Doing it wrong is what US does right

By Ghalib Sultan
ZoneAsia-Pk 

So the Sisyphean manhunt for the perpetrators of 9/11 continues. After a decade of blood letting the chosen white people, United States of Paranoia still needs Patsies it can announce exorbitant bounties for and in the process air out the world’s worst kept secret: even after more than a decade of fighting the wildly ‘successful’ War on Terror they still don’t know what they are doing.

Hafiz Saeed, head of right wing religious group Jamat ud Dawah whose militant faction Lashkar-e-Taiba was accused of master minding the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks in India; woke up on Tuesday to TV channels abuzz with news of how much money he is worth. Ten million dollars offered by the US to anyone who can deliver Saeed dead or alive to the US authorities. This new declaration of love for everything Pakistan was made by US Undersecretary Wendy Sherman in India on Monday as a show of righteous indignation for why Pakistani authorities have all this time failed to convict Saeed and bring him to justice.

This announcement had an effect that the most imbecile of Pakistanis could have predicted: it turned the wanted man into a media darling, sky rocketing his popularity ratings and turning him into everyone’s favorite playmate of the year. After twelve years either the US is still in denial and believes that Pakistanis will gladly rise to the occasion and call their favorite Uncle Sam to deliver the rogue miscreant to or this announcement of head-money serves a different purpose.

This new development takes place the same month Zardari is supposed to travel to India for the first time after 26/11. The timing is unlikely to be fortuitous but the message left shining on the wall reads: ‘we’re with those guys now’.

If Hafiz Saeed was the bone of contention all along, America should have learned that bounty or no bounty the best way to capture wanted men in Pakistan is via stealth operations only. A man like Hafiz Saeed whose organization is purportedly widely buttressed by the infamous ISI itself and hasn’t been convicted in any court in this country, clearly enjoys high level support. This is something Indian analysts came out to discuss as well, shaking heads over the fact that of course announcing a bounty won’t make aspiring Pakistani assassins don ninja suits to capture a man who lives in Johar Town, Lahore and is seen holding large public rallies to discuss the latest ways of dressing mutton aka India.

Saeed argued that the US hasn’t announced the bounty because six US citizens died in the Mumbai Attacks (let’s face it US soldiers who die in action don’t fetch even close to a million dollars) but because he has been holding mass rallies against reopening the NATO Supply Route. This might sound more plausible given the current ferocity with which DPC and other right wing parties have been making threats about not being afraid to ‘spill blood’ if the routes re-open. Furthermore the opposition and government have both refused to own the decision to reopen those routes ending in a stalemate.

And yet turning up its nose at Pakistan and sidling to India just when Pakistan has found a novel way to assert its national sovereignty isn’t going to help matters for the US. If announcement of bounty on a man who roams freely and is not afraid to sneer at the US and challenge it to take him to court, only foments anti US sentiment, then the US possibly cannot hope to aspire towards a future relationship with Pakistan based on ‘mutual  respect and understanding’.

Rangers Chief: Karachi Worse Than Waziristan

KARACHI: A special bench of the Supreme Court heard the suo motu case on the killings in Karachi on Wednesday, DawnNews reported.

The special bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar, includes Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Sarmad Jalal Usmani, Justice Amer Hani Muslim and Justice Ghulam Rabbani.

During the hearing, Director-General Rangers Major-General Mohammad Ejaz Chaudhry said that Karachi’s security situation was worse than that of Waziristan.

He further said that criminals frequently took shelter in the offices of political parties.

Moreover, Chief Justice Iftikhar asked why should former minister Zulfikar Mirza be summoned before the court.

He further said: What does the court has to do with political statements?

The hearing was later on adjourned to Thursday.

Furthermore, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is expected to brief the bench on unrest in the metropolis tomorrow.

ISI to brief SC on Karachi situation

KARACHI: The hearing of the Karachi violence suo moto case was adjourned till Thursday, Geo News reported. The Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is expected to brief the Supreme Court (SC) on the situation in Karachi on Thursday.

On Monday’s proceedings, Director General Rangers Sindh, Major General Ejaz Choudhry informed the court that militant groups of political and ethnic parties were involved in the violence in the city. He added that the situation in Karachi was worse than Waziristan and a military solution was temporary and could only be resolved through political means. The DG Rangers requested that police powers given to the Rangers should last until peace is restored in the city.

A five-member special bench of the SC comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Sarmad Jalal Usmani, Justice Amer Hani Muslim and Justice Ghulam Rabbani is hearing the case at the Supreme Court Karachi Registry.

Earlier, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) lawyer, Abdul Qadir Jatoi informed the court that the killing in Karachi was being done under the guidance of political parties in order to influence the senate elections. Jatoi added that Zulfiqar Mirza had made important disclosures and was an important witness in the case.

The Chief Justice remarked that if Zulfiqar Mirza said something then his affidavit should be presented in the court and a petition should be filed. He further said that it was not the job of the court to record statements of witnesses and for this a separate petition had to be filed.

“Why should we call Zulfiqar Mirza, if he has something to say he should record his sworn statement” the Chief Justice noted. A CD of Zulfiqar Mirza was also presented by the JI lawyer.

The chief of Awami Tehreek, Rasul Bux Palejo said the present government was a dummy and only wanted to collect tax “the real power is with the US”.

He added that everyone knew that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was behind the violence but no one was willing to identifying them and even certain judges were scared.

The MQM also submitted a petition to become a party in the case. The lawyer for the party said that a list of people beheaded during the violence had been submitted and 230 MQM activists had been killed since 2008.

US in its true colours

That the US has prepared secret scorecards of Pakistan’s performance in the war on terror to assess whether it is really extending the required cooperation to the US, before any security assistance could be given to it, shows Washington in its true colours and exposes the hoax of “lasting friendship” the American leaders have been glibly talking about since 9/11. After all, the US is in the process of packing up in Afghanistan and as there is little point in the superpower currying favour with a country whose help would no longer be required after the US withdrawal, it believes it is time to prepare the ground for moving away from it. For the role of region’s policeman, Washington has opted for India, which has, apparently, taken upon itself the role of keeping any eruption of disturbances in Afghanistan under check after the US troops had left and has also promised to serve as a bulwark against the expansion of Chinese power and influence. Though the State Department has, in a statement, confirmed the US media report about conditional aid, the ISI has denied that it has been presented with any wish-list and rightly maintained that it was Pakistan’s prerogative to decide how to combat terrorism and conduct relations with Afghanistan. Under no circumstances should Islamabad compromise on its national interests in trying to be on the right side of the US because that could enable it to receive the promised aid unhindered. Reportedly, four separate scorecards cover different areas of cooperation in: exploiting the bin Laden compound; the war in Afghanistan; conducting joint counterterrorism operations; and improving the overall tone in bilateral relations.

In the meantime, the American and British media has floated a story that Pakistan, peeved at CIA contractor Raymond Davis’ murdering two Pakistanis and the unilateral raid at Abbottabad, has let the Chinese experts take photographs of the tail of the stealth helicopter destroyed during the raid. Readers familiar with the media hype about the fake story of the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of President Saddam Hussein to justify attack on Iraq would understand that the ‘Chinese inspection of helicopter’s tail’ is nothing but a part of propaganda blitz of the US whose tool its media is ever ready to serve.

The conditional aid and the flimsy charge of the Chinese taking photographs of the helicopter tail are part of the pressure tactics to make Pakistan fall in line. This is the time to resist such pressure and adopt the policy of self-reliance, dispensing with foreign handouts. Our rulers should swallow the bitter pill of a sharp cut in expenditure for running the government, practise strict austerity and impose taxes on agriculture and the rich to make up for the shortfall caused by the stoppage of the US aid, but under no circumstances follow the American agenda.

USA – Tables Turning Too Fast & Too Hard

The American quandary is self-evident. How to keep the lifeline to Afghanistan open long enough to withdraw, not antagonize the Pakistanis too much, and try to withdraw out of the Hindu Kush with some semblance of “dignity”. All this really complicated by the rise of China, the Talib control of most of Afghanistan, the decrepit nature of the Afghan National Army (ANR), the belligerency of Iran, the attitude of Bharat, and the colossal nose dive of the US economy. The issues highlight the reach of imperial reach, and the limits of what a Superpower can achieve. US Dollars can go only so far.

A Pakistan Army soldier deployed during an exercise and armed with the Heckler & Koch G3,.

The Pakistan Army and the ISI has deliberated on this and has decided that it does not want US aids. That consensus has upset the cart. The US philosophy was to send aid and then attach slimy strings to it-forcing compliance and kowtowing to the whims of the General Commander in Afghanistan.

The paradigm shifted in the post-OBL raid when General Kayani was taken to task by the Corp Commanders, the rank and file and the Pakistanis in General. He quickly re-caliberated and turned down US Military Aid asking the US to “divert it to Civilian usage.” Under pressure from the Army, General Kayani then sent the trainers home and General Pasha was given clear instructions to cleanse Pakistan of foreign agents. Both Pasha and Kayani planned for the consequences and made trips to Ira, China and Saudi Arabia to find alternatives. Those were secured. The retribution from the US was an expected one-they withheld $800 million from the Pakistani military (aid that had already been rejected by the Army).

Washington is still in a time warp. It still feels that it can pull the strings in Islamabad by withholding funds. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the White House has started conditioning the award of billions of dollars in security assistance to Pakistan on whether Islamabad shows progress on a secret scorecard of U.S. objectives to combat al Qaeda and its militant allies. The U.S. also is asking Pakistan to take specific steps to ease bilateral tensions.”

In other words the US is asking the Pakistan Army to do what it has already refused to do!

This “new” “a hard-knuckled reflection of where we are right now” approach is the epetome of the “Transactional relationship” that Joseph Biden and Senator John Kerry had been opposing for a decade. The message from Washington for the past sixty years has always been “You make progress in these areas, and we can release some of this assistance.” This is a non-starter for Pakistan’s military and Intelligent Services.

The Wall Street Journal describes the “paternalistic and arrogant,” diktats in a secret balanced scor card-”Under the new approach, the office of the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is compiling classified scorecards that track Pakistan’s cooperation in four areas, referred to in the White House as ‘baskets’…Each basket contains a to-do list that the administration wants from Pakistan”.

The four classified basket are:

Pakistani cooperation in exploiting the bin Laden compound: The debris was sent back but China saw the debris and took samples.
Pakistani cooperation with the war in Afghanistan: A series of meetings with President Karzai were held
Pakistani cooperation with the U.S. in conducting joint counterterrorism operations. The detained doctor who was a US agent has not been released
Cooperation in improving the overall tone in bilateral relations. Pakistan has been holding back hundreds of visa requests for CIA operatives
The Scorecard assigns “green light,” “yellow light” and “red light” assessments to show whether progress is being made.

As expected th winding down of the Afghan war places less interest in the so called “long-term relationship” and places focus on short-term results.

The retiring Adm. Mullen and others have doubts about the approach have grown within the White House and the intelligence community. However the WSJ quotes a US military official as saying “It’s still the military’s intention to continue to try to pursue a strategic partnership with the Pakistani military. We recognize where we are in the relationship and that it is very tough right now, but nothing has changed about our long term goals of better cooperation.”

The question is not whether the US wants a strategic partner with Pakistan-the question is that the Pakistanis have already decided that a long term strategic partnership is not in Pakistani interests. Pakistan will continue to play “rope-a-dope”, keep taking the punches ’till 2014 when the US forces leave-and then make up its own decision on how to proceed in Afghanistan and in Central Asia.

The US had a golden opportunity to secure Afghanistan and get a foothold in Central Asia with the help of Pakistan. It failed to use that opportunity of a lifetime and will have to face the consequences of the foreign policy blunders of the Obama Adminstration.

The US defeat in Afghanistan will send signals around the world!

Pakistan Let China Sample Crashed US “Stealth” Copter

The Telegraph

Pakistan gave China access to the previously unknown U.S. “stealth” helicopter that crashed during the commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May despite explicit requests from the CIA not to, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

During the US operation one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters, believed to employ previously unknown stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed in Abottabad forcing commandos to abandon it

The disclosure, if confirmed, is likely to further shake the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, which has been improving slightly after hitting its lowest point in decades following the killing of bin Laden.

During the raid, one of two modified Blackhawk helicopters, believed to employ unknown stealth capability, malfunctioned and crashed, forcing the commandos to abandon it.

“The U.S. now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad,” the paper quoted a person “in intelligence circles” as saying on its website.

It said Pakistan, which enjoys a close relationship with China, allowed Chinese intelligence officials to take pictures of the crashed aircraft as well as take samples of its special “skin” that allowed the American raid to evade Pakistani radar.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was reason to believe Pakistan had allowed the Chinese to inspect the aircraft. But the official could not confirm it happened with certainty.

No one from the Pakistani army was available for comment, but the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s top spy agency, denied the report. The paper said Pakistan’s top general, chief of army staff Ashfaq Kayani, denied that China had been given access.

The surviving tail section, photos of which were widely distributed on the Internet, was returned to the United States following a trip by U.S. Senator John Kerry in May, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy told Reuters.

Shortly after the raid, Pakistan hinted that it might give China access to the helicopter, given its fury over the raid, which it considers a grievous violation of its sovereignty.

“We had explicitly asked the Pakistanis in the immediate aftermath of the raid not to let anyone have access to the damaged remains of the helicopter,” the Financial Times quoted the source as saying.

In an incident such as the helicopter crash, it is standard American procedure to destroy sophisticated technology such as encrypted communications and navigation computers.

DISPLEASURE

Pakistan is a strategic ally to the United States but the relationship has been on a downward spiral since the killing of the al Qaeda leader in the raid by U.S. forces.

Islamabad was not informed in advance and responded by cutting back on U.S. trainers in the country and placing limits on CIA activities there.

The fact that the al Qaeda chief lived for years near the Pakistani army’s main academy in the northwestern garrison town of Abbottabad reinforced suspicions in Washington about Islamabad’s reliability in the war against militant Islamists.

There are also growing frustrations with Pakistan over its reluctance to mount offensives against militant factions in the northwest who are fighting U.S.-led foreign forces across the border in Afghanistan.

In a show of displeasure over Pakistan’s cutback in U.S. trainers, its limits on visas for U.S. personnel and other bilateral irritants, the United States has suspended about a third of its $2.7 billion annual defense aid to Pakistan.

Despite this, both sides have tried to prevent a breakdown of relations.

The head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, visited the United States last month for talks with U.S. government and intelligence officials, which both sides said went well.

Despite the billions in aid, Pakistan still considers China a more reliable ally than the United States. China is a major investor in predominantly Muslim Pakistan in areas such as telecommunications, ports and infrastructure. The countries are linked by a Chinese-built road pushed through Pakistan’s northern mountains.

Trade with Pakistan is worth almost $9 billion a year for Pakistan, and China is its top arms supplier.

In the wake of attacks that left 11 people dead in the China’s western region of Xinjiang in late July, Pakistan dispatched the ISI’s Pasha to Beijing.

America-Pakistan-India Triangle

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, who ironically enjoys the reputation of being American ambassador to Pakistan, based in Washington, has recently quipped, “The most hated country in Pakistan is our top trading partner, top aid donor, top weapon supplier and top remittance source”.

Significant reason behind this anomaly is the snowballing India-US nexus at the cost of Pakistan. De-hyphenating of India-Pakistan in American strategic calculus has indeed created more problems for America and this region than it intended to resolve. Obsession to sponsor the rise of India as a major player on Asian geopolitical canvas has severely curtailed American leverage over India; Obama dare not pronounce ‘K’ for Kashmir once again!

Barrack Obama’s visit to India had left a negative impact on the whole region which has been reinforced by Hillary’s recent rhetoric. By prompting India to bite more than it could chew, America is well on its way to sow the seeds of perpetual destabilization of this region at the expense of China as well as India itself.

While in the past America played effective role to diffuse Pak-India tensions and did not allow the matters to degenerate into tactical showdown, it also winked its eye to allow India maintain strategic pressures through military deployments, diplomatic manoeuvres and resource squeezing.

Pakistan and America differ considerably on issues of vital interest to Pakistan; nuclear policy, energy acquisition from Iran and China, end game in Afghanistan, Kashmir conflict etc are some major areas of divergence. Most of these issues are intricately liked to India. Hence a Pakistan-India-America triangle has emerged; a sort of re-hyphenation in a crude form.

America retains a cunning balancing leverage between India and Pakistan; and uses the pressure points aptly to make Pakistan and India do American bidding.

Recently the US lawmakers have rejected the bill regarding stoppage of aid to Pakistan but have agreed to attach strings. Public opinion is gaining strength that stringed aid may be refused and to make up for the loss, Pakistan should proportionately enhance the transit fee on American supply containers and also impose transit fee on aircraft destined for Afghan war zone through Pakistan.

America frequently partners Indian effort in maintaining a high pitched tirade against Pakistan’s armed force and the ISI; this has scaled new heights since the cowardly Abbottabad attack. All guns are being directed against Pakistan. Political leadership is being spared of any wrong doing with a clear objective of creating a wedge between the political and military echelons of national leadership.

Timed with Hillary’s recent visit, Americans took a well calculated step to appease India by arresting Kashmiri American Council President, Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai. Indian reaction was of joy. Arrest is a setback to the legitimate rights of the people of Kashmir, specially their struggle for self-determination. Pakistani government showed an angry response. Foreign office announced that “A demarche was made to the US embassy in Islamabad to register the concerns, in particular the slander campaign against Pakistan.”

To mitigate the defeat in Afghanistan, the US is working overtime to shift the blame for every wrong to Pakistan. To consolidate towards this end, America is all set to involve India in Afghanistan, militarily. While in India, Hillary Clinton sought to reassure India that the United States has no plan to cut and run when it comes to Afghanistan. Indeed Hillary was bluffing,

those familiar with Obama administration’s thinking are of the view that White House wants to be able to point to concrete achievements in the country in the run-up to 2012 elections, while wrapping things up in Afghanistan “at any cost”.

In the context of terrorism, India needs to understand that militants are well-organised from Somalia to Afghanistan and from Central Asian Republics to the Occupied Kashmir.

International security analysts are already predicting that India is on the brink of becoming a battle ground of these trans-national groups. Outreach of these elements is much broader than Pakistan’s logical capacity to handle them; even America is unable to contain them. Pakistan has already proposed setting up of SAARC police for pooling up regional resources for this purpose.

Hillary Clinton played another pressure card by projecting India as the leading power in Asia. This effort was launched to coax India into a proxy role to counterbalance China. Hillary called upon India to become a more assertive leader in Asia, in South-East Asia, the Pacific Rim, in Central Asia and Pacific Ocean.

The fact is that India is having a hard time holding its own in its immediate neighbourhood, as China is expanding its links with Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Nepal. Hence, to expect India to match China in South-East Asia and the Pacific Rim, where China has built-in advantages, is a pipe dream. India will remain cautious while siding with Americans against the Chinese. It needs China’s nod to realise its aspiration for a permanent UNSC berth.

Under these settings, the fate of Pak-India foreign minister level talks was correctly pre-judged by the analysts of India and Pakistan. There was unanimity of opinion that parleys would remain at the cosmetic level, routines would be discussed and core issues would be sidestepped. Travel, trade, terrorism etc would be in forefront; water and Kashmir in the background.

Mumbai would be highlighted and ‘Samjhota Express’ would get a passing mention. Matters have moved the same way. Nevertheless, some functional dialogue process is always better than none.

In an upbeat assessment after their meeting, Indian Foreign Minister said ties were back “on the right track,” while Pakistani Foreign Minister spoke of a “new era” of cooperation. Nevertheless, there was little in the way of substantive agreements to back up the general mood of optimism. Joint statement was monotonous, envisaging a general bilateral effort to combat terrorism, increase trade and keep the peace dialogue going.

One must understand that now America is in the driving seat of Pak-India interactions; talks are likely to follow the pattern of ‘sound good solve nothing’. After all America has a long experience of sponsoring futile dialogue like process between Palestine and Israel. It remains for India and Pakistan not to get locked into a zero sum game. Both countries need to strengthen their bilateral institutions to absorb the sporadic crises and move on.

ISPR rejects NYT reports against Pakistan Army,ISI

RAWALPINDI: DG ISPR Major General Athar Abbas Saturday rejected the allegations leveled against the Army and ISI in series of ‘unsubstantiated’ news reports published by the American newspaper New York Times.

According to ISPR, DG ISPR during an interview with a foreign news agency said that in recent weeks the New York Times has continued to publish wild claims presented as news stories on the basis on information supposedly provided by unnamed US officials.

He added that in most cases such news reports have quoted anonymous US sources, bringing the veracity of their reporting into question.

Recalling NYT’s apology of March 2004 about some of its coverage of the Iraq war, General Abbas said at that time the newspaper had this to say: “In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in reexamining the claims as new evidence emerged-or failed to emerge”.

The Military Spokesman further said: “if the newspaper continues with its vilifying campaign without any concrete evidence, I am afraid at some point it may end up expressing its deep regret the way it did in the case of its Iraq coverage.

Why Has Pakistan Targeted Informants Who Helped Track Bin Laden?

In the days following the raid that discovered and killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistan’s top spymaster recalled that he had long made his feelings plain to his American allies. Where the two countries’ interests meet, Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha told a select group of journalists, there would be co-operation. But where the U.S.’s interests were deemed to be acting against Pakistan’s own, it would be a very different matter. “We’ll not help you,” the head of Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) quoted himself as telling his American counterparts. “We’ll resist you.”

Now, Pasha seems to be making good on that promise. Stung by the embarrassment of bin Laden’s discovery in a garrison town just two hours away from the Pakistani capital, and the humiliation of the U.S. carrying out a unilateral raid, the ISI has evidently gone after the Pakistanis who helped them pull it off. Five Pakistani informants, including an Army major, who furnished the CIA with crucial leads about bin Laden’s compound have been taken into custody by the ISI, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. On Thursday, a senior Pakistani official told TIME that the only Pakistani remaining in custody is Major Amir Aziz, the Pakistan army medic whose house in Abbottabad was used to monitor Osama bin Laden’s compound nearby. The rest of the suspected informants have been released.

The Pakistani military had initially denied that the major – reported to have tracked the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden’s compound – had been taken into custody. But a Pakistan army officer said that some 30-to-40 civilians in total were being interrogated, some of whom were already released earlier in the week. The nameplate on the house in Abbottabad said that the property belonged to a Major Amir Aziz has been taken down.

The move against the informants appears to be an attempt to stand up to what the ISI sees as American unilateralism and, in particular, an unauthorized expansion of the CIA’s footprint in Pakistan. The ISI, says a senior Pakistani official, is “trying to lay down the rule that the CIA does not operate independently in Pakistan.” Beyond the humiliation of bin Laden being discovered a mere kilometer away from Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point Academy, the Pakistani security establishment has been angered by widely-voiced but unproven suspicions of complicity. But what appears to have angered the powerful generals most is the lack of trust displayed by the unilateral raid – and the strategic vulnerability that it exposed.

At the time of the raid, senior Western diplomats in Islamabad predicted that the Pakistani security establishment would react in two ways. To efface the shame of the bin Laden raid, it would try and demonstrate its commitment to fighting al-Qaeda and other Islamist militants on its soil. Yet, aggrieved for the same reasons, the generals were seen just as likely to react aggressively in less helpful ways. The roundup of the informants and others suggests that more emphasis is being laid on being seen to stand up to the U.S.

Since the Raymond Davis affair, when a CIA contractor unknown to the ISI killed two Pakistani men in the city of Lahore in January, Pasha and his boss Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani have been keen to minimize the CIA and U.S. military’s presence in Pakistan. Last week, they expelled a group of U.S. military trainers who had been invited to the country to help enhance the counterinsurgency capabilities of Pakistani troops fighting militants in the tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Pasha has long been angered by what he sees as an uncontrollably expanding and independent CIA footprint in Pakistan. At the same May briefing with journalists, the embattled spy chief complained indignantly that his spies were on the verge of being “outnumbered” by foreign agents. It’s a scenario that spookily echoes the theme of David Ignatius’ latest spy thriller, Bloodmoney. In the novel, the fictionalized ISI chief learns of a new capability being run by the CIA beyond his knowledge. “It was an insult,” Ignatius writes. “The ISI chief had considered whether he should do something to hurt the Americans back.”

Reality is now rivaling fiction as relations between the two spy agencies plunge to fresh depths. The informants’ arrests came on the heels of the CIA’s allegation that the ISI may have tipped-off militants based at bomb factories in Waziristan. As first reported on TIME.com, CIA chief Leon Panetta (and the likely successor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates) traveled to Pakistan last Friday to confront Pasha with satellite images showing the militants flee the two sites within 24 hours of the CIA passing on their location to the Pakistanis. When Pakistani troops later arrived at the facilities used for the manufacture of improvised explosive devices, the pro-Afghan Taliban militants were long gone. The Times reported that it was at the same meeting with Pasha that Panetta raised the arrests of the informants.

Such alleged failures at intelligence sharing and action against militants who attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan are what led President Barack Obama to clear the intensification of CIA operations in Pakistan. Shedding the reliance on the ISI, Obama charged the CIA to proceed independently. One manifestation of that change of policy was an intensification of drone strikes, which almost daily continue to target suspected militants in the tribal areas along the Afghan border. Despite the Pakistan Army and government’s loud denunciations of the covert program, they have not tried to put a halt to them.

By striking a defiant nationalist pose, Pasha may be hoping to stanch the wave of pressure that has been piling on his institution, and his own position, over the past month. The ISI chief had offered to resign on three occasions. The Pakistani military as a whole has been made the focus of unprecedented criticism from civil society campaigners, journalists and opposition politicians. There is also tremendous pressure from below, with the military’s lower ranks registering anger at the U.S. in the wake of the bin Laden raid.

And yet, for others, there was always an element of inevitability about the ISI’s relations with the CIA. “They have been deteriorating for a long time,” says retired Lieut. Gen. Asad Durrani, a former ISI chief. “With every such event, they take a nosedive. It’s not surprising. We did not have the same objectives, and we didn’t have the same strategies.”

Incompetence institutionalised

By Javed Hussain

It took two Black Hawk helicopters carrying US commandos two hours to humiliate Pakistan and alter the dynamics of the Pak-US relationship. After a series of contradictory statements, the air force finally suggested that the stealth capability of the helicopters enabled them to evade the radars.

In order to minimise these limitations of the radars, the air defence command had raised in the 1960s what were known as mobile observer units (MOUs). Deployed at prominent points along the border, the MOUs were required to report, in real time, sightings of intrusions, the number and type of aircraft, their direction of flight and the altitude and speed at which they are flying. If the intrusions were not picked up by the radars, immediate action was taken on the observers’ reports by scrambling fighters, who were then assisted by them to the extent possible. Had these been in place, the Black Hawks would surely have been sighted and intercepted. But since this did not happen, the MOUs, presumably, no longer exist.

The US raid has made the air force and ISI appear in bad light. The ISI erred by surrendering the initiative to the CIA when they passed on to them the leads they got from time to time. The fact that the CIA was not sharing with them the progress made on these leads, presumably because of the trust deficit, should have alerted them. Had they carried out a parallel investigation, they just might have got to the house near Kakul earlier than the CIA.

Since the failure of the air force and ISI is incomprehensible, the question that is agitating the minds of Pakistanis is: Is there more in this sordid affair than meets the eye?

Twenty days later, it took a handful of terrorists one hour to inflict further humiliation on Pakistan. But the man at whom the buck stops tells the world, dressed in combat fatigues, that there was no security lapse and that the terrorists were well-trained.

The vulnerable area (VA) in question has two vulnerable points (VPs) – PNS Mehran and PAF Faisal. A simple methodology for developing a tactical plan for the defence of VAs and VPs is to first establish the threat perceived, then consider all the possibilities open to the enemy. From this emerges the requirement of resources to guard against all the possibilities hypothesised. The plan is then presented to the planners’ next superior officer (NSO), who keeps his NSO, the chief, in the loop. Next, the forces that will execute the joint plan are subjected to intensive training by the VA/VP commander. Last, but not least, the efficacy of the plan is tested by inviting special forces to act as the enemy.

Surprise is the main weapon of guerrillas and commandos. They employ stealth, or deception, or both, to achieve it. In the Mehran raid, stealth was employed; in the GHQ raid; deception. But when the element of surprise is compromised, the mission almost always fails.

On that fateful night, the top minds of two services were outwitted by the terrorists and their masterminds. The blame can thus be clearly apportioned.

The Mehran raid has once again raised the question of the ‘enemy within’ – servicemen brainwashed and recruited by terrorists. Apparently, very little seems to have been done to eradicate this menace, even after it was established that they had collaborated in the attacks on Musharraf, the Tarbela SSG mess and GHQ. The presence of the ‘enemy within’ adds a dangerous dimension to national security as it makes the tasks of external intelligence services that much easier. Eliminating the fifth columnists, therefore, is one of the main challenges facing the service chiefs, their counter-intelligence and the ISI.

Their other main challenge is securing their VAs and VPs against future attacks. Only when this has been assured should they focus their minds on evolving counter-terrorism policies and strategies – create strong foundations, then build on them, else the whole edifice will crumble.

Like the crises of 1965, 1971 and 1999 (Kargil), the crises of May 2011 were also the creation of a handful of men who failed to come up to the expectations of the people. Since incompetence pervaded all fields of human activity long ago, the international community is right in thinking that, like corruption, incompetence has also become institutionalised in Pakistan.