Af-Pak -> Pak-Af Watch

[ramana]

How about doing some research on the Haqqanis and their antecedents?

triibal affiliation, interviews, worldview and chronology.

[Prem]

Poakland has to wait 72 years before they get to try to cheat Afghans again.

Petraeus: Here’s My Afghan Redeployment Strategy

KABUL, Afghanistan – General David Petraeus isn’t planning to wake up one morning after July 2011 and order his troops out of Afghanistan’s provinces all at once. Instead, his idea is to slowly and deliberately remove small units, district by district, in an intricate process he describes as “thinning out.”“You can reduce your forces. But you thin out,” Petraeus tells Danger Room in an interview from his professorial Kabul office. “You don’t just hand over. The whole unit doesn’t leave.”
At least not in the early stages after the Obama administration’s announced date to start a withdrawal. And some of those troops won’t come home right away: They’ll be “reinvested” at first in parts of the country where security remains dicey.For months, Petraeus has been questioned about how quickly the U.S. will remove its troops from Afghanistan after July 2011. He’s heard lawmakers and pundits parse everything he says for the tiniest iota’s worth of difference with President Obama. It’s “premature” to speculate what will happen eleven months from now, Petraeus says. Once again, he declares support for the Obama policy of beginning a “conditions-based” drawdown next summer.But for perhaps the first time, Petraeus opens up, just a bit, about his thinking for how to send troops home, and in what size.A few combat brigades of between 3,000 and 5,000 troops, like those Obama ordered to Afghanistan last winter, may indeed come back to America. But he is maintaining the mantra that withdrawals next year, beyond the 30,000 surge troops, will depend on how the security picture looks. Petraeus says the recommendations will come from “those who know it best” — his subordinate commanders.
Much as Obama will consider Petraeus’ advice, Petraeus will consider theirs. They will assess how much sense it makes to move troops out of certain areas; whether there is still more to achieve in battle; whether Afghan troops and police are ready to hold terrain cleared by Americans.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08 ... z0x02iWBKh

[Sanjay M]

And how will Haqqanis give up their Middle Eastern fund-raisers thru Wahhabi supporters?

Furthermore, if Haqqanis were to miraculously join the Royalists - in total defiance of AlQaeda and all the jihadis everywhere - then what insurance do they have against being cut adrift by the Durranis later on?

Consider - how will AlQaeda react to all of this? Will they just take it lying down? Of course not.

[abhishek_sharma]

Afghan, Tajik and Pakistani Leaders Meet in Russia

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world ... ussia.html

[shyamd]

^^ Where will AQ run to if Haqqani's shun AQ gang? Who else is receptive in the area for AQ? Isnt that what the US is trying to get at? Just make it tougher for AQ to operate by getting Haqqani's on their side. Doubt Haqqani's will drop support for AQ as they are "onlee good mussalmans and Pisss loving onlee".

[Sanjay M]

Karzai on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour:

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/we ... 465&page=1

Note that he conspicuously refuses to blame Pakistan for terrorism.

[ramana]

The sub-surface tussle in Af-PAk is the Ghilzais are reasserting themselves after the Abdali/Durrani centuries. And the historic reality is Ghilzais are drawn to Dilli while the Durranis are drawn to Fars. Am wondering if the solution is two Pashtun states. Ghilzai dominated Khyber-Pashtunwa and Afghanistan with the Durrani Pashtuns?

[abhishek_sharma]

Another realistic view of Afghanistan

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/201 ... fghanistan

Layne reminds us that 1) the "surge" in Iraq (the approach now being adapted to Afghanistan) didn't work, 2) the current emphasis on counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare misdiagnoses the origins of our troubles in the Middle East and Central Asia, and 3) our current fascination with COIN "sets exactly the wrong strategic priorities for the United States."

[ramana]

Nightwatch, 8/24/2010...

India-Afghanistan: Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on 24 August in New Delhi, regional press reported.


During the meeting, Rassoul updated Singh on peace efforts in Afghanistan. Singh expressed concerns about plans to reconcile with the Taliban, saying only those Taliban who renounce violence, sever ties with jihadism and accept the Afghan constitution should be accommodated. Singh also said India is against external influence in Afghan affairs.

Rassoul is to meet Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna on 25 August.

Comment: This week unidentified Pakistani officials told media outlets that they deliberately scuttled peace talks between the Afghan government and a faction of Taliban because the Pakistanis did not want the Indian-backed Karzai government to consolidate power. Afghanistan's cordial relations with India is a continuing provocation to some Pakistani strategic theorists who judge that support for the Taliban best serves Pakistan's long term interests in the confrontation with India.

Rassoul's visit, thus, is significant because it shows that the leaders of Afghanistan and India consider their cooperation in "boxing" Pakistan is essential to achieving their primary strategic objective of stability in South Asia.

Pakistani strategists will consider the Rassoul visit a flagrant and direct provocation that takes advantage of Pakistan's travail in coping with epic floods.

{I think there is some orchestration of TSP from old hands like Nightwatch! Stability in South Asia is against TSP interests! }

Afghanistan: Today Al Jazirah published what purports to be an eyewitness interview with one of its own correspondents in Afghanistan about the situation in Helmand Province. The correspondent said the momentum has tilted in favor of the Taliban, who, he said, now control 70% of Helmand Province.

The correspondent reasoned that the Taliban in Kandahar Province left to avoid the coming US offensive and returned to recapture most of Helmand Province.

Comment: This item was inaccurate, deliberately biased, plus it was data and source free commentary. The main problem is that the correspondent did not bother to mention nor check the status of the US Marine force in Helmand, which is a powerful deterrent.

He also did not go to Helmand and did not research the tribal animosities between tribes from Helmand and Kandahar that impeach his compelling narrative.

Regardless, the al Jazirah version of Afghanistan is the version the Arab world hears.

Special comment. Old hands recognize that contradictory statements about policy by putative leaders of a target state indicate policy confusion, disarray and stalemate.


Since Saturday, no less than four American senior generals have contradicted in public the US President's policy for withdrawing US soldiers from Afghanistan next July. They also have contradicted Secretary Gates. Two US Marine Corps generals have been the most honest and outspoken about the military consequences of withdrawing US troops next summer. Quoting a fellow commander's assessment, one Marine General said: "We can either lose fast or win slow."

The problem with the statements is their impact on the Taliban. Blogs already have begun opining about the generals who are disagreeing with the US President. The Taliban interpret the statements of the generals as proof that the fight has tilted in their direction.

What appears to be an initiative to deny the Taliban the certainty that US troops will begin to withdraw next summer is producing certainty that senior US generals in charge of Afghanistan are contradicting their Commander-in-chief, despite stern orders from the Secretary of Defense to halt discussing policy in the public domain.

Secretary Gates prescribed the proper channels for policy debate after firing General McChrystal. Other generals appear to be ignoring Gates' directive and backtracking on the advice they gave the Commander-in-Chief last December that July 2011 was a realistic target for withdrawal.

Expect more transfers or retirements.

[svinayak]

Rassoul's visit, thus, is significant because it shows that the leaders of Afghanistan and India consider their cooperation in "boxing" Pakistan is essential to achieving their primary strategic objective of stability in South Asia.

Pakistani strategists will consider the Rassoul visit a flagrant and direct provocation that takes advantage of Pakistan's travail in coping with epic floods.

{I think there is some orchestration of TSP from old hands like Nightwatch! Stability in South Asia is against TSP interests! }

They want stability in the western border of Pakistan.
They want "strategic instability" in the eastern border so that they can get their geo political objectives

[Johann]

I gave a small private talk on the role of the ideological divisions within both the jihadi tanzims and PA, and their relationship with the developments within the Af-Pak theatre over the last decade. This was of course before the flood - the impact on Pakjab in particular, and on the PA bear serious thinking about

Introduction:
Almost all of the Pakistani jihadi tanzeems nurtured by the Pakistani state were primarily Islamic-Nationalist in orientation, assenting in ideological as well as practical terms to the primacy Pakistani national interest, and to the Pakistani Army.

The American response to 9/11 in the region has produced a progressive realignment which has turned most of the Deobandi and some of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) movements from Islamic-Nationalist groups that once deferred to the Pakistani Army (PA) in to Pan-Islamist groups that in many cases defer to foreign jihadis.

This may well be the most catastrophic strategic reversal the Pakistani security establishment has faced in three decades, and it has driven by the PA’s financial and technological dependence on the United States and its allies. As long as the PA joins the United States on the front lines of its fierce war against the Global Jihad, it must face the desperate and outraged response to this betrayal from its former jihadist allies.

Pakistan has created this quagmire, drawn the US in to it, chained itself to America and now finds itself sinking in to the abyss at a rate that is beyond its control. Pakistan's best choices are simple; either uncouple itself from the US, and/or pull plug and drain the swamp. Yet history suggests that the Pakistani establishment will not take either of these choices any time soon.

Musharraf’s Role:
Gen. Musharraf’s decision after 9/11 to facilitate the US overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, rendition of Al-Qaeda suspects to Guantanamo, deploy the PA in the Tribal Agencies and dial back rhetorical and publicly visible support for the jihad in Kashmir were all regarded by the Global jihad and many of its sympathisers among Pakistani Islamic nationalists as an unforgivable betrayal of both long-term Pakistani allies and the Muslim ummah as a whole.

Pakistani groups, especially Deobandis were not reacting solely out of a sense of Pan-Islamic solidarity – they had suffered significant casualties of their own in the American bombing of training camps in Eastern Afghanistan in 2001, and many had fighters captured and dispatched to prisons in Bagram, Guantanamo and Pul-e-Chakri, thanks to Musharraf’s strategic U-turn. Their losses have only mounted under Pakistani-approved American Predator strikes and US-requested PA offensives in to FATA.

Despite Musharraf’s continued, and in some cases enhanced backing of ‘reliable elements’ along the jihadi and Islamist spectrum against domestic (e.g. the PPP, PML-N, ANP, Baloch movement, etc) and foreign (Western and Indian targets in Afghanistan, India as a whole) targets, a number of largely Deobandi Pakistani elements joined with Arab and Central Asian jihadis to plot his assassination. As Musharraf himself made clear in his televised speeches jihad was a means to an end, the end being what he regarded as the Pakistani national interest. For the Global Jihad this was a question of life and death, preferably Musharraf’s.

Gen. Musharraf’s subsequent crackdown following these attempts culminated in the bloody Lal Masjid Siege of July 2007. Musharraf’s willingness to directly shed Islamist blood in combination with his deepening collaboration with the US (particularly CIA drone attacks in FATA) led to a wholesale shift in the loyalties of the larger jihadi community away from the PA and the Pakistani State towards global jihad.

The most violent manifestation has been the growth of the (Pakistani) Pashtun and Punjabi Taliban, and their lethal campaign of suicide bombing against the Pakistani security services. The turning point for the local, Deobandi elements was the “Chenagai Airstrike” of October 2006 on a madrasa in Bajaur Agency which killed at least 70-80 and saw the birth of a retaliatory policy which returned every American drone strike with a suicide bombing against Pakistani military, paramilitary and police targets.

However opportunistic and personally self-serving Musharraf’s decisions might have seemed at the time, it appears that the PA as an institution has remained in fundamental agreement with his assessments. Despite the steep costs the PA has not substantially altered its Af-Pak policies since Musharraf's departure in September 2008, and the violence of the conflict between the Army-driven definition of Pakistani national interest and the Global Jihad continues to intensify as the United States turns the screws ever tighter.

Islamic Nationalism and Global Jihad in Pakistani Tanzims:
The Pakistan Army has relied on Islamic Nationalist Tanzims starting with the JI during the Bangladeshi uprising to counter the persistent problem of sub-nationalism and separatism. Deobandi groups were for example were strong in Pashtun areas were encouraged and provided Gulf funding in order to combat first Kabul's irredentist Afghan nationalism in the 1970s, and then its revolutionary communism in the 1980s.

Gen. Zia-ul-Haq’s military dictatorship (1977-1988) oversaw the state’s match-making in the marriage between non-state Pakistani Islamic nationalists and Pan-Islamist jihadis from the Arab world and beyond. It was in fact the streak of Pan-Islamist jihad that made the JI and Deobandi movement so very attractive, and so very necessary to the ISI in the first place. The ideal combination was Pan-Islamist Afghan Deobandis and Indian Jamaatis deferring to Pakistani Nationalist-Islamist Deobandi and Jamaati groups, which in turn deferred to the Pakistan Army and establishment.

Although these groups had a decade and a half long history of close collaboration and support from the ISI and military establishment the militant Deobandi movement was not fully reconciled to either Islamic nationalism, or to the Pakistan Army’s self-aggrandising moral and political authority. Many elements of Global Jihad’s ideology were deeply attractive at the grassroots level of the movement. In the case of Karachi and southern Punjab, the sectarian LeJ and SSP were already in conflict with the local establishment and the state over sectarian violence (which has strong urban-rural and class warfare roots), while FATA was only partially integrated at the political level with Pakistan leaving much of the tribal population with only a limited sense of loyalty to the nation-state.

It is pertinent to ask what the depth of ideological commitment to Islamic Nationalism in any of these groups were, or simply found if they found it convenient to adopt superficially nationalist stances in order to facilitate relationships with the Pakistani state and the general public. Certainly what has happened in the process of radicalisation is that those within the Deobandi and JI movement associated with the state, i.e. through electoral politics, or positions of privilege have been ignored and even targeted with violence by the on-rush of the radical Global Jihad current.

The Pakistani arms of the Global Jihad for their part seems to have no desire for a return to the good old days, perhaps because they are often led by a new generation of militants from far less privileged backgrounds who lack those cosy old relationships with power, but also because they have found that any relationship with a fickle Islamabad under growing American pressure exposes them to penetration and lethal betrayal. The Punjabi Taliban’s abduction of semi-retired ISI jihadi-liaison legends Squadron Leader Khalid Khwaja and Colonel Imam, and its execution of Khalid Khwaja on charges of double-dealing for the CIA indicate the depth of the breach. Their defiance and anti-Americanism is however attracting young men from the ruling classes, including those whose fathers and uncles are serving as officers in the Pakistan Army.

There are groups such as the LeT, the Hekmatyar Group, the Haqqani Network and Quetta Shura faction of the Taliban which have remained strategically aligned with the PA/ISI through this period of turbulence while also collaborating with groups committed the Global Jihad. However there are some indications that the PA’s relationship with the Quetta Shura is growing strained under the effects of the current situation, particularly growing US pressure, and the PA’s attempts to control the Quetta Shura’s interactions with the outside world.

Global Jihad’s Strategy in Pakistan
Al-Qaeda has welcomed and in fact sought to accelerate this polarisation of the Pakistani jihadi community and its gradual shift from what was effectively Islamic Nationalism towards Global Jihad. Al-Qaeda hopes that at the very least the PA will seek to slow the pace of this shift by reducing cooperation with the United States. To this end it is keen on broadening the conflict to new theatres – from FATA to NWFP to Karachi and Punjab to increase strategic pressure on the PA and Pakistani political leadership.

Attacks are intended to
- tie down Pakistani troops and resources that might be used in offensive operations
- threaten NATO’s supply lines to Afghanistan
- bring Pakistani public pressure to bear on the state's alliance with the US
- threaten the viability of the Pakistani economy

In the short term their goal is to deter the Pakistani state from acting more aggressively against it, but in the longer term its goal is to bring about a strategic recalculation on the Pakistani state’s part

Attacks use existing conflicts as force-multipliers to enhance the pressures on the GoP and PA. These include;
- Sectarian conflicts
- ethnic conflicts
- Class conflicts
- international conflicts (with India, Afghanistan, and the US)

Pushing all of these buttons simultaneously are likely to severely strain the Pakistani state’s coping capacity, further eroding its status and its reach.

Global Jihad in the Punjab:
The Global Jihad’s approach has steadily chipped away at the PA’s legitimacy and their effective control on the ground in Pakistan. However in the Punjab the Deobandi movement has taken the lead from the more politically astute IJT. Their strategy’s critical weakness is the one that is common to most movements that have tapped the Salafi Jihadi approach, and that is the employment of Takfir against Sunni Muslims.

The Punjabi Taliban’s enthusiastic embrace of mass-murder in its sectarian war has expanded beyond minorities like the Shia, Ahmadiyas and Christians, and moved to the majority Barelvis whose incorporation of Sufi folk Islam enjoy deep roots in local Muslim culture, and has also shown scant regard for enormous ‘collateral damage’ in attacks on political and military targets.

The Takfiri approach of condemning the majority of Sunni Muslims as infidels fatally undermined Salafi Jihadis in Algeria, Iraq and Jordan, etc, and is likely to face a similar fate in Pakistani Punjab, the country’s political centre of gravity. Global Jihad can only succeed in a context where it is aligned with Sunni popular sentiment, and where victims are confined to the ‘other’, i.e. non-Muslim occupiers, or non-Sunni communities perceived as socio-economic and political threats.

The continued mass-murder of Sunni civilians will ultimately eclipse the PA’s loss of legitimacy and permit the consolidation of state power on the ground. Unless the Pakistani Taliban’s political sophistication increases, or the IJT takes control Global Jihad will ultimately destroy itself and enhance the PA’s power and prestige in the heartland.

However, the slow suicide by the Punjabi Taliban should not be taken for granted; the Afghan Taliban has for example grown far more conscious of collateral civilian deaths, and moderated its sectarian extremism since 2008, and the result has been huge growth in Afghan Pashtun support.


Islamic Nationalism within the Pakistani Security Establishment:
The first elements of Islamic nationalism were introduced in to the PA’s public image in the run-up to the 1965 war under the largely secular Field Marshal Ayub Khan, and was considerably deepened from 1969 onwards under Gen. Yahya Khan, although both these efforts lacked the backing of personal conviction. That was supplied by Gen. Zia ul-Haq who oversaw the total rewriting of the PA’s ideology in line with Islamic nationalism and tied both promotion and policy to the pursuit of the ends dictated by this ideology.

In the Post-Cold War period committed Islamic Nationalists were repeatedly pushed out from the general officer ranks of the PA, first under American and Arab pressure in the 1993-95 period, and again after 9/11 under American pressure. This denial of tenure has been an enduring source of hatred for the United States, even though the conflict was a result of their own deep and self-fulfilling belief in an eventual “clash of civilisations” with the West that went back to the 1980s. Although their replacements have been relatively secular, but highly opportunistic nationalists there have been a steady stream of reports about the growing numbers of officer cadets, junior and field-grade officers of Islamic-nationalist orientation. Tensions with the aims and actions of the PA leadership have led to a number of junior officers resigning their commissions, with some chosing to join the global jihad in the tribal areas.

What is uncertain is where the committed senior Islamic Nationalists of the Pakistani security establishment such as Hamid Gul mesh with the goals of Global Jihad. While it is clear that Global Jihad (through actors like Ilyas Kashmiri) has given the state a taste of its own medicine by exploiting the previously close relationship to facilitate attacks on the Pakistani security services, it is also possible that Islamic Nationalists within the military who have not made the ideological transition to Global Jihad are collaborating with these efforts out of a shared desire to break, or at least limit American influence on the PA and GoP.

Some Opportunists as well as Islamic Nationalists within the Pakistan Army share an interest with Global Jihad in seeing American failure and losses in Afghanistan. American desire to control the costs of this engagement under both George W. Bush and Barak Obama has led to mixed signals, and encouraged a Pakistani hope of riding things out. The hope is that casualties will lead to US disengagement from the country and the region, thus reducing US pressures on Pakistan, and increasing the latter’s freedom of manoeuvre with respect to all local and regional players, and in particular allow for a reconciliation between Islamic Nationalists and the Global Jihad.

This Pakistani temporising has led to a destructive escalation of American involvement, rather than exhaustion and withdrawal. The paradoxical reality is that the more successful Global Jihad is in co-opting Pakistani and Afghan networks, the greater the American compulsion to become ever more deeply engaged.

The Lashkar-e-Toiba for example remains a loyal means to inflict major terrorist attacks in India and elsewhere, but it is not sufficient to sustain a full blown insurgency or to become major political players in either Kashmir or Afghanistan. In addition, its own involvement with the Global Jihad has turned it in to a target for Western agencies. The LeT will ultimately have to chose between the PA and the Global Jihad.

A significant number of the PA’s Opportunists seem to recognise this, and it adds to their desire to contain Global Jihad. Yet another strand of Opportunist opinion fears the full cost to the PA of a fight to the finish with Global Jihad, while at least as many see the continuing conflict as an essential lifeline to American financial and military aid.

Regardless, both the Opportunists of all stripes as well as the Islamic Nationalists of the Pakistani security establishment must make fundamental choices; Are they to fully commit to the Western alliance, subdue the global jihad and decisively restore the PA’s writ but damage Pakistan’s future as a regional Islamic power? Must they break with the US in order to preserve the jihadi option and avoid civil war, but lose the PA’s access to tens of billions in cash and world class weapons systems?

Going by past record it seems likely that they will strive mightily to broaden their options so that they might eat their cake and have it to; they might for example allow, or even encourage an out of control, Globalised Deobandi movement to wreck itself, while searching for new domestic and cross-border Islamic movements that will not place them in the cross-fire between the United States and the Global Jihad. Pakistan's addictive reliance on violent and/or extremist actors to maintain national integrity and regional influence is unfortunately far from over. The Pakistan Army's calculus of risk and reward is simply too different from those of most governments - altering its calculus, or diminishing its capacity to make policy remains the engaged world's ultimate strategic challenge in this region.

[ramana]

Good summary. Can you read it out into an MP3/4 file and upload. Or make it into slides and upload on youtube. Knowledge has to be spread.

Also send it for publication in blogs, papers etc.

[shiv]

I gave a small private talk on the role of the ideological divisions within both the jihadi tanzims and PA, and their relationship with the developments within the Af-Pak theatre over the last decade. This was of course before the flood - the impact on Pakjab in particular, and on the PA bear serious thinking about

This article needs much better archival than a mere forum post

[Sanjay M]

The sub-surface tussle in Af-PAk is the Ghilzais are reasserting themselves after the Abdali/Durrani centuries. And the historic reality is Ghilzais are drawn to Dilli while the Durranis are drawn to Fars. Am wondering if the solution is two Pashtun states. Ghilzai dominated Khyber-Pashtunwa and Afghanistan with the Durrani Pashtuns?

Just as long as the Northern Afghans get their independence, the rest will sort itself out.

[Pratyush]

Did not see this posted in the thread. Nothing that BRFits don't already know.

Baradar - Our vote goes to the ISI.

"The ISI has apparently established parameters of Taliban conduct and strategy, reinforced by the threat of arrest. Independent contacts between the Taliban's former military commander, Mullah Baradar, and the Afghan government, possibly with a view to negotiations, apparently breached these boundaries, and so he and at least seven other Taliban leaders were arrested by the ISI in early February 2010. It appears that the arrests were intended to send a message to both the Taliban and the United States that negotiations could only take place if the ISI had a major role in, if not control over, the negotiating process."

"Pakistan [the ISI] does not have only one representative on the Quetta Shura, they have representatives everywhere. As for Mullah Baradar's arrest, do you think they didn't know where he and others were before that? … the ISI have more than two, three or four [representatives] on the [Quetta] Shura. … Some [other members of the Quetta Shura] know they work for the ISI, but it's not discussed. … The reality is that the ISI controls the leadership. Mullar Omar has strong support of Pakistan; he has to listen to them and do what they say.'

"Both Haqqani commanders echoed the comments of Taliban commanders about the presence of ISI on the Quetta Shura. According to the senior commander: 'Yes the ISI control the Quetta Shura. When Mullah Baradar and Mullah Omar talked directly to the Afghan government – peace talks – the ISI arrested Baradar … because they want peace talks to fail. I don't know how many ISI are on the Quetta Shura … Honest Afghans who want jihad and are honest to their country, were disarmed, detained and became powerless ... I know many good high-ranking [former] Taliban who are not supporting the fight in Afghanistan ... the rest are listening to the ISI, [and] still have the control. I don't like this. Without the support of the ISI, Afghans cannot do anything, can't even have meetings. Both former and current ISI are on the Quetta Shura. New ISI members are not so reliable and do not have such a strong role in it; the former ISI have more credibility and influence. All the Taliban interested in the peace process are detained.' -- from The Sun in the Sky.

[abhischekcc]

I believe there is more to the situation (of rebellious generals) than meets the eye. The current administration has been completely taken over by wall street acolytes. Not even big oil is represented. The only government institution not taken over by wall street now is the US defence force. Under the pretext of firing generals for disciplinary reasons, Obama's handlers are conducting a coup within the Armed Forces.

[Hari Seldon]

^^^ Aaah, abcc. Let us hope that is true.

Wall street jernails will have less reason to be enamored of TSP than the geopol-ideologue kissassinger/unever cohen types running policy objectives.

In fact, Dilli can perhaps make a deal with them on Af-Pak.

[abhischekcc]

Hari,

Kissinger, Brezinsky, et al are puppets for wall street (international financial community) interests. Kissinger is a front for David Rockerfeller.

[Johann]

Ramana, Shiv,

What I've posted is essentially a transcript - it turned out that there wasn't quite as much time as I'd hoped and I had to cut and rearrange bits in my delivery.

Most of the differences are cosmetic - it reads a little nicer - but I did have to leave out some important bits on the history of the Religious Nationalists in the PA (the ones I informally call Ziaists), and the history of the deterioration of their tactical relationship with the US. I'm posting it in full below since you found what I put up earlier useful.

Islamic Nationalism within the Pakistani Security Establishment:
The first elements of Islamic Nationalism were introduced in to the PA’s public image in the run-up to the 1965 war under the largely secular Field Marshal Ayub Khan. Although considerably deepened from 1969 onwards under Gen. Yahya Khan, both of these efforts lacked the backing of personal conviction from the top. That was supplied by Gen. Zia ul-Haq, who oversaw the total rewriting of the PA’s ideology in line with Islamic Nationalism and tied both promotion and policy to the pursuit of the ends dictated by this ideology.

This cadre’s reign at the top after Zia’s mysterious death was relatively short, thanks to the tensions between Pakistan’s alliance with America on one hand, and Global Jihad on the other. Committed Islamic Nationalists were repeatedly pushed out from the general officer ranks of the PA in the post-Cold War period, first under American and Arab pressure in the 1993-95 period following the first attack on the World Trade Center the jihad against the Egyptian government, and again after 9/11 under American pressure. This denial of promotion and tenure has been an enduring source of bitterness against the United States, even though the conflict was a result of their acceptance of the Arab Global Jihad’s self-fulfilling expectation of an eventual “clash of civilisations” with the West that went back to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.

They saw the Soviet withdrawal as a springboard for the expansion of Pakistani power in to Northern Afghanistan, Central Asia and Kashmir on the back of jihad, securely backed by nuclear weapons and special relationships with the GCC, PRC and US. The United States for its part was certainly was willing to pay to maintain an alliance with a Pakistan that was seen as a source of conventional military manpower essential to maintaining the post-Cold War “New World Order” in the strategically vital Arabian Sea, from the successful 1990-91 Gulf War to the disastrous 1992-93 Somali peace enforcement operation. On the other hand it was also equally unwilling to give Pakistan a 1980s Reagan-style blank cheque and free reign to disrupt that very same Order.

This divergence in interests was ignored by the Americans, but given far deeper meaning by Religious Nationalist officers and tanzeem members. Events like the failed siege of Jalalabad in 1989, and the resumption of US nuclear sanctions on Pakistan in 1990 were transformed in their eyes in to symptoms, even proof of Yankee enmity towards Muslim Pakistan and its Islamic mission, identical in nature to the enemity which fueled American conflicts with Iran, Sudan and Iraq. In fact, Gen. Aslam Beg, Chief of Army Staff (1988-91) went as far as to call for an alliance of these Muslim 'rogue' states, backed of course by Pakistani nuclear weapons.

The Islamic-Nationalists’ replacements in the PA’s most senior ranks were relatively secular, and highly pragmatic nationalists who have repeatedly won the day during the PA’s internal debates. While they shared the Islamic Nationalists ambitions and a fondness for the same extremist tools, they are also always ready to remind others of the fate of other ‘rogue states’ that pursued a course of open hostility to the United States. The Pragmatists, or perhaps I should say Opportunists continued to look for collaborative opportunities that might lead to the end of US sanctions, such as limited action against the Global Jihad (e.g. cooperating in the Clinton-era Rendition programme, pushing Global Jihad's HQ from Peshawar to Eastern Afghanistan, etc) without ever cutting their contacts with the movement.

However there has also been a steady stream of reports about the growing numbers of officer cadets, junior and field-grade officers of Islamic-Nationalist orientation. This is perhaps a reflection of broader polarising national trends within the country as a whole. Tensions with the aims and actions of the PA leadership have led to some junior officers resigning their commissions, but it is not clear just how severe this threat to the institutional cohesion of the PA is. The Global Jihad does not appear to differentiate between Religious Nationalists and Opportunists, and this offsets many of the other strains.

In the case of officers and servicemen have also made the same ideological transition as the Deobandi tanzims (in many cases directly influenced by relatives in those organisations), it has already given way. Some have joined the Global Jihad in the tribal areas while others have stayed in place, allowing the Global Jihad (led by men like Ilyas Kashmiri) to give the State a taste of its own medicine by exploiting the previously close State-Jihadi relationship to facilitate attacks on the Pakistani security services.

Some Opportunists as well as Islamic Nationalists within the Pakistan Army share an interest with Global Jihad in seeing American bleed and fail in Afghanistan. The American desire to control the costs of this engagement under both George W. Bush and Barak Obama has led to mixed signals, and encouraged a Pakistani belief that they might just ride things out. The hope is that casualties will lead to US disengagement from the country and the region, thus reducing US pressures on Pakistan, and increasing the latter’s freedom of manoeuvre with respect to all local and regional players, and in particular allow for a reconciliation between Islamic Nationalists and the Global Jihad.

This Pakistani temporising has led to a destructive escalation of American involvement, rather than exhaustion and withdrawal. The paradoxical reality is that the more successful Global Jihad is in co-opting Pakistani and Afghan networks, the greater the American compulsion to become ever more deeply engaged.

A significant number of the PA’s Opportunists seem to recognise this, and it adds to their desire to contain Global Jihad. Yet another strand of Opportunist opinion fears the full cost to the PA of a fight to the finish with Global Jihad, while at least as many see the continuing conflict as an essential lifeline to American financial and military aid.

What is uncertain is the degree to which the goals of the (largely retired) leading Islamic Nationalists of the Pakistani security establishment such as the notorious Hamid Gul mesh with the goals of Global Jihad today. It is possible that frustrated Islamic Nationalists within the military who have not made the ideological transition to Global Jihad are collaborating with these efforts out of a shared desire to break, or at least limit American influence on the PA and Pakistani government. Are they willing to facilitate bloodshed against the Opportunist leadership within the PA? It is not clear, but they have consistently criticised offensive actions by both the PA and the Global Jihad against each other, and would like an end to see the state of war that exists between the two. This is one among many reasons they work so hard to maintain the relationship between the PA and groups like the Quetta Shura and LeT.

Regardless, both the Opportunists and the Islamic Nationalists of the Pakistani security establishment must make fundamental choices; Are they to fully commit to the Western alliance, subdue the global jihad and decisively restore the PA’s writ but damage Pakistan’s future as a regional Islamic power? Must they break with the US in order to preserve the jihadi option and avoid civil war, but lose the PA’s access to tens of billions in cash and world class weapons systems?

Going by past record it seems likely that they will instead do everything in their power to broaden their options; they might for example allow, or even encourage an out of control, Globalised Deobandi movement to wreck itself, while searching for new domestic and cross-border Islamic movements that will not place them in the cross-fire between the United States and the Global Jihad. We must all pay close attention to the answers they find - they may be as short-sighted and destabilising as any of their previous 'solutions' to this now two-decade old dilemma.

[Sanjay M]

Hari,

Kissinger, Brezinsky, et al are puppets for wall street (international financial community) interests. Kissinger is a front for David Rockerfeller.

Brzezinski has long since abandoned Wall Street, even claiming that big banks and wealthy executives should "voluntarily" pay money into a fund to create jobs for the poor.

That's why the Atlanticists are now firmly backing the Left, and openly repudiating capitalism, claiming that some new "managed economy" is necessary to stabilize society (socialism by any other name).

[ramana]

Johann and others, A few years ago I gave this talk

http://www.indiaresearch.org/UnderstandingPakistan.pdf

[RajeshA]

X-Posted from US and PRC relationship & India Thread.

The Americans are looking for ways to get out of Afghanistan with their honor intact. They want to be able to tell the American people, that they have not lost in Afghanistan.

In fact the Americans will not be able to suffice even one mission goal for Afghanistan. So the only other way they can do that is by saying something more important came up. That can be either Iran or it can be support to India in China-occupied Kashmir or it can be both.

Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) is only Mirpur. Rest is China occupied.

Iran however is not a crisis region at the moment. Should Israel or USA start something there, many in the international community would put the blame on USA for war-mongering and unprovoked aggression, or as simply an open tactic to get out of Afghanistan.

Balwaristan (Gilgit-Baltistan) however can very quickly turn into a conflict zone, through the actions of other parties, and using that as an excuse to pull out of Afghanistan would seem far more credible.

JMTs

[ramana]

Nightwatch, 29 Aug 2010

Afghanistan: Today, 29 August, the Washington Post published a well-documented article indicating that policy disagreements between the Afghanistan government and the US Command may have moved beyond easy repair.

The article recounts a meeting between Mohammad Umer Daudzai, Chief of Staff to President Karzai, and General Petraeus last week.

Daudzai told his interviewer, "I said, 'General Petraeus, winning the hearts and minds of the Afghans is not the job of a soldier. That's the job of an Afghan,' "

"We need to review our strategy, our code of conduct, so that Afghans believe that this is a sovereign state and President Karzai is the ultimate decision maker in this country... We are in the last stage, the last chance of winning this war. So we cannot afford to spend a lot of time on accusations and counter-accusations."

"We want, as part of that review, for the international forces to gradually take distance from the daily life of people….Because people are getting tired with the way they are behaved with….That's not their job. . . . That's the Afghan police job," he said.

"Or in the rush hour, going into the market with these heavy cars, not letting anybody overtake them. Or on the main highways, they go on the wrong day. Like, for instance, on New Year's Day, everybody goes out for a picnic, then you see a huge NATO convoy comes on that day and blocks the whole road. … This is what we mean by taking distance from their lives."

Comment: The issues are complex and the implications are difficult to discern. For example, the centerpiece of the NATO's counterinsurgency strategy is local engagement. The message from Karzai's chief of staff is that NATO's local engagement builds respect for NATO not for the Afghan government.

If Daudzai speaks for Karzai, as seems to be the case, the NATO strategy lacks the backing of the Afghan government. The message is that the Afghan leadership perceives the NATO strategy and its manner of implementation as a threat to the Afghan government.

This is an Afghan version of the sovereignty issue in Iraq among the Sunni Arabs of the Awakening in al Anbar Province. The disagreement appears to be about basic principles, though it likely will be papered over later this week. Certainly, one of the enduring recruitment themes of the Taliban is to join fight to drive foreign soldiers from Christian countries out of Afghanistan.

As a footnote, Daudzai also made a classic comment by an official in an American client state. In refuting charges that key officials of the government palace are on the CIA payroll, Daudzai said,

"Of course, people are paid by the United States. The whole government is paid, one way or the other, by the United States."

Nonetheless, he insisted none are paid by the CIA. The accuracy of his assertion, of course, depends on the definition of "paid".

[ramana]

I have a simple question. Its a known wisdom that TSP wants Afghanistan as a strategic depth in case India attacks from the east. The idea is that TSP forces can 'retreat' or hide in Afghanistan from Indian forces in pursuit of them. Now is there 1) infratructure (road, rail and air) between TSP and Afghanistan that will allow the retrat of the escaping TSP troops? And 2) how vulnerable is the infrastructure to Indian forces?

My quick answer is 1) no and 2)very vulnerable.

So this strategic depth to retreat to is like Nazis "Wolf's Lair or rather Heyna's Liar!

[ramana]

Nightwatch 8/31/2010

Afghanistan: NATO forces have reversed or blunted the Taliban's momentum in some but not all areas of Afghanistan, General Petraeus said in an interview with NATO TV on 31 August. He said the insurgents were fighting to take back Marjah in Helmand Province, which he described as one of the most important command and control areas for the Taliban and the nexus for the illegal narcotics industry.


Petraeus also said NATO's campaign to secure the southern city of Kandahar had just begun and would be difficult.

NightWatch questions: When and how did the Coalition forces lose Kandahar? The baseline for analysis is November 2001 when Omar and his sycophants fled in tears from Kandahar to Quetta, Pakistan, about the time bin Laden and Zawahiri eluded US special forces to flee from Tora Bora to Parachinar, Pakistan.

Karzai himself with US advisors led the fight to take Kandahar from Omar, advancing from the north. The US Marines based their operations in Kandahar, having entered Afghanistan from Karachi, Pakistan.

Initially the Marines were camped just south of Kandahar until the security situation clarified, enabling them to move to the airport. Without a secure Kandahar in late 2001, US operations south of Kabul would have failed. In November 2001 and all of 2002, Kandahar was more secure than Kabul. US forces were welcomed, after the savage Taliban atrocities.


So the question remains and requires some explanation, what happened? How did the US Marines, primarily -- NATO forces had not yet been invited -- lose Kandahar? Feedback is welcome, especially from Marines or others who were there.

A second point worth noting is the role of Pakistan in harboring enemies, especially during the Musharraf regime. Readers will readily recognize there is a pattern of Pakistan giving refuge to enemies of the Afghanistan and the United States, while claiming to be a US ally.

The election of a civilian government has not changed that pattern, relative to Afghanistan or India, for that matter. Pakistan continues to support regional instability as a matter of state policy because its armed forces are incapable of defending Pakistan. It is a workable, short term, day-to-day security policy for Pakistan that ensures all its neighbors, except China, are under stress from Pakistan-based and supported terrorists.

Wisdom finally!

[Johann]

Things really started to go downhill in Kandahar in 2008. In Afghanistan its all about leadership and geography. Arghandab district is the key to Kandahar city, and key local anti-Taliban Afghan leadership figures were successfully targeted by Taliban suicide bombers in that period. Once they were gone the infiltration of local communities and recruitment stepped up enormously, and the violence followed soon after.

Of course the Taliban's leadership and logistical tail are and were sitting pretty just across the Bolan Pass in Quetta.

Its clear that the PA made the decision to help rebuild the Taliban and go on the offensive only in 2004 - this was the point at which the insurgencies in Iraq were ramping up and Musharraf reasoned correctly that this would absorb most of the United States energies and forces for a number of years.

The Canadian ISAF deployment in 2006 slowed down the process a little bit, but there just werent enough foreign or Afghan troops for the size of the area, and the size of the enemy.

[Sanku]

The 2004 time frame also corresponds to Govt change (regime change?) in New Delhi. The new dispensation made it, its first order of business to hand over to Pakistani's what they needed in terms of operating space (Havana et al) that blank cheque of Pappi jhappi went a long way in emboldening Pakistan to play the double game.

The interesting point is that such steps were probably carried out on US behest by a Govt trying to build "partnership" with them and as part of US policy to reward Pakistan for its till then "help", well India certainly paid with blood for the space it conceded, but the fun thing is how it all worked out at the other end.

[Karna_A]

I have a simple question. Its a known wisdom that TSP wants Afghanistan as a strategic depth in case India attacks from the east. The idea is that TSP forces can 'retreat' or hide in Afghanistan from Indian forces in pursuit of them. Now is there 1) infratructure (road, rail and air) between TSP and Afghanistan that will allow the retrat of the escaping TSP troops? And 2) how vulnerable is the infrastructure to Indian forces?

My quick answer is 1) no and 2)very vulnerable.

So this strategic depth to retreat to is like Nazis "Wolf's Lair or rather Heyna's Liar!

The whole strategic depth concept put forward by TSP is to put wool over Western eyes. In practical terms it is meaningless. In all probability, AFG will put the retreating TSP forces in sealed containers just like in past, once they are sure TSP is weak, as even hardcore Afghan Talibs have no love for Pakis. In fact this time India should hand over all captured TSPA to Afghans like it failed to do in 1971 to BD forces.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/au ... vidteather

After all, TSP will not accept publicly that what TSPA actually wants is to make uneducated, religious but innocent refugee camp Afghan kids into their cannon fodder bitches to be used against India and other nations as the 600K TSPA has nothing better to do, in the process turning a once vibrant Afghan society into a hellhole.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2 ... fghanistan

[Cosmo_R]

I have a simple question. Its a known wisdom that TSP wants Afghanistan as a strategic depth in case India attacks from the east. The idea is that TSP forces can 'retreat' or hide in Afghanistan from Indian forces in pursuit of them. Now is there 1) infratructure (road, rail and air) between TSP and Afghanistan that will allow the retrat of the escaping TSP troops? And 2) how vulnerable is the infrastructure to Indian forces?

I believe the Corpse Commanders recently redefined 'strategic depth' to mean preventing two-front hostility rather than diving into Afghanistan if the IA armor races through Pakistan. Nobody buys that scenario anymore so the ISPR have changed their tune on what it means especially after Kamran Shafi ridiculed the whole SD concept. You'll also see reference to Afghanistan being the only state that voted against Pakistan's admission to the UN in that context.

[ramana]

Thanks guys. So SD is another hashish in whiskey based hookah induced dream.

Meanwhile a blast from the past. A June 2001 article on the go between Taliban and US!

Accidental Operative

Note he same tired rascals were there even then three months before 9/11!

[sum]

A refreshing sight

By M K Bhadrakumar

The high-profile visits to New Delhi underscore the importance given by Karzai to forging a strategic understanding with India.

The consultations by Afghan foreign minister Zalmay Rasul and National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta in New Delhi in successive weeks will be noted regionally and internationally. They took place at a critical juncture in the geopolitics of the region.

For Indian foreign-policymakers, Afghanistan assumes an unprecedented priority today as the stakes are high for national security, and harmonising our vital interests and core concerns with those of the international community becomes a formidable intellectual and political challenge.

To be sure, the consultations would have given clarity to our understanding of the intriguing undercurrents in the Afghan situation. Quite obviously, the war is in stalemate. In the past 5 days alone, 19 US servicemen have been killed and they are dying in vain. The ‘surge’ is fizzling out while the Pakistani floods provide the alibi for the top brass in Rawalpindi to plead overriding distractions. In short, the war is degenerating into a futile brutish operation by the US special forces.

Politically, the blame game has begun in direct proportion to the frustrations on the battlefield. A US-led vilification campaign against Afghan President Hamid Karzai has appeared, provoked by his dogged sense of independence and his growing proclivity to address policies through the prism of Afghan national sentiments and interests, and, most important, his disenchantment with his western partners and his consequential gravitation toward regional allies.

The regional milieu impacts in many ways. The US public opinion is wearied of bloodshed but Pentagon is nonetheless hell-bent on keeping its military presence in the region as part of the ‘containment’ strategy toward China — and is beefing up its military bases in Afghanistan and even constructing new ones. The Afghan opinion will always militate against foreign occupation. Russia and China resent the US military presence but cannot do without it either, given the unfinished business of the war on terrorism.

Pakistan continues to project power into Afghanistan for gaining ‘strategic depth’ and estimates that time works in its favour even as US frustrations keep mounting. The US attempt to leverage Pakistan by doling out a multi-billion dollar aid package will not induce any serious let-up in the Pakistani military’s support to the Afghan insurgents. Thus, the US and Pakistan make strange Siamese twins in their deathly dance of mutual accommodation.

Under the circumstances Karzai faces a tough choice in being called upon to talk to the Taliban through the Pakistani military and under close US watch, which effectively stymies his reconciliation strategy and threatens to alienate his allies in Kabul who include forces opposed to a Taliban takeover.
......

Strategic understanding

The visits by the Afghan dignitaries no doubt underscore the high importance given by Karzai to forging a strategic understanding with India. Karzai is keen to have India’s support while navigating the choppy waters ahead. Certainly, there is a mutuality of interests in this regard, too, insofar as New Delhi shares Karzai’s opposition to a force majeure Taliban takeover in Kabul and equally sees the imperative of a broad-based government reflecting the country’s plural society as the key to enduring peace.
Curiously, the calculus holds similarities with the one in 1989-90 under Najibullah. Now as well, India’s national security interests are best served by a democratic, independent, non-aligned and neutral Afghanistan free of foreign interference.

The consultations underscore that India will always remain a player in Afghanistan and that it is not gratis any third country in the region or outside of it that India remains so. Cutting across regions and ethnic groups, Mujahideen and communists, and royalists and democrats, there is goodwill toward India among the Afghan people.

Two, the consultations show up that India doesn’t need fig-leaves of ‘trilateral’ or ‘quadrilateral’ formats for pursuing its relations with Afghanistan, since it has never been an adversary, an aggressor or an occupier. India’s approach can be the same as China’s, which too places primacy on an independent line of thinking.

Three, India has a steadily deepening and expanding strategic partnership with the US — unlike Russia (which cannot quite make up its mind if it is the US’ ally or adversary) or Iran (which peers through the prism of its standoff with the US). Despite the apparent contradictions in the US and Indian approaches, both wish to see a stable Afghanistan that acts as a hub bringing together Central and South Asia.

Delhi is uniquely placed to influence Washington’s thinking. US President Barack Obama is due in November and he will have use for constructive inputs to go into his upcoming review of the AfPak strategy in December.

Of course, there is no scope for a military role for India. Nor is there any need of triumphalism vis-à-vis Pakistan, which will remain an influential player, thanks to the realities of geography, ethnicity, culture and history. But within these parameters, India can do much although it is a fine line to walk.

The warmth with which Rasul and Spanta were received certainly comes as a refreshing sight. The ingenuity of Indian diplomacy lies in transmuting the new thinking into practical measures that strengthen Karzai’s leadership and contribute to the stabilisation of Afghanistan.

[Sanku]

Thanks guys. So SD is another hashish in whiskey based hookah induced dream.

Ramana-ji, if I may, I have a slightly different take on this issue, I think Afg is indeed strategic depth, but not the ways understood in terms of a staging grounds of military and materials. It is depth is few other critical ways

1) Area for basing operations with plausible deniablity -- a simple example is of IC 814 hijack where the Afghanistan was used by Pakistani to base the aircraft.

2) A reason to make Durand line irrelevant, for their advantage, if Afg is not their depth, the Pukhtoons will chafe at the Durand line causing various issues, with Afg in their pocket, the Pukhtoons cant worry about the line, since both sides are effectively united in Pakistan's service.

3) Manpower pool -- given the Pakjabi strand of "bravery" Pakistan fully realizes that it needs a pool of hardy and skilled fighters, and not a bunch of opportunistic bullies who convert at first chance into downhill skiers etc. They can use the Agricultural primarcy of Punjab/Sindh to buy mercenaries from Afg to fight

4) Rent collection ability goes up -- Pakistan being a rentier state, collects the dole for the region of geo-political importance it controls. Naturally, with Afg directly in the bag, the money for it needs to come through the Pakjabi grubbers. Adding another dimension.

With all due respect, I think to give Paki credit for this, they have always clearly understood what they wanted from Afg, it is just that they spun the story around and sold it to various parties in various flavors (as always)

[ramana]

If India can help stabilize Afghanistan and bring it into SAARC and same time help out Myanmar it will lead to the largest India ever in history. This objective is not being attainde due to grandoise dreams of Pakjab.

[ramana]

The Atlantic has a spat between experts:

More Polk on Afghanistan

[RajeshA]

The Atlantic has a spat between experts:

More Polk on Afghanistan

The original article of WILLIAM R. POLK
Elements of a U.S. Strategy Toward Afghanistan

[Pranav]

The Atlantic has a spat between experts:

More Polk on Afghanistan

this Polk fellow spouts a considerable amount of nonsense ... claims that Taliban have significant support amongst Tajiks!

Basically this is the kind of garbage that will be peddled to try to justify handing over the country to the ISI.

[Altair]

Afghanistan's dirty little secret

Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy's father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn't understand."

All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked - and repulsed.

For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it.

"Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."

Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan's most important tribe. For centuries, the nation's leaders have been Pashtun.

President Hamid Karzai is Pashtun, from a village near Kandahar, and he has six brothers. So the natural question arises: Has anyone in the Karzai family been bacha baz? Two Afghans with close connections to the Karzai family told me they know that at least one family member and perhaps two were bacha baz. Afraid of retribution, both declined to be identified and would not be more specific for publication.

As for Karzai, an American who worked in and around his palace in an official capacity for many months told me that homosexual behavior "was rampant" among "soldiers and guys on the security detail. They talked about boys all the time."

He added, "I didn't see Karzai with anyone. He was in his palace most of the time." He, too, declined to be identified.

In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."

So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia?

Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can't even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle.

"How can you fall in love if you can't see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."

Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli's team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and asked, "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?"

That helps explain why women are hidden away - and stoned to death if they are perceived to have misbehaved. Islamic law also forbids homosexuality. But the pedophiles explain that away. It's not homosexuality, they aver, because they aren't in love with their boys.

Addressing the loathsome mistreatment of Afghan women remains a primary goal for coalition governments, as it should be.

But what about the boys, thousands upon thousands of little boys who are victims of serial rape over many years, destroying their lives - and Afghan society.

"There's no issue more horrifying and more deserving of our attention than this," Cardinalli said. "I'm continually haunted by what I saw."

As one boy, in tow of a man he called "my lord," told the Reuters reporter: "Once I grow up, I will be an owner, and I will have my own boys."

© 2010 Joel Brinkley
Joel Brinkley is a professor of journalism at Stanford University and is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times.

[ramana]

Nightwatch, 8 Sept., 2010, on the pak flood response and mutual statemetns from US and TSP

Pakistan-US: Pakistan's armed forces have continued the fight against Islamist militants in the country's west and northwest despite floods, a senior US officer in charge of U.S. military aid in Pakistan said 8 September, Agence France-Presse reported. According to the report, a very senior US military officer said some "aviation resources" have been dispatched for flood relief and rescue operations, but the Pakistani military has remained focused on operations against extremists.

Late on 8 September, the Pakistani Ambassador to the United States flatly contradicted the senior US military official. He said all the resources of the armed forces are committed to flood relief at the expense of the fight against terrorists. Flood relief and recovery are the highest national priorities..

NightWatch Comment: Agence France-Presse reported the strange American military statement and relayed it around the world. US and international media reported the Ambassador's statement. The issue begs for some perspective, if only for educational purposes.

The US military statement portrays the Pakistan armed forces as if they were irresponsible in the face of a national calamity. The Ambassador's statement clarifies that the US statement is flat wrong and the Pakistani armed forces are doing exactly the same tasks the US national guard undertakes to cope with natural disasters.

US personnel must come to understand that Pakistani Ambassadors, Generals and Admirals are the best sources for commenting on the uses of Pakistani military resources in support of national disaster relief in Pakistan.

The Pakistani leadership - civilian political leaders and flag officers - are in step, rather unusually, that flood relief, stabilization and recovery are exponentially more important as national security tasks than anything else. By some Pakistani accounts, a third of the population has been displaced by the flooding.

Even a novice should understand that all national resources must be committed to alleviating the effects of such flooding. No Pakistani leader is asserting that the Pakistan armed forces are continuing counter-extremist operations as usual. With a third of the population affected by the floods, every Pakistani in government and in uniform has a relative in trouble because of the floods.

Finally, there is the phenomenology of limited national resources. When a nation generates its armed forces to prepare for war, it distorts civilian normality and draws resources from the civil sectors to increase national military, combat power.

Increases in military power come at the expense of civilian normality. This is true even for small border skirmishes that only require civilian trucks to move forces to the border. It is uneconomical, inefficient and foolish to devote wartime levels of resources to the maintenance of the armed forces in peacetime. Thus, prudent leaders designate in advance those otherwise productive civilian resources that the government will commandeer in wartime and only in wartime.

The rule also works in reverse, in that the armed forces of a state are usually the only reservoir of manpower and organized technical resources that can be applied to alleviate a civilian disaster. The Pakistani response of using military assets to assist the civil sector during the flooding is typical of all nations. The draw down of military normality -- combat readiness -- is essential to stabilize a civilian disaster.

This is appropriate and typical. The most salient examples of the reverse flow of resources from the military into the civilian sectors occurred during the Chernobyl disaster, the North Korean famine and the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

In Chernobyl, containment of the nuclear disaster required the engineering resources of the entire Soviet armed forces for a year. The Korean famine in 1995 and 1996 resulted in the Korean Peoples Army guarding grain fields in addition to growing food themselves. In the US, the use of the national guard for civilian relief has become a routine feature of a state's reserve assets for civilian relief and recovery.

The operations of the Pakistan armed forces, especially the helicopter crews, are four-square in the mainstream of the proper use of military forces to support civil authorities. The Pakistani relief effort is another textbook example of how resources shift in support of national priorities.

For new analysts: The lessons are inerrant and unmistakable. Always watch the interface of civil and military resources to diagnose national behavior. Whenever civilian normality is disrupted and the direction of resource flow is towards the military so as to increase military power, real war preparations are occurring -- always and in every country.

Whenever military assets are being used to support civilian disaster relief, the activity is not a cover for war preparations. The direction of flow of military resources to support civil authorities is an unambiguous indicator of a genuine national disaster.

The Pakistan floods are an obvious case, but in many crises and countries in the past 40 years, the situation has not been so clear because natural disasters occur during war preparations. The most reliable discriminator for distinguishing war preparations from civilian relief operations is the direction of flow of the resources.

Interesting. It explains the TSP takleef about the word Cold Start.

[ramana]

X-pos...
From James B post in TSP thread


http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 27#p937827

Fait accompli

Senior officials in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are of the view that the whole of FATA is in effect a Taliban state, in all but name. Distinctions between South Waziristan, which our khakis claim to have purged of the Taliban, and North Waziristan where they have a hands off policy, are immaterial, say those in the know. Similarly, there are no differences between the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban. They are one network and they've been joined in their mountain redoubts by jihadists of all hue. This potent organisation, under the leadership of the Haqqanis, has established its emirate as a fait accompli and Swat, from which it has retreated for the moment will be reoccupied the minute our khakis withdraw from it. KP officials also believe that the world's most wanted terrorists, OBL included, are holed up in the forests of North Waziristan. It's also felt that if the Americans withdraw from Aghanistan, the country will be partitioned with the north going to the Alliance, and the south going to the Taliban. After that, FATA will be a natural first domino to fall. And the Taliban will not stop at that. They will covet the settled areas of KP too. May God have mercy on us all.

[Prem]

http://prairiepundit.blogspot.com/2010/ ... round.html
Taliban lower their flags around Kandahar, but not their ambitions

The white flags of the Taliban no longer fly from neighborhoods in Kandahar City, as they did in some areas only two weeks ago, replaced instead by the red, black and green Afghan colors. But if the Taliban have been driven further underground, there has been no significant let-up in their campaign of terror and assassination against anyone connected with the government or foreign forces.The long-delayed push by NATO forces has finally come to town, in fits and starts, and with mixed results. “The deliberate campaign has begun in Kandahar,” Gen. David A. Petraeus, the NATO commander, said on Aug. 31. “In some areas the Taliban momentum has reversed, but there’s clearly a lot more work to be done.”Several times a day lately, mostly in rural districts just outside the city, there has been the distinct metallic vomiting sound of an American A-10 Warthog attack plane blasting a target with its cannon, which fires 70 30-millimeter shells a second. Fighting in those rural areas has been intense, sometimes with heavy casualties for American troops and Taliban fighters. Inside this city of half a million, the traditional home of the Taliban, though, the coalition’s fight has been much more low-key.
Most of the recent effort has focused on the Mehlajat area, a semi-rural zone in the southwest of the city, and the adjacent District 6. It is a part of Kandahar that bedeviled the Soviets during their occupation, and until a recent joint military operation there, it was the Taliban’s most important redoubt within city limits.