May
10, 2010
The front-burner news
item this week is Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s four-day visit to
Washington. The announced and
rumored agendas include just about every conceivable subject. Karzai will be scolded about corruption and
his silly threat to join the Taliban. He
will be handled with kid gloves so that he gets respect at home. He will or won’t be pressured to go along
with the soon-to-be assault on Kandahar, and he will or won’t receive support
for his peace initiatives that include negotiations with the Taliban. One difficulty for the Obama team, as noted
below, is that Karzai might be unable to control the “loya jirga” now scheduled
for the end of May if his visit to DC shows him to be even more of a puppet than
he already is. Of course this is a problem for Karzai also, finding the right
balance between nationalist and client.
As several writers
note below, the war on the ground is simply not going well. Not only does the offensive against Kandahar
seem to be stalling before it gets started, but assessments of the warm-up
attack on Marjah are not encouraging to the war managers. In fact, now that opium harvest/tax
collecting is over, the Taliban is initiating a record number of armed attacks
on both civilian and military targets. Moreover, whatever the US hoped for from hearts and minds that had been
won by civic action programs, it has borne little fruit, as instanced by 94
percent against the war that a recent survey revealed in the Kandahar region. It
also seems that disagreement within the military about the effectiveness of
General McChrystal’s “surge” strategies is surfacing again, as it did last fall
when the fundamental decisions were being made.
Irrespective of whether or not the Times Square bomber
actually received training in North Waziristan � “Remember, use this kind of
fertilizer,, not that other kind” � Washington is using the incident to renew
its demands that Pakisstan go after Taliban fighters there. As shown by some of the articles linked
below, Secretary of State Clinton and others are using Godfather language to
convey their message. While this may get
results, Pakistan is so unstable that any such attack on Pakistan sovereignty or
national pride risks more problems than it solves.
Finally, I think the treatment of Karzai’s visit by the
news media will be very important this week. As was the case in Iraq, perhaps the easiest
path to winding down the war would be a political-elite consensus that Karzai
and his team don’t deserve us, and their failure to save themselves from the
Taliban leaves us no choice but to go home and let them stew in their own
juice. The most important part of
Karzai’s visit is not what actually happens in Washington, but what we think
happened.
US Policy and the Bigger
Picture
Public
opinion turns against the war again
Q. All in all,
considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United
States, do you think the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting, or not? Do
you feel that way strongly or somewhat?
-- Worth it -- -Not worth it-
NET Strongly NET Strongly
04/25/10 45 26 52 38
12/13/09 52 33 44 35
11/15/09 44 30 52 38
10/18/09 47 28 49 36
09/12/09 46 28 51 37
08/17/09 47 31 51 41
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2010/05/on_afghanistan_a_negative_shif.html
The Very
Long View
The Ghosts of Gandamak
By William Dalrymple, New York Times
---- The name Gandamak
means little in the West today. Yet this small Afghan village was once famous
for the catastrophe that took place there during the First Anglo-Afghan War in
January 1842, arguably the greatest humiliation ever suffered by a Western army
in the East. The course of that distant Victorian war followed a trajectory that
is beginning to seem distinctly familiar. Initially, the British conquest proved
remarkably easy and bloodless; Kabul was captured within a few months and a
pliable monarch, Shah Shuja, placed on the throne. Then an insurgency began
which unraveled that first heady success, first among the Pashtuns of Kandahar
and Helmand, then slowly moving northward until it reached the
capital.
What happened next is
a warning of how bad things could yet become: a full-scale rebellion against the
British broke out in Kabul, and the two most senior British envoys were
murdered, making the British occupation impossible to sustain. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/opinion/09dalrymple.html?ref=global
THE WAR IN
WASHINGTON
President Karzai Goes to
Washington
Obama to press Karzai on corruption fight - U.S.
aides
By Matt
Spetalnick, Reuters
[May 8, 2010]
----Aides to
U.S. President Barack Obama made clear on Friday he would keep pressure on
Afghan President Hamid Karzai next week to do more to root out corruption but
was not likely to push Karzai to sideline his controversial half-brother.
Previewing Obama's White House talks with Karzai, U.S. officials played down
tensions that flared last month between Kabul and Washington and insisted
Wednesday's talks would focus on "shared objectives" in the eight-year-old
Afghan war. Though U.S. officials have recently raised questions about whether
Karzai can be a reliable ally, the Obama administration prepared for a visit it
hopes will help restore trust as it pushes ahead with a military buildup in
Afghanistan.
The White House
wants to use Karzai's visit, which follows Obama's visit to Kabul in March, to
show a war-weary U.S. public and Congress the war is worth fighting and funding.
http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews/idINIndia-48328120100507?sp=true
Obama makes
personal diplomacy part of Afghan strategy
By Scott Wilson
and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post [May 9, 2010]
---- President Obama
has bluntly instructed his national security team to treat Afghan President
Hamid Karzai with more public respect, after a recent round of heavy-handed
statements by U.S. officials and other setbacks infuriated the Afghan leader and
called into question his relationship with Washington.
During a White House
meeting last month, Obama made clear that Karzai is the chief U.S. partner in
the war effort -- which will be reflected in his visit to Washington that begins
Monday, according to senior administration officials. In doing so, Obama is
seeking to impose discipline on an administration that has sent mixed signals
about Karzai's legitimacy and his value to the U.S.-led counterinsurgency
campaign. …. Karzai's meeting with Obama in the Oval Office on Wednesday will be
the centerpiece of a rare extended visit. Over the next four days, Karzai and
many of his senior cabinet ministers will be publicly embraced and privately
reassured by Obama of the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan, which officials say
will endure long after American forces begin leaving in July 2011. Karzai has
been frightened by the deadline, U.S. officials acknowledge. Obama intends to
devote much of his meeting with him to spelling out a long-term relationship
that includes far fewer U.S. troops but deeper diplomatic and economic support.
It is not certain whether the message discipline will be able to reset what has
long been a complicated relationship. Despite Obama's edict that the Afghan
leader receive public support, deep policy differences remain inside the
administration, including among top U.S. officials in Afghanistan, over Karzai's
commitment to the government and security reforms essential to the U.S. mission.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/08/AR2010050803384.html
Karzai to promote new peace plan in visit to Washington
By Stephen Foley, The Independent [UK] [May 10,
2010]
---- Afghan president Hamid Karzai will arrive
in Washington today with a
new peace plan that he hopes will persuade a sceptical Barack Obama that it is
time to negotiate with the Taliban. After months of criticising the Afghan
leader, the visit is an opportunity for the US to attempt to improve a
relationship that has dramatically worsened since President Obama came to power.
It comes as diplomats prepare for a grand council of tribal leaders in
Afghanistan. The US will hope to resolve some of the major disagreements that
still dog the White House strategy in Afghanistan. As well as the question of
how tightly to yoke US strategy to the personal leadership of Mr Karzai, whose
administration stands accused of tolerating corruption, administration advisers
are also split on how best to deal with moderate Taliban leaders. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/karzai-to-promote-new-peace-plan-in-visit-to-washington-1970009.html
Afghanistan
appreciates its partnership with the U.S.
By Hamid Karzai,
Washington Post Op-Ed, [May 9, 2010]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050704058_pf.html
Negotiations with the Armed
Opposition
Afghanistan: is it time to talk to the
Taliban?
Jonathan Steele, The Guardian [UK] [May 4, 2010]
---- Eight years after they were overthrown by US air power, a drumbeat
is starting to sound across Afghanistan in favour of talking to the Taliban, the
country's once-hated former rulers. An idea that used to seem absurd, if not
defeatist, is coming to be seen as the only credible way to end an ever-widening
war. Moreover, the proposed agenda of negotiations is not a Taliban surrender,
but an offer to share power in Kabul. President Hamid Karzai and other senior
Afghan politicians support the idea. So too do a growing number of foreign
governments, including Britain's � at least tentatively � now that Britritish
troops are being killed at twice the rate they were in early
2009. Perhaps most surprisingly, even among Afghanistan's small but determined
group of woman professionals, the notion of making a deal with the
ultra-conservative men who forced them into burkas and denied them the right to
work outside the home is no longer anathema. A desperate desire for peace is
trumping concern over human rights. A similar calculus of security-versus-rights
is re-emerging now. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/04/afghanistan-taliban
Will Obama
Say Yes to Afghan Peace Talks?
By Robert Naiman, Common Dreams [May 7,
2010]
---- Afghan President Hamid Karzai is coming to Washington next week to
meet with President Obama. Afghan government officials have said that their top
priority for these talks is to get President Obama to agree that the U.S. will
fully back efforts of the Afghan government to reconcile with senior leaders of
the Afghan Taliban insurgency in order to end the war. On the merits, saying yes
to the Afghan government's request for US support for peace talks would seem
like a no-brainer�. Every Western press report from Afghanistan that addrresses
this issue says that the overwhelming consensus of public opinion in Afghanistan
supports peace talks to end the war. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/05/07-6
Afghanistan’s “Peace
Jirga”
Afghanistan peace assembly on May 29
Reuters
[5/8/2010]
---- Afghanistan
will convene a national peace assembly from May 29 to discuss how to bring
Taliban insurgents into peace talks, just weeks after President Hamid Karzai is
due to return from Washington, the organisers said. The Taliban, ousted from
power by US-backed Afghan force in late 2001 after ruling most of the country
for five years, have repeatedly demanded the withdrawal of international troops
before any peace talks can take place. The assembly, known as a “jirga”, was
initially planned for earlier this month but was cancelled as the date clashed
with Karzai’s trip to Washington from May 10-14. The main
organiser of the three-day event, Education Minister Farooq Wardak, has said
that postponement would allow Karzai to report to the jirga about US policy
towards Afghan initiatives on negotiating with the insurgents. Karzai considers
the event to be one of the major initiatives in his plans to reach out to
insurgents this year, although Washington says it is still too early to expect a
breakthrough in talks with the Taliban. More than 1,000 people, including tribal
elders, provincial and districts chiefs, lawmakers and civil society members
will gather in Kabul to discuss ways bring the Taliban into a peace deal.
Insurgents themselves are not specifically invited, although organisers say
there might be Taliban sympathisers among the tribal chiefs and district
officials expected to attend. http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Pakistan+%26+Sub%2DContinent&month=May2010&file=World_News201005085818.xml
Peace Jirga Hangs in Balance of Karzai-Obama
Visit
By Jean MacKenzie, GlobalPost [Canada] [10 May
2010]
---- As Afghan President Hamid Karzai goes off to Washington for what
promises to be a cordial meeting with his U.S. counterpart, he will be closely
watched by his countrymen, who are expecting him to bring home major American
concessions. The main topic of conversation at the Karzai-Obama summit is more
than likely to be reconciliation with the Taliban, the subject of a large Peace
Jirga to be held in Kabul later this month. While many have posited that the
Afghan president is looking for direction from Washington, others argue that he
will hold the Jirga like an unsheathed sword over the heads of his foreign
backers.
"If Karzai comes home from Washington empty-handed, he can very easily
turn the Jirga against the Americans," said Wahid Mojda, a political analyst and
longtime government insider. "This will make things much more difficult for the
United States."�. The National Consultative Peace Jirga, now scheduled foor May
29 in Kabul, will bring together 1,500 representatives from Afghan government
and civil society, women's groups, tribal elders, business people and other
groups. Conspicuously absent will be the Taliban and other armed opposition
factions: they have not been invited to the table, although presumably they will
be the major topic of conversation. The National Consultative Peace Jirga, now
scheduled for May 29 in Kabul, will bring together 1,500 representatives from
Afghan government and civil society, women's groups, tribal elders, business
people and other groups. Conspicuously absent will be the Taliban and other
armed opposition factions: they have not been invited to the table, although
presumably they will be the major topic of conversation. http://www.truthout.org/afghan-peace-meeting-hangs-balance-karzai-obama-visit59359
THE WAR ON THE
GROUND
Overviews of the war
Attacks signal end of poppy harvest in
Afghanistan
Sebastian Abbot, AP
News [May 07, 2010]
---- The gunfire and
explosions echoing across this Taliban-infested district in southern Afghanistan
on Friday signaled the end of the opium poppy harvest as militants again turned
their attention from agriculture to attacking NATO and Afghan forces. U.S. Army
soldiers perched on this small hilltop base in Kandahar province's Zhari
district had a ringside seat to the early morning fighting. It snapped a lull in
violence that had lasted almost three weeks while the Taliban focused on taxing
the poppy crop, one of its main sources of revenue. http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/05/07/attacks-signal-end-of-poppy-harvest-in-afghanistan-2/
Afghanistan: 57 Insurgent Attacks a Day; Taliban Vow Major
Campaign
By
Juan Cole, Informed Comment [May 9, 2010]
---- The return to the
battlefield is an annual late spring and summer ritual for those Pashtun groups
and tribes that reject the presence in their country of foreign troops and
oppose the government of Hamid Karzai. At the same time, Taliban commanders
vocally announced their planned offensive, probably to divert the spotlight from
President Hamid Karzai’s trip to the United States. http://www.juancole.com/2010/05/afghanistan-57-insurgent-attacks-a-day-taliban-vow-major-campaign-karzai-to-visit-washington.html
Pentagon Doubts Grow on McChrystal War Plan
By Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service [10 May
2010]
----- Although Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's plan for wresting the Afghan
provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages
of implementation, there are already signs that setbacks and obstacles it has
encountered have raised serious doubts among top military officials in
Washington about whether the plan is going to work. Scepticism about
McChrystal's ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the
war issued Apr. 26 assessed the progress of the campaign in Marja. Now, it has
been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed "senior military official"
quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius. …The outlook
at the Pentagon and the White House on the nascent Kandahar offensive is also
pessimistic, judging from the comment to Ignatius by an unnamed "senior
administration official". The official told Ignatius the operation is "still a
work in progress", observing that McChrystal's command was still trying to
decide how much of the local government the military could "salvage" and how
much "you have to rebuild". http://www.truthout.org/pentagon-doubts-grow-mcchrystal-war-plan59362
Reasons to be
anxious about Afghanistan
By David
Ignatius, Washington Post [May 9, 2010]
---- The Obama
administration's strategy for Afghanistan is to gradually transfer
responsibility to the Afghans, starting in July 2011. But on the eve of
President Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington, there's little evidence so far to
demonstrate that this transfer process will actually work. The much-touted
offensive in Marja in Helmand province in February succeeded in clearing that
rural area temporarily of Taliban insurgents, at least by day. But plans for the
Afghans to provide more security and better governance there are off to a shaky
start, officials at the State Department and Pentagon say. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/07/AR2010050704062.html
U.S. military
runs into Afghan tribal politics after deal with Pashtuns
By Joshua
Partlow and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post [May 10, 2010]
---- U.S. military officials in eastern
Afghanistan thought they had come up with a novel way to stem the anger and
disillusionment about government corruption that fuels the Taliban insurgency
here. Instead, their plan to empower a large Pashtun tribe angered a local power
broker, provoked a backlash from the Afghan government and was disavowed by the
U.S. Embassy. The struggling U.S. military effort to give the Shinwari tribe
more voice in its affairs shows the massive challenges the United States will
face this summer in Kandahar province, as it prepares to launch what is being
touted as one of the largest and most important military campaigns of the
nine-year-old war. One of the main U.S. goals in Kandahar is to reduce the
influence of local power brokers, widely seen as corrupt, and to give tribal
alliances a stake in how the province is governed and how development contracts
are parceled out. But the swirling controversy surrounding the American deal in
eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar province demonstrates that efforts to alter the
existing power structure can have unintended and unsettling effects. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/09/AR2010050903257.html?hpid%3Dmoreheadlines&sub=AR
The occupation
of Marjah is not going well
US says too few Afghans to take control in
Marjah
Anne Flaherty, AP News
[May 06, 2010]
---- Not nearly enough
trained Afghans are available to take control of key Taliban strongholds like
Marjah after the military has pushed out the enemy, U.S. officials told a Senate
panel on Thursday. The lack of competent local officials in southern Afghanistan
could frustrate Washington's aims in the region, and keep the U.S. on the hook �
financially and militarily � for several years to come. Presidentt Barack Obama
has pledged that American forces will begin their exit next year. "The number of
those civilians ... who are trained, capable, willing to go into
(Taliban-controlled areas) does not match at all demand," David Sedney, a deputy
assistant secretary of defense, told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee.
The assessment didn't
sit well with lawmakers, who have grown tired of committing limited U.S.
resources and lives to a war with an uncertain outcome. The hearing was the
first devoted entirely to Marine operations in the southern Taliban stronghold
of Marjah earlier this year. The assault was widely regarded as a test of
Obama's new strategy for empowering the Afghan government. http://wire.antiwar.com/2010/05/06/us-says-too-few-afghans-to-take-control-in-marjah-2/
Losing Afghan
hearts and minds
By
Julien Mercille, Asia Times [May 7, 2010]
---- The North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) is losing hearts and minds in Afghanistan, according
to a report by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) that gives a clear
signal of the dangers of the military operation against Kandahar planned for this
summer. Contrary to its stated objectives of protecting the population from
insurgents, NATO is actually raising the likelihood that poor Afghans will join
the Taliban - not a great report card for General Stanley McChrystal, the top
commander in Afghanistan, whose strategies seem to be backfiring. The report,
entitled Operation Moshtarak: Lessons Learned, is based on
interviews conducted last month with over 400 Afghan men from Marjah, Lashkar
Gah and Kandahar to investigate their views on the military operation to drive
out the Taliban, launched in February in Helmand province, and its aftermath. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE07Df01.html
Getting ready for the summer
offensive in Kandahar
Kandahar braces itself for a bloody summer
offensive
John Boone, Washington Post
---- The coming of spring always brings an influx of Taliban fighters to
the district of Zhari, where the young leaves on the grapevines and fruit
orchards provide cover so thick that Nato's hi-tech thermal imaging cameras
struggle to see the insurgents hiding within. But this year things are
different. The Taliban are back once again, but the locals who live in the area
on the western doorstep of the city of Kandahar say they have arrived in far
higher numbers than in previous years. "Two months ago there were only around 30
in the area, but it has increased dramatically in the last two weeks," said Faiz
Mohammad, a shopkeeper from the town of Sanzari in Zhari district. "We now see
hundreds of them, young teenage boys, led by older commanders. They are clean
shaven and look like everyone else, except they carry good weapons and
communications equipment." It is a similar story in the nearby villages of
Pashmol and Ashgho, locals say. According to one farmer, the fighters operate
within just a few hundred metres of Nato bases. "They just come up and check we
haven't met government officials and demand we give them food and money," said
Bari Dad. The young fighters, fresh from over the border in Pakistan, appear to
be mustering in exactly the places where Nato expects to do some of its heaviest
fighting this summer. As they did before the major February operation in Marjah
in Helmand, the insurgents are preparing for the onslaught by laying roadside
bombs and mines in the areas where they expect to fight. But, unlike in the
past, they now rarely tell the locals where they are buried, Dad said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/09/afghanistan-taliban-nato-kandahar-fighting
(Video) Afghanistan
readies for Kandahar 'operation'
From AlJazeeraEnglish [May 06, 2010] [3 minutes]
---- Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, is heading to Washington in
a few days, as Nato prepares for a military operation in Kandahar. Nato forces
and the country's government have been warning of the offensive against the
Taliban for months now. But locals aren't sure it will
work.
http://www.youtube.com/aljazeeraenglish#p/u/36/JnUAVL8GqMI
Taliban gears up for Western offensive in
Kandahar
By Laura King, Los
Angeles Times [May 9, 2010]
---- As the offensive
looms, Kandahar has been shaken by an intensifying wave of suicide bombings,
assassinations and threats against anyone associated with foreign forces or the
government. Scarcely a day passes without the assassination of a prominent
tribal elder or local official in the city and its surrounding districts. The
latest such death was reported Saturday: A member of the tribal shura, or
council, was gunned down in the district of Argandab, just outside Kandahar
city. In a message e-mailed to journalists Saturday, Taliban officials promised
more such killings. The statement announced a new offensive to expel "foreign
invaders," coinciding with the start Monday of a visit to Washington by
President Hamid Karzai. http://freedomsyndicate.com/fair0000/latimes0018B.html
Civilian
Casualties
Shootings of Afghans on Rise at Checkpoints
By Richard A.
Oppel, Jr., New York Times
---- Shootings of
Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys and at military checkpoints have
spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths
and injuries at the hands of Western forces, American officials say. The steep
rise in these convoy and checkpoint attacks � which the militaryy calls
“escalation of force incidents” � has prompted millitary commanders to issue new
troop guidelines in recent weeks that include soliciting local Afghan village
and tribal elders and other leaders for help preventing convoy and checkpoint
shootings. These shootings are a major reason civilian casualties in Afghanistan
are soaring after a much-publicized period of decline. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/world/asia/09afghan.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The impact of the Times Square
“bombing” on the war
Debate on Expanded Presence in Pakistan
By Mark Mazzetti
and Mark Landler, New York Times [May 6, 2010]
---- The evidence
of ties between the man accused of being the Times Square bomber and Pakistani
militants has intensified debate inside the Obama administration about expanding
America’s military presence in Pakistan, with some officials making the case to
increase the number of Special Operations troops working with Pakistani forces
in the country’s western mountains. The American military presence in Pakistan
has already grown substantially over the past year, and now totals more than two
hundred troops, part of a largely secret program to share intelligence with
Pakistani Army and paramilitary troops and train them to battle militant groups.
But the failed bombing in Times Square, and evidence that the accused man,
Faisal Shahzad, received training in a camp run by the Pakistani Taliban, has
given support to those who want to expand the mission
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/world/asia/07diplo.html?ref=world
U.S. Urges Action in Pakistan After Failed
Bombing
By Jane Perlez,
New York Times [May 9, 2010]
---- The Obama
administration has delivered new and stiff warnings to Pakistan after the failed
Times Square car bombing that it must urgently move against the nexus of Islamic
militancy in the country’s lawless tribal regions, American and Pakistani
officials said. The American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A.
McChrystal, met with the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, at
his headquarters here on Friday and urged Pakistan to move more quickly in
beginning a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda in
North Waziristan, Americans and Pakistanis familiar with the visit said. The
officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of
continuing diplomatic efforts here. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/world/asia/09pstan.html
Times Square Rorschach Test
Stephan Salibury,
Informed Comment [May 10,
2010]
---- In the smoke
roiling up from the street of a busy Saturday night in Times Square can be found
traces of endless fantasies and obsessions lurking in the nation’s post-9/11
primordial lobes. The stages of the theater district are audience to this
particular drama and a smoldering SUV illegally parked on 45th Street has
emerged as a vague but dramatic Rorschach epic � almost anything can be seen in
its smokyy clouds.
Actually the response
to the Times Square car bomb incident is only the latest iteration of one of the
most disconcerting and persistent features of the American landscape since Sept.
11. “I am concerned,” Robert Mueller, head of the FBI, told a Senate
intelligence panel a few years ago, “about what we are not seeing.” In former
times � before 9/11 changed everything � there was a notion that what we cannot
see iss not there. Now, what we cannot see is trumped by what we can imagine,
and what can be imagined becomes what is. http://www.juancole.com/2010/05/salisbury-times-square-rorschach-test.html
Pakistan and the Afghanistan
War
US takes the war into Pakistan
By Syed
Saleem Shahzadm, Asia Times
---- The approval given to the United
States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by the administration of President
Barack Obama to expand drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions is on face
value a declaration of war by the US inside Pakistan. The move comes at a time
when Pakistan is trying to win some breathing space to delay an all-out
operation in North Waziristan, home to powerful militant groups and an al-Qaeda
headquarters. The CIA was given authority on Wednesday to expand strikes by
unmanned aerial vehicles against low-level combatants, even if their identities
are not known. Obama had previously said drone strikes were necessary to "take
out high-level terrorist targets". However, official figures show that more than
90% of the 500 people killed by drones since mid-2008 were lower-level fighters;
in effect, the new approval simply legitimizes the current situation. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE08Df01.html
War on the Pakistan Frontier
Ahmed Rashid,
BBC
[FB
� Ahmed Rashid is the author of several books on the Taaliban and on
Pakistan, most recently Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure
of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.]
---- North Waziristan is controlled by the Afghan Taliban
leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and a Pakistani Taliban leader, Gul Bahadur. Both
claim to attack US forces across the border in Afghanistan but not the Pakistan
army. The US and Nato have urged the army to launch an offensive in North
Waziristan but so far it has declined, saying it is over-stretched already. All
but two of some 30 drone missile strikes launched by the US so far this year
have been aimed at North Waziristan . It is here that Faisal Shahzad - who's
accused of planting a car bomb to explode in New York last week - is alleged to
have received his training in bomb making. Meanwhile North Waziristan has become
the biggest haven for militant groups. Groups resident there include Central
Asians, Chechens, Arabs, Kashmiris and numerous Punjabi groups from southern
Pakistan as well as the more regular Pakistani Taliban made up of Pashtun
tribesmen. The local Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who was
presumed killed on January in a drone strike, re-emerged last week alive and
well, after apparently hiding out in North Waziristan. There is increasing
anarchy in North Waziristan as the authority of Haqqani and others seems to be
ignored by the plethora of groups and splinter factions now operating there,
especially the ruthless Punjabi militants. The truth is that there is still no
coherent counter-insurgency strategy or doctrine that by now should have been
jointly formulated by the Pakistani army and civilian government and should be
guiding their actions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8665657.stm
