Senseless slaughter and anti-western hysteria are all America and Britain’s billions have paid for in a counterproductive war.
Simon Jenkins
If good intentions ever paved a road to hell, they are doing so in Afghanistan. History rarely declares when folly turns to disaster, but it does so now. Barack Obama and his amanuensis, Gordon Brown, are uncannily repeating the route taken by American leaders in Vietnam from 1963 to 1975. Galbraith once said that the best thing about the Great Depression was that it warned against another. Does the same apply to Vietnam?
So far the principle result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the events of 9-11 has been the destabilization of Pakistan. That breakdown is peaking with the events in what AP calls the “Swat town” of Mingora—actually a city of 375,000 from which all but 20,000 have fled as government forces moved in, strafing it with gunships. We’re talking urban guerrilla warfare, house-to-house fighting, not on the Afghan border but 50 miles away in the Swat Valley. We’re talking about Pakistani troops fighting to reclaim the nearby Malam Jabba ski resort from the Tehreek-e-Taliban, who since last year have been using it as a training center and logistics base. We’re talking about two million people fleeing the fighting in the valley and 160,000 in government refugee camps.
Just saw this image published at a cricketing website with the caption:
‘Homeless children play cricket after being displaced by the Taliban, Swabi, Pakistan.’
I say, while in Pakistan, they are not homeless.They are displaced from warm holdings of a house to harsh surroundings. Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs). They are not homeless because Pakistan is their home. And ours.
President Obama is also ratcheting up the rhetoric and activity in Pakistan. There’s a significant increase in ground forces, Predator drones and air attacks. In his announcement on March 27th, President Obama referred to the border region of Afghanistan/Pakistan as, “the most dangerous place in the world….This is not simply an American problem – far from it. It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan. The safety of people around the world is at stake.
President Obama and his advisors should learn from history, some ancient some modern, and not repeat it. This is a region of the world that has never been defeated militarily. It is where empires go to die. The Greeks, Indians, Persians, Mongolians, British, and Russians have tried to hold Afghanistan but never succeeded.
Apocalypse Now. Run for cover. The turbans are coming. This is the state of Pakistan today, according to the current hysteria disseminated by the Barack Obama administration and United States corporate media – from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to The New York Times. Even British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said on the record that Pakistani Talibanistan is a threat to the security of Britain.
But unlike St Petersburg in 1917 or Tehran in late 1978, Islamabad won’t fall tomorrow to a turban revolution.
Pakistan is not an ungovernable Somalia. The numbers tell the story. At least 55% of Pakistan’s 170 million-strong population are Punjabis. There’s no evidence they are about to embrace Talibanistan; they are essentially Shi’ites, Sufis or a mix of both. Around 50 million are Sindhis – faithful followers of the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, now President Asif Ali Zardari’s centrist and overwhelmingly secular Pakistan People’s Party. Talibanistan fanatics in these two provinces – amounting to 85% of Pakistan’s population, with a heavy concentration of the urban middle class – are an infinitesimal minority.
The Pakistan-based Taliban – subdivided in roughly three major groups, amounting to less than 10,000 fighters with no air force, no Predator drones, no tanks and no heavily weaponized vehicles – are concentrated in the Pashtun tribal areas, in some districts of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), and some very localized, small parts of Punjab.
To believe this rag-tag band could rout the well-equipped, very professional 550,000-strong Pakistani army, the sixth-largest military in the world, which has already met the Indian colossus in battle, is a ludicrous proposition.
Afghanistan was not militarily winnable by the British Empire at the height of its supremacy. It was not winnable by Darius or Alexander, by Shah, Tsar or Great Moghul. It could not be subdued by 240,000 Soviet troops. But what, precisely, are we trying to win?
In six years, the occupation has wrought one massive transformation in Afghanistan, a development so huge that it has increased Afghan GDP by 66 per cent and constitutes 40 per cent of the entire economy. That is a startling achievement, by any standards. Yet we are not trumpeting it. Why not?
The answer is this. The achievement is the highest harvests of opium the world has ever seen.
What the Administration must absolutely resist is the temptation of more ambitious goals in Afghanistan, like rooting out the entire Taliban or fostering Western-style democracy. We must never forget that it was al-Qaeda who attacked us and not the Taliban, which is not an international terrorist group. If we make the all-too-common mistake of reducing the Taliban to al-Qaeda, it becomes an open-ended and endless war.
Pakistani television commentators and anchors are acting like a herd of sheep.
Half a million Pakistanis are homeless. Our media calls them “Internally Displaced Persons” [IDPs] or “tribal refugees”, as if they are some ‘thing’ and not our fellow citizens.
We Pakistanis must not let the U.S. and British media numb us into using such terms about our own people. The mistakes of the American and British occupation commanders and soldiers in Afghanistan have led to tragedies in our entire western region. If you can, telephone and email these newspapers and TV anchors. Tell them that you are offended as a Pakistani when they call the Pakistanis in our tribal belt as ‘IDPs’ or ‘Pashtun refugees’. Tell them they must be called ‘Pakistanis in our tribal belt.’
Let’s not compromise on showing compassion to those Pakistanis whose lives have been destroyed because of America’s cruel and unjust war. | Ahmed Quraishi’s Lounge
The “strategic reviewers” of United States President Barack Obama’s “good war” in Afghanistan are almost finished. Even before the new policy is set in stone – in Badakshan’s famed lapis lazuli, maybe? – by Obama himself within the next few days (with sensitive covert aspects of course withheld from public opinion), its contours are raising many an eyebrow.
The new mix will likely feature an ongoing wild goose chase for “good Taliban”; an expanded Central Intelligence Agency-operated drone war (a George W Bush policy decision); assorted CIA and special forces cross-border attacks (also a Bush policy decision); more carrots for the Pentagon-friendly Pakistani army (and Inter-Services Intelligence); more US troops in Afghanistan (starting with the announced 17,000 who will hit Helmand province before summer); and more training for the Afghan army.
A man working at the football stadium reminisced fondly about the old days when executions happened on the pitch. If capital punishment was still common, he said, the new government wouldn’t be so crooked. This was something I would hear repeatedly, until eventually it was said by Afghans across the country. The police were the worst offenders, looking for bribes at every opportunity to supplement their low wages. Another Kandahari had joined the Taliban as a teenager in the 1990s. “At that time we were very happy,” he said. “It was like we were very poor and had suddenly found a lot of money.” Talibs are good people and they can never be beaten, he continued. Now they have no choice but to fight because otherwise the Americans will send them to Guantanamo Bay. Most importantly for the future, he revealed that a number of local religious clerics had just declared a jihad.
A correspondent looks back at the deterioration across the country over the past four years: the resurgence of both the Taliban and the old corrupt elites, the failure of the occupation forces, and the worsening conditions of life for everybody else.
Time for Pakistan to quickly mend fences with the Taliban
Earlier, there was talk of 30,000, bringing the U.S. total to 63,000. Now, there are reports Obama may commit no more than the three brigades promised in 2008, and only one brigade now.
Clearly, the United States is checking its hole card. Can we draw to a winning hand? Or is this hand an inevitable loser — and we must cut our losses and cede the pot? No longer, anywhere, is there talk of “victory.”
The war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan will be lost by the end of the summer without dramatic changes in counter-insurgency strategy, according to a leading US military expert.
The assessment of Col John Nagl, who is consulting the US government as it conducts four separate policy reviews on Afghanistan, comes amid fears that unless the insurgents’ advance is halted, Afghanistan will become the new president’s Vietnam.
The dirty plans of the Americans and their allies are beginning to stink in Pakistan. The PPP has just released A. Q. Khan after what seems to be a secret deal between the scientist and President Zardari. The Americans have war-gamed an amphibious landing on the Makran coast and then cut a route to Afghanistan. They need Gwadar to secure their supply line and the only problem in their way is the Pakistani military. Meanwhile, the wily Indians are waiting for the U.S. surge on Pakistan’s western border before they make their move from the east.
There is no doubt left that we are fast approaching a point where some form of military intervention will become a necessity, in a way that is diametrically different from the past. We, the civilians, will need to borrow the organizational capabilities of the Pakistani military to help civilians in power reshape the Pakistani state domestically and in terms of foreign policy.
“Those whose faith only increased when people said, ‘Fear your enemy: they have amassed a great army against you,’ and who replied, ‘Allah is enough for us: He is the best protector.” Al-Imran, 3:173
Introduction
Pakistan since its inception has faced one crisis after another. It has continued to stumble from one problem to another due to never having a leadership with the capability or the will to tackle Pakistan’s problems head on. Today, Pakistan faces a situation which is unprecedented in its history. From some perspectives Pakistan’s inability to deal holistically with its problems has compounded its current woes. US plans for Pakistan are fast reaching boiling point, with the Mumbai attacks accelerating attempts by the US to weaken Pakistan.
What should be clear is that Pakistan is in no position to shape the geopolitics taking place in front of its very eyes. India is playing a very prominent role with the US in order to shape what happens to Pakistan. Both India and the US have successfully created international public opinion against Pakistan for having so called ‘rogue elements’ within its security services that say are a menace to the world due to their support for Jihadi groups. Such claims are eerily similar to the case the US built against Iraq and should confirm to every Muslim that we are in the early phase of the world gathering against another Muslim nation. The question remains that is Pakistan fast descending into the next Iraq? This paper attempts to analyse US historical interests in south Asia, the problem Pakistan represents for the US and what options remain open for Pakistan.
The dirty plans of the Americans and their allies are beginning to stink in Pakistan. The PPP has just released A. Q. Khan after what seems to be a secret deal between the scientist and President Zardari. The Americans have war-gamed an amphibious landing on the Makran coast and then cut a route to Afghanistan. They need Gwadar to secure their supply line and the only problem in their way is the Pakistani military. Meanwhile, the wily Indians are waiting for the U.S. surge on Pakistan’s western border before they make their move from the east.
