S. success in these recent conflicts, the track record for success resides with the U.S. government.
10. Afghanistan provides the venue to Learn about the Long Term Adversary. If observers believe that Al Qaeda is a long term enemy of the United States, where is the best location to study the threat than in the actual region? Residing in Afghanistan provides the opportunity to develop language skills, foster culture apperception, discern tribal networks, study vulnerabilities, learn weaknesses, and to recruit the next generation of informants to eventually penetrate Islamic networks. The intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) begins with cultural appreciation that can be gained first-hand by living in the region.
11. U.S. Presence Denies Sanctuary of the Adversary within Ungoverned Spaces. The Al Qaeda selection of Afghanistan is no accident. Terrorist networks have managed to find the ungoverned spaces in Somalia and Afghanistan to construct training camps for future terrorists. Remaining in Afghanistan denies this remote country from becoming a host for terrorist training activities.
12. U.S. Presence, if managed properly, can serve to Drain the Terrorist Recruitment Swamp. This is a delicate balance. Merely occupying a country, does not guaranteed setting the conditions to diminish hostile recruitment. Nonetheless, if presence can be performed in a manner which engenders hope, fosters rule of law, exhibits benefits of governance and development, then the seeds of peace can be sown into a war torn region.
13. The Germany Precedent. Unless a determined adversary is convinced of defeat, the second war becomes much more pronounced, highly probable, and devastating. World Wars I and II were the same war. Germany merely brought about a strategic pause to regroup and refine its war winning strategy. The Peace treaty of 1918 was nothing more a temporary cessation of conflict. Germany convinced the world that it was militarily weakened. A strategic deception plan was underway that only became apparent in 1939. The Wehrmacht's "stab in the back" thesis led by WWI veterans kept the interwar sentiments strong and thriving. Similarly, Al Qaeda must be taught that it has been defeated to prevent a far worst catastrophy. If, as a decentralized network, it cannot be made to accept defeat, then a generational strategy to await the natural death of key Al Qaeda leadership may be a more thorough and calculating approach.
14. Loss of Superior Force and Infrastructure Posture against Iran. If Iran is truly one of the most likely and most dangerous near-term adversaries of the United States, it makes little sense to abandon a mature base infrastructure and a means for a Second Front against a potential War with Iran. Multiple Lines of Communications complicates Iranian defense planning, splits their leadership focus, undermines soldier morale, and can lead to a much shorter Iran war with superior U.S. force posture.
15. Strategic rhetoric of an early withdrawal prolongs any conflict. During later phases of a war (Phases 4 and 5), one of the greatest challenges is to cause the mid-level managerial "fence sitters" to choose sides. The Fence sitters are the local leaders who will eventually make a support decision, encourage the reporting of concealed identification of Taliban adversaries, and buttress a regime when it becomes apparent that the presence is for the long term. The irony is that public indecision and senior official debate weakens the U.S. position. A firm strategic communications plan to express long-term presence will speed the commitment of mid-level managerial fence-sitters to align with U.S. supporters.
16. Other Models of U.S. Occupation Beyond Vietnam. Although Vietnam resulted in a failed U.S. position, there are other examples of successful U.S. presence with a much smaller footprint. Following the Spanish-American War, U.S. military presence existed in the Philippines from 1899 through the 1980s. A violent insurgency Following the Spanish-American War, U.S. military presence existed in the Philippines from 1899 through the 1980s. A violent insurgency existed but was able to be overcome. General Blackjack Pershing, General Arthur MacArthur and others were participants in this long term presence. The strategic key is to minimize the Army's footprint and scale of presence to be capable of sustaining posture for the long term. Still other examples include Kosovo, Germany, Japan and Liberia. Liberia is particularly interesting. LURD and MODEL combatants remained fence sitters for nearly two years after the Civil War ended in 2003. When they became convinced that U.S. and U.N. presence was for the long term, their leaders accepted political positions working for the central Monrovian government.
17. U.S. Needs to Honor the Ultimate Sacrifice of U.S. soldiers on the fields of Afghanistan by staying the course. Dedicated families, friends, and communities have stood behind the very real sacrifices of sons and daughters to fight for defense of the nation. Woe to the nation that forgets the sacrifices of its heroes- will there be a next generation that are willing to commit its defense.
18. Whole of Government Approach A whole of government approach is being implemented in Afghanistan in an unprecedented way, offering a better chance of success than in previous engagments of this type. According to a State Department blog, "In Afghanistan, the new Interagency Civil-Military Action Group (ICMAG) within the U.S. Embassy is the lead body for policy implementation and problem solving. Already, ICMAG has facilitated integrated guidance and geographically-based plans for Regional Command-East and is now moving to Regional Command-South. It has supported development of functional sectoral efforts in areas such as health and focused district development and is increasingly coordinating with international actors such as the International Security Assistance Force (on metrics), the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (on district mapping) and with the United Kingdom (Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team). ICMAG is also working on developing an integrated metrics system in-country." Moreover the U.S. military is continuing to leverage the knowledge and expertise of various kinds of civilian social scientists in winning the hearts and minds campaign. Parts of this approach were obviously used in other ewcwnt conflicts, but perhaps with less emphasis and resources.
19. The Taliban is largely unpopular and can be defeated. While the Taliban have some following among their Pashtun co-ethnics, especially in the southern part of the country, the Taliban are generally hated by the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazarra and other non-Pashtun groups that together make up a numerical majority in Afghanistan. The memory of Taliban persecution is fresh and motivational for all the non-Pashtun groups. Wherever they have gone since 2004, the Taliban have used barbaric tactics to win the obedience of the local populations. They win "hearts and minds" by murder, violence and coercion. Nearly all opinion polls indicate very little support for the Taliban. The Taliban can be defeated and blocked by strategies that protect the population and build up the security capacity of the Afghan state, its provinces and its districts. Counter-sanctuary activities by Pakistani forces could easily disrupt their base areas and training grounds. Better coordination with Persian Gulf allies and stronger counternarcotics efforts could dry up their financial base. The Taliban cannot win unless the West quits.
In Summary, multiple threats are being addressed by the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. They include: dealing with the primary threats of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, preparing for a destabilized Pakistan with nuclear weapons, posturing for a future hostile Iran, and reducing the long-term recruitment of radical Islamic terrorists from this region. At the center of debate, however, is the question of whether the average U.S. voter truly believes that Al Qaeda and Taliban can seriously pose a threat to U.S. national security interests at home and abroad? If yes, then it becomes questionable for a decision to willfully deliver strategic victory to a weakened terrorist network by pulling out of Afghanistan.
There are significant ramifications for U.S. credibility abroad to our detriment. When the first nuclear device explodes in a heavily populated U.S. city, who will be held responsible for this incident?
19 Reasons To Win In Afghanistan
By Carol Conn
Heritage.org 03 Oct 2009
There have been many arguments in the past four weeks to withdraw. We have compiled a short review of other social network debates to summarize the basic arguments for staying in the Afghanistan. The 19th reason has been added at the bottom.
1. Afghanistan and Pakistan - This Region is Ground Zero for Anti-U.S. Radical Islamic Violence. As the host nations for the primary terrorist organization that successfully conducted multiple attacks against the U.S. personnel and facilities, this region, by definition, is important to U.S. national security interests. Between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the preponderance of radical Islamic combatants, their recruitment base, and Al Qaeda central headquarters are current adversaries. Allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to return to power in Afghanistan, without their proper acceptance of a clear political defeat, can only: 1) embolden other U.S. adversaries, 2) increase radical Islamic recruitment, 3) undermine those Afghan civilians who supported the U.S., and 4) set back the notion of moderate Muslim governance for decades to come. This is not just a conflict to terminate Bin Laden but to ultimately diminish the future recruiting base of radical Islam. With realistic projections for a significant youth bulge Afghanistan and Pakistan, the potential for future violence is high for the near future.
2. U.S. Credibility is at stake. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations support the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. Over 500 coalition soldiers from countries other than the U.S. have died in Afghanistan. Abandoning Afghanistan could lead to significant weakening of NATO cohesion/structure and undermine potential future requests for security assistance. The Fallout from a Afghanistan withdrawal can potentially be far worse than remaining. Following the Fall of Vietnam, U.S. experienced setbacks in Cambodia, Philippines, Fall of Iran, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Egypt-Israeli conflict, Angola, Lebanon, Libya, El Salvador, Colombia, and Nicaragua due to the loss of U.S. credibility.
3. U.S. Presence in Afghanistan has served as a proximity deterrent for Al Qaeda. >From a severely weakened position, Al Qaeda has been forced to accept the condition of awaiting more opportune circumstances before relaunching its campaign against the U.S. Having U.S. soldiers on the border of Waziristan, is a realistic deterrent from initiating offense operations that are so close to cross-border retaliation. Crossing the border into Pakistan is only one nuclear incident away. If, on the other hand, U.S. soldiers are ordered to abandoned Afghanistan, Al Qaeda will then have the freedom of action to recommence operations.
4. Counterterrorist campaigns cannot be waged from a distance. Critics of the U.S. force presence claim that there are alternatives to holding Al Qaeda at bay such as intensive intelligence, Predator drones, cruise missiles, Special Operations raids, and monetary payments to Warlords to deny safe havens. However, most specialists on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism claim terrorists cannot be confronted at a distance.
5. Abandoning Afghanistan will move the War's Frontline from Overseas to the Homeland. U.S. military forces in Afghanistan are essentially hardened targets that can easily kill far more Taliban than can be similarly inflicted on U.S. troops. Moving the frontlines from overseas to CONUS will expose the soft underbelly of the U.S. civilian population to potentially horrific casualties. While one American casualty is too many; the scope and scale of potential casualties would remain far less in relative comparison by continuing the fight overseas.
6. Cost-Benefit Analysis favors Forward Presence. Alan Greenspan recently claimed that the long term repercussions of the 9/11 attack contributed to the making of the 2008 global economic crisis, large federal government deficit spending, and the current recession. Greenspan indicated that to stimulate the economy immediately after the 9/11 attack the Federal Reserve needed to cut interest rates dramatically to spur domestic spending. Rates quickly moved from 3.5% to 1%. This reduced Federal Reserve rate helped to fuel speculative borrowing to homeowners who would not normally qualify for home mortgages. Post 9/11 interest rates were also a contributing factor leading to the real estate bubble that burst in 2007. The recent economic crisis has cost the global economy over $11.9 trillion dollars. Can the U.S. taxpayer afford another 9/11 type of attack, which coupled with nuclear devices, could have far worse second and third order effects? Spending $60 billion annually is a far less expense than a potential $11.9 trillion dollar impact related to another 9/11 incident.
7. President Obama and GEN Stanley McChrystal have both claimed that the fight to stabilize Afghanistan is winnable.
8. Today's U.S. All Volunteer force is qualitatively a more capable military force than Vietnam predecessor. Despite the challenges of facing multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, the All Volunteer force still retains advantages in education, training, hard-won experience, superior leadership and proven equipment compared to its Vietnam counterparts. Joint, Interagency and multi-national coordination has improved.
9. U.S. Precedent for Bringing Stability in Iraq and Kosovo. The U.S. government has experienced recent successes against hostile adversaries during transition phase of war. Although skeptics denounced the potential for U.S. success in these recent conflicts, the track record for success resides with the U.S. government.
10. Afghanistan provides the venue to Learn about the Long Term Adversary. If observers believe that Al Qaeda is a long term enemy of the United States, where is the best location to study the threat than in the actual region? Residing in Afghanistan provides the opportunity to develop language skills, foster culture apperception, discern tribal networks, study vulnerabilities, learn weaknesses, and to recruit the next generation of informants to eventually penetrate Islamic networks. The intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) begins with cultural appreciation that can be gained first-hand by living in the region.
11. U.S. Presence Denies Sanctuary of the Adversary within Ungoverned Spaces. The Al Qaeda selection of Afghanistan is no accident. Terrorist networks have managed to find the ungoverned spaces in Somalia and Afghanistan to construct training camps for future terrorists. Remaining in Afghanistan denies this remote country from becoming a host for terrorist training activities.
12. U.S. Presence, if managed properly, can serve to Drain the Terrorist Recruitment Swamp. This is a delicate balance. Merely occupying a country, does not guaranteed setting the conditions to diminish hostile recruitment. Nonetheless, if presence can be performed in a manner which engenders hope, fosters rule of law, exhibits benefits of governance and development, then the seeds of peace can be sown into a war torn region.
13. The Germany Precedent. Unless a determined adversary is convinced of defeat, the second war becomes much more pronounced, highly probable, and devastating. World Wars I and II were the same war. Germany merely brought about a strategic pause to regroup and refine its war winning strategy. The Peace treaty of 1918 was nothing more a temporary cessation of conflict. Germany convinced the world that it was militarily weakened. A strategic deception plan was underway that only became apparent in 1939. The Wehrmacht's "stab in the back" thesis led by WWI veterans kept the interwar sentiments strong and thriving. Similarly, Al Qaeda must be taught that it has been defeated to prevent a far worst catastrophy. If, as a decentralized network, it cannot be made to accept defeat, then a generational strategy to await the natural death of key Al Qaeda leadership may be a more thorough and calculating approach.
14. Loss of Superior Force and Infrastructure Posture against Iran. If Iran is truly one of the most likely and most dangerous near-term adversaries of the United States, it makes little sense to abandon a mature base infrastructure and a means for a Second Front against a potential War with Iran. Multiple Lines of Communications complicates Iranian defense planning, splits their leadership focus, undermines soldier morale, and can lead to a much shorter Iran war with superior U.S. force posture.
15. Strategic rhetoric of an early withdrawal prolongs any conflict. During later phases of a war (Phases 4 and 5), one of the greatest challenges is to cause the mid-level managerial "fence sitters" to choose sides. The Fence sitters are the local leaders who will eventually make a support decision, encourage the reporting of concealed identification of Taliban adversaries, and buttress a regime when it becomes apparent that the presence is for the long term. The irony is that public indecision and senior official debate weakens the U.S. position. A firm strategic communications plan to express long-term presence will speed the commitment of mid-level managerial fence-sitters to align with U.S. supporters.
16. Other Models of U.S. Occupation Beyond Vietnam. Although Vietnam resulted in a failed U.S. position, there are other examples of successful U.S. presence with a much smaller footprint. Following the Spanish-American War, U.S. military presence existed in the Philippines from 1899 through the 1980s. A violent insurgency Following the Spanish-American War, U.S. military presence existed in the Philippines from 1899 through the 1980s. A violent insurgency existed but was able to be overcome. General Blackjack Pershing, General Arthur MacArthur and others were participants in this long term presence. The strategic key is to minimize the Army's footprint and scale of presence to be capable of sustaining posture for the long term. Still other examples include Kosovo, Germany, Japan and Liberia. Liberia is particularly interesting. LURD and MODEL combatants remained fence sitters for nearly two years after the Civil War ended in 2003. When they became convinced that U.S. and U.N. presence was for the long term, their leaders accepted political positions working for the central Monrovian government.
17. U.S. Needs to Honor the Ultimate Sacrifice of U.S. soldiers on the fields of Afghanistan by staying the course. Dedicated families, friends, and communities have stood behind the very real sacrifices of sons and daughters to fight for defense of the nation. Woe to the nation that forgets the sacrifices of its heroes- will there be a next generation that are willing to commit its defense.
18. Whole of Government Approach A whole of government approach is being implemented in Afghanistan in an unprecedented way, offering a better chance of success than in previous engagments of this type. According to a State Department blog, "In Afghanistan, the new Interagency Civil-Military Action Group (ICMAG) within the U.S. Embassy is the lead body for policy implementation and problem solving. Already, ICMAG has facilitated integrated guidance and geographically-based plans for Regional Command-East and is now moving to Regional Command-South. It has supported development of functional sectoral efforts in areas such as health and focused district development and is increasingly coordinating with international actors such as the International Security Assistance Force (on metrics), the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (on district mapping) and with the United Kingdom (Helmand Provincial Reconstruction Team). ICMAG is also working on developing an integrated metrics system in-country." Moreover the U.S. military is continuing to leverage the knowledge and expertise of various kinds of civilian social scientists in winning the hearts and minds campaign. Parts of this approach were obviously used in other ewcwnt conflicts, but perhaps with less emphasis and resources.
19. The Taliban is largely unpopular and can be defeated. While the Taliban have some following among their Pashtun co-ethnics, especially in the southern part of the country, the Taliban are generally hated by the Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazarra and other non-Pashtun groups that together make up a numerical majority in Afghanistan. The memory of Taliban persecution is fresh and motivational for all the non-Pashtun groups. Wherever they have gone since 2004, the Taliban have used barbaric tactics to win the obedience of the local populations. They win "hearts and minds" by murder, violence and coercion. Nearly all opinion polls indicate very little support for the Taliban. The Taliban can be defeated and blocked by strategies that protect the population and build up the security capacity of the Afghan state, its provinces and its districts. Counter-sanctuary activities by Pakistani forces could easily disrupt their base areas and training grounds. Better coordination with Persian Gulf allies and stronger counternarcotics efforts could dry up their financial base. The Taliban cannot win unless the West quits.
In Summary, multiple threats are being addressed by the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. They include: dealing with the primary threats of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, preparing for a destabilized Pakistan with nuclear weapons, posturing for a future hostile Iran, and reducing the long-term recruitment of radical Islamic terrorists from this region. At the center of debate, however, is the question of whether the average U.S. voter truly believes that Al Qaeda and Taliban can seriously pose a threat to U.S. national security interests at home and abroad? If yes, then it becomes questionable for a decision to willfully deliver strategic victory to a weakened terrorist network by pulling out of Afghanistan.
There are significant ramifications for U.S. credibility abroad to our detriment. When the first nuclear device explodes in a heavily populated U.S. city, who will be held responsible for this incident?
More signs of a conflicted Pakistan -- at such a dangerout time
It’s hard for many of us to fathom Pakistan. So many of the stories we read on that country make us wonder how it holds together. We know of course that the army is the actual glue that binds the many contrary influences into what appears to be “a country”. But underneath that appearance there are disparate and clashing views of the world, so that, to the mind of some Pakistanis at least, nothing is what it appears; and to the mind of some officials maybe it shouldn't be.
In yesterday’s Guardian Saleem Vaillancourt tells of visiting the offices of the World Food Program in Islamabad, where shortly afterwards a suicide bomber killed [again] several Muslims. And during his time in Pakistan Vaillancourt had a meal with “a lovely man” who said of the Taliban that they “are people of the Qur'an. These explosions were by the government." Such a sense of what is going on can only weaken the resolve of those who must make costly decisions in Pakistan.
In the mean time even the government officials in Pakistan display a double-sided agenda. While they are supposed to be friends of America they don’t want the Americans messing with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of “their Taliban” – the ones who are fighting the American/NATO forces in Afghanistan. [New York Times today].
No wonder the Obama administration halts over what to do.
[Below are the two articles mentioned above. The first is a significant reading of the situation in Pakistan; the second is useful for what it reveals about real human beings in that setting.]
________________________________________
New York Times October 6, 2009
U.S. Push to Expand in Pakistan Meets Resistance
By JANE PERLEZ
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Steps by the United States to vastly expand its aid to Pakistan, as well as the footprint of its embassy and private security contractors here, are aggravating an already volatile anti-American mood as Washington pushes for greater action by the government against the Taliban.
An aid package of $1.5 billion a year for the next five years passed by Congress last week asks Pakistan to cease supporting terrorist groups on its soil and to ensure that the military does not interfere with civilian politics. President Asif Ali Zardari, whose association with the United States has added to his unpopularity, agreed to the stipulations in the aid package.
But many here, especially in the powerful army, object to the conditions as interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs, and they are interpreting the larger American footprint in more sinister ways.
American officials say the embassy and its security presence must expand in order to monitor how the new money is spent. They also have real security concerns, which were underscored Monday when a suicide bomber, dressed in the uniform of a Pakistani security force, killed five people at a United Nations office in the heart of Islamabad, the capital.
The United States Embassy has publicized plans for a vast new building in Islamabad for about 1,000 people, with security for some diplomats provided through a Washington-based private contracting company, DynCorp.
The embassy setup, with American demands for importing more armored vehicles, is a significant expansion over the last 15 years. It comes at a time of intense discussion in Washington over whether to widen American operations and aid to Pakistan — a base for Al Qaeda — as an alternative to deeper American involvement in Afghanistan with the addition of more forces.
The fierce opposition here is revealing deep strains in the alliance. Even at its current levels, the American presence was fueling a sense of occupation among Pakistani politicians and security officials, said several Pakistani officials, who did not want to be named for fear of antagonizing the United States. The United States was now seen as behaving in Pakistan much as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said.
In particular, the Pakistani military and the intelligence agencies are concerned that DynCorp is being used by Washington to develop a parallel network of security and intelligence personnel within Pakistan, officials and politicians close to the army said.
The concerns are serious enough that last month a local company hired by DynCorp to provide Pakistani men to be trained as security guards for American diplomats was raided by the Islamabad police. The owner of the company, the Inter-Risk Security Company, Capt. Syed Ali Ja Zaidi, was later arrested.
The action against Inter-Risk, apparently intended to cripple the DynCorp program, was taken on orders from the senior levels of the Pakistani government, said an official familiar with the raid, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
The entire workings of DynCorp within Pakistan are now under review by the Pakistani government, said a senior government official directly involved with the Americans, who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity.
The tensions are erupting as the United States is pressing Pakistan to take on not only those Taliban groups that have threatened the government, but also the Taliban leadership that uses Pakistan as a base to organize and conduct their insurgency against American forces in Afghanistan.
In a public statement, the American ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, suggested last week that Pakistan should eliminate the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, a onetime ally of the Pakistanis who Washington says is now based in Baluchistan, a province on the Afghanistan border. If Pakistan did not get rid of Mullah Omar, the United States would, she suggested.
Reinforcing the ambassador, the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, said Sunday that the United States regarded tackling Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan as “the next step” in the conflict in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in an unusually stern reaction last week, said that missile attacks by American drones in Baluchistan, as implied by the Americans, “would not be allowed.”
The Pakistanis also complain that they are not being sufficiently consulted over the pending White House decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.
The head of Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, met with senior officials at the Central Intelligence Agency last week in Washington, where he argued against sending more troops to Afghanistan, a Pakistani official familiar with the visit said.
The Pakistani Army, riding high after its campaign to wrench back control of the Swat Valley from the Taliban, remains nervous about Washington’s intentions and the push against the new aid is reflective of that anxiety, Pakistani officials said.
Though the Zardari government is trumpeting the new aid as a triumph, officials say the language in the legislation ignores long-held prerogatives about Pakistani sovereignty, making the $1.5 billion a tough sell.
“Now everyone has a handle they can use to rip into the Zardari government,” said a senior Pakistani official involved in the American-Pakistani dialogue but who declined to be named because he did not want to inflame the discussion.
The expanding American security presence has become another club. DynCorp has attracted particular scrutiny after the Pakistani news media reported that Blackwater, the contractor that has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, was also in Pakistan.
Recently, there have been a series of complaints by Islamabad residents who said they had been “roughed up” by hefty, plainclothes American men bearing weapons, presumably from DynCorp, one of the senior Pakistani officials involved with the Americans said.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office had sent two formal diplomatic complaints in the past few weeks to the American Embassy about such episodes, the official said.
The embassy had received complaints, and confirmed two instances, an embassy official said, but the embassy denied receiving any formal protests from the Foreign Office. It also declined to comment about the presence of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, in Pakistan.
American officials have said that Blackwater employees worked at a remote base in Shamsi, in Baluchistan, where they loaded missiles and bombs onto drones used to strike Taliban and Qaeda militants.
The operation of the drones at Shamsi had been shifted by the Americans to Afghanistan this year, a senior Pakistani military official said.
Several Blackwater employees also worked in the North-West Frontier Province supervising the construction of a training center for Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, a Pakistani official from the region said.
There was considerable unease about the American diplomatic presence in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, one of the senior government officials said. Politicians were asking why the United States needed a consulate in Peshawar, which borders the tribal areas, when that office did not issue visas, he said.
Another question, he said, was why did the consulate plan to buy the biggest, and most modern building in the city, the Pearl Continental hotel — which was bombed in a terrorist attack this year — as its new headquarters.
As Parliament prepared to discuss the American aid package Wednesday, the tone of the debate was expected to be scathing. On a television talk show, Senator Tariq Aziz, a member of the opposition party, called the legislation “the charter for new colonization.”
“People think this government has sold us to the Americans again for their own selfish interests,” said Jahangir Tareen, a former cabinet minister and a member of Parliament, in an interview. “Some people think the United States is out to get Pakistan, to defang Pakistan, to destroy the army as it exists so it can’t fight India and to break down the ISI’s ability to influence events in India and Afghanistan. Everyone is saying about the Americans, ‘Told you so.’ ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/05/bomb-islamabad-un-pakistan
by Saleem Vaillancourt
Guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 October 2009 16.08 BST
“Islamabad bomb targets people in need”
The UN World Food Programme is one of the few agencies able to help deprived Pakistanis, as I saw for myself just last week
Last week in Pakistan I met a receptionist at the World Food Programme in Islamabad. It was brief – I was presenting myself for an appointment, and I do not know if she was Gulrukh Tahir, one of five people killed there today by a suicide bomber.
But I can picture her foyer; it must be wreckage now. I remember smiling at the guards who checked my bag when I entered the fortified compound, the same guards who were evaded by a man suspected to be Pakistani Taliban. His target was a United Nations agency charged with getting food to disaster zones and preventing hunger in poor communities. In Pakistan, some of its beneficiaries are the millions displaced by the Taliban's conflict with the government.
Perhaps it was the success of WFP's work that motivated the attack. In May, when the military engaged the Taliban in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan, over 2.5 million people fled their homes. WFP's team near Swat, all Pakistani nationals, was confronted with a crisis. Deprived of their incomes and farming livelihoods, hundreds of thousands of families were in danger of starvation. Most had sought shelter with relatives or friends and were not in refugee camps.
Azim Khan, a programme officer for WFP's emergency relief work, has an office smelling of cigarettes, with books such as Kenneth Clark's Civilisation on his shelves. He says that "the challenge was to feed those 85-90% of internally displaced people who were off-camp". His team established several "humanitarian hubs" in communities where displaced people had taken refuge.
At a humanitarian hub in Mardan, roughly 70km from Swat, hundreds of men were queuing last week for their rations. They wore the traditional shalwar kameez, long shirt and baggy trousers, and were mostly ethnic Pashtuns. In my interviews I was surprised, when asking each person's age, to find that men with lined and haggard faces were younger than my 29 years.
Before collecting their food, every displaced person verified their identity through an online database built by WFP with the local government, a system designed to prevent the repeat rations and re-sales that threatened the relief work in its first weeks. The aid facility was housed in a large warehouse, the former premises of a tobacco firm, one of the industries that suffered during the conflict. The irony of displacing a tobacco firm was not lost on the aid workers.
Nor was the importance of their work. After months of distributing food to the displaced, 1.5 million people have returned to their homes and continue to receive food as they rebuild their lives. Rehmat Wali of WFP says, "I am satisfied, to the best of my ability, that I have worked for the displaced people." His attitude was not unique. Mohammad Ali, a displaced man from Buner, 30km from Swat, spoke of a professor who hosted his family of 15 over four months.
The UN's aid agencies grind away without much fanfare. Even as its secretary-general labours under opprobrium for being too quiet, and last month's parade of world leaders in New York made nothing but headlines, WFP and other agencies doggedly do work that would otherwise be left almost undone.
During my time in Pakistan I shared some rice pudding with a man named Shabir, a lovely man with a long beard who tried to buy me lunch. After we had fought over the bill he mentioned recent explosions in Peshawar, near his home in the north-west. "The Taliban are people of the Qur'an," he said. "These explosions were by the government." I kept quiet. But Taliban sympathies had never looked so human.
As for the WFP, it does not fret over who collects food. "There are people who are registered [for rations] who are militants … but we are impartial," says Rehmat Wali. What an injustice that Monday's suicide bomber did not feel the same.
In yesterday’s Guardian Saleem Vaillancourt tells of visiting the offices of the World Food Program in Islamabad, where shortly afterwards a suicide bomber killed [again] several Muslims. And during his time in Pakistan Vaillancourt had a meal with “a lovely man” who said of the Taliban that they “are people of the Qur'an. These explosions were by the government." Such a sense of what is going on can only weaken the resolve of those who must make costly decisions in Pakistan.
In the mean time even the government officials in Pakistan display a double-sided agenda. While they are supposed to be friends of America they don’t want the Americans messing with Mullah Muhammad Omar, the leader of “their Taliban” – the ones who are fighting the American/NATO forces in Afghanistan. [New York Times today].
No wonder the Obama administration halts over what to do.
[Below are the two articles mentioned above. The first is a significant reading of the situation in Pakistan; the second is useful for what it reveals about real human beings in that setting.]
________________________________________
New York Times October 6, 2009
U.S. Push to Expand in Pakistan Meets Resistance
By JANE PERLEZ
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Steps by the United States to vastly expand its aid to Pakistan, as well as the footprint of its embassy and private security contractors here, are aggravating an already volatile anti-American mood as Washington pushes for greater action by the government against the Taliban.
An aid package of $1.5 billion a year for the next five years passed by Congress last week asks Pakistan to cease supporting terrorist groups on its soil and to ensure that the military does not interfere with civilian politics. President Asif Ali Zardari, whose association with the United States has added to his unpopularity, agreed to the stipulations in the aid package.
But many here, especially in the powerful army, object to the conditions as interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs, and they are interpreting the larger American footprint in more sinister ways.
American officials say the embassy and its security presence must expand in order to monitor how the new money is spent. They also have real security concerns, which were underscored Monday when a suicide bomber, dressed in the uniform of a Pakistani security force, killed five people at a United Nations office in the heart of Islamabad, the capital.
The United States Embassy has publicized plans for a vast new building in Islamabad for about 1,000 people, with security for some diplomats provided through a Washington-based private contracting company, DynCorp.
The embassy setup, with American demands for importing more armored vehicles, is a significant expansion over the last 15 years. It comes at a time of intense discussion in Washington over whether to widen American operations and aid to Pakistan — a base for Al Qaeda — as an alternative to deeper American involvement in Afghanistan with the addition of more forces.
The fierce opposition here is revealing deep strains in the alliance. Even at its current levels, the American presence was fueling a sense of occupation among Pakistani politicians and security officials, said several Pakistani officials, who did not want to be named for fear of antagonizing the United States. The United States was now seen as behaving in Pakistan much as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, they said.
In particular, the Pakistani military and the intelligence agencies are concerned that DynCorp is being used by Washington to develop a parallel network of security and intelligence personnel within Pakistan, officials and politicians close to the army said.
The concerns are serious enough that last month a local company hired by DynCorp to provide Pakistani men to be trained as security guards for American diplomats was raided by the Islamabad police. The owner of the company, the Inter-Risk Security Company, Capt. Syed Ali Ja Zaidi, was later arrested.
The action against Inter-Risk, apparently intended to cripple the DynCorp program, was taken on orders from the senior levels of the Pakistani government, said an official familiar with the raid, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
The entire workings of DynCorp within Pakistan are now under review by the Pakistani government, said a senior government official directly involved with the Americans, who spoke candidly on condition of anonymity.
The tensions are erupting as the United States is pressing Pakistan to take on not only those Taliban groups that have threatened the government, but also the Taliban leadership that uses Pakistan as a base to organize and conduct their insurgency against American forces in Afghanistan.
In a public statement, the American ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, suggested last week that Pakistan should eliminate the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, a onetime ally of the Pakistanis who Washington says is now based in Baluchistan, a province on the Afghanistan border. If Pakistan did not get rid of Mullah Omar, the United States would, she suggested.
Reinforcing the ambassador, the national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, said Sunday that the United States regarded tackling Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan as “the next step” in the conflict in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in an unusually stern reaction last week, said that missile attacks by American drones in Baluchistan, as implied by the Americans, “would not be allowed.”
The Pakistanis also complain that they are not being sufficiently consulted over the pending White House decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan.
The head of Pakistan’s chief spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, met with senior officials at the Central Intelligence Agency last week in Washington, where he argued against sending more troops to Afghanistan, a Pakistani official familiar with the visit said.
The Pakistani Army, riding high after its campaign to wrench back control of the Swat Valley from the Taliban, remains nervous about Washington’s intentions and the push against the new aid is reflective of that anxiety, Pakistani officials said.
Though the Zardari government is trumpeting the new aid as a triumph, officials say the language in the legislation ignores long-held prerogatives about Pakistani sovereignty, making the $1.5 billion a tough sell.
“Now everyone has a handle they can use to rip into the Zardari government,” said a senior Pakistani official involved in the American-Pakistani dialogue but who declined to be named because he did not want to inflame the discussion.
The expanding American security presence has become another club. DynCorp has attracted particular scrutiny after the Pakistani news media reported that Blackwater, the contractor that has generated controversy because of its aggressive tactics in Iraq, was also in Pakistan.
Recently, there have been a series of complaints by Islamabad residents who said they had been “roughed up” by hefty, plainclothes American men bearing weapons, presumably from DynCorp, one of the senior Pakistani officials involved with the Americans said.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office had sent two formal diplomatic complaints in the past few weeks to the American Embassy about such episodes, the official said.
The embassy had received complaints, and confirmed two instances, an embassy official said, but the embassy denied receiving any formal protests from the Foreign Office. It also declined to comment about the presence of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, in Pakistan.
American officials have said that Blackwater employees worked at a remote base in Shamsi, in Baluchistan, where they loaded missiles and bombs onto drones used to strike Taliban and Qaeda militants.
The operation of the drones at Shamsi had been shifted by the Americans to Afghanistan this year, a senior Pakistani military official said.
Several Blackwater employees also worked in the North-West Frontier Province supervising the construction of a training center for Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, a Pakistani official from the region said.
There was considerable unease about the American diplomatic presence in Peshawar, the capital of the North-West Frontier Province, one of the senior government officials said. Politicians were asking why the United States needed a consulate in Peshawar, which borders the tribal areas, when that office did not issue visas, he said.
Another question, he said, was why did the consulate plan to buy the biggest, and most modern building in the city, the Pearl Continental hotel — which was bombed in a terrorist attack this year — as its new headquarters.
As Parliament prepared to discuss the American aid package Wednesday, the tone of the debate was expected to be scathing. On a television talk show, Senator Tariq Aziz, a member of the opposition party, called the legislation “the charter for new colonization.”
“People think this government has sold us to the Americans again for their own selfish interests,” said Jahangir Tareen, a former cabinet minister and a member of Parliament, in an interview. “Some people think the United States is out to get Pakistan, to defang Pakistan, to destroy the army as it exists so it can’t fight India and to break down the ISI’s ability to influence events in India and Afghanistan. Everyone is saying about the Americans, ‘Told you so.’ ”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/05/bomb-islamabad-un-pakistan
by Saleem Vaillancourt
Guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 October 2009 16.08 BST
“Islamabad bomb targets people in need”
The UN World Food Programme is one of the few agencies able to help deprived Pakistanis, as I saw for myself just last week
Last week in Pakistan I met a receptionist at the World Food Programme in Islamabad. It was brief – I was presenting myself for an appointment, and I do not know if she was Gulrukh Tahir, one of five people killed there today by a suicide bomber.
But I can picture her foyer; it must be wreckage now. I remember smiling at the guards who checked my bag when I entered the fortified compound, the same guards who were evaded by a man suspected to be Pakistani Taliban. His target was a United Nations agency charged with getting food to disaster zones and preventing hunger in poor communities. In Pakistan, some of its beneficiaries are the millions displaced by the Taliban's conflict with the government.
Perhaps it was the success of WFP's work that motivated the attack. In May, when the military engaged the Taliban in the Swat valley in north-west Pakistan, over 2.5 million people fled their homes. WFP's team near Swat, all Pakistani nationals, was confronted with a crisis. Deprived of their incomes and farming livelihoods, hundreds of thousands of families were in danger of starvation. Most had sought shelter with relatives or friends and were not in refugee camps.
Azim Khan, a programme officer for WFP's emergency relief work, has an office smelling of cigarettes, with books such as Kenneth Clark's Civilisation on his shelves. He says that "the challenge was to feed those 85-90% of internally displaced people who were off-camp". His team established several "humanitarian hubs" in communities where displaced people had taken refuge.
At a humanitarian hub in Mardan, roughly 70km from Swat, hundreds of men were queuing last week for their rations. They wore the traditional shalwar kameez, long shirt and baggy trousers, and were mostly ethnic Pashtuns. In my interviews I was surprised, when asking each person's age, to find that men with lined and haggard faces were younger than my 29 years.
Before collecting their food, every displaced person verified their identity through an online database built by WFP with the local government, a system designed to prevent the repeat rations and re-sales that threatened the relief work in its first weeks. The aid facility was housed in a large warehouse, the former premises of a tobacco firm, one of the industries that suffered during the conflict. The irony of displacing a tobacco firm was not lost on the aid workers.
Nor was the importance of their work. After months of distributing food to the displaced, 1.5 million people have returned to their homes and continue to receive food as they rebuild their lives. Rehmat Wali of WFP says, "I am satisfied, to the best of my ability, that I have worked for the displaced people." His attitude was not unique. Mohammad Ali, a displaced man from Buner, 30km from Swat, spoke of a professor who hosted his family of 15 over four months.
The UN's aid agencies grind away without much fanfare. Even as its secretary-general labours under opprobrium for being too quiet, and last month's parade of world leaders in New York made nothing but headlines, WFP and other agencies doggedly do work that would otherwise be left almost undone.
During my time in Pakistan I shared some rice pudding with a man named Shabir, a lovely man with a long beard who tried to buy me lunch. After we had fought over the bill he mentioned recent explosions in Peshawar, near his home in the north-west. "The Taliban are people of the Qur'an," he said. "These explosions were by the government." I kept quiet. But Taliban sympathies had never looked so human.
As for the WFP, it does not fret over who collects food. "There are people who are registered [for rations] who are militants … but we are impartial," says Rehmat Wali. What an injustice that Monday's suicide bomber did not feel the same.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A Brief Guide to the Crisis in South Asia
[A statement in draft that meets length limits of under 1200 words for a publisher.]
By fall, 2009, the war in Afghanistan-Pakistan has turned ominous. The Taliban are gaining ever more strength in communities around Afghanistan. General McChrystal, who heads ISAF, the coalition forces opposing the Taliban, believes that without changes the war could be lost within a year. In the mean time the countries providing troops for ISAF are losing resolve. The Italians have declared their desire to leave, and the Germans want out. Even the Americans, whose commitment is crucial, are dithering as they consider the proposals. The generals want lots more troops (as many as 40,000) while the Vice President wants less; prominent Senators demand a time-table for getting out, and some senators are ready to quit now. The British alone seem confident about staying -- they say so often, as if to keep up their resolve.
At the same time the legitimacy of the Afghanistan government for which these forces have been fighting has been deeply compromised by voting irregularities in the last election. Corruption seems to have percolated all the way down: local officials, underpaid and under protected, demand cash and special favors to perform merely elementary services. And there is the drug industry: uncounted numbers of folks, powerful and weak, rural and urban, are involved in an illicit economy that brings in nearly half the country’s income.
General McChrystal’s broadly published judgment of the situation cannot have helped the situation on the ground, for it re-affirms what the Taliban have been claiming all along: they will be there when the Americans have left; and ultimately they will prevail. What can the ordinary good people of Afghanistan do but re-consider their connections in such a climate? After so many years of war, they have learned how to survive. Dr. Monsutti reports that the Hazara families situate their relatives on both sides of a conflict in order to ensure viable options, whatever the outcome; similar strategies must be in practice elsewhere in the country. This society, after so many years of conflict, is now composed of fragile alliances and agreements that can be invoked or ignored as circumstances require. These are the means through which folks cope with the exigencies of internecine and intermittent war that grinds on for decades.
But when it comes to preferences, there is no doubt about the genuine wishes of the Afghanistan peoples: They want a government that responds to their circumstances, not one that provides no services or protection like the present one, and not one that limits simple pleasures – kite flying, music, television -- as the Taliban did when they were in power. Scarcely 6% admit to wanting the Taliban back. Rather, they would like a democracy that works. Thousands of people, women as well as men, of every ethnic stripe, participated in the first national election. At that time the voting booth inked finger was a mark of pride. It is largely frustration with the current administration and fear of the threats of the Taliban that reduced participation in the last election. The evident corruption of the process has deflated hope but reportedly few people want to go through the election again.
Most of the talk among Americans is about what to do about Afghanistan while little is being said about the source of the Taliban problem: Pakistan. It was the Pakistani military that in the mid-1990s made use of a group of sincere, zealous schoolboys led by their Quranic teacher, Mullah Muhammd Omar, to create an organized, trained, and equipped essentially Pashtun military force. After their defeat in 2001 the Taliban who escaped into Pakistan’s tribal areas found a supportive environment for reconstituting themselves, which reportedly they began to do as early as 2003. They could not have acquired their present sophistication without the help of Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence Directorate, the agency that protected, trained, and provisioned the Afghan Taliban for the real agenda, the on-going war against India.
Because the real concern of the Pakistani military is the struggle with India over Kashmir, they consider radical fighting groups like the Taliban to be vital resources. As a Muslim state claiming the right to rule adjacent Muslim lands, the military has allowed radical Islamist groups to form so that they can be deployed in case of war (well, in the continued war) with India. The most notable of those which the ISI fostered and supplied were the Jaish-i Muhammad, the group that captured and murdered Daniel Pearl, and the Lashkar-I Taiba who produced suicide bombers for Kashmir and only last year masterminded the attacks in Mumbai in which 173 people were killed. Owing to the tolerance of the ISI, Mullah Muhammad Omar, head of the original Taliban, has long had his headquarters in Quetta despite official claims that he cannot be found.
This policy arises from Pakistan's need for a friendly Afghanistan. Ever since the 1980s the Pakistanis have recognized the importance of Central Asia in their future. For them Afghanistan must be a friendly state through which the resource-rich lands of the Central Asian republics can be accessed. The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan gas pipeline, for example, which has been in the planning stage for years, is crucial to Pakistan’s future prosperity. For that, the Pakistanis have, with Chinese help, already invested over a billion dollars to build a new port on the Indian Ocean at Gwadar. Another reason for Pakistan’s desire for a friendly government in Kabul is the perceived need for “strategic depth” in case of war with India.
In truth, Pakistan is a conflicted state. It is fighting a war with India while it claims to be helping in the “War on terror” against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And while affirming friendship with the United States the Pakistan government regards Afghanistan as allied to India and thus an enemy regime. For this situation the Taliban, posed as they are against the Kabul government, are prized assets for the war with India. The contradiction of this policy came vividly to light in 2008 and 2009 when some of the Taliban began to push beyond the tribal zones where they had been based conveniently close to the Afghanistan border, and established themselves in neighboring sectors of Pakistan. After taking over Swat they announced their intention to impose their brand of “Islamic sharia” there. But what finally aroused the Pakistani military was a prominent Taliban leader’s announcement that they were ready to bring their brand of Islamic sharia to all of Pakistan. The Pakistan army responded by attacking the Taliban of Swat; friends only a few weeks before, now they were mortal enemies. The fighting in Swat forced a sudden migration: more than two and half million natives of Swat fled, creating a crisis for the government that was barely alleviated before the Swatis were allowed to return home.
So the picture in South Asia is convoluted: A fractured society (Afghanistan), a conflicted state (Pakistan), a resolute opposition that is faced in two directions (the Taliban), a looming neighbor (India), and a foreign military force (ISAF) that scarcely understands how to deal with this tangle of antagonistic forces.
And into this bundle of interlocked problems we must include a few other issues of vital importance to the region: the still-active Al Qaeda cells, the Nuclear worry about Iran, nuclear weaponry in the arsenals of both Pakistan and India, and the vulnerability of oil flows through the Indian Ocean. Now we have not a regional crisis but a world crisis -- no less than a situation perilous to the world order as we know it.
By fall, 2009, the war in Afghanistan-Pakistan has turned ominous. The Taliban are gaining ever more strength in communities around Afghanistan. General McChrystal, who heads ISAF, the coalition forces opposing the Taliban, believes that without changes the war could be lost within a year. In the mean time the countries providing troops for ISAF are losing resolve. The Italians have declared their desire to leave, and the Germans want out. Even the Americans, whose commitment is crucial, are dithering as they consider the proposals. The generals want lots more troops (as many as 40,000) while the Vice President wants less; prominent Senators demand a time-table for getting out, and some senators are ready to quit now. The British alone seem confident about staying -- they say so often, as if to keep up their resolve.
At the same time the legitimacy of the Afghanistan government for which these forces have been fighting has been deeply compromised by voting irregularities in the last election. Corruption seems to have percolated all the way down: local officials, underpaid and under protected, demand cash and special favors to perform merely elementary services. And there is the drug industry: uncounted numbers of folks, powerful and weak, rural and urban, are involved in an illicit economy that brings in nearly half the country’s income.
General McChrystal’s broadly published judgment of the situation cannot have helped the situation on the ground, for it re-affirms what the Taliban have been claiming all along: they will be there when the Americans have left; and ultimately they will prevail. What can the ordinary good people of Afghanistan do but re-consider their connections in such a climate? After so many years of war, they have learned how to survive. Dr. Monsutti reports that the Hazara families situate their relatives on both sides of a conflict in order to ensure viable options, whatever the outcome; similar strategies must be in practice elsewhere in the country. This society, after so many years of conflict, is now composed of fragile alliances and agreements that can be invoked or ignored as circumstances require. These are the means through which folks cope with the exigencies of internecine and intermittent war that grinds on for decades.
But when it comes to preferences, there is no doubt about the genuine wishes of the Afghanistan peoples: They want a government that responds to their circumstances, not one that provides no services or protection like the present one, and not one that limits simple pleasures – kite flying, music, television -- as the Taliban did when they were in power. Scarcely 6% admit to wanting the Taliban back. Rather, they would like a democracy that works. Thousands of people, women as well as men, of every ethnic stripe, participated in the first national election. At that time the voting booth inked finger was a mark of pride. It is largely frustration with the current administration and fear of the threats of the Taliban that reduced participation in the last election. The evident corruption of the process has deflated hope but reportedly few people want to go through the election again.
Most of the talk among Americans is about what to do about Afghanistan while little is being said about the source of the Taliban problem: Pakistan. It was the Pakistani military that in the mid-1990s made use of a group of sincere, zealous schoolboys led by their Quranic teacher, Mullah Muhammd Omar, to create an organized, trained, and equipped essentially Pashtun military force. After their defeat in 2001 the Taliban who escaped into Pakistan’s tribal areas found a supportive environment for reconstituting themselves, which reportedly they began to do as early as 2003. They could not have acquired their present sophistication without the help of Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence Directorate, the agency that protected, trained, and provisioned the Afghan Taliban for the real agenda, the on-going war against India.
Because the real concern of the Pakistani military is the struggle with India over Kashmir, they consider radical fighting groups like the Taliban to be vital resources. As a Muslim state claiming the right to rule adjacent Muslim lands, the military has allowed radical Islamist groups to form so that they can be deployed in case of war (well, in the continued war) with India. The most notable of those which the ISI fostered and supplied were the Jaish-i Muhammad, the group that captured and murdered Daniel Pearl, and the Lashkar-I Taiba who produced suicide bombers for Kashmir and only last year masterminded the attacks in Mumbai in which 173 people were killed. Owing to the tolerance of the ISI, Mullah Muhammad Omar, head of the original Taliban, has long had his headquarters in Quetta despite official claims that he cannot be found.
This policy arises from Pakistan's need for a friendly Afghanistan. Ever since the 1980s the Pakistanis have recognized the importance of Central Asia in their future. For them Afghanistan must be a friendly state through which the resource-rich lands of the Central Asian republics can be accessed. The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Pakistan gas pipeline, for example, which has been in the planning stage for years, is crucial to Pakistan’s future prosperity. For that, the Pakistanis have, with Chinese help, already invested over a billion dollars to build a new port on the Indian Ocean at Gwadar. Another reason for Pakistan’s desire for a friendly government in Kabul is the perceived need for “strategic depth” in case of war with India.
In truth, Pakistan is a conflicted state. It is fighting a war with India while it claims to be helping in the “War on terror” against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And while affirming friendship with the United States the Pakistan government regards Afghanistan as allied to India and thus an enemy regime. For this situation the Taliban, posed as they are against the Kabul government, are prized assets for the war with India. The contradiction of this policy came vividly to light in 2008 and 2009 when some of the Taliban began to push beyond the tribal zones where they had been based conveniently close to the Afghanistan border, and established themselves in neighboring sectors of Pakistan. After taking over Swat they announced their intention to impose their brand of “Islamic sharia” there. But what finally aroused the Pakistani military was a prominent Taliban leader’s announcement that they were ready to bring their brand of Islamic sharia to all of Pakistan. The Pakistan army responded by attacking the Taliban of Swat; friends only a few weeks before, now they were mortal enemies. The fighting in Swat forced a sudden migration: more than two and half million natives of Swat fled, creating a crisis for the government that was barely alleviated before the Swatis were allowed to return home.
So the picture in South Asia is convoluted: A fractured society (Afghanistan), a conflicted state (Pakistan), a resolute opposition that is faced in two directions (the Taliban), a looming neighbor (India), and a foreign military force (ISAF) that scarcely understands how to deal with this tangle of antagonistic forces.
And into this bundle of interlocked problems we must include a few other issues of vital importance to the region: the still-active Al Qaeda cells, the Nuclear worry about Iran, nuclear weaponry in the arsenals of both Pakistan and India, and the vulnerability of oil flows through the Indian Ocean. Now we have not a regional crisis but a world crisis -- no less than a situation perilous to the world order as we know it.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Signs of internal distrust among the Taliban leadership?
The BBC reports that relatives of Baitullah Mehsud have been tortured and even killed by members of the Taliban. The Taliban so far have denied it. But if the report is true it makes us wonder how much distrust pervades relations among the Taliban. Even without the influence of large cash awards for help in the apprehension (or killing) of a Taliban or Al Qaeda leader, there can be lots of intrigues and festering grudges among the Pashtun peoples, so it's difficult to know what's behind this development. But there appears to be evidence that among the Taliban there is an air of distrust. Do they believe that such close relatives would have helped get Baitullah killed? Here is the BBC report. RLC
Taliban 'kill' Mehsud relatives
Thursday, 17 September 2009 BBC News
Militants in Pakistan have been accused of killing two relatives of top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who died last month in a US missile strike.
The men were seized by the Taliban on suspicion of spying and providing information about the Taliban commander's whereabouts.
The Taliban deny killing the men and said they are investigating.
Meanwhile, at least 10 corpses have been found in the troubled northern district of Swat, officials say.
About 300 bodies of suspected militants have turned up in the Swat valley over the last two months.
Locals say the army are responsible for the deaths. But the military has consistently denied involvement with any extra-judicial killings.
They say many militants were killed during operations in the valley and also point the finger at local tribal militias taking revenge on Taliban militants in the area.
Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the bodies were found lying by the river. All of them were shot in the head and chest from close range.
'Signs of torture'
Meanwhile there is continuing disquiet in South Waziristan, where the Taliban are reported to have seized six of Baitullah Mehsud's relatives.
The captives included his father-in-law Ikramuddin and his nephew Iqbal Mehsud.
Two of the captives are reported to have died in the militants' custody. They have been identified as Iqbal Mehsud and a cousin of Baitullah Mehsud called Akram Gul.
Iqbal Mehsud was well-known and considered to be very close to his uncle.
He had acted as Baitullah Mehsud's envoy to the government during negotiations with the Taliban on many occasions. Iqbal Mehsud had also been involved in negotiating with the government over the release of certain militants.
The Taliban say he has died in custody due to illness. The body has been handed over to his family.
However, other clansmen and officials have told the BBC's Abdul Hai Kakar in Peshawar that Iqbal Mehsud died after being tortured.
They say cuts made by knives are visible all over his body and his nails have been pulled out.
Baitullah Mehsud's father-in-law is still being held.
The Taliban say they have set up an an investigative team to inquire into the incident.
Taliban 'kill' Mehsud relatives
Thursday, 17 September 2009 BBC News
Militants in Pakistan have been accused of killing two relatives of top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who died last month in a US missile strike.
The men were seized by the Taliban on suspicion of spying and providing information about the Taliban commander's whereabouts.
The Taliban deny killing the men and said they are investigating.
Meanwhile, at least 10 corpses have been found in the troubled northern district of Swat, officials say.
About 300 bodies of suspected militants have turned up in the Swat valley over the last two months.
Locals say the army are responsible for the deaths. But the military has consistently denied involvement with any extra-judicial killings.
They say many militants were killed during operations in the valley and also point the finger at local tribal militias taking revenge on Taliban militants in the area.
Eyewitnesses told the BBC that the bodies were found lying by the river. All of them were shot in the head and chest from close range.
'Signs of torture'
Meanwhile there is continuing disquiet in South Waziristan, where the Taliban are reported to have seized six of Baitullah Mehsud's relatives.
The captives included his father-in-law Ikramuddin and his nephew Iqbal Mehsud.
Two of the captives are reported to have died in the militants' custody. They have been identified as Iqbal Mehsud and a cousin of Baitullah Mehsud called Akram Gul.
Iqbal Mehsud was well-known and considered to be very close to his uncle.
He had acted as Baitullah Mehsud's envoy to the government during negotiations with the Taliban on many occasions. Iqbal Mehsud had also been involved in negotiating with the government over the release of certain militants.
The Taliban say he has died in custody due to illness. The body has been handed over to his family.
However, other clansmen and officials have told the BBC's Abdul Hai Kakar in Peshawar that Iqbal Mehsud died after being tortured.
They say cuts made by knives are visible all over his body and his nails have been pulled out.
Baitullah Mehsud's father-in-law is still being held.
The Taliban say they have set up an an investigative team to inquire into the incident.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
The situation in Afghanistan: An experienced observer's view
I reproduce below part of a recent Bill Moyers interview (on September 11, 2009) with Nancy Youssef, a reporter with the McClatchy newspapers who has recently returned from Afghanistan. Youssef has been working in that part of the world for many years, and I thought her perspective on the Afghanistan war can help us visualize better what is at stake in the Afghanistan/ Pakistan war. RLC
BILL MOYERS: Is it clear to you what our goals are there? [Afghanistan]
NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, the Secretary lays it out the following way. He says that because the Taliban cooperated and collaborated with Al Qaeda, the United States must make sure that the Taliban's not allowed to return so that it therefore doesn't allow Al Qaeda to return. I guess the question that I have, and that hasn't really been answered is, that may have been true then, but what is the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda now?
Because if the premise of the strategy that is that the Taliban can't be allowed to return, because they'll provide sanctuary for Al Qaeda, I want to understand what that relationship is between those two, to determine if that, in fact, will really happen. For me, it's not clear yet. And it's a very hard question to answer. Because the word Taliban, in a way it doesn't mean anything anymore.
BILL MOYERS: Who is the enemy? Who are these soldiers fighting?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't know. I mean they're fighting this nebulous group called the Taliban. And some of them are fighting men who are joining because they need money. Or because they've been forced or coerced into fighting the Americans. Some Taliban are people who have no ties to the ideological Taliban at all, but are just angry that occupation forces, in their mind, are in their country. Some are people who are ideologically driven, who want an Islamic state in Afghanistan, who want to work with Al Qaeda. It's a very, varied enemy. And I think that's what part of what makes a strategy so hard and what makes it so difficult for the troops. Because everyone they're fighting could be a farmer the next day, could be a local. There are no borders. There's no uniform. There's no way to distinguish one from the other. So, I think that's what makes it so hard. The Taliban that I saw, and I was in Kandahar were people who--
BILL MOYERS: That's the southern part of the country right near the Pakistan border.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. And it's one of the most important provinces historically. And you go there and the Taliban is this bullying organization that is a form of order that at least the Afghans are familiar with. And they control the community. The local government that we've established does not. The police chief, the Taliban police chief, lives in the city. The U.S. backed police chief doesn't. He lives on base or he lives in Kandahar proper. And I'm talking about in the provinces. The local district leader who works on behalf of the Karzai government. It's too dangerous for him to live in the city. He lives on the base, or he lives in Kandahar. So, it's a coerced, forced order. It's sort of the devil you know versus the devil you don't.
BILL MOYERS: And what about Al Qaeda? The guys who did attack us on 9/11. Where are they? And who are they now?
NANCY YOUSSEF: The United States believes that the leadership is in Pakistan. But, you know, something I struggle with personally is what happens if the next attack is planned in Somalia or Yemen or Europe, where they've expanded or have a presence there? What is the United States response then? I sometimes worry that we're fighting the last war instead of the next one. And I think when you look at Al Qaeda and how it's spread, you start to wonder. They don't use a sanctuary anymore. It's now an apartment and internet access to start planning these attacks, and how do you defend against that? I don't know.
BILL MOYERS: So, what do the generals whom you interviewed, the colonels and on down tell you remains our goal?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, I spoke to General McChrystal when I was there. And I think more than anything, he wants the opportunity to try this out. That if we're going to do it, let's do it. Let's really put our effort towards this. We think about this as--
BILL MOYERS: What does that mean? More troops?
NANCY YOUSSEF: More troops. More time, more than anything else. That this is not something that can be turned around in time for a political or an election cycle. He needs time more than anything else.
BILL MOYERS: You know, Nancy, that's what the generals kept telling President Johnson in the early days and at the peak of the escalation in Vietnam.
NANCY YOUSSEF: But, you know, we talk about Afghanistan as an eight year war. But the truth is it's been eight separate individual years of war. So, I think that's the--
BILL MOYERS: What's the distinction?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Because we've never gone after this in a real way. There was a strategy 2001 to 2003. And then we tried something else 2003 to 2005. And then it escalated and we tried something else. So, I think if we-- to me, I think what General McChrystal's really saying is if we're going to do, let's do it. Let's really do it. And I think that's the disparity that from the military perspective they'll tell you we haven't really been given the chance, because we were too busy in Iraq. So it's a true argument. It's a fair argument. That was an argument made in the past. We need more time. We need more time. But I think for the commanders on the ground, it feels a bit of a rollercoaster. It went from being the just war, during the campaign, and in the early days of the Obama Administration, to a potential quagmire that we're not sure we want to send more troops to.
BILL MOYERS: But now, Obama's made it a, quote, "war of necessity".
NANCY YOUSSEF: He's made it a war of necessity, but yet, there's a real debate about basic questions on this war. This war of necessity, what's happening now in Washington and all these assessments. We're trying to answer very basic questions, "What is the goal? What is the strategy? How do you implement the strategy?" So, even though we call it a war of necessity, I don't think it's ever been treated at a war of necessity, even now. That debate is just starting, in year eight of the war. It's extraordinary.
BILL MOYERS: Things just seem to be going off the rails there. Is that your judgment, too?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I think-- remember that President Obama sent 21,000 more troops, and what happened was the United States expanded its reach. Now, you ask the Afghans, they'll say that when U.S. troops show up, more problems show up for us. Because then the fight starts.
BILL MOYERS: They're caught in the middle.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. Then they are caught in the middle. I mean, when you go to Afghanistan, the Afghans are not trying to work with Karzai, embrace their new democracy. They're trying to survive within the confines of the district. They're manipulating the Taliban, whichever local district leader or warlord in charge. They are not looking for some grand democratic process. That's not what's happening. So, when the U.S. troops show up, from their perspective, it's more problems. Now, the United States will say, "Things could get worse before they get better, because we have to engage them in the fight." But I don't think the Afghans are on board with that yet. I think they feel like we-- I can't tell you how many Afghans said to me, "I don't want the Americans. I don't want the Taliban. I just want to be left alone."
BILL MOYERS: What are they like these people who are caught in the middle? I mean, you got to know a lot of them. You wrote about them in your dispatches. What do they say to you?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, they're tired is what the sense I got more than anything else. There's this renewed effort in the United States to engage in Afghanistan. And they've been living with it for eight years. We talk so much about the Washington clock. And how the President--
BILL MOYERS: The Washington clock?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Yeah. How they have 12 to 18 months by the administration's estimates, the military does, to turn things around. I think the Afghan clock is ticking a lot faster. They're tired. They're frustrated that this country has brought a corrupt central government that doesn't serve their interests. They're smart. They're savvy. And they are trying to survive. You know, so many people tell me that Afghanistan's not ready for democracy. I would argue, "Look at the democracy that they've seen. Who would be ready for that?" And that's where they are. They--
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean? What democracy have they seen?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, the democracy they've seen is from their perspective a fraudulent election that's brought about a government that's more corrupt, in their view, than even the Taliban was. And by the way, they don't get any more basic services. They have to pay a lot more in bribes to get basic things done. Their warlords in some cases are more empowered under the system, not less. Who would want to democracy under that? I think we have to think about how we've defined democracy in their minds. It's really become about survival.
BILL MOYERS:I know from reading that our forces are trying to do some good things there. Roads, schools, they move into a village, get acquainted with the elders, try to establish some basis of trust and credibility. And yet, then, you know an attack during a wedding party, I was reading the other day, will completely negate those good intentions, right?
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. I was in Zhari District, which is about 20 miles west of Kandahar. When the Canadians first came in, they painted schools and they built new schools for the residents. And you know what happened? The NATO forces eventually had to destroy them, because the Taliban took them over. So--
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean the Taliban took them over? This suggest the Taliban are far more sophisticated than a lot of us think.
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't think they need to be sophisticated. They own everything. They own the terrain. They know the terrain better than anyone. All they have to do is sort of bully their way in. Because without enough forces, how much security can you really provide that school. That's the thing. We've talked about this Taliban as they've come up with a strategy. I don't think they really had to do anything too complex. We have currently-- there are 101,000 troops, U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
It's an extraordinarily small number for a country of that size and that level of complexity to it. So, why build these schools if you can't establish security? It was a problem in Iraq, too. They would brag about, "Well, we put up this new school. We provided new electrical grid." And the next day it would be, it would be bombed. And Afghanistan's in that same place. But Afghanistan, I think, will take longer. It's just a far more complex country. And I'm not sure that the United States is ready for that yet. Or at least has been readied for it yet. It's going to take years.
BILL MOYERS: What's your greatest fear of what might happen there?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, because I'm the Pentagon correspondent, someone said this to me that stayed with me forever. My biggest fear from the military perspective is that Iraq doesn't fall apart quickly, but that--
BILL MOYERS: Iraq?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Iraq. That Iraq falls apart slowly. And that we find ourselves in a place where we're doing this with troops. That as we're slowly bringing down troops in Iraq and slowly building up in Afghanistan, we find ourselves in a really difficult situation in both countries.
BILL MOYERS: So, you fear we have to reengage in Iraq?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I fear that we're going to find-- I don't know that the United States will. I mean, the Status of Forces Agreement makes it very clear that the United States is not going to engage.
BILL MOYERS: The Iraqis want us out.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right.
BILL MOYERS: There's a legal agreement to get out.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. But what happens when the violence starts to escalate in Iraq and starts to escalate in Afghanistan, and we're say, at 80,000 troops in both countries? What is the United States role at that point? Is the plan to sit aside and do nothing? Will the Iraqi Government still feel that way? Depending on what the violence is? That's what keeps me up at night. Is that fear of that point where the United States finds itself engaged in both wars or at least heavily committed to both and not quite out of one, not quite in the other.
BILL MOYERS: President Obama has said that on the 24th of September, as you indicate, he will set forth his strategy. Do the officials you cover at the Pentagon have a sense of where his head is on this?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, that's the fundamental problem in all of this. You'll hear this. You might hear these phrases about counterterrorism versus counterinsurgency. Counterterrorism argues for a very narrow approach. We leave some drones there. We leave a few troops there. We keep an eye on things and we attack when necessary. And in Washington, that's sort of being led by Joe Biden. And then the counterinsurgency argument is we do everything. We build up a stable government so that there's no room at all for the Taliban to come back in. We build the economy.
We build better governance. And on this camp is, Hillary Clinton, General Petraeus, General McChrystal. And the problem is nobody knows where Obama is on that spectrum.
BILL MOYERS: Suppose he commits to a long war. Will the American people-do we have that kind of patience?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't know anymore because you see these polls come out and the majority now don't think this war is worth fighting. I was thinking about it. 60 days ago, when General McChrystal started the assessment, the political capital for this war was much, much higher. We hadn't had the health care debate the way it has.
We hadn't seen the kind of troop deaths that we had seen. And the political capital has diminished so quickly. At the minimum, General McChrystal's arguing for a strategy to build up the Afghan forces to a capacity that would cost about $3 billion dollars a year. This is in a country that generates $800 million of total revenue every year. So, at the minimum, he's talking about committing the United States and Europe and NATO to an indefinite financial commitment to Afghanistan. How do you sell that in this current economic climate? I don't know how you do that.
BILL MOYERS: And in the last eight years, there's been about $32 billion of foreign aid that's been splashed across Afghanistan. Can you see any of the effects of that?
NANCY YOUSSEF: It's very, very minimal because at the core it's security. I mean, that same number, you'll hear talked about how much has reached the Afghans. It's something ridiculously small. Like $4-$6 billion that actually has reached the ground in Afghanistan. Do you see it? Not really. You'll see it in pieces. You know, you'll see the ring road, or a paved road of some kind there. Or you'll see a new water system, or a new school, or a new crop buildup. But there's nothing linking all those things together. That's what's missing. So, it's very piecemeal. So, it's sort of like a mirage of a big pool of water in the middle of the desert. You know, you see it and then it sort of disappears, because it doesn't have any real long term impact.
BILL MOYERS: You're reporting depicts a very dismal picture there. So does every other bit of reporting I've seen, including the cover story a couple of weeks ago of "The Economist", which reaches a grim conclusion about the state of things there. But is there-- I'm not looking for a silver lining, but for a reporter's assessment, is there any good news there?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Yeah, the good news is that the United States is committed to it. The good news is that the world thinks that this is a priority. The good news is that there's now a renewed effort and that the best minds are on this and trying to come up with a solution. And that--
BILL MOYERS: The best and the brightest?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't want to say-- Maybe. But to me, I think the question at this point becomes either the United States commits to this and really commits to it. Or it walks away. But this middle ground of sort of holding on isn't going to work anymore. And that, to me, the good news is at least we are now coming to a head. We're at least coming to that decision point. And that's a critical decision that needs to be made. And to me, that's good news, because at least it gives everybody involved some sense of where this is going. I think that's something worth looking forward to because what's been going on up until now is unacceptable.
BILL MOYERS: But people say to me, you know, they're opposed to escalating the war. But they say, "How can we walk away from the people who joined this fight in no small part, because we've asked them to?"
NANCY YOUSSEF: Right. And what happens if the United States and the Coalition leaves? The Taliban invariably comes back. And there's the potential now for Al Qaeda to come back and we start it all over again. This is the problem with Afghanistan. You can't stay. You can't go. There are no absolutes in this. And it's this fine line that everybody's trying to walk. Are we prepared for the risk that comes with leaving and allowing the Taliban to come back in and potentially for that sanctuary to rise again? And now you've got a population that's more angry and more empowered in a very, very powerful and dangerous part of the region.
BILL MOYERS: But you're going back.
NANCY YOUSSEF: I have to go back. You know--
BILL MOYERS: Why do you have to go back?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Because I'm the Pentagon Correspondent, and I think it's really dangerous to depend on people in the Pentagon to tell you what's happening on the ground. There's no way to understand it other than to go. And I'm not smart enough to just sort of read reports. I have to feel it. I have to smell it and touch it and feel that fear in some way. I have to be in the humvee and feel the fear of not knowing what's going to happen. Or be in the car with the Afghan with my Afghan friends and feel what it's like to not know if that coalition soldier's going to kill you or not. There's just no way for me to understand it. And the vantage point of Washington, in some ways, doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.
What matters is what the troops are doing. And you can't replicate anything going there. And I really do love it. It's a beautiful country. I love the people. I love hanging out with the troops. I love understanding it. To me it's a great privilege to have a job where I can go to the frontlines and really see what's happening. It's a great way to make a living.
BILL MOYERS: But just this week the "New York Times" correspondent, Farrell, was held hostage. And as he and his journalist friend, who in Afghan interpreted for him, was killed. He got away, but the Afghan was killed. And just this week, your colleague, who was in Afghanistan, Jonathan Landay of "McClatchy," was in a hostile action and in a perilous situation. Why do you put yourself in that?
NANCY YOUSSEF: It's sort of like Afghanistan, the alternative is far worse to me, which is to do nothing, which is to say nothing. You know, I have a unique background. My parents are from Egypt. And I'm, I'm raised Muslim and I feel like I have something to say. I feel like I can walk that line between what the local populations are feeling. What the military is feeling. And I don't walk in blindly. Every time I go, I sort of look at my hands and feet and say, "Oh, I hope I come back with all of these." I mean, I know what's involved.
I know those risks, and it's around. I mean, it's become personal, in a way. Every day this week, I wake up, and there's a bombing. And I worry about my friends in Afghanistan. And my colleague who sits right across from me at work is caught in an ambush. And I think, "What can I do to sort of tell people about this? What people have to know. They just have to know."
BILL MOYERS: Is it clear to you what our goals are there? [Afghanistan]
NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, the Secretary lays it out the following way. He says that because the Taliban cooperated and collaborated with Al Qaeda, the United States must make sure that the Taliban's not allowed to return so that it therefore doesn't allow Al Qaeda to return. I guess the question that I have, and that hasn't really been answered is, that may have been true then, but what is the relationship between the Taliban and Al Qaeda now?
Because if the premise of the strategy that is that the Taliban can't be allowed to return, because they'll provide sanctuary for Al Qaeda, I want to understand what that relationship is between those two, to determine if that, in fact, will really happen. For me, it's not clear yet. And it's a very hard question to answer. Because the word Taliban, in a way it doesn't mean anything anymore.
BILL MOYERS: Who is the enemy? Who are these soldiers fighting?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't know. I mean they're fighting this nebulous group called the Taliban. And some of them are fighting men who are joining because they need money. Or because they've been forced or coerced into fighting the Americans. Some Taliban are people who have no ties to the ideological Taliban at all, but are just angry that occupation forces, in their mind, are in their country. Some are people who are ideologically driven, who want an Islamic state in Afghanistan, who want to work with Al Qaeda. It's a very, varied enemy. And I think that's what part of what makes a strategy so hard and what makes it so difficult for the troops. Because everyone they're fighting could be a farmer the next day, could be a local. There are no borders. There's no uniform. There's no way to distinguish one from the other. So, I think that's what makes it so hard. The Taliban that I saw, and I was in Kandahar were people who--
BILL MOYERS: That's the southern part of the country right near the Pakistan border.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. And it's one of the most important provinces historically. And you go there and the Taliban is this bullying organization that is a form of order that at least the Afghans are familiar with. And they control the community. The local government that we've established does not. The police chief, the Taliban police chief, lives in the city. The U.S. backed police chief doesn't. He lives on base or he lives in Kandahar proper. And I'm talking about in the provinces. The local district leader who works on behalf of the Karzai government. It's too dangerous for him to live in the city. He lives on the base, or he lives in Kandahar. So, it's a coerced, forced order. It's sort of the devil you know versus the devil you don't.
BILL MOYERS: And what about Al Qaeda? The guys who did attack us on 9/11. Where are they? And who are they now?
NANCY YOUSSEF: The United States believes that the leadership is in Pakistan. But, you know, something I struggle with personally is what happens if the next attack is planned in Somalia or Yemen or Europe, where they've expanded or have a presence there? What is the United States response then? I sometimes worry that we're fighting the last war instead of the next one. And I think when you look at Al Qaeda and how it's spread, you start to wonder. They don't use a sanctuary anymore. It's now an apartment and internet access to start planning these attacks, and how do you defend against that? I don't know.
BILL MOYERS: So, what do the generals whom you interviewed, the colonels and on down tell you remains our goal?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, I spoke to General McChrystal when I was there. And I think more than anything, he wants the opportunity to try this out. That if we're going to do it, let's do it. Let's really put our effort towards this. We think about this as--
BILL MOYERS: What does that mean? More troops?
NANCY YOUSSEF: More troops. More time, more than anything else. That this is not something that can be turned around in time for a political or an election cycle. He needs time more than anything else.
BILL MOYERS: You know, Nancy, that's what the generals kept telling President Johnson in the early days and at the peak of the escalation in Vietnam.
NANCY YOUSSEF: But, you know, we talk about Afghanistan as an eight year war. But the truth is it's been eight separate individual years of war. So, I think that's the--
BILL MOYERS: What's the distinction?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Because we've never gone after this in a real way. There was a strategy 2001 to 2003. And then we tried something else 2003 to 2005. And then it escalated and we tried something else. So, I think if we-- to me, I think what General McChrystal's really saying is if we're going to do, let's do it. Let's really do it. And I think that's the disparity that from the military perspective they'll tell you we haven't really been given the chance, because we were too busy in Iraq. So it's a true argument. It's a fair argument. That was an argument made in the past. We need more time. We need more time. But I think for the commanders on the ground, it feels a bit of a rollercoaster. It went from being the just war, during the campaign, and in the early days of the Obama Administration, to a potential quagmire that we're not sure we want to send more troops to.
BILL MOYERS: But now, Obama's made it a, quote, "war of necessity".
NANCY YOUSSEF: He's made it a war of necessity, but yet, there's a real debate about basic questions on this war. This war of necessity, what's happening now in Washington and all these assessments. We're trying to answer very basic questions, "What is the goal? What is the strategy? How do you implement the strategy?" So, even though we call it a war of necessity, I don't think it's ever been treated at a war of necessity, even now. That debate is just starting, in year eight of the war. It's extraordinary.
BILL MOYERS: Things just seem to be going off the rails there. Is that your judgment, too?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I think-- remember that President Obama sent 21,000 more troops, and what happened was the United States expanded its reach. Now, you ask the Afghans, they'll say that when U.S. troops show up, more problems show up for us. Because then the fight starts.
BILL MOYERS: They're caught in the middle.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. Then they are caught in the middle. I mean, when you go to Afghanistan, the Afghans are not trying to work with Karzai, embrace their new democracy. They're trying to survive within the confines of the district. They're manipulating the Taliban, whichever local district leader or warlord in charge. They are not looking for some grand democratic process. That's not what's happening. So, when the U.S. troops show up, from their perspective, it's more problems. Now, the United States will say, "Things could get worse before they get better, because we have to engage them in the fight." But I don't think the Afghans are on board with that yet. I think they feel like we-- I can't tell you how many Afghans said to me, "I don't want the Americans. I don't want the Taliban. I just want to be left alone."
BILL MOYERS: What are they like these people who are caught in the middle? I mean, you got to know a lot of them. You wrote about them in your dispatches. What do they say to you?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, they're tired is what the sense I got more than anything else. There's this renewed effort in the United States to engage in Afghanistan. And they've been living with it for eight years. We talk so much about the Washington clock. And how the President--
BILL MOYERS: The Washington clock?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Yeah. How they have 12 to 18 months by the administration's estimates, the military does, to turn things around. I think the Afghan clock is ticking a lot faster. They're tired. They're frustrated that this country has brought a corrupt central government that doesn't serve their interests. They're smart. They're savvy. And they are trying to survive. You know, so many people tell me that Afghanistan's not ready for democracy. I would argue, "Look at the democracy that they've seen. Who would be ready for that?" And that's where they are. They--
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean? What democracy have they seen?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Well, the democracy they've seen is from their perspective a fraudulent election that's brought about a government that's more corrupt, in their view, than even the Taliban was. And by the way, they don't get any more basic services. They have to pay a lot more in bribes to get basic things done. Their warlords in some cases are more empowered under the system, not less. Who would want to democracy under that? I think we have to think about how we've defined democracy in their minds. It's really become about survival.
BILL MOYERS:I know from reading that our forces are trying to do some good things there. Roads, schools, they move into a village, get acquainted with the elders, try to establish some basis of trust and credibility. And yet, then, you know an attack during a wedding party, I was reading the other day, will completely negate those good intentions, right?
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. I was in Zhari District, which is about 20 miles west of Kandahar. When the Canadians first came in, they painted schools and they built new schools for the residents. And you know what happened? The NATO forces eventually had to destroy them, because the Taliban took them over. So--
BILL MOYERS: What do you mean the Taliban took them over? This suggest the Taliban are far more sophisticated than a lot of us think.
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't think they need to be sophisticated. They own everything. They own the terrain. They know the terrain better than anyone. All they have to do is sort of bully their way in. Because without enough forces, how much security can you really provide that school. That's the thing. We've talked about this Taliban as they've come up with a strategy. I don't think they really had to do anything too complex. We have currently-- there are 101,000 troops, U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
It's an extraordinarily small number for a country of that size and that level of complexity to it. So, why build these schools if you can't establish security? It was a problem in Iraq, too. They would brag about, "Well, we put up this new school. We provided new electrical grid." And the next day it would be, it would be bombed. And Afghanistan's in that same place. But Afghanistan, I think, will take longer. It's just a far more complex country. And I'm not sure that the United States is ready for that yet. Or at least has been readied for it yet. It's going to take years.
BILL MOYERS: What's your greatest fear of what might happen there?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, because I'm the Pentagon correspondent, someone said this to me that stayed with me forever. My biggest fear from the military perspective is that Iraq doesn't fall apart quickly, but that--
BILL MOYERS: Iraq?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Iraq. That Iraq falls apart slowly. And that we find ourselves in a place where we're doing this with troops. That as we're slowly bringing down troops in Iraq and slowly building up in Afghanistan, we find ourselves in a really difficult situation in both countries.
BILL MOYERS: So, you fear we have to reengage in Iraq?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I fear that we're going to find-- I don't know that the United States will. I mean, the Status of Forces Agreement makes it very clear that the United States is not going to engage.
BILL MOYERS: The Iraqis want us out.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right.
BILL MOYERS: There's a legal agreement to get out.
NANCY YOUSSEF: That's right. But what happens when the violence starts to escalate in Iraq and starts to escalate in Afghanistan, and we're say, at 80,000 troops in both countries? What is the United States role at that point? Is the plan to sit aside and do nothing? Will the Iraqi Government still feel that way? Depending on what the violence is? That's what keeps me up at night. Is that fear of that point where the United States finds itself engaged in both wars or at least heavily committed to both and not quite out of one, not quite in the other.
BILL MOYERS: President Obama has said that on the 24th of September, as you indicate, he will set forth his strategy. Do the officials you cover at the Pentagon have a sense of where his head is on this?
NANCY YOUSSEF: You know, that's the fundamental problem in all of this. You'll hear this. You might hear these phrases about counterterrorism versus counterinsurgency. Counterterrorism argues for a very narrow approach. We leave some drones there. We leave a few troops there. We keep an eye on things and we attack when necessary. And in Washington, that's sort of being led by Joe Biden. And then the counterinsurgency argument is we do everything. We build up a stable government so that there's no room at all for the Taliban to come back in. We build the economy.
We build better governance. And on this camp is, Hillary Clinton, General Petraeus, General McChrystal. And the problem is nobody knows where Obama is on that spectrum.
BILL MOYERS: Suppose he commits to a long war. Will the American people-do we have that kind of patience?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't know anymore because you see these polls come out and the majority now don't think this war is worth fighting. I was thinking about it. 60 days ago, when General McChrystal started the assessment, the political capital for this war was much, much higher. We hadn't had the health care debate the way it has.
We hadn't seen the kind of troop deaths that we had seen. And the political capital has diminished so quickly. At the minimum, General McChrystal's arguing for a strategy to build up the Afghan forces to a capacity that would cost about $3 billion dollars a year. This is in a country that generates $800 million of total revenue every year. So, at the minimum, he's talking about committing the United States and Europe and NATO to an indefinite financial commitment to Afghanistan. How do you sell that in this current economic climate? I don't know how you do that.
BILL MOYERS: And in the last eight years, there's been about $32 billion of foreign aid that's been splashed across Afghanistan. Can you see any of the effects of that?
NANCY YOUSSEF: It's very, very minimal because at the core it's security. I mean, that same number, you'll hear talked about how much has reached the Afghans. It's something ridiculously small. Like $4-$6 billion that actually has reached the ground in Afghanistan. Do you see it? Not really. You'll see it in pieces. You know, you'll see the ring road, or a paved road of some kind there. Or you'll see a new water system, or a new school, or a new crop buildup. But there's nothing linking all those things together. That's what's missing. So, it's very piecemeal. So, it's sort of like a mirage of a big pool of water in the middle of the desert. You know, you see it and then it sort of disappears, because it doesn't have any real long term impact.
BILL MOYERS: You're reporting depicts a very dismal picture there. So does every other bit of reporting I've seen, including the cover story a couple of weeks ago of "The Economist", which reaches a grim conclusion about the state of things there. But is there-- I'm not looking for a silver lining, but for a reporter's assessment, is there any good news there?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Yeah, the good news is that the United States is committed to it. The good news is that the world thinks that this is a priority. The good news is that there's now a renewed effort and that the best minds are on this and trying to come up with a solution. And that--
BILL MOYERS: The best and the brightest?
NANCY YOUSSEF: I don't want to say-- Maybe. But to me, I think the question at this point becomes either the United States commits to this and really commits to it. Or it walks away. But this middle ground of sort of holding on isn't going to work anymore. And that, to me, the good news is at least we are now coming to a head. We're at least coming to that decision point. And that's a critical decision that needs to be made. And to me, that's good news, because at least it gives everybody involved some sense of where this is going. I think that's something worth looking forward to because what's been going on up until now is unacceptable.
BILL MOYERS: But people say to me, you know, they're opposed to escalating the war. But they say, "How can we walk away from the people who joined this fight in no small part, because we've asked them to?"
NANCY YOUSSEF: Right. And what happens if the United States and the Coalition leaves? The Taliban invariably comes back. And there's the potential now for Al Qaeda to come back and we start it all over again. This is the problem with Afghanistan. You can't stay. You can't go. There are no absolutes in this. And it's this fine line that everybody's trying to walk. Are we prepared for the risk that comes with leaving and allowing the Taliban to come back in and potentially for that sanctuary to rise again? And now you've got a population that's more angry and more empowered in a very, very powerful and dangerous part of the region.
BILL MOYERS: But you're going back.
NANCY YOUSSEF: I have to go back. You know--
BILL MOYERS: Why do you have to go back?
NANCY YOUSSEF: Because I'm the Pentagon Correspondent, and I think it's really dangerous to depend on people in the Pentagon to tell you what's happening on the ground. There's no way to understand it other than to go. And I'm not smart enough to just sort of read reports. I have to feel it. I have to smell it and touch it and feel that fear in some way. I have to be in the humvee and feel the fear of not knowing what's going to happen. Or be in the car with the Afghan with my Afghan friends and feel what it's like to not know if that coalition soldier's going to kill you or not. There's just no way for me to understand it. And the vantage point of Washington, in some ways, doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.
What matters is what the troops are doing. And you can't replicate anything going there. And I really do love it. It's a beautiful country. I love the people. I love hanging out with the troops. I love understanding it. To me it's a great privilege to have a job where I can go to the frontlines and really see what's happening. It's a great way to make a living.
BILL MOYERS: But just this week the "New York Times" correspondent, Farrell, was held hostage. And as he and his journalist friend, who in Afghan interpreted for him, was killed. He got away, but the Afghan was killed. And just this week, your colleague, who was in Afghanistan, Jonathan Landay of "McClatchy," was in a hostile action and in a perilous situation. Why do you put yourself in that?
NANCY YOUSSEF: It's sort of like Afghanistan, the alternative is far worse to me, which is to do nothing, which is to say nothing. You know, I have a unique background. My parents are from Egypt. And I'm, I'm raised Muslim and I feel like I have something to say. I feel like I can walk that line between what the local populations are feeling. What the military is feeling. And I don't walk in blindly. Every time I go, I sort of look at my hands and feet and say, "Oh, I hope I come back with all of these." I mean, I know what's involved.
I know those risks, and it's around. I mean, it's become personal, in a way. Every day this week, I wake up, and there's a bombing. And I worry about my friends in Afghanistan. And my colleague who sits right across from me at work is caught in an ambush. And I think, "What can I do to sort of tell people about this? What people have to know. They just have to know."
American problems in Afghanistan arise from failures of commitment
In the current discussion about whether/how/how long/ our troops should remain committed to Afghanistan there are still voices who say, "We have been in Afghanistan for eight years and we are still faced with a dangerous threat from the Taliban. It isn't working. We should just get out of there." Almost three years ago I received an anonymous comment:
That was the situation in the fall of 2006. The point is, for a number of those years in which our troops were fighting in Afghanistan our leaders in Washington had little interest in what was going on there.
No wonder we have a problem there now.
I am a senior military officer who recently returned from Afghanistan. It is shocking to me that there is little understanding, or concern, about the war in Afghanistan here in Washington. When one is in Afghanistan, particularly when one is in the field, one deludes oneself into believing that someone is in charge and someone cares what is going on. There is no such someone. I feel particularly sorry for the Afghans.
That was the situation in the fall of 2006. The point is, for a number of those years in which our troops were fighting in Afghanistan our leaders in Washington had little interest in what was going on there.
No wonder we have a problem there now.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
More on the critical situation in Baluchistan
A statement in a recent post by Arundhati Ghose, former Indian ambassador to the United Nations, reveals an interesting detail about the Pakistani position on Baluchistan that has been little discussed. She is referring to negotiations over the projected pipeline through Baluchistan to India:
That Pakistan now acknowledges a problem in Baluchistan is not really new, but the importance of the problem there has not been much discussed in the western press. And yes, it is as serious as the problems in Swat and Waziristan. For Afghanistan it is certainly serious because the Taliban seem to be free to move through the Baluchistan/ Afghanistna border freely, which has enabled them to have a powerful position in Helmand, and now also Kandahar.
Note also the remark about India's options. It helps us appreciate the Pakistani worry about the sense of threat from India. Of course Pakistan would never tolerate "self-determination" of Baluchistan: too much already invested [Gwadar] in such a strategic location on the India Ocean and currently the main source of Pakistan's gas supply. That India would think of proposing "independence" for Baluchistan would surely be nothing more than a move in the strategic "game." [Click on the title for a link to Ambasssador Ghose's article.]
Pakistan has been at pains to reassure India that the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline will be secure through the territory of Balochistan. They now accept that they are facing threats there similar to the ones ‘in other areas’, presumably, Swat and Waziristan, where they are fighting a civil war.
One could speculate further: India now has the option to internationalise the struggle for self-determination of the Baloch people, should it wish to—in the United Nations and other international forums.
That Pakistan now acknowledges a problem in Baluchistan is not really new, but the importance of the problem there has not been much discussed in the western press. And yes, it is as serious as the problems in Swat and Waziristan. For Afghanistan it is certainly serious because the Taliban seem to be free to move through the Baluchistan/ Afghanistna border freely, which has enabled them to have a powerful position in Helmand, and now also Kandahar.
Note also the remark about India's options. It helps us appreciate the Pakistani worry about the sense of threat from India. Of course Pakistan would never tolerate "self-determination" of Baluchistan: too much already invested [Gwadar] in such a strategic location on the India Ocean and currently the main source of Pakistan's gas supply. That India would think of proposing "independence" for Baluchistan would surely be nothing more than a move in the strategic "game." [Click on the title for a link to Ambasssador Ghose's article.]
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Fareed Zakaria on why we need to stay in Afghanistan
Fareed Zakaria has to be one of the savviest guys we have on our side, so whatever he thinks I would like to hear. Here is his case for how to look at Afghanistan. And again I like his case because it stresses the need to stay inside Afghanistan, and explains it well. I don't know if he is right, but I agree that, Yes, it is now time to face how desperate the situation is. RLC
Time to Deal in Afghanistan
By Fareed Zakaria The Washington Post Monday, September 14, 2009
It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union and others have invested massively in stabilizing that country over the past eight years, and they should not abandon it because the Taliban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated. But there is still a large gap between the goals the Obama administration is outlining and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands of more troops but, rather, by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.
The most important reality of the post-Sept. 11 world has been the lack of any major follow-up attack. That's largely because al-Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The campaign against terrorist groups in both countries rests on ground forces and intelligence. A senior U.S. military official involved in planning these campaigns told me that America's presence in Afghanistan has been the critical element in the successful strikes against al-Qaeda leaders and camps. Were America to leave the scene, all the region's players would start jockeying for influence over Afghanistan. That would almost certainly mean the revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taliban.
It is worth reminding ourselves that Afghanistan is not in free fall. The number of civilian deaths, while grim, is less than a tenth the number in Iraq in 2006. In the recent Afghan election, all four presidential candidates publicly endorsed the U.S. presence there. Compare this with Iraq, where politicians engaged in ritual denunciations of the United States constantly to satisfy the public's anti-Americanism.
The Obama administration's answer to the worsening situation in Afghanistan appears to be: more. More troops, civilians, tasks and missions. There is nothing wrong with helping Afghans develop their country. But if the goal is to give Afghanistan a strong, functioning central government and a viable economy, the task will require decades, not years. Afghanistan is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. It has had a weak central government for centuries. Illiteracy rates are somewhere around 70 percent. Building a 400,000-strong security force, as some in Congress have proposed, will be arduous in this context, not to mention that its annual cost would be equivalent to 300 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.
The focus must shift from nation building to dealmaking. The central problem in Afghanistan is that the Pashtuns, who make up 45 percent of the population and almost 100 percent of the Taliban, do not feel empowered. We need to start talking to them, whether they are nominally Taliban or not. Buying, renting or bribing Pashtun tribes should become the centerpiece of America's stabilization strategy, as it was Britain's when it ruled Afghanistan.
Efforts to reach out to the Taliban so far have been limited and halfhearted. Some blame President Hamid Karzai, who, bizarrely, wants to start this process himself by negotiating with Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, who has shown no sign of wanting to deal. But the U.S. government remains deeply reluctant as well, or at least wants to wait until Taliban forces are on the defensive. But, as one American official said to me, "Waiting to negotiate till you are in a position of strength is a bit like waiting to sell your stocks till the market peaks. It sounds good, but you will never know when the time is right."
The dealmaking should extend to the top. U.S. officials should stop trashing Karzai. We have no alternative. Afghanistan needs a Pashtun leader; Karzai is a reasonably supportive one. Let's assume the charges of corruption and vote rigging against him are true. Does anyone really think his successor would be any more honest and efficient? The best strategy would be to see if we can get Karzai to work with his leading opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, in some kind of coalition. The muddied elections actually create an opportunity to build a national unity government.
There are three ways to change security conditions in Afghanistan. First, increase American troops. Second, increase Afghan troops. Third, shrink the number of enemy forces by making them switch sides or lay down their arms. That third strategy is what worked so well in Iraq and what urgently needs to be adopted in Afghanistan. In a few years, Afghanistan will still be poor, corrupt and dysfunctional. But if we make the right deals, it will be ruled by leaders who keep the country inhospitable to al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups. That's my definition of success.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and the author of "The Post-American World." His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
Time to Deal in Afghanistan
By Fareed Zakaria The Washington Post Monday, September 14, 2009
It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union and others have invested massively in stabilizing that country over the past eight years, and they should not abandon it because the Taliban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated. But there is still a large gap between the goals the Obama administration is outlining and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands of more troops but, rather, by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.
The most important reality of the post-Sept. 11 world has been the lack of any major follow-up attack. That's largely because al-Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The campaign against terrorist groups in both countries rests on ground forces and intelligence. A senior U.S. military official involved in planning these campaigns told me that America's presence in Afghanistan has been the critical element in the successful strikes against al-Qaeda leaders and camps. Were America to leave the scene, all the region's players would start jockeying for influence over Afghanistan. That would almost certainly mean the revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taliban.
It is worth reminding ourselves that Afghanistan is not in free fall. The number of civilian deaths, while grim, is less than a tenth the number in Iraq in 2006. In the recent Afghan election, all four presidential candidates publicly endorsed the U.S. presence there. Compare this with Iraq, where politicians engaged in ritual denunciations of the United States constantly to satisfy the public's anti-Americanism.
The Obama administration's answer to the worsening situation in Afghanistan appears to be: more. More troops, civilians, tasks and missions. There is nothing wrong with helping Afghans develop their country. But if the goal is to give Afghanistan a strong, functioning central government and a viable economy, the task will require decades, not years. Afghanistan is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world. It has had a weak central government for centuries. Illiteracy rates are somewhere around 70 percent. Building a 400,000-strong security force, as some in Congress have proposed, will be arduous in this context, not to mention that its annual cost would be equivalent to 300 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product.
The focus must shift from nation building to dealmaking. The central problem in Afghanistan is that the Pashtuns, who make up 45 percent of the population and almost 100 percent of the Taliban, do not feel empowered. We need to start talking to them, whether they are nominally Taliban or not. Buying, renting or bribing Pashtun tribes should become the centerpiece of America's stabilization strategy, as it was Britain's when it ruled Afghanistan.
Efforts to reach out to the Taliban so far have been limited and halfhearted. Some blame President Hamid Karzai, who, bizarrely, wants to start this process himself by negotiating with Taliban leader Mohammad Omar, who has shown no sign of wanting to deal. But the U.S. government remains deeply reluctant as well, or at least wants to wait until Taliban forces are on the defensive. But, as one American official said to me, "Waiting to negotiate till you are in a position of strength is a bit like waiting to sell your stocks till the market peaks. It sounds good, but you will never know when the time is right."
The dealmaking should extend to the top. U.S. officials should stop trashing Karzai. We have no alternative. Afghanistan needs a Pashtun leader; Karzai is a reasonably supportive one. Let's assume the charges of corruption and vote rigging against him are true. Does anyone really think his successor would be any more honest and efficient? The best strategy would be to see if we can get Karzai to work with his leading opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, in some kind of coalition. The muddied elections actually create an opportunity to build a national unity government.
There are three ways to change security conditions in Afghanistan. First, increase American troops. Second, increase Afghan troops. Third, shrink the number of enemy forces by making them switch sides or lay down their arms. That third strategy is what worked so well in Iraq and what urgently needs to be adopted in Afghanistan. In a few years, Afghanistan will still be poor, corrupt and dysfunctional. But if we make the right deals, it will be ruled by leaders who keep the country inhospitable to al-Qaeda and similar terrorist groups. That's my definition of success.
Fareed Zakaria is editor of Newsweek International and the author of "The Post-American World." His e-mail address is comments@fareedzakaria.com.
Skyreporter's statement of the situation in Afghanistan
I don't always like what Skyreporter says but his recent post is a credible formulation of the situation in Afghanistan. In so far as it is accurate, it is greatly worrisome -- so what's new about that? This is Afghanistan and Pakistan. RLC
Taliban Leaders Mock U.S. 9/11 Legacy From Pakistan Havens
By Arthur Kent, Skyreporter.com
Sept. 11, 2009 - On the eighth anniversary of 9/11, the West's effort to rid southwest Asia of the menace of terrorism is collapsing in a surge of bloodshed and corruption on a truly damning scale.
One fact stands shamefully above all others.
Today the least worried combatants in all of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the warlords who enjoy an untroubled sleep each night and by day dispatch killing force with virtually no fear of retaliation, are Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his leadership council, safe in the protective embrace of Pakistan's military in Baluchistan province.
The U.S.-led coalition of international forces in Afghanistan is unwilling to tackle this most pressing of objectives, even by political and diplomatic means. Yet until the zealots of Omar's rump Taliban leadership feel the heat in Pakistan, there's no prospect of easing the pace and ferocity of violence in Afghanistan.
Today in Kabul, no Afghan man, woman or child, nor even America's top general, Stanley McCrystal, can be certain the next pair of eyes they meet will not belong to a suicide bomber or gunman, a random glance that will be their last sight on earth.
McCrystal's new mantra, that U.S. strategy will shift to "protecting the Afghan people" is less credible than a box full of ballots from Paktika.
The good general seems oblivious to the most basic fact confronting him and his Western legions. The only way to protect Afghans is to end the war, and the only way to end the war is to put pressure, real pressure, directly upon the Taliban leadership where they live and command their fighters' war effort: Pakistan.
Even this week's conviction in Britain of three would-be airline bombers, who took their orders from Pakistan's tribal areas, has done little to dent the dome of denial Western governments maintain over the dirty secret of Pakistan.
History tells us we should have learned from past mistakes. Here's a story this reporter filed to the Calgary Herald on Oct. 28, 2001, some 47 days after the 9/11 attacks on America, and about two weeks before the forced exit of Mullah Omar's regime from Kabul, along with Osama bin Laden's Arab fighters and their foreign cohorts.
How little has changed, and not only with regard to the collateral killings of civilians by air strikes aimed at Taliban fighters.
The Arab fighters heard over the radio, and the Talibs - most fled to refuge in Pakistan. They have operated from those Pakistani havens for eight long years. As we see from today's carnage in Afghanistan, no amount of official denial can alter that fact.
For more see Skyreporter.com October 28, 2001.
Taliban Leaders Mock U.S. 9/11 Legacy From Pakistan Havens
By Arthur Kent, Skyreporter.com
Sept. 11, 2009 - On the eighth anniversary of 9/11, the West's effort to rid southwest Asia of the menace of terrorism is collapsing in a surge of bloodshed and corruption on a truly damning scale.
One fact stands shamefully above all others.
Today the least worried combatants in all of Afghanistan and Pakistan, the warlords who enjoy an untroubled sleep each night and by day dispatch killing force with virtually no fear of retaliation, are Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his leadership council, safe in the protective embrace of Pakistan's military in Baluchistan province.
The U.S.-led coalition of international forces in Afghanistan is unwilling to tackle this most pressing of objectives, even by political and diplomatic means. Yet until the zealots of Omar's rump Taliban leadership feel the heat in Pakistan, there's no prospect of easing the pace and ferocity of violence in Afghanistan.
Today in Kabul, no Afghan man, woman or child, nor even America's top general, Stanley McCrystal, can be certain the next pair of eyes they meet will not belong to a suicide bomber or gunman, a random glance that will be their last sight on earth.
McCrystal's new mantra, that U.S. strategy will shift to "protecting the Afghan people" is less credible than a box full of ballots from Paktika.
The good general seems oblivious to the most basic fact confronting him and his Western legions. The only way to protect Afghans is to end the war, and the only way to end the war is to put pressure, real pressure, directly upon the Taliban leadership where they live and command their fighters' war effort: Pakistan.
Even this week's conviction in Britain of three would-be airline bombers, who took their orders from Pakistan's tribal areas, has done little to dent the dome of denial Western governments maintain over the dirty secret of Pakistan.
History tells us we should have learned from past mistakes. Here's a story this reporter filed to the Calgary Herald on Oct. 28, 2001, some 47 days after the 9/11 attacks on America, and about two weeks before the forced exit of Mullah Omar's regime from Kabul, along with Osama bin Laden's Arab fighters and their foreign cohorts.
How little has changed, and not only with regard to the collateral killings of civilians by air strikes aimed at Taliban fighters.
The Arab fighters heard over the radio, and the Talibs - most fled to refuge in Pakistan. They have operated from those Pakistani havens for eight long years. As we see from today's carnage in Afghanistan, no amount of official denial can alter that fact.
For more see Skyreporter.com October 28, 2001.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Ahmed Rashid Gets It Right Again. The Stakes In Afghanistan Are Huge
This blog arose out of a sense of helplessness. Presumably we all feel helpless as the world careers along its own path at an ever swifter pace, out of the control of anyone, even of an empire as powerful and all-pervasive as the American empire. So we are reduced to pointing out formulations that seem best to characterize the nature of the situation, the dangers that lie ahead. Once in a while I see an important one, and I want to say, “Yes! I wish everyone would read this."
I am thankful for Ahmed Rashid’s readiness to confront the nonsense now coming from otherwise sensible "authorities." He is at least informed: Unfortunately his book "Descent into Chaos" is so long (with so many blunders to agonize over and so many issues to worry about) that the people who should read it are deterred from facing it. But the world won't change to fit our conceptions of it: We have to do our best to understand it as it is, to catch an image of it on the wing. We must pay attention to those who have labored to understand, and Rashid is as good as we have of informed observers of the crises in Central Asia. Here is his latest attempt to explain how dangerous are trends in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To stress its importance I reproduce it here in full.
In Afghanistan, Let's Keep It Simple
By Ahmed Rashid The Washington Post Sunday, September 6, 2009
For much of the 20th century before the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was a peaceful country living in harmony with its neighbors. There was a king and a real government, which I witnessed in the 1970s when I frequently traveled there. Afghanistan had what I'll call a minimalist state, compared with the vast governmental apparatuses that colonialists left behind in British India and Soviet Central Asia.
This bare-bones structure worked well for a poor country with a small population, few natural resources and a mix of ethnic groups and tribes that were poorly connected with one another because of the rugged terrain. The center was strong enough to maintain law and order, but it was never strong enough to undermine the autonomy of the tribes.
Afghanistan was not aiming to be a modern country or a regional superpower. The economy was subsistence-level, but nobody starved. Everyone had a job, though farm labor was intermittent. There was a tiny urban middle class, but the gap between rich and poor was not that big. There was no such thing as Islamic extremism or a narco-state.
In 2002, I spent a great deal of time in Washington trying to urge the Bush administration to focus on rebuilding Afghanistan's minimalist state, which had been utterly destroyed by 30 years of war. At that time a bunch of experts in Washington, some now closely associated with Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, estimated that it would cost the international community about $5 billion a year for 10 years to re-create a basic Afghan state that could counter any threat that al-Qaeda or the Taliban might pose.
The keys were investment in agriculture, because that is where jobs lie; rebuilding the roads that used to link the major cities and border towns, so the economy could take off; and investing in an Afghan army and police force. In addition, the country needed a workable government model, modern and inclusive education and health programs, and a functioning justice system.
We all know what happened. The Bush administration left Afghanistan underresourced, underfunded and in the hands of the CIA and the warlords, and went off to fight in Iraq. When al-Qaeda and the Taliban saw that George W. Bush was not serious about Afghanistan, they found it easy to return. The insurgency began in the summer of 2003, as the Taliban reoccupied large chunks of the country, used drug money to arm its men, and improved their firepower and tactics so much that the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, recently said the situation is "serious" and "deteriorating."
Now any operation to patch together a minimalist Afghan state would cost between $10 billion and $15 billion a year and require tens of thousands more Western troops, which nobody is willing to provide. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is widely expected to request additional forces, but he's not going to get that many.
Today Washington is bickering over what constitutes success in Afghanistan, whether the Obama plan will work, how long American public opinion will hold up, how many more troops and dollars are needed and how to stop its alleged NATO allies from slipping out through the back door. Asked what success would look like, Holbrooke even quipped: "We'll know it when we see it."
Many dissenters in Washington, such as columnist George Will, insist that the Afghans are incapable of learning and unwilling to build a modern state. Others, including former British diplomat Rory Stewart, argue that Afghan society should be left alone. But the dissenters do not sufficiently acknowledge the past failures of the Bush administration that led us to this impasse. What's worse, they offer no solutions.
So what needs to be done? First, the American and European people need to be told the truth: Their governments have failed them in Afghanistan over the past eight years, and not a single aspect of rebuilding the minimalist state was undertaken until it was too late. The capital, Kabul, for example, got regular electricity only this year, despite billions of dollars in international aid. Millions of dollars for agriculture has been wasted in cockamamie schemes to grow strawberries and raise cashmere goats.
Governments also need to explain that the terrorist threat has grown and that al-Qaeda has spread its tentacles throughout Africa and Europe. And the West must admit that the Taliban has become a brand name that resonates deep into Pakistan and Central Asia and could extend into India and China. Second, the minimalist state must be rebuilt at breakneck speed. President Obama understands this. His plan for the first time emphasizes agriculture, job creation and justice; on paper, at least, it's an incisive and productive blueprint. But will he be given the time to carry it out?
The Democrats want to give him just until next year's congressional elections and then start bringing the troops home. For the first time, more than 51 percent of Americans want their men and women back from Afghanistan. The Republicans are looking for slipups, such as the apparent fraud in the presidential election last month, so they can pounce.
However, the Obama administration needs two or three years before it has any chance of success. So the president's first task is to create public and congressional support to give the plan sufficient time.
Third, the insurgency can never be defeated as long as the rebels enjoy a haven. The retreating Afghan Taliban was welcomed in Pakistan in 2001 and is still tolerated there because of a certain logic put forward by the Pakistan army that mainly involves containing India's growing power in the region and in Afghanistan in particular.
Bush never really pushed this issue, choosing to treat then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf with kid gloves. Today the Islamabad government is divided between civilians and the military, and as the civilians show themselves more inept, the army's power is once again ascendant.
In recent months the army has seemed more determined to take on the Pakistani Taliban -- since April it has lost 312 soldiers and killed some 2,000 Taliban members. Yet there is no strategic shift to take on the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan.
Despite Holbrooke's attempts to pursue a regional strategy, there is still no breakthrough with Pakistan. And India continues to act tough with Islamabad, offering the Americans little room to maneuver. There is no easy way out of this quandary except time and more international aid to Pakistan.
Last, there have to be Afghan partners on the ground to help build a minimalist state. Unfortunately, Bush ignored that too. The corruption, the growth of the drug trade and the failure to build representative institutions after partially successful elections in 2004 and 2005 were all glossed over, as Bush feted President Hamid Karzai and did not ask hard questions.
The apparent rigging of the Aug. 20 elections has plunged Afghanistan into a political and constitutional crisis for which neither America nor the United Nations has any answer. (In another sign of turmoil, the deputy intelligence chief was blown up by a suicide bomber last week, and the Taliban claimed responsibility.) But the electoral fraud was assured months ago when Karzai began to ally himself with regional warlords, drug traffickers and top officials in the provinces who were terrified of losing their jobs and their lucrative sinecures if Karzai lost. It seemed obvious to everyone except those who mattered in the West.
To emerge from this mess with even moderately credible Afghan partners will be difficult, but it has to be done. (The Americans could start by forcing Karzai to create a government that includes all leading opposition figures.) Without a partner, the United States becomes nothing but an occupying force that Afghans will resist and NATO will not want to support. Holbrooke's skills as a power broker will be sorely tested, with his past successes in the Balkans a cakewalk compared with this perilous path.
The Obama administration can come out of this quagmire if it aims low, targets the bad guys, builds a regional consensus, keeps the American public on its side and gives the Afghans what they really want -- just the chance to have a better life.
There is no alternative but for the United States to remain committed to rebuilding a minimalist state in Afghanistan. Nothing less will stop the Taliban and al-Qaeda from again using Afghanistan and now Pakistan to wreak havoc in the region and around the world.
Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who has covered Afghanistan for 30 years, is the author of "Taliban" and "Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia."
I am thankful for Ahmed Rashid’s readiness to confront the nonsense now coming from otherwise sensible "authorities." He is at least informed: Unfortunately his book "Descent into Chaos" is so long (with so many blunders to agonize over and so many issues to worry about) that the people who should read it are deterred from facing it. But the world won't change to fit our conceptions of it: We have to do our best to understand it as it is, to catch an image of it on the wing. We must pay attention to those who have labored to understand, and Rashid is as good as we have of informed observers of the crises in Central Asia. Here is his latest attempt to explain how dangerous are trends in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To stress its importance I reproduce it here in full.
In Afghanistan, Let's Keep It Simple
By Ahmed Rashid The Washington Post Sunday, September 6, 2009
For much of the 20th century before the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan was a peaceful country living in harmony with its neighbors. There was a king and a real government, which I witnessed in the 1970s when I frequently traveled there. Afghanistan had what I'll call a minimalist state, compared with the vast governmental apparatuses that colonialists left behind in British India and Soviet Central Asia.
This bare-bones structure worked well for a poor country with a small population, few natural resources and a mix of ethnic groups and tribes that were poorly connected with one another because of the rugged terrain. The center was strong enough to maintain law and order, but it was never strong enough to undermine the autonomy of the tribes.
Afghanistan was not aiming to be a modern country or a regional superpower. The economy was subsistence-level, but nobody starved. Everyone had a job, though farm labor was intermittent. There was a tiny urban middle class, but the gap between rich and poor was not that big. There was no such thing as Islamic extremism or a narco-state.
In 2002, I spent a great deal of time in Washington trying to urge the Bush administration to focus on rebuilding Afghanistan's minimalist state, which had been utterly destroyed by 30 years of war. At that time a bunch of experts in Washington, some now closely associated with Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, estimated that it would cost the international community about $5 billion a year for 10 years to re-create a basic Afghan state that could counter any threat that al-Qaeda or the Taliban might pose.
The keys were investment in agriculture, because that is where jobs lie; rebuilding the roads that used to link the major cities and border towns, so the economy could take off; and investing in an Afghan army and police force. In addition, the country needed a workable government model, modern and inclusive education and health programs, and a functioning justice system.
We all know what happened. The Bush administration left Afghanistan underresourced, underfunded and in the hands of the CIA and the warlords, and went off to fight in Iraq. When al-Qaeda and the Taliban saw that George W. Bush was not serious about Afghanistan, they found it easy to return. The insurgency began in the summer of 2003, as the Taliban reoccupied large chunks of the country, used drug money to arm its men, and improved their firepower and tactics so much that the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, recently said the situation is "serious" and "deteriorating."
Now any operation to patch together a minimalist Afghan state would cost between $10 billion and $15 billion a year and require tens of thousands more Western troops, which nobody is willing to provide. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is widely expected to request additional forces, but he's not going to get that many.
Today Washington is bickering over what constitutes success in Afghanistan, whether the Obama plan will work, how long American public opinion will hold up, how many more troops and dollars are needed and how to stop its alleged NATO allies from slipping out through the back door. Asked what success would look like, Holbrooke even quipped: "We'll know it when we see it."
Many dissenters in Washington, such as columnist George Will, insist that the Afghans are incapable of learning and unwilling to build a modern state. Others, including former British diplomat Rory Stewart, argue that Afghan society should be left alone. But the dissenters do not sufficiently acknowledge the past failures of the Bush administration that led us to this impasse. What's worse, they offer no solutions.
So what needs to be done? First, the American and European people need to be told the truth: Their governments have failed them in Afghanistan over the past eight years, and not a single aspect of rebuilding the minimalist state was undertaken until it was too late. The capital, Kabul, for example, got regular electricity only this year, despite billions of dollars in international aid. Millions of dollars for agriculture has been wasted in cockamamie schemes to grow strawberries and raise cashmere goats.
Governments also need to explain that the terrorist threat has grown and that al-Qaeda has spread its tentacles throughout Africa and Europe. And the West must admit that the Taliban has become a brand name that resonates deep into Pakistan and Central Asia and could extend into India and China. Second, the minimalist state must be rebuilt at breakneck speed. President Obama understands this. His plan for the first time emphasizes agriculture, job creation and justice; on paper, at least, it's an incisive and productive blueprint. But will he be given the time to carry it out?
The Democrats want to give him just until next year's congressional elections and then start bringing the troops home. For the first time, more than 51 percent of Americans want their men and women back from Afghanistan. The Republicans are looking for slipups, such as the apparent fraud in the presidential election last month, so they can pounce.
However, the Obama administration needs two or three years before it has any chance of success. So the president's first task is to create public and congressional support to give the plan sufficient time.
Third, the insurgency can never be defeated as long as the rebels enjoy a haven. The retreating Afghan Taliban was welcomed in Pakistan in 2001 and is still tolerated there because of a certain logic put forward by the Pakistan army that mainly involves containing India's growing power in the region and in Afghanistan in particular.
Bush never really pushed this issue, choosing to treat then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf with kid gloves. Today the Islamabad government is divided between civilians and the military, and as the civilians show themselves more inept, the army's power is once again ascendant.
In recent months the army has seemed more determined to take on the Pakistani Taliban -- since April it has lost 312 soldiers and killed some 2,000 Taliban members. Yet there is no strategic shift to take on the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda in the tribal areas that border Afghanistan.
Despite Holbrooke's attempts to pursue a regional strategy, there is still no breakthrough with Pakistan. And India continues to act tough with Islamabad, offering the Americans little room to maneuver. There is no easy way out of this quandary except time and more international aid to Pakistan.
Last, there have to be Afghan partners on the ground to help build a minimalist state. Unfortunately, Bush ignored that too. The corruption, the growth of the drug trade and the failure to build representative institutions after partially successful elections in 2004 and 2005 were all glossed over, as Bush feted President Hamid Karzai and did not ask hard questions.
The apparent rigging of the Aug. 20 elections has plunged Afghanistan into a political and constitutional crisis for which neither America nor the United Nations has any answer. (In another sign of turmoil, the deputy intelligence chief was blown up by a suicide bomber last week, and the Taliban claimed responsibility.) But the electoral fraud was assured months ago when Karzai began to ally himself with regional warlords, drug traffickers and top officials in the provinces who were terrified of losing their jobs and their lucrative sinecures if Karzai lost. It seemed obvious to everyone except those who mattered in the West.
To emerge from this mess with even moderately credible Afghan partners will be difficult, but it has to be done. (The Americans could start by forcing Karzai to create a government that includes all leading opposition figures.) Without a partner, the United States becomes nothing but an occupying force that Afghans will resist and NATO will not want to support. Holbrooke's skills as a power broker will be sorely tested, with his past successes in the Balkans a cakewalk compared with this perilous path.
The Obama administration can come out of this quagmire if it aims low, targets the bad guys, builds a regional consensus, keeps the American public on its side and gives the Afghans what they really want -- just the chance to have a better life.
There is no alternative but for the United States to remain committed to rebuilding a minimalist state in Afghanistan. Nothing less will stop the Taliban and al-Qaeda from again using Afghanistan and now Pakistan to wreak havoc in the region and around the world.
Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who has covered Afghanistan for 30 years, is the author of "Taliban" and "Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia."
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Mr "Unlucky" has gotten lucky, but what about the Afghanistan peoples?
Heidi Vogt of the AP reveals that Parwez Kambakhsh -- whose last name means "Little Luck" or "Short on luck" -- has been quietly released from prison. His offense was asking questions about Islamic teaching on the status of women. That he was released seems like good news, but the delibertae inconspicuousness of the release reveals that the Karzai administration is unready to challenge the judicial system that put him in prison. Here is more evidence of the contradictions that people in Afghanistan have to live with: the administration holds a different view but doesn't want to rock the boat with the Islamic jurists -- even those who cannot bear to have questions asked about their rulings. It is a clash of moral visions, even moral orientations, that is implicit in much of what goes on the Middle East and Central Asia. And on this level women and women's status seem to occupy central stage. Even today a woman for no apparent reason was gunned down in Kandahar. For some people women are the emblem of many issues that seem to be at stake in their contested world. I don't know the answer but it appears that that contradiction in views -- sometimes held by the same person -- is endemic. RLC
Secret pardon frees Afghan journalism student
By Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer - Mon Sep 7, 9:48 am ET
KABUL - An Afghan journalism student who was jailed for asking questions in class about women's rights under Islam has been freed after nearly two years, a media rights group said Monday.
Activists have called Parwez Kambakhsh, who was convicted of blasphemy and originally sentenced to death, a victim of an Afghan justice system that panders to religious conservatives at the expense of individual freedoms.
He was released several weeks ago after President Hamid Karzai signed a pardon in secret, according to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which talked to his lawyer.
Kambakhsh has since fled Afghanistan out of fear that he will be the target of reprisal attacks, the group said. Afghan officials said they could not confirm his release.
Kambakhsh was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for local newspapers when he was arrested in October 2007. He was 23.
Prosecutors said he showed contempt for Islam by asking questions about women's rights and for distributing an article he had taken off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on copies of the article.
The original death sentence in the Islamic state sparked an international uproar, and judges lightened the sentence to 20 years in a second trial. Rights groups sent thousands of petitions condemning the imprisonment and calling for Kambakhsh's release.
The case will be remembered as a "miscarriage of justice marked by religious intolerance, police mistreatment and incompetence on the part of certain judges," Jean-Francois Julliard, the secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.
Some said Kambakhsh's arrest may have been a reprisal aimed at his brother, who angered Afghan warlords with writings about human rights violations and politics.
Secret pardon frees Afghan journalism student
By Heidi Vogt, Associated Press Writer - Mon Sep 7, 9:48 am ET
KABUL - An Afghan journalism student who was jailed for asking questions in class about women's rights under Islam has been freed after nearly two years, a media rights group said Monday.
Activists have called Parwez Kambakhsh, who was convicted of blasphemy and originally sentenced to death, a victim of an Afghan justice system that panders to religious conservatives at the expense of individual freedoms.
He was released several weeks ago after President Hamid Karzai signed a pardon in secret, according to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, which talked to his lawyer.
Kambakhsh has since fled Afghanistan out of fear that he will be the target of reprisal attacks, the group said. Afghan officials said they could not confirm his release.
Kambakhsh was studying journalism at Balkh University in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and writing for local newspapers when he was arrested in October 2007. He was 23.
Prosecutors said he showed contempt for Islam by asking questions about women's rights and for distributing an article he had taken off the Internet that asks why Islam does not modernize to give women equal rights. He also allegedly wrote his own comments on copies of the article.
The original death sentence in the Islamic state sparked an international uproar, and judges lightened the sentence to 20 years in a second trial. Rights groups sent thousands of petitions condemning the imprisonment and calling for Kambakhsh's release.
The case will be remembered as a "miscarriage of justice marked by religious intolerance, police mistreatment and incompetence on the part of certain judges," Jean-Francois Julliard, the secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, said in a statement.
Some said Kambakhsh's arrest may have been a reprisal aimed at his brother, who angered Afghan warlords with writings about human rights violations and politics.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Taliban kill Shiite Children as a stipulated religious obligation
It is hard to visualize a world in which the whole agenda of the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be actualized. Part of it, only occasionally mentioned in the public discourse, is the stipulated anti-Shia orientation of the Taliban / Al Qaeda movement. They would, if they could, stamp out Shi'ism as a religious service. It is not merely that they cannot tolerate the American or other Western presences in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or the secular rulerships of the Middle East, or the Russians who now hold Chechnya, or the Uzbek secular government; it is also that other Muslims are intolerable. Shiites, yes, but also even other Muslims, those who have little concern about enforcing the sharia law as the Taliban/ Al Qaeda understand it. So, from here the movement appears to foster the internecine conflicts we hear about today from the Christian Science Monitor.
There is increasing talk about withdrawing from Afghanistan: What would be left behind? Can we live with that kind of world? Here is what the CSMonitor tells us has just happened. RLC
Pakistani Taliban attack Shiite children
Officials say the Sunni militants have attacked the minority sect as part of their strategy. Four children were targeted as they headed to school.
By Huma Yusuf
September 08, 2009
Taliban militants killed four schoolchildren in a remote town in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on Tuesday. Local officials say the attack has sectarian dimensions as militants – who hail from the majority Sunni sect – targeted students of the minority Shiite sect. Previously, the Taliban have singled out minority sects as part of their strategy in Pakistan.
According to Agence France-Presse, some students were on their way to school when they were ambushed by the militants. (Click here to see a map of the region from the Council on Foreign Relations.)
The students were going to school in Atmankhel town of Orakzai district when the militants opened fire, killing four boys and wounding six others, local administration official Asmatullah Khan told AFP.
"It appears to be a sectarian attack as the slain students belonged to the minority Shiite sect of Islam," he said. "The attackers were Taliban."
Residents said the dead students were all younger than 16, but were not able to give the exact ages of the victims.
Eyewitnesses report that tribesmen from Atmankhel retaliated after the attack on the school children, killing two militants and leaving several wounded, reports Dawn, an English-language Pakistani daily.
The Pakistani Taliban have attacked schools in Pakistan's northwest since 2007, the Inter Press Service reported in January. According to the Associated Press, more than 170 schools were blown up or burned down by January as part of the militant campaign. These attacks did not, however, result in casualties, as the militants usually struck the schools when they were closed.
The Taliban have targeted members of the minority Shiite sect before. In 2008, the Taliban besieged Parachinar, a Shiite enclave in Pakistan's tribal belt, reported The New York Times.
The Taliban, which have solidified control across Pakistan's tribal zone and are seeking new staging grounds to attack American soldiers in Afghanistan, have sided with fellow Sunni Muslims against an enclave of Shiites settled in Parachinar for centuries.
Writing in Newsday, James Rupert explained that the Afghan Taliban also targeted the Shiite minority in Afghanistan.
In the five years of Taliban rule over most of Afghanistan, the bitterest warfare and deadliest atrocities were those between the Taliban, drawn mainly from Afghanistan's dominant Pashtuns, and the minority Hazaras, set apart from other Afghans as followers of the Shiite branch of Islam and historically the most downtrodden of the country's ethnic groups….
The brutality of the Hazara-Taliban conflict has been rooted partly in the special antipathy that the Sunni Muslim Taliban and their Arab allies have for Muslims of the Shia sect…. "They do not regard us (Shias) as people," said Ahmed Hussain, another Bedmushkin resident.
In recent months, the Taliban have also set their sights on members of Pakistan's Sufi sect. In March, CBC News reported that the Taliban bombed the mausoleum of Sufi poet Rahman Baba on the outskirts of Peshawar, and the caretakers of Sufi shrines in Pakistan's southern Sindh Province have also been attacked.
The killing of the schoolchildren in Pakistan comes as the military is engaged in a fresh offensive against Taliban militants in Khyber Agency, a neighboring tribal region. According to the South Asian News Agency, more than 57 militants have been killed and 107 arrested by the Pakistan Army in the past week.
There is increasing talk about withdrawing from Afghanistan: What would be left behind? Can we live with that kind of world? Here is what the CSMonitor tells us has just happened. RLC
Pakistani Taliban attack Shiite children
Officials say the Sunni militants have attacked the minority sect as part of their strategy. Four children were targeted as they headed to school.
By Huma Yusuf
September 08, 2009
Taliban militants killed four schoolchildren in a remote town in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on Tuesday. Local officials say the attack has sectarian dimensions as militants – who hail from the majority Sunni sect – targeted students of the minority Shiite sect. Previously, the Taliban have singled out minority sects as part of their strategy in Pakistan.
According to Agence France-Presse, some students were on their way to school when they were ambushed by the militants. (Click here to see a map of the region from the Council on Foreign Relations.)
The students were going to school in Atmankhel town of Orakzai district when the militants opened fire, killing four boys and wounding six others, local administration official Asmatullah Khan told AFP.
"It appears to be a sectarian attack as the slain students belonged to the minority Shiite sect of Islam," he said. "The attackers were Taliban."
Residents said the dead students were all younger than 16, but were not able to give the exact ages of the victims.
Eyewitnesses report that tribesmen from Atmankhel retaliated after the attack on the school children, killing two militants and leaving several wounded, reports Dawn, an English-language Pakistani daily.
The Pakistani Taliban have attacked schools in Pakistan's northwest since 2007, the Inter Press Service reported in January. According to the Associated Press, more than 170 schools were blown up or burned down by January as part of the militant campaign. These attacks did not, however, result in casualties, as the militants usually struck the schools when they were closed.
The Taliban have targeted members of the minority Shiite sect before. In 2008, the Taliban besieged Parachinar, a Shiite enclave in Pakistan's tribal belt, reported The New York Times.
The Taliban, which have solidified control across Pakistan's tribal zone and are seeking new staging grounds to attack American soldiers in Afghanistan, have sided with fellow Sunni Muslims against an enclave of Shiites settled in Parachinar for centuries.
Writing in Newsday, James Rupert explained that the Afghan Taliban also targeted the Shiite minority in Afghanistan.
In the five years of Taliban rule over most of Afghanistan, the bitterest warfare and deadliest atrocities were those between the Taliban, drawn mainly from Afghanistan's dominant Pashtuns, and the minority Hazaras, set apart from other Afghans as followers of the Shiite branch of Islam and historically the most downtrodden of the country's ethnic groups….
The brutality of the Hazara-Taliban conflict has been rooted partly in the special antipathy that the Sunni Muslim Taliban and their Arab allies have for Muslims of the Shia sect…. "They do not regard us (Shias) as people," said Ahmed Hussain, another Bedmushkin resident.
In recent months, the Taliban have also set their sights on members of Pakistan's Sufi sect. In March, CBC News reported that the Taliban bombed the mausoleum of Sufi poet Rahman Baba on the outskirts of Peshawar, and the caretakers of Sufi shrines in Pakistan's southern Sindh Province have also been attacked.
The killing of the schoolchildren in Pakistan comes as the military is engaged in a fresh offensive against Taliban militants in Khyber Agency, a neighboring tribal region. According to the South Asian News Agency, more than 57 militants have been killed and 107 arrested by the Pakistan Army in the past week.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Baluchistan, the part of the Taliban war that is being overlooked.
Many observers of the war with the Taliban/AlQaeda in Afghanistan-Pakistan have been focused on the decay of legitimacy of the Afghanistan government and the aggressive activities of the Pakistan military against the Taliban in Swat and the tribal areas.
But developments in Baluchistan have been critical to the war inside of Afghanistan. That is, even though the Pakistani army has gone after the Taliban in the tribal areas it has been indifferent to [even supportive of?] the Taliban in Baluchistan. The reason for the different policy toward to Taliban of Baluchistan is that that group -- led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, whose headquarters has long been known to be in Quetta -- is focused on overturning the government in Kabul.
So these Taliban are useful to Pakistan. We tend to forget that Pakistan sees itself as at war with India. Afghanistan has clearly allied itself with India so that from the point of view of the Pakistani military Afghanistan is with the enemy. The Taliban of Baluchistan are assets to be protected. These are the Taliban who have direct access to the Helmand province, where the largest crops of opium are produced in Afghanistan. Observers have known for years that MM Omar has a strong position in Quetta and the American military knows that the Taliban of Baluchistan have been active in Afghanistan, but the American people have as yet missed the fact that some Taliban are Pakistan's guys -- the guys now attacking inside Afghanistan.
This is to say that the current focus on policies and developments inside Afghanistan, as if that is the theater of the war, misses the most significant feature of the contemporary situation: Pakistan is still nourishing the Taliban who oppose the government in Kabul. So Pakistan is against some of the Taliban (those in the tribal areas) and is for some other Taliban (those in Baluchistan). If we don't find a way to contain Pakistan's support for the Baluchistan Taliban there will be no resolution to the war.
To clarify the situation in Baluchistan, I point to a recent article by MEMRI. [Click on the title above for a link.] RLC
THE MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Special Dispatch - No. 2506
August 26, 2009 No. 2506
Senior Pakistani Journalist on Baluchistan Problem: 'Pakistan has Pitted Radical Taliban Against Secular and Democratic Baluchi Forces… Promot[ing] Religious Radicalization'
In an article, senior Pakistani journalist Malik Siraj Akbar analyzed the Baluchi movement for independence from Pakistan, arguing that Pakistan's state institutions are supporting the pro-Taliban groups and eliminating progressive forces in Baluchistan province.
Akbar, who is the Baluchistan bureau chief of Lahore-based Daily Times newspaper, pointed out that in its bid to crush the Baluchi independence movement, Pakistan is not only using American weapons against the Baluchis, but is also supporting non-Baluchi refugees so as to create demographic imbalance in Baluchistan.
Following are some excerpts from the article, entitled "A Home-grown Conflict:" [1]
"Baluchi Youth Have Removed the Pakistani Flag from Schools and Colleges… Punjabi Officers Refuse to Serve in Baluchistan, Fearing They Will Be Targeted" [Click on the title abover for the rest of the article] . . .
But developments in Baluchistan have been critical to the war inside of Afghanistan. That is, even though the Pakistani army has gone after the Taliban in the tribal areas it has been indifferent to [even supportive of?] the Taliban in Baluchistan. The reason for the different policy toward to Taliban of Baluchistan is that that group -- led by Mullah Muhammad Omar, whose headquarters has long been known to be in Quetta -- is focused on overturning the government in Kabul.
So these Taliban are useful to Pakistan. We tend to forget that Pakistan sees itself as at war with India. Afghanistan has clearly allied itself with India so that from the point of view of the Pakistani military Afghanistan is with the enemy. The Taliban of Baluchistan are assets to be protected. These are the Taliban who have direct access to the Helmand province, where the largest crops of opium are produced in Afghanistan. Observers have known for years that MM Omar has a strong position in Quetta and the American military knows that the Taliban of Baluchistan have been active in Afghanistan, but the American people have as yet missed the fact that some Taliban are Pakistan's guys -- the guys now attacking inside Afghanistan.
This is to say that the current focus on policies and developments inside Afghanistan, as if that is the theater of the war, misses the most significant feature of the contemporary situation: Pakistan is still nourishing the Taliban who oppose the government in Kabul. So Pakistan is against some of the Taliban (those in the tribal areas) and is for some other Taliban (those in Baluchistan). If we don't find a way to contain Pakistan's support for the Baluchistan Taliban there will be no resolution to the war.
To clarify the situation in Baluchistan, I point to a recent article by MEMRI. [Click on the title above for a link.] RLC
THE MIDDLE EAST MEDIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE
Special Dispatch - No. 2506
August 26, 2009 No. 2506
Senior Pakistani Journalist on Baluchistan Problem: 'Pakistan has Pitted Radical Taliban Against Secular and Democratic Baluchi Forces… Promot[ing] Religious Radicalization'
In an article, senior Pakistani journalist Malik Siraj Akbar analyzed the Baluchi movement for independence from Pakistan, arguing that Pakistan's state institutions are supporting the pro-Taliban groups and eliminating progressive forces in Baluchistan province.
Akbar, who is the Baluchistan bureau chief of Lahore-based Daily Times newspaper, pointed out that in its bid to crush the Baluchi independence movement, Pakistan is not only using American weapons against the Baluchis, but is also supporting non-Baluchi refugees so as to create demographic imbalance in Baluchistan.
Following are some excerpts from the article, entitled "A Home-grown Conflict:" [1]
"Baluchi Youth Have Removed the Pakistani Flag from Schools and Colleges… Punjabi Officers Refuse to Serve in Baluchistan, Fearing They Will Be Targeted" [Click on the title abover for the rest of the article] . . .
Saturday, September 05, 2009
An Indian Intelligence View of the Murderous Intrigues in the Afghanistan War
Ambassador Bhadrakumar has been aware of intelligence activities in South Asia for a long time. His assessment of the underside of the murder of Abdullah Laghmani is chilling enough to be worthy of reproducing here. And, yes, there is an even more seamy side to cold blooded murder than most of us have imagined. RLC
“Spooks spill blood in the Hindu Kush”
Asia Times By M K Bhadrakumar 09/03/2009
Like in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, the murder of Dr Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, could have been foretold. But the sheer brutality of his murder by a suicide bomber in front of a mosque in the town of Mehtarlam in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday afternoon in the holy month of Ramadan speaks of a visceral hostility not easily fathomable.
A self-styled Taliban spokesman promptly claimed responsibility. "We were looking for him for a long time, but today we succeeded." Commentators will no doubt rush to underscore that Laghmani's killing demonstrates the growing "sophistication" of Taliban operations. Indeed, Laghmani was a heavily guarded figure right in the sanctum sanctorum of the Kabul power structure. The first circle of the Afghan security establishment has been breached. High professionalism is the hallmark of the operation.
However, there are wheels within wheels. At critical junctures in the progress of the Taliban movement, an unseen hand has often summoned the assassin to clear the path or tilt the scales. The chronicle is chilling: Ayatollah Mazari, the top Shi'ite cleric of Afghanistan, (1994); Mohammad Najibullah, president of Afghanistan (1996); Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, (2001); Haji Abdul Qadir, also in the Northern Alliance, (2002). The list seems never-ending. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on ... " [1]
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been stalking Laghmani for a decade. It is rare for an intelligence agency to single out one individual as its mortal enemy and publicly warn him. The ISI had bestowed on Laghmani that rare honor more than once publicly. If one could go back and take a peep into the Northern Alliance's (NA's) intelligence apparatus during the anti-Taliban resistance in the latter half of the 1990s, one would spot Laghmani as an operative of exceptional brilliance in the shadows.
Being an ethnic Pashtun, he had keen insight into the political culture of the Taliban movement and the mindset of its patrons in the ISI, which was an invaluable asset for the NA. Pakistan got a taste of what Laghmani could do when in July 2008 he established the connection between the suicide bombers who attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul and the ISI by tracing a cellphone found in the wreckage to a facilitator in Kabul who was in direct telephone contact with a Pakistani intelligence official in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. The ISI felt the maximum heat from him in his native region of eastern Afghanistan, given the complexity of the situation there involving factors such as the traditional failure of the Taliban to strike deep roots among the Ghilzai tribes, the presence of the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani and al-Qaeda and the continuing influence of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e Islami.
In sum, Laghmani is not easily replaceable for the Tajik-dominated Afghan intelligence in Kabul on account of both his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Pashtun tribal alignments and the inner working of the Taliban and the ISI, as well as his operational skills.
The timing is significant. He has been a key ally of President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan has adopted an air of indifference to the outcome of the Afghan presidential elections, but a strong undercurrent of anxiety is palpable. Especially so, as the prospect of Karzai winning another five-year term as president is appearing. Everything now hinges on the American effort to rein in Karzai by getting the leading contenders to form some kind of a national government and to include technocrats in his cabinet. But then Karzai might well reject such a proposition. Karzai has tasted independence and may have come to like it.
To quote Ahmed Rashid, the well-informed Pakistani author who advises the Pentagon, "Karzai, of course, is showing his independence more and more from the Americans and does not want to be seen as an agent of the West in any way."
With such a curious power calculus forming in Kabul, the ISI needs to prepare for the return of Mohammed Fahim, the head of the NA intelligence - Laghmani's boss - and former defense minister, to the top echelons of Karzai's government as first vice president. That is a tough call. There is no one today in Afghanistan with Fahim's reach of experience in intelligence and military operations.
Pakistan succeeded to get the United States pressure Karzai to remove Fahim from his powerful post as defense minister and send him into political oblivion in 2005. (The US probably had its own geopolitical objectives too.) Pakistan now faces the specter of Fahim rising up, as it were, from the ashes like a phoenix, more powerful than ever. A massive media campaign has appeared against "warlord" Fahim, ever since he began figuring as Karzai's running mate. Unsurprisingly, he evokes strong partisan feelings. But to the consternation of his detractors, Karzai remains unmoved.
Now, Fahim used to be Laghmani's mentor. Indeed, the Fahim-Laghmani team would have turned the heat on the Taliban and the ISI from day one of the new Karzai presidency. Fahim, with his vast experience as an "operations man", is quite capable of carrying the fight to the ISI camp, and Laghmani would have been a "force multiplier" for him in the Pashtun regions. There was an attempt on Fahim's life already in August and Laghmani's murder is most certainly intended as a warning.
Prime facie, Pakistan ought to have nothing to fear from a Karzai presidency. Karzai has repeatedly expressed his willingness to work for a political transition that accommodates the Taliban as an Afghan group, provided it eschews violence. But in Karzai's scheme of things, the reconciliation of the Taliban should be preferably through an intra-Afghan peace process and through a loya jirga (tribal council).
And there is no guarantee that the other Afghan groups will concede any dominant role to the Taliban. Besides, the Afghan-ness of the political process might incrementally loosen the ISI's grip over the Taliban. Indeed, Laghmani with his seamless knowledge of the Taliban leadership and the Pashtun tribal alignments would have posed a constant headache to the ISI if any intra-Afghan peace process got under way.
Laghmani's murder highlights continued interference in Afghanistan. In the coming period, we may see an escalation of such interference. Pakistan, for its part, will feel tempted to exploit the differences that have cropped up between Karzai and Washington.
Pakistani commentators see the Americans "breathing down his [Karzai's] neck harder then ever". They anticipate that in the name of a crusade against public corruption and for good governance, the US will seek the exclusion of important political allies of Karzai who belonged to the Northern Alliance, such as Fahim, Karim Khalili, Mohammed Mohaqiq, Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan. Indeed, these NA stalwarts ("warlords") will stubbornly reject a Taliban-dominated power structure in Kabul.
Therefore, in the shadowy world of the spooks, the second Karzai presidency may be starting on a bloody note. From all accounts, Laghmani was a popular figure in the Afghan security establishment and he figured in Karzai's inner circle. The general expectation was that he was destined to occupy a key post in any new government under Karzai. There will be many in Kabul who may want to avenge his untimely death. [1] Quatrain 71of the The Rubaiyat by Persian poet Omar Khayyam (circa 1048-1143) reads, The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
“Spooks spill blood in the Hindu Kush”
Asia Times By M K Bhadrakumar 09/03/2009
Like in a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, the murder of Dr Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security, could have been foretold. But the sheer brutality of his murder by a suicide bomber in front of a mosque in the town of Mehtarlam in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday afternoon in the holy month of Ramadan speaks of a visceral hostility not easily fathomable.
A self-styled Taliban spokesman promptly claimed responsibility. "We were looking for him for a long time, but today we succeeded." Commentators will no doubt rush to underscore that Laghmani's killing demonstrates the growing "sophistication" of Taliban operations. Indeed, Laghmani was a heavily guarded figure right in the sanctum sanctorum of the Kabul power structure. The first circle of the Afghan security establishment has been breached. High professionalism is the hallmark of the operation.
However, there are wheels within wheels. At critical junctures in the progress of the Taliban movement, an unseen hand has often summoned the assassin to clear the path or tilt the scales. The chronicle is chilling: Ayatollah Mazari, the top Shi'ite cleric of Afghanistan, (1994); Mohammad Najibullah, president of Afghanistan (1996); Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, (2001); Haji Abdul Qadir, also in the Northern Alliance, (2002). The list seems never-ending. "The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on ... " [1]
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been stalking Laghmani for a decade. It is rare for an intelligence agency to single out one individual as its mortal enemy and publicly warn him. The ISI had bestowed on Laghmani that rare honor more than once publicly. If one could go back and take a peep into the Northern Alliance's (NA's) intelligence apparatus during the anti-Taliban resistance in the latter half of the 1990s, one would spot Laghmani as an operative of exceptional brilliance in the shadows.
Being an ethnic Pashtun, he had keen insight into the political culture of the Taliban movement and the mindset of its patrons in the ISI, which was an invaluable asset for the NA. Pakistan got a taste of what Laghmani could do when in July 2008 he established the connection between the suicide bombers who attacked the Indian Embassy in Kabul and the ISI by tracing a cellphone found in the wreckage to a facilitator in Kabul who was in direct telephone contact with a Pakistani intelligence official in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. The ISI felt the maximum heat from him in his native region of eastern Afghanistan, given the complexity of the situation there involving factors such as the traditional failure of the Taliban to strike deep roots among the Ghilzai tribes, the presence of the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani and al-Qaeda and the continuing influence of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e Islami.
In sum, Laghmani is not easily replaceable for the Tajik-dominated Afghan intelligence in Kabul on account of both his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Pashtun tribal alignments and the inner working of the Taliban and the ISI, as well as his operational skills.
The timing is significant. He has been a key ally of President Hamid Karzai. Pakistan has adopted an air of indifference to the outcome of the Afghan presidential elections, but a strong undercurrent of anxiety is palpable. Especially so, as the prospect of Karzai winning another five-year term as president is appearing. Everything now hinges on the American effort to rein in Karzai by getting the leading contenders to form some kind of a national government and to include technocrats in his cabinet. But then Karzai might well reject such a proposition. Karzai has tasted independence and may have come to like it.
To quote Ahmed Rashid, the well-informed Pakistani author who advises the Pentagon, "Karzai, of course, is showing his independence more and more from the Americans and does not want to be seen as an agent of the West in any way."
With such a curious power calculus forming in Kabul, the ISI needs to prepare for the return of Mohammed Fahim, the head of the NA intelligence - Laghmani's boss - and former defense minister, to the top echelons of Karzai's government as first vice president. That is a tough call. There is no one today in Afghanistan with Fahim's reach of experience in intelligence and military operations.
Pakistan succeeded to get the United States pressure Karzai to remove Fahim from his powerful post as defense minister and send him into political oblivion in 2005. (The US probably had its own geopolitical objectives too.) Pakistan now faces the specter of Fahim rising up, as it were, from the ashes like a phoenix, more powerful than ever. A massive media campaign has appeared against "warlord" Fahim, ever since he began figuring as Karzai's running mate. Unsurprisingly, he evokes strong partisan feelings. But to the consternation of his detractors, Karzai remains unmoved.
Now, Fahim used to be Laghmani's mentor. Indeed, the Fahim-Laghmani team would have turned the heat on the Taliban and the ISI from day one of the new Karzai presidency. Fahim, with his vast experience as an "operations man", is quite capable of carrying the fight to the ISI camp, and Laghmani would have been a "force multiplier" for him in the Pashtun regions. There was an attempt on Fahim's life already in August and Laghmani's murder is most certainly intended as a warning.
Prime facie, Pakistan ought to have nothing to fear from a Karzai presidency. Karzai has repeatedly expressed his willingness to work for a political transition that accommodates the Taliban as an Afghan group, provided it eschews violence. But in Karzai's scheme of things, the reconciliation of the Taliban should be preferably through an intra-Afghan peace process and through a loya jirga (tribal council).
And there is no guarantee that the other Afghan groups will concede any dominant role to the Taliban. Besides, the Afghan-ness of the political process might incrementally loosen the ISI's grip over the Taliban. Indeed, Laghmani with his seamless knowledge of the Taliban leadership and the Pashtun tribal alignments would have posed a constant headache to the ISI if any intra-Afghan peace process got under way.
Laghmani's murder highlights continued interference in Afghanistan. In the coming period, we may see an escalation of such interference. Pakistan, for its part, will feel tempted to exploit the differences that have cropped up between Karzai and Washington.
Pakistani commentators see the Americans "breathing down his [Karzai's] neck harder then ever". They anticipate that in the name of a crusade against public corruption and for good governance, the US will seek the exclusion of important political allies of Karzai who belonged to the Northern Alliance, such as Fahim, Karim Khalili, Mohammed Mohaqiq, Rashid Dostum and Ismail Khan. Indeed, these NA stalwarts ("warlords") will stubbornly reject a Taliban-dominated power structure in Kabul.
Therefore, in the shadowy world of the spooks, the second Karzai presidency may be starting on a bloody note. From all accounts, Laghmani was a popular figure in the Afghan security establishment and he figured in Karzai's inner circle. The general expectation was that he was destined to occupy a key post in any new government under Karzai. There will be many in Kabul who may want to avenge his untimely death. [1] Quatrain 71of the The Rubaiyat by Persian poet Omar Khayyam (circa 1048-1143) reads, The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Famine in Ethiopia, again.
Paul Rogers of the Independent reports that East Africa is facing a prospect of serious famine again. What he describes is a situation already serious -- serious enough that if it had been in Europe or North America it would be called a "world crisis." Prospects are that it will get worse. [Click on the title above for the source.] RLC
“Millions facing famine in Ethiopia as rains fail: International aid agencies fear that the levels of death and starvation last seen 24 years ago, are set to return to the Horn of Africa.” The Independent, Aug 30, 09.
The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world's pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country's worst food crisis for decades.
Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million.
Donor countries provided sustenance to 12 million Ethiopians last year, more than half of it through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). Having passed that total only eight months into this year, and with the main harvest already in doubt, aid agencies fear the worst is still to come. "We're extremely worried," said Howard Taylor, who heads the Department for International Development's office in Ethiopia. DfID has given £54m in aid to the country this year, and Britain has also contributed through the EU. "This is exactly the time when we shouldn't turn away from the people in need," he said.
"Critical water shortages" were reported in some areas by the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs last week with water-borne diseases such as acute diarrhoea spreading as communities resort to drinking from insanitary wells and ponds. Unicef said that the outbreaks are putting extra pressure on its Out-Patient Therapeutic Programme, which provides healthcare in some of the most needy areas.
In Somali, the hardest hit region with a third of the humanitarian caseload and complications caused by a low-intensity insurgency, the mortality rate for infants has risen above two per 10,000 per day according to a regional nutrition survey, which gives newborns roughly a one-third chance of dying before their fifth birthdays. While there is no clear definition, one widely used threshold for famine is four infant deaths per 10,000 per day.
Declaring a famine is a political decision. While it can galvanise public opinion and bring millions into aid programmes, it is widely seen as a political failure. President George Bush challenged his officials to avoid the word, a policy known as "No famine on my watch". Ethiopia's Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission is charged with preventing famines of the 1984-85 type, the sort that bring down governments, argued Tufts University academics Sue Lautze and Angela Raven-Roberts in a 2004 paper.
Dismissing the warning signals, Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said earlier this month that there was no danger of famine this year. And Berhanu Kebede, Ethiopia's ambassador to Britain, said at the weekend: "We are addressing the problem. Food is in the pipeline."
The main practical difference between a food crisis and a famine is whether enough aid arrives to keep the starving alive. So while the scope of the problem can be measured in the number of hungry people, the severity depends on the generosity of those in the rich world. And this year they have been miserly. Despite the promise of G8 leaders at their summit in L'Aquila, Italy, last month to provide $20bn (£12bn) to improve food security in poor countries, contributions have slumped dramatically this year as donor states have shifted priorities to supporting banks and stimulating their own economies. "The international community is not living up to its promise to the World Food Programme," Mr Kebede said.
The WFP had little trouble raising its $6bn budget last year, but in 2009 it has collected less than half of that. Its Ethiopian operation, which had $500m in 2008, is short $127m this year, equivalent to 167,000 tonnes of food. The Famine Early Warning Network forecast this month that the shortfall would reach 300,000 tonnes by December. Rations for the 6.2 million people receiving emergency food aid have, as a result, been slashed by a third from a meagre 15kg of cereals, beans and oil a month to just 10kg. Even if the shortfall were made up today, it would take three months for supplies to be loaded on to ships bound for Djibouti, then transferred to trucks for the arduous overland journey to land-locked Ethiopia.
Aid agencies are worried about the main harvest this autumn, arguing that the time for action is now, not when the food runs out in November – usually the driest month – let alone when starving children with distended bellies capture the attention of the West's television viewing public. Despite its good intentions, Bob Geldof's Live Aid came towards the end of the 1984-85 famine, which killed more than a million people. Since then, Ethiopia's population has doubled to 80 million.
Mr Zenawi's government has set up a strategic food reserve which has at times reached 500,000 tonnes – though it is currently thought to be just 200,000 tonnes – which it uses to speed up delivery. As soon as they get funds, aid agencies can borrow food from this reserve, replacing it with supplies from abroad when they arrive. Although the government could release this food without promises of replenishment, it would soon run out; after covering the WFP's 167,000 tonne shortfall, the stockpile would be barely enough to feed a million people for three months.
The underlying problem for Ethiopia is the erratic behaviour of the country's climate, or rather its regional micro-climates. Moisture-bearing clouds scudding in from the Indian Ocean can pass over the parched eastern lowlands to dump generous amounts of rain on the fertile western highlands. The famine of 1984-85, revealed by BBC reporter Michael Buerk, was actually two separate famines, one in Tigray, in the north, the other in Somali, in the south-east.
Two main rains sustain the people of Ethiopia, the belg in spring and the kiremt, which usually start in July. Both are influenced by variations in sea-surface temperature. The El Niño phenomena in the eastern Pacific usually bring droughts to Ethiopia, and America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the current El Niño will strengthen over the next six months. The belg has failed for two years running now, while the kiremt started three weeks late this summer and the amount of rainfall when they did come was below normal. Aid agencies fear that the season could end early, or, equally bad, produce delayed downpours just when farmers need dry weather for the harvest. Even if the kiremt ends on time in October, some crops may not reach maturity because of the late planting.
Ethiopia is overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture, and some 90 per cent of its crops are watered by nature rather than by man-made irrigation systems. During droughts, farmers and nomadic herders tend to sell off their assets to buy food, leaving them with nothing when the next growing season begins. It can take three to five years for pastoral tribes to rebuild their herds.
Although Ethiopia is particularly hard hit, drought has also affected neighbouring countries. Resources in Somali are under additional strain because nomadic tribesmen from Somalia and Kenya have driven unusually large numbers of cattle across the border in search of water and pasture. Estimates of the number of cattle coming into the country range from 95,000 to 200,000.
The spike in global food prices in 2008 exacerbated a worsening situation, hitting the urban poor particularly hard. While they have fallen back this year, the price for grains in the markets of Adis Ababa are still some 50 per cent higher than their average in the four years to 2007.
The Ethiopian government is acutely aware of the danger of famine, not least to itself. Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed a year after the 1973 famine and the Derg military junta led by Lt Col Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown in 1991 after a civil war driven in part by the 1984-85 famine. While most other countries with food shortages allow charities to distribute food, Ethiopia's government insists that the bulk of food aid must pass through its hands.
The irony is that the Zenawi regime has done a reasonable job of boosting food production, achieving self-sufficiency in the late 1990s. One agency described it as the "bread basket" of Africa, harvesting more grain in a good year than South Africa. The government promotes best practices and distributes fertiliser to farmers. It also has an ambitious scheme to relocate 2.2 million people to more fertile areas. But even it can't control the rains.
Many Africans blame climate change for the erratic weather patterns and resulting food shortages. Jean Ping, the chairman of the African Union, said last week in Adis Ababa: "Although Africa is least responsible for global warming, it suffers most from a problem it didn't create."
“Millions facing famine in Ethiopia as rains fail: International aid agencies fear that the levels of death and starvation last seen 24 years ago, are set to return to the Horn of Africa.” The Independent, Aug 30, 09.
The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world's pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country's worst food crisis for decades.
Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million.
Donor countries provided sustenance to 12 million Ethiopians last year, more than half of it through the UN's World Food Programme (WFP). Having passed that total only eight months into this year, and with the main harvest already in doubt, aid agencies fear the worst is still to come. "We're extremely worried," said Howard Taylor, who heads the Department for International Development's office in Ethiopia. DfID has given £54m in aid to the country this year, and Britain has also contributed through the EU. "This is exactly the time when we shouldn't turn away from the people in need," he said.
"Critical water shortages" were reported in some areas by the UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs last week with water-borne diseases such as acute diarrhoea spreading as communities resort to drinking from insanitary wells and ponds. Unicef said that the outbreaks are putting extra pressure on its Out-Patient Therapeutic Programme, which provides healthcare in some of the most needy areas.
In Somali, the hardest hit region with a third of the humanitarian caseload and complications caused by a low-intensity insurgency, the mortality rate for infants has risen above two per 10,000 per day according to a regional nutrition survey, which gives newborns roughly a one-third chance of dying before their fifth birthdays. While there is no clear definition, one widely used threshold for famine is four infant deaths per 10,000 per day.
Declaring a famine is a political decision. While it can galvanise public opinion and bring millions into aid programmes, it is widely seen as a political failure. President George Bush challenged his officials to avoid the word, a policy known as "No famine on my watch". Ethiopia's Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission is charged with preventing famines of the 1984-85 type, the sort that bring down governments, argued Tufts University academics Sue Lautze and Angela Raven-Roberts in a 2004 paper.
Dismissing the warning signals, Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said earlier this month that there was no danger of famine this year. And Berhanu Kebede, Ethiopia's ambassador to Britain, said at the weekend: "We are addressing the problem. Food is in the pipeline."
The main practical difference between a food crisis and a famine is whether enough aid arrives to keep the starving alive. So while the scope of the problem can be measured in the number of hungry people, the severity depends on the generosity of those in the rich world. And this year they have been miserly. Despite the promise of G8 leaders at their summit in L'Aquila, Italy, last month to provide $20bn (£12bn) to improve food security in poor countries, contributions have slumped dramatically this year as donor states have shifted priorities to supporting banks and stimulating their own economies. "The international community is not living up to its promise to the World Food Programme," Mr Kebede said.
The WFP had little trouble raising its $6bn budget last year, but in 2009 it has collected less than half of that. Its Ethiopian operation, which had $500m in 2008, is short $127m this year, equivalent to 167,000 tonnes of food. The Famine Early Warning Network forecast this month that the shortfall would reach 300,000 tonnes by December. Rations for the 6.2 million people receiving emergency food aid have, as a result, been slashed by a third from a meagre 15kg of cereals, beans and oil a month to just 10kg. Even if the shortfall were made up today, it would take three months for supplies to be loaded on to ships bound for Djibouti, then transferred to trucks for the arduous overland journey to land-locked Ethiopia.
Aid agencies are worried about the main harvest this autumn, arguing that the time for action is now, not when the food runs out in November – usually the driest month – let alone when starving children with distended bellies capture the attention of the West's television viewing public. Despite its good intentions, Bob Geldof's Live Aid came towards the end of the 1984-85 famine, which killed more than a million people. Since then, Ethiopia's population has doubled to 80 million.
Mr Zenawi's government has set up a strategic food reserve which has at times reached 500,000 tonnes – though it is currently thought to be just 200,000 tonnes – which it uses to speed up delivery. As soon as they get funds, aid agencies can borrow food from this reserve, replacing it with supplies from abroad when they arrive. Although the government could release this food without promises of replenishment, it would soon run out; after covering the WFP's 167,000 tonne shortfall, the stockpile would be barely enough to feed a million people for three months.
The underlying problem for Ethiopia is the erratic behaviour of the country's climate, or rather its regional micro-climates. Moisture-bearing clouds scudding in from the Indian Ocean can pass over the parched eastern lowlands to dump generous amounts of rain on the fertile western highlands. The famine of 1984-85, revealed by BBC reporter Michael Buerk, was actually two separate famines, one in Tigray, in the north, the other in Somali, in the south-east.
Two main rains sustain the people of Ethiopia, the belg in spring and the kiremt, which usually start in July. Both are influenced by variations in sea-surface temperature. The El Niño phenomena in the eastern Pacific usually bring droughts to Ethiopia, and America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts that the current El Niño will strengthen over the next six months. The belg has failed for two years running now, while the kiremt started three weeks late this summer and the amount of rainfall when they did come was below normal. Aid agencies fear that the season could end early, or, equally bad, produce delayed downpours just when farmers need dry weather for the harvest. Even if the kiremt ends on time in October, some crops may not reach maturity because of the late planting.
Ethiopia is overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture, and some 90 per cent of its crops are watered by nature rather than by man-made irrigation systems. During droughts, farmers and nomadic herders tend to sell off their assets to buy food, leaving them with nothing when the next growing season begins. It can take three to five years for pastoral tribes to rebuild their herds.
Although Ethiopia is particularly hard hit, drought has also affected neighbouring countries. Resources in Somali are under additional strain because nomadic tribesmen from Somalia and Kenya have driven unusually large numbers of cattle across the border in search of water and pasture. Estimates of the number of cattle coming into the country range from 95,000 to 200,000.
The spike in global food prices in 2008 exacerbated a worsening situation, hitting the urban poor particularly hard. While they have fallen back this year, the price for grains in the markets of Adis Ababa are still some 50 per cent higher than their average in the four years to 2007.
The Ethiopian government is acutely aware of the danger of famine, not least to itself. Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed a year after the 1973 famine and the Derg military junta led by Lt Col Mengistu Haile Mariam was overthrown in 1991 after a civil war driven in part by the 1984-85 famine. While most other countries with food shortages allow charities to distribute food, Ethiopia's government insists that the bulk of food aid must pass through its hands.
The irony is that the Zenawi regime has done a reasonable job of boosting food production, achieving self-sufficiency in the late 1990s. One agency described it as the "bread basket" of Africa, harvesting more grain in a good year than South Africa. The government promotes best practices and distributes fertiliser to farmers. It also has an ambitious scheme to relocate 2.2 million people to more fertile areas. But even it can't control the rains.
Many Africans blame climate change for the erratic weather patterns and resulting food shortages. Jean Ping, the chairman of the African Union, said last week in Adis Ababa: "Although Africa is least responsible for global warming, it suffers most from a problem it didn't create."
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Abbas Daiyar of Daily Outlook Afghanistan reports that the Uzbeks are behind the attaks in Kunduz
I had missed the report by Abbas Daiyar, reproduced on The Atlantic Community website, that the recent insurgency in Kunduz has been produced by Uzbeks connected to Al Qaeda. The Uzbek involvement in the Afghanistan/ Pakistan war displays the ambiguities of the insurgent movement in the region. The Uzbek insurgents are in a sense created by the repressive practices of Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan. Any form of dissent in that country is branded as “wahhabi Islamism” and dealt with severely. Karimov cannot bear dissent – displayed brutally by the gunning down of hundreds of people in Andijon in 2005. So only the most extreme can survive. What that means is that whoever opposes Karimov has little place to go but to extremists. And who are the dissidents they can link up with? Al Qaeda of course.
This is not to say that they are "moderate"; only that their agendas include removing Karimov, not a major interest of Al Qaeda, whose sights are actually on the Arab world, mainly Egypt and Saudi Arabia; nor of the Taliban who are animated as much by their Pushtun perspective as their conservative view of the world. Also, note that these are not the Uzbeks associated with Dostum, who have long seen themselves as part of Afghanistan. The two kinds of Uzbeks have little interest in each other. So far, we hear of no serious attempts to link up with each other.
We have already noted how complex the situation is for the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The situation for dissidents in Uzbekistan is analogous in some ways. Daiyar says that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has been drawn into the Afghanistan war by the American deal to transport materiel into Afghanistan through the northern route. The result of these developments for the government of Afghanistan and coalition of western nations supporting it, however, is that the opposition continues to be a fragmented body of dissidents who unite when they can but have little common interest in each other's agendas. So there is no single head to be lopped off in this war, but a diverse collectivity of people who for the time being agree to fight the Americans.
Daiyar's report is very helpful and may be revealing one reason for the recently announced enlarged concerns of the American military in Afghanistan. [Click on the title for a link to the Atlantic Community site.]
This is not to say that they are "moderate"; only that their agendas include removing Karimov, not a major interest of Al Qaeda, whose sights are actually on the Arab world, mainly Egypt and Saudi Arabia; nor of the Taliban who are animated as much by their Pushtun perspective as their conservative view of the world. Also, note that these are not the Uzbeks associated with Dostum, who have long seen themselves as part of Afghanistan. The two kinds of Uzbeks have little interest in each other. So far, we hear of no serious attempts to link up with each other.
We have already noted how complex the situation is for the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. The situation for dissidents in Uzbekistan is analogous in some ways. Daiyar says that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan has been drawn into the Afghanistan war by the American deal to transport materiel into Afghanistan through the northern route. The result of these developments for the government of Afghanistan and coalition of western nations supporting it, however, is that the opposition continues to be a fragmented body of dissidents who unite when they can but have little common interest in each other's agendas. So there is no single head to be lopped off in this war, but a diverse collectivity of people who for the time being agree to fight the Americans.
Daiyar's report is very helpful and may be revealing one reason for the recently announced enlarged concerns of the American military in Afghanistan. [Click on the title for a link to the Atlantic Community site.]
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Taliban: Are they close to folding or not?
The word on the Taliban is contradictory. On one had we hear that things are so bad in Afghanistan that the Americans might even give up; it's adding up to another Vietnam, they say. But then McClatchy news, one of the most independent and creative American news sources around, tells us that the Taliban in Pakistan is on the verge of caving in.
We would like to know: what is it? Is the truth simply that the Americans cannot stick it out -- again? Or is the recent activity of the Taliban a desperate attempt to hold on until the Americans leave? The venture in Afghanistan has hardly been taken seriously by the Americans for several years and now, after only a few months, even the top general is hinting that the war against the Taliban cannot be won.
In the mean time, Saeed Shah says, the Taliban, at least on the Pakistan side, is having a hard time holding out. And of course there is still the problem of Osama Bin Laden: he is still hanging out there somewhere among the Taliban after funding the most massive attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
There is a lot of unfinished business out there, much more than the capture and punishment of OBL. I fear that the American government will discover how strategic Afghanistan/ Pakistan is only after they have abandoned a serious attempt to fulfill promises repeatedly made out there. To leave without finishing the tasks at hand will be costly beyond measure to the modern world. These countries -- the Persian Gulf states, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India -- and the regions north of them and south of them (that is, the Indian Ocean) are collectively becoming a key flashpoint for vital world wide interests: they control not only 70% of the world's oil reserves and 70% of the world's gas reserves, and large amounts of uranium and other minerals critical to the 21st Century economy, but also they happen to be the locus of the most active and aggressive anti-American, anti-western militants in the world. I know there are other flash points, but this one has to be one of the most significant. I am dismayed that some of the (otherwise) most sensible and knowledgeable authorities on world affairs would countenance abandoning the Afghanistan/Pakistan war.
Anyway, McClatchy -- again -- gives us another way to think about what is going on out there. Thanks, Saeed Shah and McClatchy, for providing another useful contribution to the picture. [Click on the title above for the source page.]
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Sun, Aug. 23, 2009
Is Pakistan's Taliban movement on the way out?
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's extremist Taliban movement is badly divided over who should be its new leader, and analysts and local tribesmen say the al Qaida-linked group may be in danger of crumbling.
A wave of defections, surrenders, arrests and bloody infighting has severely weakened the movement since its founder, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed Aug. 5 in a U.S. missile strike. The announcement this weekend that Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28-year-old with a reputation as a hothead, would succeed him is likely to further widen the split.
Hakimullah has support from Taliban groups in Orakzai, where he is based, and Bajaur, both parts of the wild Pakistan tribal zone that borders Afghanistan. But the heart of the Pakistani Taliban movement lies in the Waziristan portion of the tribal area, where the warlike Mehsud and Wazir clans live and where a commander named Waliur Rehman is backed as the next chief. Rehman was very close to Baitullah Mehsud.
"There's no way that the Mehsuds and the Wazirs are going to accept Hakimullah as chief. During his lifetime, Baitullah had given every indication that when he's no more, Waliur Rehman is the next guy," said Saifullah Mahsud, an analyst at the FATA Research Centre, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "Waliur Rehman is a cool, calm, calculated guy, a very good listener... That's why the Taliban had liked Baituallah so much, he was a very cool guy, a very calm guy."
Any breakdown in the Pakistan Taliban is likely to have impact on both U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and al Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden, who is believed to have taken refuge in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Baitullah Mehsud had turned the focus of his movement from sending fighters into Afghanistan to fight U.S. and NATO forces to launching attacks within his own country. A new head of the Pakistan Taliban could reverse that, once again sending hundreds of fighters into Afghanistan. A weakened Taliban would be less able to provide protection for bin Laden.
Analysts said that the fact that Hakimullah was announced as leader in Orakzai and not in Waziristan was evidence of his weakness, suggesting that he cannot operate in the Taliban's heartland. But this could still herald fresh danger for Pakistan.
"Hakimullah is going to show his leadership by launching more suicide attacks," said Khalid Aziz, chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research and Training, an independent consultancy in Peshawar. "The (Pakistan) army has done a good job, it's broken the Taliban's system. It (the Taliban) is already factionalized. These schisms could become wider and they break up into fiefdoms."
Baitullah Mehsud had turned the Pakistan Taliban into a formidable military force in 2007 by joining together 13 disparate groups under an umbrella organization known as Tehreek-i-Taliban. Without his presence, the groups could devolve into disparate actors.
A series of setbacks last week could further debilitate the movement.
Pakistan authorities arrested the Taliban's high-profile spokesman, Maulvi Umer, in the tribal areas, while a key interlocutor between the Taliban and al Qaida, commander Saifullah, was also detained at a house in Islamabad where he was receiving medical treatment.
Separately, 60 Taliban fighters gave themselves up in the Swat valley in Pakistan's northwest. Many Taliban in Waziristan have defected since Baitullah Mehsud's death.
In a further sign of internal discord, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed Sunday that militants had killed Baitullah Mehsud's in-laws, including his father-in-law, on suspicion of giving away his location. The former Taliban leader had been staying at his father-in-law's house in Waziristan when he was killed by a missile fired from a U.S. drone.
The Taliban's vulnerabilities were showing even before Baitullah Mehsud's death.
The Pakistani army's operation against the Swat Taliban, which started in May, did not see other Taliban factions come to their aid, and the threatened response to the military offensive in terrorist attacks across the country was much less ferocious than feared.
Over the last year, and especially over the last few months, tribesmen from areas where the Taliban are present have started their own traditional militias, known as a "lashkar", to battle the extremists themselves.
"There are so many lashkars now operating against them (the Taliban) in different areas. That has changed the equation. It's not possible for the Taliban to confront the lashkars everywhere. The lashkars are really coming up very strongly," said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban.
Hakimullah is dreaded even within the Taliban ranks, with a reputation for killing first and asking questions later.
He made his name by attacking convoys of NATO supplies going through Pakistan's famous Khyber Pass on their way to troops in Afghanistan. Sporting a scraggly beard and the long hair that is typical of the Pakistani Taliban style, Hakimullah craves the limelight. In November last year, he invited local journalists to his base in Pakistan's tribal area, where he drove around in an American Humvee that his men had looted from a NATO convoy.
Hakimullah has personally called journalists to claim responsibility for extremist attacks inside Pakistan, including the assault on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team earlier this year and the bombing of a luxury hotel used by Westerners in north western city of Peshawar.
But even such a high-profile figure is something of a mystery. Pakistani intelligence agents and others asserted over the weekend that Hakimullah in fact was dead and that he was being impersonated by a relative.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
We would like to know: what is it? Is the truth simply that the Americans cannot stick it out -- again? Or is the recent activity of the Taliban a desperate attempt to hold on until the Americans leave? The venture in Afghanistan has hardly been taken seriously by the Americans for several years and now, after only a few months, even the top general is hinting that the war against the Taliban cannot be won.
In the mean time, Saeed Shah says, the Taliban, at least on the Pakistan side, is having a hard time holding out. And of course there is still the problem of Osama Bin Laden: he is still hanging out there somewhere among the Taliban after funding the most massive attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.
There is a lot of unfinished business out there, much more than the capture and punishment of OBL. I fear that the American government will discover how strategic Afghanistan/ Pakistan is only after they have abandoned a serious attempt to fulfill promises repeatedly made out there. To leave without finishing the tasks at hand will be costly beyond measure to the modern world. These countries -- the Persian Gulf states, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India -- and the regions north of them and south of them (that is, the Indian Ocean) are collectively becoming a key flashpoint for vital world wide interests: they control not only 70% of the world's oil reserves and 70% of the world's gas reserves, and large amounts of uranium and other minerals critical to the 21st Century economy, but also they happen to be the locus of the most active and aggressive anti-American, anti-western militants in the world. I know there are other flash points, but this one has to be one of the most significant. I am dismayed that some of the (otherwise) most sensible and knowledgeable authorities on world affairs would countenance abandoning the Afghanistan/Pakistan war.
Anyway, McClatchy -- again -- gives us another way to think about what is going on out there. Thanks, Saeed Shah and McClatchy, for providing another useful contribution to the picture. [Click on the title above for the source page.]
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Sun, Aug. 23, 2009
Is Pakistan's Taliban movement on the way out?
Saeed Shah | McClatchy Newspapers
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan's extremist Taliban movement is badly divided over who should be its new leader, and analysts and local tribesmen say the al Qaida-linked group may be in danger of crumbling.
A wave of defections, surrenders, arrests and bloody infighting has severely weakened the movement since its founder, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed Aug. 5 in a U.S. missile strike. The announcement this weekend that Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28-year-old with a reputation as a hothead, would succeed him is likely to further widen the split.
Hakimullah has support from Taliban groups in Orakzai, where he is based, and Bajaur, both parts of the wild Pakistan tribal zone that borders Afghanistan. But the heart of the Pakistani Taliban movement lies in the Waziristan portion of the tribal area, where the warlike Mehsud and Wazir clans live and where a commander named Waliur Rehman is backed as the next chief. Rehman was very close to Baitullah Mehsud.
"There's no way that the Mehsuds and the Wazirs are going to accept Hakimullah as chief. During his lifetime, Baitullah had given every indication that when he's no more, Waliur Rehman is the next guy," said Saifullah Mahsud, an analyst at the FATA Research Centre, an independent think tank in Islamabad. "Waliur Rehman is a cool, calm, calculated guy, a very good listener... That's why the Taliban had liked Baituallah so much, he was a very cool guy, a very calm guy."
Any breakdown in the Pakistan Taliban is likely to have impact on both U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and al Qaida and its leader Osama bin Laden, who is believed to have taken refuge in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Baitullah Mehsud had turned the focus of his movement from sending fighters into Afghanistan to fight U.S. and NATO forces to launching attacks within his own country. A new head of the Pakistan Taliban could reverse that, once again sending hundreds of fighters into Afghanistan. A weakened Taliban would be less able to provide protection for bin Laden.
Analysts said that the fact that Hakimullah was announced as leader in Orakzai and not in Waziristan was evidence of his weakness, suggesting that he cannot operate in the Taliban's heartland. But this could still herald fresh danger for Pakistan.
"Hakimullah is going to show his leadership by launching more suicide attacks," said Khalid Aziz, chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research and Training, an independent consultancy in Peshawar. "The (Pakistan) army has done a good job, it's broken the Taliban's system. It (the Taliban) is already factionalized. These schisms could become wider and they break up into fiefdoms."
Baitullah Mehsud had turned the Pakistan Taliban into a formidable military force in 2007 by joining together 13 disparate groups under an umbrella organization known as Tehreek-i-Taliban. Without his presence, the groups could devolve into disparate actors.
A series of setbacks last week could further debilitate the movement.
Pakistan authorities arrested the Taliban's high-profile spokesman, Maulvi Umer, in the tribal areas, while a key interlocutor between the Taliban and al Qaida, commander Saifullah, was also detained at a house in Islamabad where he was receiving medical treatment.
Separately, 60 Taliban fighters gave themselves up in the Swat valley in Pakistan's northwest. Many Taliban in Waziristan have defected since Baitullah Mehsud's death.
In a further sign of internal discord, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed Sunday that militants had killed Baitullah Mehsud's in-laws, including his father-in-law, on suspicion of giving away his location. The former Taliban leader had been staying at his father-in-law's house in Waziristan when he was killed by a missile fired from a U.S. drone.
The Taliban's vulnerabilities were showing even before Baitullah Mehsud's death.
The Pakistani army's operation against the Swat Taliban, which started in May, did not see other Taliban factions come to their aid, and the threatened response to the military offensive in terrorist attacks across the country was much less ferocious than feared.
Over the last year, and especially over the last few months, tribesmen from areas where the Taliban are present have started their own traditional militias, known as a "lashkar", to battle the extremists themselves.
"There are so many lashkars now operating against them (the Taliban) in different areas. That has changed the equation. It's not possible for the Taliban to confront the lashkars everywhere. The lashkars are really coming up very strongly," said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a veteran Pakistani journalist and expert on the Taliban.
Hakimullah is dreaded even within the Taliban ranks, with a reputation for killing first and asking questions later.
He made his name by attacking convoys of NATO supplies going through Pakistan's famous Khyber Pass on their way to troops in Afghanistan. Sporting a scraggly beard and the long hair that is typical of the Pakistani Taliban style, Hakimullah craves the limelight. In November last year, he invited local journalists to his base in Pakistan's tribal area, where he drove around in an American Humvee that his men had looted from a NATO convoy.
Hakimullah has personally called journalists to claim responsibility for extremist attacks inside Pakistan, including the assault on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team earlier this year and the bombing of a luxury hotel used by Westerners in north western city of Peshawar.
But even such a high-profile figure is something of a mystery. Pakistani intelligence agents and others asserted over the weekend that Hakimullah in fact was dead and that he was being impersonated by a relative.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent.)
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