Pakistan: Reality Check Needed

Osama has no following in Pakistan; he is neither idealised nor idolized in Pakistan. Public is not angry on the demise of Osama; after all he had already died many times over; likewise this is not the first time that Americans have ditched us . A common Pakistani is feeling humiliated on the way this chronicle was choreographed.

Brunt of the current public rage is focused towards the armed forces, because nation never thought that the armed forces would fail them. Nevertheless, people of Pakistan have a special attachment with their armed forces. Images of the armed forces reaching out to the needy in their dire times during the natural calamities are etched in their memories too strongly to be erased. They view the armed forces as a fallback of the last resort, and they are not wrong.

People of Pakistan are striving hard to put behind the saga of national shame and gloom; shame because Osama was found on our soil and gloom because we failed to locate him, resulting into a humiliating unilateral intervention by Americans, to which we could not generate a military or political response.

Most of the countries are satirizing our intelligence agencies for remaining oblivious of Osama’s presence in Abbot Abad; they are also castigating our armed forces for being caught napping while the US Navy Seals intruded in, completed their mission – ‘Operation Geronimo’-, and extricated unchallenged. CIA chief Leon Panetta is singing that either the ISI was complicit or it is incompetent; indeed both of his assertions are wrong. ISI’s fatal mistake was its presumption that the CIA would operate within the norms of a fair partner, and that it would not stab at the back.

There is a nation-wide aura of insecurity. There have been some voices in the context of acceptance of responsibility and pledges of not letting it happen again. Though these apologies indicate the moral courage at the highest level of military leadership, these are being taken as hollow evasive manoeuvres and have not found credence amongst the public at large. Perception has it that unless structural and procedural revamping is done, recurrence of similar incidents is only a matter of time. Hence, there is an emerging consensus that this national failure needs a national level scrutiny.

Abbot Abad fiasco was one of the fallouts emanating out of lack of a focused, integrated and coherent counter terrorism policy at national level. For example, Despite being a fine concept and duly sanctioned by the parliament, setting up of ‘National Counter Terrorism Authority’ could not take off due to inter-department rivalries. This lack lustre approach resulted in non-conversion of piecemeal tactical level counter terrorism measures into a strategic gain.

At intelligence level also, it was indeed a composite national failure; therefore, both military and civilian components of the intelligence setup need to face the scrutiny with the objective of plugging the intelligence black holes.

Intelligence operations are an essential tool of national power projection. A statesman is blind without the inputs of the intelligence agencies. Utmost secrecy is the sine qua non of these operations. Information is shared strictly on need to know basis. Thus, no one knows exactly what the intelligence agencies actually do and how they operate. Certainly, all such agencies do the dirty tricks to outsmart the rivals. Their successes generally do not become public knowledge, at least in immediate timeframe; however their failures get exposed with a loud bang. Intelligence failures are not uncommon; the finest of intelligence agencies have had colossal failures. There is an unending list of failures by Leon Panetta’s CIA. It would be worthwhile to take a look at the glaring ones.

CIA failed to provide warning about Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour (1941). During Korean conflict, it could not provide information about North Korean attack (1950); rather it assured the US President that the Chinese would not send troops to Korea. Six days later, over one million Chinese troops stormed the war theatre.

When the Soviets shot down an American spy plan U-2 (1960); flown from Peshawar, relying on CIA assessment, President Eisenhower publicly denied the occurrence and the Soviets’ accusation of spying. Soviets paraded the plane’s pilot and the wreckage of U-2 before the cameras.

The CIA run ‘Operation Mongoose’ was aimed to assassinate Fidel Castro which failed several times. Moreover, during Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), CIA propagated that Soviet missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads were deployed in Cuba; in reality, no such missile with nuclear warheads was ever deployed there.

CIA failed to predict India’s nuclear tests in 1974 as well the tit for tat nuclear explosions by India and Pakistan in 1998.

American intelligence failed to foresee the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini which led to the Iranian Revolution of 1979. CIA also could not provide any warning of the impending Iranian takeover of American embassy. Later, the rescue plan ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ by the American forces to rescue the captives of American embassy in Tehran met a disastrous end.

In the same timeframe, CIA’s assessments about activities by the Soviet military intentions in Afghanistan were erratic, timely and appropriate warnings were not generated indicating Moscow’s intent to invade Afghanistan. By the time the ‘Alert Memorandum’ was issued on 19 December 1979, the military invasion had already begun.

Likewise, CIA kept napping over Iraqi designs on Kuwait until Iraq overran the entire country in August 1990; just a day before the attack, intelligence assessment indicated that the large Iraqi build up was a bluff. Once again, the CIA’s assessment in 2003 that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons in huge numbers was a glaring failure. In fact CIA became a tool to fabricate political intelligence to satisfy the pathological inkling of Bush Junior to invade Iraq.

Once again, the CIA Failed to forestall the 9/11 catastrophe. Consequences of this lapse are being faced by the Muslim world. It resulted in ransacking of two Muslim countries and destabilisation of a number of other Muslim countries.

A refresher on the CIA is just to refresh Leon Panetta on its success rate; periodic failures of Mossad and the RAW are equally mind boggling. Nevertheless, the objective is not to draw solace out of failures of other agencies, or to justify our Abbot Abad catastrophe. We certainly do not have the luxury of a wide margin of errors.

Notwithstanding the momentary set back, as a whole, Pakistan is a wonderful country, having the capability of offsetting Herculean odds. The people and the leadership of Pakistan have the potential of turning the tide. It is too early to reconstruct the exact replication of the mission and draw accurate conclusions; conflicting theories will continue to fog the reality. Factual narrative may never see the light of the day.

The uncertainty should not grip the nation indefinitely. While pursuing for a meaningful national level scrutiny of the event, let’s march on! Though a serious one, yet a sporadic event should not demoralize us too much and for too long.

America’s Secret War

By George Friedman

The United States had no use for the Iraqi regime and had supported the Shah’s Iran in a war against Iraq in the 1970s, ending in a peace that had not been favorable to Iraq. With the Iranian revolution, the Americans were looking for a lever to control Iran, . . .

The Carter administration wanted to motivate Saddam to fight, but he had little to gain simply by fighting Iran. What Saddam wanted was to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Absorbing Kuwait, which had historically been a part of Iraq under the Ottoman Empire until the British carved it our for their own interests, was a key goal, but so was dominating the region politically. He knew that if he defeated Iran, Iraq would be the dominant power in the region. He was also quietly assured by the United States that it would have no objection to his claiming his prize – Kuwait – once he defeated Iran. The assurances were very quiet and very deniable.

The United States then did everything it could to make sure that Iraq could never claim the prize, shifting its weight back and forth during the Iran-Iraq war, in classic balance-of-power style. The famous Iran-Contra affair engineered by Bill Casey was part of this strategy, with Americans delivering Hawk surface-to-air missiles and TOW antitank missiles to Iran in order to stave off an Iranian defeat – while also arranging for supplies to Iraq. Under the circumstances it was a clever move until better options emerged.

The Iran-Iraq war lasted nearly ten years and cost millions of lives. In the end, Iraq won – or, more precisely, was less exhausted than Iran. After some months of recovery, Saddam turned to collect his prize. In his famous meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, just before the invasion, Saddam calmly explained his intention to invade Kuwait, and Glaspie, not informed by the State Department that the policy had changed, proceeded to give Saddam the reassurance of American support that had been the U.S. policy transmitted by ambassadors and back channels for a decade. . . .

What Glaspie didn’t know. and what Glaspie hadn’t been told, was that the United States had never expected Iraq to win and certainly was not prepared to let Saddam collect his war prize.
—
[Dr. George Friedman's firm Stratfor has been dubbed by Barron's as "The Shadow CIA." It has provided analysis to Fortune 500 companies, news outlets, and the U.S. government. This is an excerpt from Chapter 1: The Fourth Global War, pages 19-21. Copyright © 2004-2005 George Friedman]

[ . . . the incubator story seriously distorted the American debate about whether to support military action. . . .

Americans would have been interested to know the identity of "Nayirah," the 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl who shocked the Congressional Human Rights Caucus on Oct. 10, 1990, when she tearfully asserted that she had watched 15 infants being taken from incubators in Al-Adan Hospital in Kuwait City by Iraqi soldiers who "left the babies on the cold floor to die." The chairmen of the Congressional group, Tom Lantos, a California Democrat, and John Edward Porter, an Illinois Republican, explained that Nayirah's identity would be kept secret to protect her family from reprisals in occupied Kuwait.

There was a better reason to protect her from exposure: Nayirah, her real name, is the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador to the U.S., Saud Nasir al-Sabah. . . .

Both Congressmen have a close relationship with Hill and Knowlton, the public relations firm hired by Citizens for a Free Kuwait, the Kuwaiti-financed group that lobbied Congress for military intervention. --John R. MacArthur, "Remember Nayirah, Witness for Kuwait?," HBO Films, January 6, 1992]

Alan Geyer and Barbara G. Green, “Lines in the Sand: Justice and the Gulf War,” Westminster John Knox Press (May 1, 1992)

[When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf - to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait - part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.

Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid-September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border - just empty desert.--Scott Peterson, "In War, Some Facts Less Factual," Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002]

Marc Perelman, “New Front Sets Sights On Toppling Iran Regime,” Forward, May 16, 2003

[AUDIO: Fifty years ago, in a bold and far-reaching covert operation, the CIA overthrew the elected government of Iran. Although the coup seemed successful at first, its "haunting and terrible legacy" is now becoming clear.

Operation Ajax, as the plot was code-named, reshaped the history of Iran, the Middle East and the world. It restored Mohammad Reza Shah to the Peacock Throne, allowing him to impose a tyranny that ultimately sparked the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

The Islamic Revolution, in turn, inspired fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world, including the Taliban and terrorists who thrived under its protection.

In his new book "All The Shah's Men," New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer asserts "It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."-- Stephen Kinzer, "All The Shah's Men," NPR On Point, August 20, 2003]

VIDEO: Barry Lando and Michel Despratx, “Web of Deceit,” 2004

[The trap had been baited very cleverly by Glaspie, reinforced by Tutweiler's and Kelly's supporting comments. And Saddam Hussein walked right into it, believing that the US would do nothing if his troops invaded Kuwait. On August 2, 1990, eight days after Glaspie's meeting with the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein's massed troops invaded Kuwait.--Kaleem Omar, "Is the US State Department still keeping April Glaspie under wraps?," Jang, December 25, 2005]

Stephen Kinzer, “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq,” Times Books, April 4, 2006

Barry M. Lando, “Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush,” Other Press (January 23, 2007)

[The now-infamous Downing Street documents showed how President George Bush managed his move to war by fitting intelligence to his policy, and by refusing to accept the reports of United Nations inspectors who could find no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Now there is a new hot document that confirms that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair intended to sucker Saddam into war. It demonstrates that this aim was present long before the Bush-Blair talks, and indeed that provocation formed an integral feature of the U.S. war plan.--John Prados, "A War Conspiracy Documented," tompaine.com, February 21, 2007]

‘Raymond Davis’ Is Linked To Terrorism In Pakistan

Gordon Duff & Raja Mujtaba

The Americans, mis-identified by the US Embassy as “diplomats” are believed involved in covert or “black ops” operations inside Pakistan, reportedly against the government of Pakistan, America’s primary ally in the region.

Protests throughout the city of Lahore, university students, various political parties, demanded stiff punishment for a group of Americans, one identified initially as “Raymond Allen Davis,” now “identity unknown,” held on a variety of charges including 2 counts of murder along with four American security contractors currently being sought after fleeing the scene of a vehicular homicide in a related incident.

“Davis” is accused of two counts of murder and terrorism related charges. The other four, named to police but withheld from the media, are being sought for questioning in relation to a vehicular homicide while moving in traffic to assist “Davis.” The four, though described by Davis and the American press to be “diplomats” are believed to be security contractors who entered Pakistan illegally under assumed identities.

The four not yet in custody, believed to be Americans, fled the scene after killing Ibadur Rehman, a local merchant, during a bizarre incident. The Americans, mis-identified by the US Embassy as “diplomats” are believed involved in covert or “black ops” operations inside Pakistan, reportedly against the government of Pakistan, America’s primary ally in the region.

The victim of the vehicle homicide, Rehman, a bicyclist traveling on Jail Road in Lahore, was struck and killed by a four wheel drive vehicle that was part of what “Davis” describes as a “mission” in his statement to police.

According to the statement, the two vehicles, the Honda rental with “cloned” plates driven by “Davis” and the “chase vehicle,” a 4 wheel drive vehicle not registered to the American consulate, containing a 4-man armed security team, were heading toward the Mozang Chungi district.

Mozang Chungi is a densely populated area of small shops and street vendors typically only used by local residents. Security sources in Pakistan state:

“No American tourist or diplomat would ever go there, certainly not two car loads of heavily armed private contractors equipped for a mission of some kind. The only possible reason to be there would be terrorism. The area has been attacked before by terrorists, taking advantage of the crowds and confusion. We suspect we may have stumbled on the source of previous terror attacks and, in fact, broken up what may have become another ‘Mumbai.’

“This is a classic terrorist cover, false identity, phony license plates, car filled with weapons, radios and surveillance gear.”

INTERNAL POLITICAL ISSUES

Pakistan is, itself, governed by contradictions and what most believe to be an ineffective and corrupt civil government led by President Zardari, tied to money laundering in Switzerland, and an Interior Ministry seen as at odds with the powerful military. Pakistan is a nation of huge economic disparity with extreme wealth held by a few and extreme poverty for the majority, especially tribal minorities that make up a significant portion of Pakistan’s population.

Many Pakistanis long for a return to military government, citing failures by the current President, husband of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007.

Accusations tying Pakistan’s Interior Ministry to “foreign elements,” US, India and Israel, intelligence agencies and private contractors, accusations alleging complicity in terrorism and money laundering tied to the massive drug trade in neighboring Afghanistan are commonplace.

REAL EVENTS UNCLEAR

“Davis,” in his statement to police, stated he fired in self defense. Weapons were said to be found alongside the bodies of the slain although counter-claims of weapons being “planted” fill the airwaves.

Autopsy results, as reported, indicate that both were shot in the back with special fragmenting anti-personnel ammunition, one receiving four hits to the back and the other three.

Witnesses report that two young Pakistanis were fired on by the American from inside his vehicle with a fully automatic submachinegun, firing through the glass.

Damage to the vehicle, a white Honda Civic, show shots to have been fired through both the passenger window and rear windscreen.

Media in Pakistan has given extensive coverage to the families of the slain, interviewing them and neighbors who indicate the slain had no criminal or “extremist” history and were respected in the community. In statements to the media, family members have demanded a “public hanging” for those involved, no “blood money” will be accepted. Islamic or “Sharia” law allows for cash settlements or “blood money” to be paid to family members of homicide victims in lieu of capital punishment or imprisonment.

DIPLOMATIC STATUS DENIED BY PAKISTAN

The man, held by Pakistan in the killing of two young men during a traffic altercation, is not “Raymond Allen Davis.” In fact, nobody seems to know who he is, including the US embassy in Islamabad.

Davis, and his four companions who have yet to be apprehended, according to police sources, entered Pakistan illegally, using assumed identities.

However, stories in the press in Pakistan and general belief by the “man in the street” say that the man being held is believed to be an American security contractor active in coordinating terror attacks inside Pakistan, working with Indian intelligence, the “RAW.”

The area of the city “Davis” and his four companions were driving to has been the repeated scene of terror attacks in this city of 7 million nestled on the Indian border, hundreds of miles from Taliban strongholds. Sources in Pakistan state that it simply isn’t credible that an American would be in the densely populated and poorest region of Lahore, especially an American with a false identity and rental car with license plates “cloned” from another vehicle 300 miles away.

“DAVIS” UNDER “SEMI-HOUSE ARREST” WITHDRAWN

Authorities in Lahore, Pakistan were allowing “Davis” to spend his nights at the American consulate and his days at a local police station. But now due to mounting pressures this arrangement has been cancelled. The United States government continues to demand the release of “Davis” though it has also refused to identify him or his associates or state their actual mission in Pakistan.

“Davis” is believed to be a native of Las Vegas, 36 years old with a military background in Special Forces. An internet search shows him to operate under a “one man” Florida based security company but there is, of yet, no known relationship between this entity and any State Department overseas mission.

A check of passport records show that “Davis” has traveled between Pakistan and Afghanistan 9 times during the past 18 months.

Lahore shooting: Three more Americans barred from fleeing Pakistan

By Zahid Gishkori

ISLAMABAD: The government has barred three more Americans from travelling outside Pakistan on allegations that they were in the vehicle that crushed a man to death in Lahore immediately after Raymond Davis, a detained US citizen, was involved in a shootout that killed two other men.

The Punjab government has asked the federal government’s assistance in securing the custody of the three American men who are accused of trampling a motorcyclist to death while they drove to try and rescue Raymond Davis, who is accused of killing two men in Lahore.

“The interior ministry has placed the name of the three Americans, including the driver of the US consulate in Lahore, on the exit control list,” said one federal interior ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Putting a name on the exit control list (ECL) legally empowers the government to prevent that person from leaving the country. Raymond Davis is currently in the custody of the Punjab police in Lahore and awaiting trial for murder.

“We have sought access to get custody of these accused because they are wanted by the Punjab police in connection to the Raymond Davis case,” said Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab Senator Pervez Rashid. He added that the preliminary investigation report has been sent to the federal government.

The federal interior ministry, through the Foreign Office, has also written to the US consulate asking for the three accused Americans to be handed over to the Punjab police, said the interior ministry official. He declined to name the three individuals, however, saying that it might compromise the investigation.

Meanwhile, the US embassy in Pakistan said that they were not aware of these developments.

“We have not received any such information on the issue as yet,” said Courtney Beale, acting spokesperson of the US embassy in Islamabad.

Both the United States and Pakistan governments are handling the situation with some caution, given the popular reaction against Raymond Davis. While the US government claims that Davis has diplomatic immunity, the court in Lahore has yet to adjudicate on the matter.

‘Drone attacks pushing tribesmen closer to militants’

ISLAMABAD – Calling drone attacks counter-productive, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Wednesday said the attacks were bringing the tribes closer to militants.

“Pakistan’s military and political leadership distanced local tribes from the militants, but these attacks are creating sympathy for militants among the locals,” he said in the National Assembly, adding that Pakistan was asking US to give it drone technology.

“We asked the US that you share intelligence with us and we will strike militants ourselves,” he said. He said WikiLeaks revelations had no authenticity and the leaks were a personal opinion of junior officers. “When they lack the pep to say something, they leak such things,” he said, adding that the WikiLeaks had also revealed many positive aspects of his personality.

“These leaks revealed that I wanted to negotiate with the Americans at the level of equality,” he said. He said being a responsible country, Pakistan was taking up drone issue at all international forums. “The world has started accepting our point of view,” he added.

Responding to a point of order of Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada in which he questioned why ministers who had resigned were still working in their offices, Gilani said there was a procedure for the formal acceptance of ministers’ resignations.

“They tender their resignation to me and I send them to the president for approval. Untill today, I have not received the resignations. Once these resignations are accepted, the ministers will stop working,” he added.

Speaking on a point of order earlier, PML-Q Parliamentary Leader Faisal Saleh Hayat asked the prime minister to clarify his position on the drone attacks, as Wikileaks said “Gilani himself allowed the Americans to carry on drone attacks”.

“Why do you say the government is convincing Americans? Pakistan should also have a strategy to counter these attacks,” he said. Hayat said the statements and speeches of government functionaries on drone attacks were not sufficient, and the “government should devise strategy to counter these strikes”. Sheikh Waqas Akram of the PML-Q said the PML-N was raising a hue and cry over Shahzain Bugti’s arrest but had its lips shut on the persecution of common Balochs.

Musharraf admits allowing US drone surveillance

By: Munizae Jahangir

LAHORE: Former president General Pervez Musharraf has admitted that he allowed the US to carry out drone surveillance inside Pakistan’s territory.

But former president says he never gave permission for attacks

“Yes indeed, we wanted intelligence, we wanted them (the US) to locate targets,” the former general said in an exclusive interview to Express 24/7′s programme Face-off.

He added that there was only a ‘general kind of carpet agreement’ with the US and surveillance was allowed on a ‘case to case basis.’

However, according to the understanding between the US and Pakistan, the method of striking militant hideouts was left to Islamabad.

“Once we located the targets, we would decide on the method of striking either by helicopter gunship, or commando heliborne force or some other way. But that was a decision which was left to us,” said Musharraf. He insisted that his government never gave permission for drone strikes.

Earlier in October when Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was asked why the government was not seeking an apology from the US over the drone strikes, he for the very first time revealed that the previous government had given permission for reconnaissance and surveillance flights by spy planes, but never for attacks.

Musharraf was faced with taking tough decisions after 9/11. He won a lot of sympathy from all those who criticised his decision of siding with the Americans in the war against militancy when he revealed that former US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had threatened his then ISI chief (retd) General Mehmood Ahmed of ‘bombing Pakistan back to the stone age’ if Islamabad did not comply with the US in the war on terror.

However Armitage denied threatening Mehmood or ever using harsh words to warn the Musharraf government.

Appearing in the Face-off programme, Musharraf said he was not sure who was telling the truth – his then DG ISI or Armitage.

“Do you think that your DG ISI General Mehmood twisted Richard Armitage’s words?” he was asked. “No comments. I don’t know because this is one man’s word against the other and I don’t know,” was his response.

There is now ample evidence to suggest that the former president not only fulfilled most of the demands put by the Americans post 9/11, but he also did their bidding in the region.

In the interview, Musharraf admits that he asked JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman to approach Mullah Omar in Kandahar to convince him to give up Osama bin Laden and not to blow up the Bamiyan statues.

“Give up Osama bin Laden to which country?” he was asked. “We did not discuss that, he should either be sent back to his country Saudia Arabia, but he should get out of that place. So we did not discuss the modalities of handing him over. I mean first of all he (Mullah Omar) should not be supporting Bin Laden.”

Mullah Omar, of course, refused to comply with any of the demands put by the Americans through the Pakistanis. Maulana Fazlur Rehman admits that Musharraf approached the MMA with demands identical to those of former President Bush to put before Mullah Omar.

However, he denies that he or any leader of the MMA travelled to Kandahar to speak to Mullah Omar on Musharraf’s behalf.

“We told Musharraf that we will not fall in his trap and do his dirty work.” he said, while giving an interview earlier to Face-off on Express TV.

The Specter of Defeat Haunts Lisbon

According to the US government, 41.8 million Americans now receive food stamps. Meanwhile, Washington is spending $7 billion monthly on its nine-year old occupation of Afghanistan, not to mention billions more on trying to build an obedient Afghan army and to pay of Pakistani politicians and general.

Last weekend, the US and its NATO allies met in Lisbon to try to hammer out a contradictory strategy that will keep western troops in Afghanistan indefinitely while assuaging public opinion in North America and Europe that wants the war to end. Most observers failed to note the historical irony that in the 1960′s and 70′s, Portugal had waged a long, debilitating colonial war to preserve its crumbling African empire that ended up nearly bankrupting the mother nation and ending for good its imperial pretensions.

All the platitudes, doubletalk, synthetic optimism and fudging at the NATO summit could not conceal the fact that for all their soldiers, fighter aircraft, heavy bombers, tanks, helicopter gunships, armies of mercenaries, and wizardly electronic gear, the western powers are being slowly beaten by a bunch of lightly-armed Afghan farmers and mountain tribesmen.

President Barack Obama again painfully showed he is not fully in charge of US foreign policy. His pledge to begin withdrawing some US troops from Afghanistan next July has been scornfully contradicted by US generals and resurgent Congressional Republicans.

Claims by other NATO nations that they will pull out by 2014 must also be taken with much salt. As in Obama’s bait and switch in Iraq, the US and its reluctant allies are likely to simply rebrand their combat forces “trainers” and keep them in Kabul propping up the US-installed regime of Hamid Karzai. Remove NATO’s garrison and Taliban would be in Kabul in days.

Obama came fresh to Lisbon from groveling before Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, pleaded with Israel for a token three-month freeze on settlement building in exchange for a huge bribe from Washington of advanced US F-35 stealth warplanes, promises of UN vetoes, and raising to $1 billion US arms stockpiled for Israel’s use.

Israel will likely accept Obama’s huge bribe, but with even more sweeteners, and not before rubbing his face in the dirt to show who really calls the shots in US Mideast policy. George H.W. Bush, the last president to tangle with Israel, came out far the worse for the experience and was not re-elected.

Obama appears to want out of the Afghan War, but lacks the courage to implement withdrawal. His final gamble of sending 30,000 more troops into the war has so far failed to produce the hoped-for decisive victory. But powerful pro-war groups, including the Pentagon, the arms industry and rightwing Republicans, are thwarting his attempts to wind down the war.

Those American, Canadian and European politicians who eagerly backed the Afghan War now fear admitting the conflict was a huge waste of lives and treasure. Their political careers hang in the balance.

As a group of Republican congressmen told me in a private meeting in Washington, they dared not oppose the Afghan War lest their political opponents accuse them of treason, betraying the troops, and appeasing terrorism. Having demonized Taliban, who were former US allies, it is now impossible for official Washington to deal with the movement in a rational manner and achieve a sensible negotiated settlement to the conflict.

Rep. Ron Paul is one of the few politicians in Washington who has the courage to tell Americans the hard truth.

While the US heads deeper into war and debt, its dragooned European allies are fed up with what was supposed to have been a limited “police action” to eliminate al-Qaida bases.

Instead, Europe got a full-scale war against Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes raising uneasy memories of its 19th-century colonial “pacifications.” This is Britain’s fifth invasion of Afghanistan.

France’s influential new defense minister, Alain Juppé, openly described the Afghan conflict a “trap” for NATO and demanded an exit strategy.

It took the great Charles DeGaulle to pull a reluctant France out of its ugly Algerian War. America awaits similar courageous leadership to end the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, we get groins searches and dangerous x-rays at US airports.

In a moment of unusual candor, British Defense Chief Gen. Sir David Richards, warned, “NATO now needs to plan for a 30 or 40 year role.” In short, permanent occupation. It’s worth recalling that US forces have been implanted in South Korea and Japan since the end of World War II.

Afghan president Hamid Karzai is demanding the US scale back military operations, including night raids and death squads, that inflict heavy civilian casualties. Washington counters that Karzai is mentally unstable.

America’s rational for invading Afghanistan was to destroy al-Qaida. But CIA chief Leon Panetta recently admitted there were no more than 50 al-Qaida operatives left in Afghanistan. The rest – no more than few hundred – fled to Pakistan years ago.

So what are 110,000 US troops and 40,000 NATO troops doing in Afghanistan? Certainly not nation-building. Most reports show Afghanistan is in worse poverty and distress than before the US invasion.

While the delegates at Lisbon exchanged toasts and spoke of rebuilding Afghanistan, giant US Army bulldozers, demolition teams and artillery were busy leveling wide swathes of Afghan homes around the Pashtun stronghold, Kandahar. In 2006, US Marines conducted a similar ruthless campaign to crush the rebellious Iraqi city of Falluja, razing a third of it and using white phosphorous shells.

The US is using the same punitive tactics in Afghanistan and Iraq as Israel employs on the occupied West Bank: targeted assassinations, death squads, demolishing buildings or whole neighborhoods. Now, the US is sending heavy tanks to Afghanistan to crush resistance. A proud moment for our republic that recalls Soviet tanks in Budapest in 1956.

The US military establishment is determined the mighty US armed forces must not be defeated by Afghan tribesmen. Defeat in Afghanistan would bring demands for major cuts in the bloated US military, which consumes 50% of world military spending, and ending major arms systems.

Failure in Afghanistan would also threaten the entire NATO alliance.

Europe is slowly re-emerging as a world power, however fitfully and painfully. NATO has been the primary tool of US geopolitical control of Western Europe since the late 1940′s. The post-war US-Japan Security Treaty plays a similar role by allowing the US to militarily dominate North Asia.

If the US loses the Afghan War, its reluctant allies would call into question the reason for the alliance. Europe would hasten building an integrated military independent of US control.

Taliban and its allies are not about to defeat the US and its allies on the battlefield, but they already control half of Afghanistan and intend to inflict the death of a thousand cuts on the financially strapped western powers until public opinion demands an end to this pointless conflict.

That is why Afghanistan so unnerves Washington’s right wingers. The defeat of Soviet armies in Afghanistan in 1989 began the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Could the same fate be in store for the American Raj?

Pakistan heads down China road

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has visited China on several occasions since taking office in September 2008, but these visits have been more ceremonial than of substance, in part because his Washington-backed government had gravitated so close to the United States orbit that even the Chinese envoy in Islamabad publicly complained.

The Pakistani military establishment’s pro-China lobby, highly influenced by now retired General Tariq Majeed, frowned on this tilt towards the US, and was especially upset that the Americans were allowed to establsh a naval base in Ormara in Balochistan province, and that US defense contractors were given a free rein in the country. However, the post-Pervez Musharraf-era army was weak and didn’t have much choice except to turn a blind eye.

This situation continued until 2009, by which time the army had regained its influence in the corridors of power and had begun to prevail over the country’s decision-making process.

Hence, Zardari’s scheduled visit to China on November 11 takes on a special significance. Notably, he has not sought the counsel of his pro-US envoy in Washington, Husain Haqqani, who has consistently advised Zardari to keep his distance from Beijing. Instead, the president on Monday held a long meeting with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani.

Zardari will attend the opening ceremony of the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, as well as meet with his counterpart Hu Jintao and senior officials.

On the surface, the leaders will discuss the Washington-opposed plan for a fifth Chinese-built nuclear reactor in Pakistan. However, the underlying emphasis will be on new moves on the grand chessboard of South Asia.

“This is a time of strategic uncertainty,” a senior Pakistani strategic expert told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity. “Although there is a strategic alliance between the US and Pakistan, the recent visit by United States President Barack Obama to India, which aimed to benefit the American economy, was revealing of how economic and strategic ties between India and American will be in the future: when push comes to shove, the Americans will stand with India, not with Pakistan.”

This does not mean that Pakistan, guided by the military, is instantly going to fall into China’s arms and abandon the US, but it is certainly considering adjusting its current alignments.

“While the US has provided all sorts of financial and economic assistance to Pakistan in return for its services in providing NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] a passage to Afghanistan and for fighting militancy in the tribal areas, America didn’t support Pakistan in regional conflicts with India,” the expert said.

“The US intervened to help resolve disputes between India and Pakistan, but in the end the formulas that emerged from Washington were aimed at creating a situation for dialogue and engagement – trade relations without any resolution of the Kashmir dispute.

“The only [US] goal was that Pakistan-India trade would resume and that would give the Americans a corridor from India into Afghanistan, and finally that dispensation would take India, geographically, into America’s strategic loop in South Asia and facilitate India’s role to work as an American strategic partner in Afghanistan and all the way up to Central Asia,” the expert said.

A changing world

From January to November 5 this year, there were 15 major militant attacks in Pakistan, a dramatic drop from 209 incidents in the same period of the previous year. According to the Canadian Press, the chronology of events shows that the first half of the year was marked by a visibly anti-state insurgency, as was the case in previous years. The frequency of attacks and the dynamics of conflict visibly changed after September [1].

Only two major attacks have occurred since then. These included suicide bomber strikes against a Sunni mosque in Darra Adam Khel in northwestern Pakistan on November 5, in which at least 67 people were killed during Friday prayers. There was also a Taliban suicide attack on a Shi’ite procession that killed 65 people in the southwestern city of Quetta on September 1, beside two other minor incidents against shrines in Karachi and Pakpattan.

This indicates that from September the violence become sectarian, or centered on tribal disputes. The attacks by the Taliban and al-Qaeda that played havoc in Pakistan in 2009 have virtually come to a halt.

Asia Times Online has documented the development of ceasefire initiatives between Pakistan and the militants (See Vultures are circling in Pakistan September 28, 2010). These were brokered with various main groups and at present only fringe groups like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi are left to carry out attacks, and even these are sectarian in nature.

On the other hand, attacks against Afghanistan-bound NATO supply convoys in Pakistan have increased dramatically, to the extent that they have become almost daily.

The “understanding” between the security forces and militants has reached the stage where militants have pledged they will release all prominent prisoners without demanding a high price. These include former Inter-Services Intelligence official retired Colonel Ameer Sultan alias Imam (known as the “Father of the Taliban”) and Aamir Malik, the son-in-law of former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, retired General Tariq Majeed.

During Pakistan’s recent strategic dialogue with the US in Washington, Islamabad was directly urged to come out with a comprehensive action plan against the powerful Haqqani network in the North Waziristan tribal area. The network is a key player in the Taliban-led insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.

However, army chief Kiani is a fervent believer in dialogue with the network and sees it as a guarantee for peace in the future. The Americans have tried their level-best to reach out to the Haqqanis – Jalaluddin and his sons Sirajuddin and Naseeruddin – and the Taliban, but their talks to start talks have collapsed. This has been confirmed by Saudi and other officials involved in the process. Asia Times Online was the first publication to break the news of the failure, (See Taliban peace talks come to a halt October 30, 2010.)

Washington is still pressing Pakistan, though, to mount operations in North Waziristan, and is even prepared to use a stick if necessary. This could be done through international institutions in which the US has influence, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asia Development Bank and the United States Agency for International Development.

The IMF’s assistant director for the Middle East and Central Asia Department, Adnan Mazarie, recently warned that if these bodies stopped their credit lines to Pakistan, it would go into default. The IMF is now warning that if Pakistan does not implement a “credible and irreversible plan to implement power sector reforms”, aid will be cut off.

China means business

Last Sunday, Pakistan’s Daily Dawn reported that Pakistan had set aside all competitive international bidding for the induction of power plants in the country and had decided to award a contract, without bidding, to a Chinese company for the construction of 1,100 megawatt hydropower project in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, at an estimated cost of US$2.2 billion.

Approximately 10,000 Chinese workers are engaged in 120 projects in Pakistan and total Chinese investment – which includes heavy engineering, power generation, mining and telecommunications – stood at $15 billion at the end of this year, up from $4 billion in 2007.

One of the most significant joint development projects of recent years is the major port complex at the naval base of Gwadar in Balochistan province. The complex, inaugurated in December 2008 and now fully operational, provides a deep-sea port, warehouses and industrial facilities for more than 20 countries.

China provided much of the technical assistance and 80% of the funds for the construction of the port. In return for providing most of the labor and capital, China gains strategic access to the Persian Gulf: the port is just 180 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz through which 40% of all globally traded oil is shipped.

This enables China to diversify and secure its crude oil import routes and provides the landlocked and oil- and natural gas-rich Xinjiang province with access to the Arabian Sea. With China formally in command of Gwadar port operations, it would, along with Pakistan, gain an important regional and strategic advantage.

Pakistan’s marriage of convenience with the US that began after September 11, 2001, with the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the launch of the “war on terror”, has endured some rocky times.

Informed opinion in strategic quarters in Pakistan is that in the second half of next year, American aid packages, in the wake of the beginning of the US troop drawdown in Afghanistan, will be reduced or even stopped, and the US’s relations with India will bloom.

Pakistan wants to be ready for such a development, and is using China as a hedge.

Note

1. On August 23, three bomb attacks in northwest Pakistan kill at least 36. On July 9, a pair of suicide bombers kills 102 people and wounds 168 in the Mohmand tribal region. On July 2, twin suicide bombers attack Pakistan’s most revered Sufi shrine in Lahore, killing 47 people and wounding 180. On May 29, two teams of seven militants attack two mosques of the Ahmadi minority sect in Lahore, killing 97. On April 19, a suicide bomber apparently targeting police at a conservative Islamic party rally in Peshawar kills 23. On April 18, two burqa-clad suicide bombers attack refugees lined up to register for food in Kohat district in the northwest, killing 41. On April 5, a suicide bomber attacks a rally of an anti-Taliban political party in Lower Dir district, killing 45. On March 13, two suicide bombers targeting army vehicles in Lahore kill more than 55 and wound more than 100. On February 18, a bomb tears through a mosque in the Khyber tribal region, killing 29 people and wounding 50 more. On February 5, two bombs targeting the Shi’ite Muslim minority sect in Karachi kill 33 and wound 176 and on January 1 a suicide bomber drives a truckload of explosives into a volleyball field in Lakki Marwat district, killing at least 97 people.

Fighting the Pakhtuns

Ahmed Quraishi

There is a very simple question that every Pakistani government official needs to ask the Americans: If you fail to pacify the Pakhtuns in Afghanistan, is it Pakistan’s responsibility to sever historical ties and wage war against them?

This is the mother of all questions because it deals with the issue of some, not all, of the Afghan Taliban using Pakistani territory to attack occupation armies in their country. Apparently this is the excuse the United States is using to expand its failed Afghan war into Pakistan. US officials say Pakistanis are unable to exercise sovereignty over their own territory. Then some here inside Pakistan – in politics and the media – use this argument to ask another question: isn’t Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban violating Pakistani sovereignty by using our border-pockets as hideouts away from action inside Afghanistan? This argument is used to justify US violations of the Pak-Afghan international border. If the Afghan Taliban can do it, why not the US military? So the justification goes.

Pakistan still has time to come out strongly with two arguments at policy level. One, there is no way of completely stopping Pakistani Pakhtuns, who are an integral part of the Pakistani nation, from sympathising with the Pakhtuns in Afghanistan. And two, the US must solve the ‘Pakhtun problem’ inside Afghanistan. The solution is not by starting a war between the Pakistani military – manned in substantial part by the Pakhtuns – and Pakistani Pakhtun tribes or some of the Afghan Taliban, like the so-called Haqqani network. This will not fix the toy the Americans broke in Afghanistan.

In other words: what is it the US is doing wrong in Afghanistan to spur Pashtun and Taliban resistance, including pushing some of them inside Pakistan? And should Pakistan respond by killing these Pakhtuns because the US says so?

There are two more strong arguments that can strengthen a Pakistani policy review, which is overdue nine years into a failed war.

One is the fact that the Pakhtun and Taliban resistance against occupation in Afghanistan is not a function of the Pakistani tribal areas. The US military dare not claim that Pakistan’s devastated tribal belt is alone responsible for the rout facing US, NATO and ISAF forces across Afghanistan. But this is what the Americans imply when they shift the world focus to Pakistan without anyone from the Pakistani side disputing this twisted American logic.

And the second argument has to do with Al-Qaeda. Pakistan needs to dispute American claims about the quality and strength of Al-Qaeda presence in the Pakistani tribal belt. London’s International Institute of Strategic Studies is not exactly a den of antiwar activism. In a report last month, the think-tank questioned the US-policy line that Al-Qaeda can muster attacks anywhere outside Afghanistan or Pakistan.

If anything, we are seeing a US-occupied Afghanistan becoming a magnet for unknown terrorists from multiple backgrounds and questionable loyalties using Afghan soil to enter our tribal belt, as in the case of the Germans involved in the alleged Mumbai-style Europe-terror plot. Washington is conveniently using these conspiracy theories to expand its war onto Pakistani territory without any credible evidence.

Pakistan does not have a quarrel with the Afghan Pakhtuns or the Afghan Taliban. The latest US reports and assertions that Pakistan’s spy agencies maintain contacts with either are ridiculous. Islamabad must maintain those contacts. In fact, we must expand contacts with the Afghan Taliban in view of the double game the United States played with us in Afghanistan over the last eight years, where it turned Kabul into an Anti-Pakistan Central and deliberately expanded and continues to encourage Indian presence on our western borders.

The American duplicity extends to peace talks. Washington wants us to enter into a war with Afghanistan’s Pakhtuns while it secretly establishes contacts and tries to win them over behind Pakistan’s back. The same argument extends to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Kashmiri groups. Islamabad can’t shower bombs upon Kashmiris who decide to become part of LeT or support their kin resisting Indian atrocities in Kashmir. The solution there too is for India to resolve its own problems. Its festering occupation in Kashmir, like the festering American occupation in Afghanistan, is breeding a two-way violence that first and foremost de-stabilises Pakistan. Our answer can’t be to send troops to crack down on Pakhtuns and Kashmiris. others need to answer for their actions that are destabilising Pakistan and the region.

No method to the madness

State of Pakistan

By Yousuf Nazar

More than one trillion dollars and nine years later the alleged and self-confessed master mind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has not been convicted. Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al-Zahwari, and Mullah Omar have not been caught, dead or alive; the Talibans instead of being eliminated are set to take over Kabul again, and Pakistan which hardly had a Taliban presence on September 11, 2001 has been rocked by bomb blasts and has had its worst year of violence since 2001. And Americans still cannot see what the problem is?

But then if their policies had a bit of wisdom, we never would have had Vietnam, Cambodia would not have been ruined, Shah of Iran would never have been allowed to suppress dissent, Afghanistan would not have been abandoned after 1989, and a just settlement of the Palestine conflict would have been achieved. It is easy to forget lessons of history in the confusion and noise of day-to-day reporting and in the age of 30 second sound bites of electronic media.

And it is ok for much over-rated Newsweek and its editor to declare Pakistan as the most dangerous country and the home of Al Qaeda and confess, without much regret or shame, three years later that Al Qaeda is not really that deadly a threat.

I would like to believe this sensational bit of journalism had little to do with the fact that Newsweek magazine had been making losses for years. As of 2003, worldwide circulation was more than 4 million, including 2.7 million in the U.S; however as of 2010 it is down to 1.5 million. The financial results for 2009 as reported by the Washington Post showed that advertising revenue for Newsweek was down 37% in 2009 and the magazine division reported an operating loss for 2009 of $29.3 million compared to a loss of $16 million in 2008. During the magazine’s first quarter of 2010, it lost nearly $11 million. By May 2010, Newsweek was said to be up for sale. The magazine was sold to audio pioneer Sidney Harman for just $1 on August 2, 2010.

Fareed Zakaria, then a Newsweek columnist and editor of Newsweek International, attended a secret meeting on November 29, 2001 with a dozen policy makers, Middle East experts and members of influential policy research organizations to produce a report for President George W. Bush and his cabinet outlining a strategy for dealing with Afghanistan and the Middle East in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. The meeting was held at the request of Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense. The unusual presence of journalists at such a strategy meeting was revealed in Bob Woodward’s 2006 book State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III.

In the May 9, 2005, issue of Newsweek, an article by reporter Michael Isikoff stated that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay “in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed a Qur’an down a toilet. The magazine later revealed that the anonymous source behind the allegation could not confirm that the book-flushing was actually under investigation, and retracted the story under heavy criticism. But the damage had been done.

Yet, some make so much of the trash that is published in magazines like Newsweek and ignore the counsel of experienced and mature hands like Dr. Brzezinski.

The U.S. military and intelligence budgets have crossed all decent and reasonable limits. The intelligence budget alone has gone up by more than 250% since 2001 to $75 billion and the defenders of U.S. madness in Afghanistan and Pakistan do not see the irony of a mad campaign that has not achieved anything and destroyed much, including American credibility and standing in the world.

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the foremost foreign policy experts in the U.S., who started the American involvement in Afghanistan in 1978-1979 as President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, warned the U.S. government about the potentially disastrous consequences of its foreign policy in a testimony before the U.S. senate foreign relations committee on February 1, 2007. “If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a “defensive” U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

He dismissed the fears about Al Qaeda saying: “A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD’s in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the “decisive ideological struggle” of our time.”

Dr. Brzezinski warned: ” Vague and inflammatory talk about “a new strategic context” which is based on “clarity” and which prompts “the birth pangs of a new Middle East” is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world.”

He added: “One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates. The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward the U.S. global posture. “

One consequence of the bloody military and covert operations is that the control of many aspects slips out of the hands of the politicians and away from Congressional oversight. Guantanamo Bay is one such example. Dozens were kept under detention without any trial and then released without much explanation. Abdullah Mahsud was one.. captured in December 2001 and released in May 2004.

Dissent was stifled with the neo-fascist rhetoric of “either you are with us or against us”, and thus giving the press little choice but to accept the official story line without much questioning or reasoning. The psychology of fear was used to pursue a Middle East policy that had everything to do with oil and little to do with terrorism as has been acknowledged by eminent figures such as General (rtd) Wesley Clarke, former supreme commander of NATO, Bill Clinton’s economic adviser Jeff Sachs, and the former FED chairman Alan Greenspan.

The latest casualty of the U.S. military and intelligence establishment’s what Brzezinski called a “mythical narrative” is Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. She may or may not have been involved with Al Qaeda. I do not know. No court ever charged her with any terrorist act. So all that noise is irrelevant in so far it relates to her sentencing by a U.S. court for 86 years on charges of committing a crime in Afghanistan as a Pakistani citizen. If the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment wanted to delay the case and avoid provocation, which it knew it would cause in Pakistan, it could have easily delayed the trial as it did in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for reasons that remain obscure.

I won’t speculate on the motives for carrying on this trial at this time lest some naïve or biased readers accuse me of a conspiracy theory but the repercussions are obvious. It is a clear provocation even if that was not the intent. It is mystifying that while on one hand, the U.S. gives $405 million for aid for the floods; but it increases the frequency of drone strikes which for sure are going to destroy any good will it would have hoped to generate. Are they so stupid? But then even $10 billion is a small sum in the big power games when the total cost of the War on Terror is coming to over a trillion dollars according to the official figures and more than $2 trillion according to independent U.S. economists.

I quoted Dr. Brzezinski at length to make the points that some of us make but are dismissed as anti-Americanism. I worked for an American bank for 20 years. I have nothing against Americans. But their establishment’s Middle East and Central Asian policies are wrong, short-sighted, counter-productive and ultimately self-defeating. There is no method to their madness but only one way to prevent more harm than they have already caused, belated though it might be. They should get the hell out of Afghanistan and Pakistan and stop supporting or manipulating their puppets, be it in civvies or muftis. The world would be a better place if President Obama can focus on the ailing U.S. economy, which is not only in a long term decline but is not recovering well, and put an end to all costly overt and covert misadventures overseas.