Rohit, Its a distinct possibility. TSPA had geared itself for a Ghazawa Hind but is getting booged down with floods
and other civilian relief assignments for which its not geared to. And is exposing its short comings by way of pictures*. I think that will shake the kabila residents as to the guars ability.
* Eg. picture of a single filled water bottle being thrown at a boat occupant surrounded by water with the trajectory clearly missing the mark. If this isnt a sign of desperation then what is it?
Meanwhile GP write in Pioneer. Even thoguh headline is about Obama its about TSP failure....
EDITS | Thursday, August 19, 2010 |
Obama loses his sheen
G Parthasarathy
With the US economy floundering and the war in Afghanistan heading nowhere, Americans are despairing of their President
Meeting American officials, academics, journalists and analysts in Washington, DC and elsewhere, as this writer did last week, gave interesting insights into thinking on their domestic and international perceptions, as the US faces up to the reality of an emerging multipolar world. With continuing near double-digit unemployment, the US is now paying the price for living beyond its means. President Barack Obama’s popularity has plummeted substantially.
Mr Obama’s pet foreign policy projects like action on climate change and implementing a Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia are in the doldrums, with the US Senate refusing to ratify international commitments he has made. Grandiose plans the Obama Administra- tion had to fashion a new world order based on a virtual Sino-American condominium lie in tatters, with a militarily assertive China challenging American maritime power in the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, while threatening the use of force to enforce maritime claims on Vietnam, Japan and the Philippines.
There is now virtual unanimity that the ruling Democratic Party is going to face reverses in Congressional elections scheduled for November this year. Many Americans, however, believe that as some of Mr Obama’s bold measures like health care reform and readiness to reform the country’s financial sector are success stories, factors like relations with China or Russia alone cannot decisively affect his re-election in 2012. But, the real challenge that Mr Obama faces is steering through the minefield that the US now finds itself in Afghanistan. A vociferous section of the public, media and politicians is now demanding a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan, amidst rising casualties in America’s longest war on foreign soil — 1,221 American soldiers have been killed in operations in Afghanistan since 2001.
Casualties have climbed steeply in recent years from double digits till 2005, to 521 soldiers killed in 2009 and 423 soldiers killed in the first seven months of this year. Costs of the war in Afghanistan are also steadily escalating. The Appropriations Committee of the US Congress approved a Supplementary Budget of $ 33 billion for the current financial year, for the additional 30,000 US troops recently deployed in Afghanistan. This exceeds the annual budget for India’s entire armed forces. The Americans are now spending an estimated $ 84 billion annually for their military presence in Afghanistan, at a time when their Budget deficit is rising.
Apart from American spending in Afghanistan, the American taxpayer has provided $ 18 billion in military and economic assistance to Pakistan. Military assistance approved for Pakistan thus far amounts to around $ 13 billion. The bulk of this money has gone towards purchasing Chinese military equipment ranging from fighter aircraft to tanks and frigates, apart from American F-16 fighters, air-to-air missiles and naval equipment — all of little use in fighting the jihadis operating from within Pakistan. The WikiLeaks revelations are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg on how Pakistan has milked, misled and double-crossed the US, primarily using American naiveté and gullibility to secure military assistance even as the ISI continues to arm, train, equip and harbour the Taliban and other terrorists who kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.
The American strategy of praise and respect for Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in the hope that he can be sweet-talked into ending support for and taking on jihadi groups, including the Taliban, which have for years been nurtured by the ISI, is destined to fail. A hard-boiled Jhelum-born Kayani, who comes from the heartland of groups like the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, is hardly going to let American flattery and solicitude end his support for ‘assets’ he has nurtured for years.
All this leaves Mr Obama facing a difficult dilemma. Growing American casualties in Afghanistan as a result of counter-insurgency operations will cast a shadow on his re-election in 2012. But, being seen to cut losses and run from Afghanistan will invite ridicule, both domestically and internationally. The only way out in these circumstances for Mr Obama would be to move towards visible reduction of American forces in Afghanistan, together with moves to reduce casualties by disengaging from active counter-insurgency operations, particularly in southern Afghanistan, by November 2012. It does, however, appear that the Americans will retain a reduced troop presence and air power in Afghanistan beyond 2012 to back up and train an ill-equipped, poorly motivated and inadequately trained Afghan National Army.
India has to be prepared for a situation when ISI-backed Taliban groups will gain increasing control over southern Afghanistan. How will this play out in the rest of Afghanistan, a country where around 56 per cent of the population is made up of non-Pashtuns who would find any return of the country to Taliban rule totally unacceptable? Under Pakistani pressure, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has recently sacked or sidelined the two most influential non-Pashtun officials in his Government — intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and Army chief Gen Bismillah Khan.
Criticising Mr Karzai’s efforts for ‘reconciliation’ with the Taliban through the good offices of the ISI, Mr Saleh asserted, “The ISI is part of the landscape of destruction in this country. So, it will be a waste of time to provide evidence of ISI involvement. They are part of it.” More ominously, Mr Saleh alleged that Mr Karzai’s attempts for ‘reconciliation’ with the Taliban were “a fatal mistake and a recipe for civil war”.
If the Taliban, with ISI backing, establish a strong presence in southern Afghanistan, non-Pashtun ethnic groups like the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Shia Hazaras, will inevitably seek a loosening of ties with a weakened central authority in Kabul, with a reversion to the situation that prevailed in the mid-1990s. Influential Americans are now advocating that the US has a responsibility in even arming non-Pashtun ethnic groups, who had helped them to oust the Taliban in 2001, to defend themselves against Taliban depredations.
Moreover, a number of Afghan leaders including the presidential election candidates, Mr Latif Pedram and Mr Abdullah Abdullah, and regional leaders like Dostum and Muhaqiq, are now demanding greater regional autonomy. Should the Americans, however, reduce their dependence on Pakistan as their troop levels fall, their ability to deal with safe havens across the Durand Line will be enhanced. This will necessarily require the US to seek closer cooperation with the Russians and Afghanistan’s Central Asia neighbours.
In any case, as Pakistani writer Ahmed Rashid once observed, the stage appears to be set for a “descent into chaos” in our western neighbourhood.
with internal displacement of pakis (away from India)