The long war: Year ten

For American assassins, the weapon of choice is not the sniper rifle, but missile-carrying pilotless aircraft controlled from bases in Nevada and elsewhere thousands of miles from the battlefield -- the ultimate expression of an American desire to wage war without getting Americans hands dirty. Happy Anniversary, America. Nine years ago -- on October 2001 -- a series of US air strikes against targets across Afghanistan launched the opening campaign of what has since become the US nation’s longest war. Three thousand two hundred and eighty five days later the fight to determine Afghanistan’s future continues. At least in part, “Operation Enduring Freedom” has lived up to its name: it has certainly proven to be enduring.
As the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror enters its tenth year, Americans are entitled to pose this question: That when, where, and how will the war end? Bluntly, are American troops almost there yet?
Of course, with the passage of time, where “there” is has become increasingly difficult to distinguish. Baghdad turned out not to be Berlin and Qandahar is surely not Tokyo. Don’t look for CNN to be televising a surrender ceremony anytime soon.
This much the people know: an enterprise that began in Afghanistan but soon after focused on Iraq has now shifted back -- again -- to Afghanistan. Whether the swings of this pendulum signify progress toward some final objective is anyone’s guess. To measure progress during wartime, Americans once employed pins and maps. Plotting the conflict triggered by the suspicious 9/11/2011 incidents will no doubt improve your knowledge of world geography, but it won’t tell you anything about where this war is headed. Just over a decade ago, the now-forgotten Kosovo campaign seemingly offered a template for a new American way of war. It was a decision gained without suffering a single American fatality. Kosovo turned out, however, to be a one-off event. The United States military claims that it is unbeatable. Yet, after the 9/11 incidents, Washington committed that military to an endeavor that it manifestly cannot win.
Rather than inquiring the implications of this fact the two American administrations have stubbornly prolonged the war even as they quietly ratcheted down expectations of what it might accomplish.
In officially ending the US combat role in Iraq earlier this year President Obama refrained from proclaiming “mission accomplished.” As well he might: as US troops depart Iraq, insurgents remain active and in the field. Instead of declaring victory, the president simply has to urge Americans to turn the page. With remarkable enthusiasm, most of Americans seem to have complied. Perhaps more surprisingly, today’s American military leaders have themselves abandoned the notion that winning battles wins wars, once the very foundation of their profession. Warriors of an earlier day insisted: That “There is no substitute for victory.” Warriors in the Age of David Petraeus embrace an altogether different motto: “There is no military solution.”
Trained to kill people and break things, American soldiers now indulge in moonlighting in assassination. The politically correct term for this is "counterinsurgency." Now, assigning combat soldiers the task of nation-building in, say, Iraq is akin to hiring a crew of lumberjacks to build a house in suburbia. What astonishes is not that the result falls short of perfection, but that any part of the job gets done at all. Yet by simultaneously adopting the practice of “targeted killing,” the home builders do double-duty as home wreckers. For American assassins, the weapon of choice is not the sniper rifle, but missile-carrying pilotless aircraft controlled from bases in Nevada and elsewhere thousands of miles from the battlefield -- the ultimate expression of an American desire to wage war without getting Americans hands dirty.
General Petraeus himself has spelled out the implications: That “This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives.” Thus Obama may want to “get out.” But his generals are inclined to stay the course.
Taking longer to achieve less than the US initially intended is also costing far more than anyone ever imagined. Back in 2003, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey suggested that invading Iraq might run up a bill of as much as 200 billion dollars -- a seemingly astronomical sum. Although Lindsey soon found himself out of a job as a result of this declaration, he turned out to be a piker. The bill for the US post-9/11 wars already exceeds a trillion dollars, all of it piled atop the US mushrooming national debt. It helped in no smaller measure by Obama's war policies, and the meter is still running.

(By Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University)

Another decade of neo-colonial war in Afghanistan

 The only way to end this criminal war and allow the Afghan people to decide their future is to demand the immediate and unconditional withrawal of all foreign troops and the payment of tens of billions of dollars in war reparations.
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In the lead-up to next month’s NATO summit in Lisbon, the Obama administration and its allies, confronting widespread anti-war sentiment at home, are attempting to dupe the public by claiming that the US/NATO combat role in Afghanistan will end by 2014, with troop withdrawals to begin next year. Behind closed doors, however, the talk is not of an end to the war, but rather of an open-ended, neo-colonial occupation. In opening a debate on the Afghan war in the Australian parliament last Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard spilled the beans. After noting that Afghan President Hamid Karzai expected to assume full responsibility for his country’s security by the end of 2014, Gillard bluntly spelt out that the “transition process” would not mean the end to the Australian military presence in Afghanistan.
Gillard said, “Let me be clear, this transition process refers to the Afghan government taking lead responsibility for security. The international community will remain engaged in Afghanistan beyond 2014. And Australia will remain engaged. There will still be a role for training and other defense cooperation. The civilian-led aid and development effort will continue... We expect this support, training and development task to continue in some form through this decade at least.”
While ministers and officials in the US and other countries have spoken vaguely about a continuing military role in Afghanistan after 2014, Gillard is the first leader to declare that the US-led military occupation will continue for another decade—at least. Her repeated references to the “new international strategy” highlight the fact that this is the Obama administration’s plan. And if Australia, with its current, modest troop numbers of 1,550, intends to remain for another 10 years, then the US and its closest allies are preparing for a large military presence in Afghanistan into the indefinite future.

Taking her cue from Washington, Gillard tried to justify the ongoing occupation by declaring Afghanistan must never become a safe haven for what he called terrorists. However, the intensifying US-led war is not directed against al-Qaeda but against the “Taliban”. According to the CIA, it numbers no more than 50 in Afghanistan. The “enemy” are the Afghan people, predominantly Pashtun tribesmen, who are bitterly hostile to the continued foreign military presence that has wreaked death and destruction on the civilian population for more than nine years. Suppressing “terrorism” means a never-ending neo-colonial war against the Afghan people. Washington’s “war on terrorism” was only ever a pretext for advancing US ambitions for dominance in the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia. The US strategy was drawn up well in advance of the highly suspicious 9/11 incidents on New York and Washington.
The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the subjugation of Iraq in 2003 were part of broader plans for refashioning the Middle East and establishing a greater US presence in Central Asia. Now focused on the challenge posed by a rising China, the Obama administration is not about to relinquish US footholds in Iraq or Afghanistan that could prove very useful in the future. His troop “surge” in Afghanistan, like that in Iraq, is aimed at securing a permanent US presence, including military bases.
If Gillard was a little more open about the US plans, it was only to demonstrate that her Labor government is in lockstep with Washington. The Australian prime minister has already indicated that she might accompany her defense minister to the NATO conference in Lisbon where she would line up with Obama in pressuring other allies to make a similar open-ended military commitment. Canada has announced that it will be pulling its 2,800 soldiers out of Afghanistan by next year. Italy has set a deadline of 2014 for the complete withdrawal of its 3,300 troops. Gillard is standing unequivocally on the US side, despite overwhelming domestic opposition to the war, in a bid to ensure full US support as Australia shores up its own strategic position in the South West Pacific.
Next month’s haggling over the “transition process” at the NATO conference in Lisbon has been preceded by a preparatory gathering in Rome this week on Afghanistan. US special envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke insisted that the Lisbon conference would not lay out a timetable for specific provinces to be handed over to Kabul’s military control. He also emphasised that “transition” did not equal troop withdrawals, confirming that the US would be pressing for long-term military commitments.
Leading up to the Lisbon conference, the US has been at pains to stress the advances being made through the troop surge. In the Washington Post for instance, US officials claimed that the aggressive military campaign in recent months has killed or captured hundreds of Taliban leaders and more than 3,000 fighters, forcing some insurgent groups to consider negotiations with the Karzai government. They spoke of “pockets of security” in former Taliban strongholds where schools have been reopened and bazaars are bustling.
The slaughter of Taliban leaders and fighters, particularly in the current offensive around the southern city of Qandahar, is largely the result of intensified special forces operations. Like the reign of terror from aerial bombing, these assassination squads are notorious for killing civilians, thus adding to the bitterness and hatred among Afghans toward the occupation of their country. The so-called pockets of security in the south—the product of the expansion in foreign troop numbers to 150,000—are paralleled by reports of escalating insurgent attacks in the country’s north.
The note being sounded by the Obama administration and its camp followers like Gillard cannot hide the fact that nine years of war have proven to be an unmitigated disaster for the Afghan people. According to very conservative UN estimates, at least 14,000 civilian deaths are directly attributable to the military conflict. The military occupation is propping up a venal regime in Kabul that is notorious for corruption and ballot rigging. The majority of the population is still mired in poverty and lacks access to elementary services such as electricity, education and health care.
The only way to end this criminal war and allow the Afghan people to decide their future is to demand the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all foreign troops and the payment of tens of billions of dollars in war reparations.

By Peter Symonds, a political analyst and writer, taken from the World Socialist Web Site.

What or whom is Iran buying in Afghanistan?

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has admitted that officials from his government had been receiving bags of cash ‘totalling five hundred, six hundred or seven hundred thousand of Euros once or twice a year’. The latest incident of the kind occured in August this year during Karzai’s visit to Tehran when a bag of cash was given to Umar Daudzai, Karzai’s chief of staff and his most trusted confidant.

At the same time, Karzai denied any wrongdoing in the incident saying it was fully transparent and a part of official Iranian aid that had been going on for years.

Still, the White House expressed its deep concern over a possible ‘negative influence’ Iran may have on the processes in Afghanistan. White House spokesman Bill Burton urged Iran to play a more positive role.

There is little surprise in a report that the Afghan government is getting cash from any source it can. Afghanistan, even receiving billions of foreign aid, still remains among the poorest nations of the world. The level of corruption in that country is unprecedented and corruption has crawled up to the highest strata of Afghanistan’s power pyramid. The recent accusations of Hamid Karzai’s eldest brother Mahmoud are one small but very significant example.

It is enough to walk for half an hour along the worn-out and rugged streets of Kabul to see a number of lush new buildings rising in the midst of dirty and decayed clay huts. And this means that there are some people who know how to make money out of the scarce resources this poor country possesses. There are basically only two: drug trafficking and foreign aid.

As a former EU Ambassador to Afghanistan Francesc Vendrell said commenting on the news of bags of cash being presented to Afghan officials, the practice of receiving cash donations was far from unusual. "Many governments that hope to court influence are paying and providing money to the president's office in what I would call a slush fund. This has been going on since the very beginning, and the Americans are very much in the vanguard. So I'm not surprised the Iranians are doing it."

So why are the Americans so eager to accuse Iran of bribing Afghan officials if they themselves ‘are in the vanguard’, according to Vendrell?

In fact, in the case of Afghanistan Iran could be a naturalally of the US. It has always been a strict opponent of the Taliban and supporter of the most powerful anti-Taliban force inside Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance – partly due to ethnic reasons (the Northern Alliance was comprised mostly of ethnic Tajiks, i.e. an ethnic group closely related to Iranians), and partly due to ideological and political reasons – the Shia Iran needed a strong opposition to the extremist version of Sunni Islam represented by the Taliban. Iran is worried by the terrorist groups finding safe haven in Afghanistan and its neighboring countries no less that the US. Iran is also worried by the growing poppy cultivation and drug trafficking from Afghanistan.

But of course, the US would never recognize Iran as an ally – even if it comes to containing the terrorist and extremist threat coming from Afghanistan. Hence the present level of suspicion.

And that is also the reason why Western media have grasped this incident to wage a new wave of anti-Iranian propaganda. In fact, while the US and NATO are mostly bombing Afghan villages, Iran is doing a not so highly visible but much more important work of building roads and infrastructure objects in Afghanistan. By pointing to a set of separated incidents of bribery the West is trying to diminish the Iranian role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

But what is probably even more important, is the fact that transfers of bags of cash signify a complete failure of the international community to establish a strong and reliable government in Afghanistan. It looks as if Karzai and his clan fully realizes that he is a temporary ruler in this war-rigged country, and as such he and his associates use any opportunity to secure a comfortable life once they are gotten rid of – either by the West or by Afghans themselves. When this will happen, no one knows for sure, but everyone including Karzai himself knows for sure that sooner or later this will happen. Since money does not smell, it makes little difference for Karzai where it comes from, and he is ready to accept it from the US, from Iran or whoever.

Foreign troops death toll in Afghanistan hits 600

The number of foreign troops occpying Afghanistan to die this year reached 600, by far the highest annual toll in nine years of imperialist war.
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The milestone was reached after a NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announcement that a soldier had been killed in a Taliban attack in the east on Sunday, AFP reported.

Another NATO soldier was killed in a bomb blast in the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan on the same day.

The toll of 600, according to an AFP tally based on a count kept by the icasualties.org website, compares to 521 killed in all of 2009 in what was previously the deadliest year on record for the forces in Afghanistan.

On average, two soldiers die each day. A total of 2,170 foreign soldiers have been killed since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan which overthrew the Taliban regime and occupied the country.

Western public opinion is growing increasingly tired of this unwinnable war.

Dutch troops ended their futile mission in Afghanistan on August 1. Italy plans to hand over control of large parts of western Afghanistan by the end of 2011.

Canada, which is the sixth-largest contributor of occupation troops, intends to pull its estimated 2,830 troops out of the south in 2011. U.S. President Barack Obama has said he wants American troops to start withdrawing from July 2011.

A Taliban-led insurgency has since strengthened each year, but it is most intense in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.

At least 1,348 American troops are among the dead, and the U.S. military provides two-thirds of the 150,000-strong international force in Afghanistan.

Foreign and Afghan forces are currently engaged in a major offensive around Kandahar city -- the largest city in the south -- aimed at pushing the insurgents out of the area to bring an end to the war.

The surge in military deaths has followed the deployment of about 40,000 extra U.S. and NATO troops under a White House strategy designed to clear major towns and cities of the Taliban and restore confidence in the government.

The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan said an increasing number of Taliban leaders are showing interest in talks with the U.S.-backed government in Kabul as pressure mounts from the intensifying NATO military campaign.

“What we've got here is an increasing number of Taliban at high levels saying, 'Hey, we want to talk,'“ Richard Holbrooke told CNN in an interview.

“We think this is a result in large part of the growing pressure they're under from General (David) Petraeus and the ISAF command.”

But he cautioned that the feelers so far add up to “contacts and discussions” rather than peace negotiations to end the war.

Afghanistan: Global NATO’s first ground war in its tenth year

The military alliance that 61 years ago identified its core mission as to “promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area” is now embroiled in the tenth year of a war in Afghanistan launched by its dominant member, the United States.
South Asia is as far removed from the North Atlantic Ocean as possible while remaining in the Northern Hemisphere.
After 9/11, NATO signed on for participation in Washington’s so-called Global War on Terror, last year renamed Overseas Contingency Operations and perhaps to be called something else tomorrow as pretexts change.
As a consequence and demand alike of doing so, the North Atlantic Alliance deployed military forces to the first major military base the Pentagon has secured in Africa, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, and on October 4, 2001 launched Operation Active Endeavour to patrol the entire Mediterranean Sea from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Suez Canal and the Dardanelles Strait, ostensibly to – in NATO’s own words – “help detect, deter and protect against terrorist activity” and especially to “combat…the proliferation and smuggling of weapons of mass destruction.”
NATO’s Active Endeavour is now in its tenth year and there is no indication that it will ever end, even though not a single terrorist has been apprehended or a weapon of mass destruction confiscated.
When an Israeli German-made Dolphin submarine, assumed to carry missiles with nuclear warheads crossed from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea in June of 2009, NATO made no attempt to interdict it.
The Mediterranean Sea has become NATO’s mare nostrum.
But it is in Afghanistan, and of late Pakistan, that NATO has emerged as a global combat force. With the recent transfer of tens of thousands of U.S. troops from Operation Enduring Freedom to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the Alliance now has the most troops under its command in a foreign mission in its history: 120,000 in Afghanistan compared to 60,000 in Bosnia in 1995, 50,000 in Kosovo in 1999, several thousand in Djibouti since 2001 and a smaller force in Macedonia starting in the same year.
The Afghan war is also the battleground on which NATO has lost its first soldiers in combat operations.
As of October 10, the U.S. and its NATO allies have lost 2,144 troops, almost 1,100 since last year. So far this year 574 foreign troops have been killed, 27 percent of the total in the over nine-year-long war, compared to 55 in Iraq, a more than ten-to-one ratio. And whereas all those killed in Iraq this year were American servicemen, almost 35 per cent of all occupation forces slain in Afghanistan were non-American.
A US armed forces publication recently disclosed that US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) is training joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) from fellow NATO nations at an American Air Force school in Germany to order bombing runs in Afghanistan. Canada, which has more than once announced plans to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan without doing so, reactivated the 1st Canadian Division Headquarters in Kingston, Ontario on October 8 under the command of Major-General David Fraser, who commanded NATO troops in Qandahar in southern Afghanistan in 2006.
On October 6 an Afghan soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade at an outpost manned by French troops in the northeastern province of Kapisa.
Three NATO soldiers were killed in attacks in southern and eastern Afghanistan. The next day three more NATO soldiers were killed in the south of the country.
Also on October 8, a German soldier was killed and six others wounded – two seriously, one critically – in northern Afghanistan in a suicide bomb attack, bringing Germany’s death toll to 44. A German news agency reported that “The Germans came under mortar and rifle fire after the detonation and the skirmish apparently lasted for several hours.” The same source stated that there are 5,350 German soldiers now stationed in the north, up from the 4,500 maximum allowed for by the Bundestag until this February. The number is substantially higher than any previous amount of German troops stationed abroad – and moreover for war – since World War Two.
The following day four Italian soldiers were killed and another injured in an attack in western Afghanistan, bringing Italy’s death count to 34. “The victims were killed when a bomb exploded near their armoured car, part of a column of 70 Italian military vehicles.”
On the same day a member of Australia’s Special Operations Task Group was wounded in a roadside bomb attack. According to the country’s Ministry of Defence, 21 Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and 150 wounded, 50 of the latter this year.
With the war in Afghanistan and its expansion into Pakistan, NATO is not only waging an armed conflict in Asia, it is also consolidating military partnerships with nations in the Asia-Pacific area and creating the nucleus of an Asian NATO.
On October 8 Britain’s Chief of Joint Operations, Air Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at his nation’s Permanent Joint Headquarters with the minuscule Pacific island nation of Tonga to supply over 200 troops for NATO’s ISAF in Afghanistan. The deployment is to occur over the next two years, beginning with a contingent of 55 soldiers to be trained by the British Royal Air Force next month for stationing in Helmand province. Although a news report attributes the move to Tonga’s alleged desire to “show its support to the alliance,” it also revealed that “the Tongan service members will receive an operational allowance in British pounds in addition to their standard salary for the duration of their deployment.”
Not only is NATO intensifying its involvement in Afghanistan as well as extending its combat operations into Pakistan, but it is preparing more missions of the nature and scope of that in South Asia as part of its 21st Strategic Concept to be adopted next month at its summit in Portugal.
On October 7 Reuters reported in a story called “NATO says must stay capable of Afghan-size missions,” that NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has emphasized “the need for NATO to retain the ability to mount major missions around the world.”
A war in its tenth year in which NATO casualties mount by the day is not sufficient for an increasingly ambitious and expansionist organ, although it has been unable to suppress ragtag militias in Afghanistan.

By Rick Rozoff, a political analyst, taken from 'The Global Research' website.

Anti Pakistan Banned terror outfits behind recent attacks in Pak Punjab

The Punjab government will soon be sucessful breaking the terrorist network in Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif
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Pakistan intelligence report has revealed that banned organizations - Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), Harkatul Jihadul Islami (HJI) and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - were involved in the recent terrorist attacks across the Punjab province.

According to the reports, the three organisations had direct involvement in a majority of the 49 terrorist incidents that occurred across Punjab in the last 18 months.

It also claims that Al-Qaeda operations chief in Pakistan, Ilyas Kashmiri, masterminded these attacks, The Daily Times reports.

During various probes into the terrorism incidents, it was discovered that groups worked in tandem to carry out the attacks

The first group consists of LJ activist, released from Afghan and Pakistani prisons, who got trained and fought in Afghanistan.

After identifying targets and completing the surveillance of the specific installations, the LJ activists forwarded the reports to Kashmiri, who then contacted the TTP for the attacks.

The second group in the network provides suicide bombers and attackers, while the third provides ammunitions, explosives and suicide jackets.

The reports also said that in the 49 incidents of terrorism, 687 people were killed, including 69 police officials, while at least 1,834 people, including 268 cops were injured.

Twenty-one of the 49 incidents were traced by law enforcement agencies (LEAs), 37 terrorists were arrested, 24 of the attackers were killed in encounters with police and 27 suicide bombers blew themselves up during these attacks.

Pakistan's political heartland has ordered a crackdown on militants after a series of devastating attacks and accusations of links to banned groups, officials said Monday.

New Delhi and Washington have long demanded that Pakistan root out extremist Islamist militant groups that use its soil to launch attacks across the country, as well as in neighbouring Afghanistan and India.

But the details and scope of the apparent crackdown -- which comes just days before Pakistan is due to host India's Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna for talks in Islamabad -- were unclear.

"The government has ordered a policy of zero tolerance against all these groups. There are at least 2,000 to 2,200 activists of banned outfits being closely monitored in Punjab," police official Akram Naeem Bharoka told AFP.

"We have very clear instructions from the government that no outlawed organisation should be allowed to continue their activities in any part of the province," Bharoka said.

Asked how many people had been arrested and offices targeted, the senior official in Punjab police said only that figures were being compiled.

A wave of deadly attacks carried out by Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked extremists has killed more than 3,500 people during the last three years.

Although most of the violence is concentrated in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, Punjab's capital Lahore has suffered 10 major attacks killing more than 300 people since March 2009.

Police confirmed raids and arrests of militants from extremist Sunni Muslim group Sipah-e-Sihaba Pakistan (SSP) and Jamaat-ud-Dawa, a charity seen as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba group India blamed for the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

"We have arrested at least eight people belonging to different banned organisations," Lahore city police chief Aslam Tareen told AFP.

"These organisations have been involved in distributing hate material and promoting sectarianism," he said. The government ordered police to curb the activities of these groups, he added.

Lahore is Pakistan's most liberal city, its cultural capital and home to many in Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment.

Some senior lawmakers and politicians in Punjab have been accused of alleged links with SSP and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which was among several groups involved in the kidnap and beheading of US journalist Daniel Pearl in January 2002.

Religious leaders demanded the resignation of provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah for alleged links to militants after 43 people were killed in a suicide attack on a Muslim shrine on July 2 in the city's most recent attack.

Accusations of complicity have been levelled against the two main coalition partners in Punjab -- the Pakistan People's Party of President Asif Ali Zardari and federal opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N party.

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FROM CHINA TO IRAN

ALI SUKHANVER

UNO is doing nothing but simply taking care of the US’ interests in the world; it is the most common comment on the working of the UNO. All time supporting US strategies and policies, the UNO is continuously losing its credibility and repute. Particularly most of the countries in the South-Asian region are of the opinion that they must stop looking towards this world organization for the solution of their internal and external problems. The prejudice attitude of the UNO has compelled various countries to search for their new friends and sympathizers which could be helpful and supportive to them at every crucial juncture. As a result of this chauvinistic behaviour of the UNO, we can find new formations and new groups of countries emerging out of this dismal situation. It is nothing but the consequences of the narrow-minded approach of the UNO that today Pakistan, Iran and China are painting a new picture with the colours of closeness and friendship based on needs and requirements. Iran is providing natural gas to Pakistan and China is enhancing its nuclear ability; simply a relationship based on caring and kindness. As a result of these favours showered on Pakistan, it would become very easy for Pakistan to release itself from the cruel clutches of the US dependence.

If the UNO loses its importance, the world is likely to be divided and sub-divided into smaller groups and fragments. The situation would lead to the 3rd world-war in case there increases a clash of interests at a larger scale. The UNO is supposed to play an unprejudiced role acceptable to all. It must speak for all, for Israel and Iran, for India and Pakistan and surely for the people of Kashmir and those of Palestine. UNO has shown its eagerness in imposing sanctions on Iran but it never thought of the people of Gaza who are passing through the worst phase of their life.

As far as the new tri-angle of relationship between Pakistan, Iran and China is concerned, it would be very unjust if we don’t give the credit of this growing cordiality to the USA because it is none but the USA which has made these three countries realize the need of getting closer. The main leading factor which pushed these countries closer to one another is the issue of the nuclear energy. Different attempts to crush the Iranian nuclear program, a lot of allegations and suggestions to put a check on the nuclear research work of Pakistan and different objections laid upon the Chinese nuclear behaviour compelled these countries to think of tomorrow. The US-India civil nuclear deal added salt to injury and ultimately these countries came to the conclusion that they are sailing in the same boat in a very stormy and unfriendly ocean.

In the last week of the previous month the Washington Post reported with reference to the Obama administration that USA has decided to object to the Sino-Pak civilian nuclear deal at different forums. According to the details of this deal, china has planned to establish two atomic reactors in Pakistan. The US experts say that the deal appears to be violating international guidelines forbidding nuclear exports to countries that have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or do not have international safeguards on reactors.

The Obama administration was very much hopeful to raise successfully its objections regarding this deal in the 46-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting which was held in the last week of June in New Zealand. Unfortunately the US expectations could not come up to the mark because China categorically rejected any kind of objection in this regard considering it interference in its internal affairs. Moreover China expressed its resentment over the US objections by saying that a country like US has no right to criticize the Sino-Pak nuclear deal because it has itself finalized the same kind of deal with India a few years back. According to the media reports such stern attitude of China has widened more the already widening distances between China and USA. By raising objections on the Sino-Pak civil nuclear deal, USA has tried to kill two birds with one stone. On one hand it has tried to please India and on the other hand attempted to exert a pressure on China showing it that the USA is keeping an eye of check on every move made by it.

Same is the case with Iran. The USA has ever been trying to pressurize Iran with reference to its nuclear program. According to the New York Times, President Obama signed into law new unilateral American sanctions on Iran that go beyond the penalties imposed by the United Nations last month as he tries to escalate the pressure on Tehran to halt its nuclear enrichment program. The new law, passed by Congress on overwhelmingly bipartisan votes tries to further restrict investment in Iran’s energy sector and cut off financing for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that oversees nuclear and missile programs. It also cracks down on federal contractors that do business with Iran. The New York Time reports the statement of Mr. Obama at the bill-signing ceremony in the East Room, “With these sanctions, along with others, we are striking at the heart of the Iranian government’s ability to fund and develop its nuclear program. We’re showing the Iranian government that its actions have consequences. And if it persists, the pressure will continue to mount, and its isolation will continue to deepen.” The US sanctions on Iranian nuclear program are being taken as a continuation to the sanctions imposed on Iran by the UNO on 8th of June, 2010. As a result of these sanctions, Iran is likely to face serious consequences. These sanctions would directly affect the economic fiber of Iran including its energy infrastructure which is already badly in need of investment. According to the western media , The US sanctions against Iran include blacklisting companies like the Post Bank of Iran, the engineering firm Javedan Mehr Toos and five entities claimed to be fronts for Iran’s largest shipping company. American companies are prohibited from doing business with designated Iranian companies and individuals and they are warned that their assets in USA would be frozen if they do otherwise.

Why sanctions and bans only on Iran, China and Pakistan; why not on India and Israel; that is the most frequently asked but never replied question. The criminal silence of the UNO over such painful injustice is giving birth not only to much confusion but to so many fears and apprehensions also. It is the proper time to decide the status of the UNO; whether it is an organization supposed to take care of the suffering people from Palestine to the Indian occupied Kashmir or it is simply a weapon in the hands of the US soldiers.

The writer is a Pakistan based analyst on defence and strategic affairs. Email:alisukhanver@hotmail.com

Kashmir Watch

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Pakistan's Dueling Drones Debate

Imtiaz Gul heads the Center for Research and Security Studies,Islamabad and is the author of the Most Dangerous Place.

Foreign Policy: Pakistan's Dueling Drones Debate

by IMTIAZ GUL:

While Pakistan's security forces battle al Qaeda-inspired Pakistani Taliban militants in the volatile tribal regions of Bajaur and Orakzai, CIA-operated drones continue chasing foreign al-Qaeda operatives hiding in the wild Waziristan region. The latest such strike on a hide-out in South Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border took out eight militants last week, including an Egyptian allied with al-Qaeda, Hamza al-Jufi.

Believed to be operating out of Forward Operating Base Chapman, located across the border in Khost, Afghanistan, drones have struck targets inside Pakistan at least 141 times since 2004, including 45 attacks already this year so far. Regardless of how effective drones may be against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, their use is the subject of widespread debate, due in large part to questions about the legality of the drones.

Condemnation of such attacks and their characterization as a violation of the "sovereignty, solidarity, integrity and defense of Pakistan," in the words of Pakistani parliamentarian Imran Khan, is primarily rooted in the context of the global war against terrorism that began in October 2001 under President George Bush. This association with Bush has in part led many conservative Pakistanis and right-wing political groups such as the Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam to openly oppose the drone strikes.

Even the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Waziristan-based group that is spearheading the insurgency in the northwestern regions, has justified attacks as a reaction to the drone strikes.

Others object not to the drones, but to Pakistani public opinion on their use. For instance, Ayaz Ameer, an analyst-turned-politician, and an MP from the opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N, said at a recent conference hosted by my Islamabad think tank that Pakistani officials take two contradictory positions on drone strikes: publicly condemning them while endorsing them privately.

Chriss Rogers, research fellow at Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), said at the forum, "Since Pakistan formally never raised the issue at any international forum nor did it formally and officially issue statement against it, there seemed to be a tacit understanding between the United States and Pakistan over it."

But covert Pakistani consent does not necessarily make the strikes legal. According to Ahmar Bilal Soofi, an expert in international law, "The United States is applying drones in the name of self-defense and the war on al-Qaeda, but even this is a violation of international law and Pakistani sovereignty." Furthermore, he argues, "These means become even more objectionable because the CIA is operating drone strikes, thereby compromising issues such as transparency and accountability."

Some observers have also suggested that a Pakistani operation of the drones could significantly blunt criticism of the strikes. Indeed Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and army leaders have frequently asked that the technology be transferred to Pakistan, and has said that such a transfer would blunt criticism of the strikes..

Increasingly, Pakistani critics have also relied on arguments made by Philip Alston, a New York University law professor and the U.N. special representative on extrajudicial executions, who in a June report recommended that the U.S. military handle drone strikes against the Taliban and al-Qaeda-related militants in Pakistan, and also wrote that, "[i]f a State commits a targeted killing in the territory of another State, the second State

should publicly indicate whether it gave consent, and on what basis."

Set against the backdrop of the recent command change in Afghanistan, U.S. policy on the drone attacks may perhaps also undergo some qualitative changes. Particularly in view of Obama's search for rapid success in Afghanistan, for which Pakistan's support is crucial, the Obama administration may work out a mechanism that, while eliminating al-Qaeda members, also addresses Pakistani concerns on the legality of drone strikes. This change could also erase quite a bit of mistrust of the U.S. in Pakistan and help improve bilateral cooperation. But Pakistan's government must first end its dueling public and private positions on drones and state clearly where it stands on this simmering issue.

Tags:

Afghanistan

Pakistan

Iraq

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Barack Obama

Afghan War: Petraeus Expands U.S. Military Presence

Leading US officials and those of its NATO allies strained to link thein counterinsurgency war-overt and otherwise in the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden regions as extensions of the Gulf War on Terror from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia.

On July 4 General David Petraeus assumed command of 142,000 U.S. and NATO troops in a ceremony in the Afghan capital of Kabul. He succeeded the disgraced and soon to be retired General Stanley McChrystal as chief of all foreign troops in Afghanistan, those serving under U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A)/Operation Enduring Freedom and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

He now commands military units from 46 official troop contributing nations and others from several additional countries not officially designated as such but with forces in or that will soon be deployed to Afghanistan, such as Egypt, Jordan and Colombia. Neither the Carthaginian commander Hannibal during the Second Punic War nor Napoleon Bonaparte in the wars that bore his name commanded troops speaking as many diverse tongues.

That Petraeus took charge of soldiers from fifty nations occupying a conquered country on his own country's Independence Day has gone without commentary, either ironic or indignant. In 1775 American colonists began an eight-year war against foreign troops - those of Britain and some 30,000 German auxiliaries, the latter a quarter of all forces serving under English command in North America. Currently the three nations providing the most troops for the nearly nine-year-old and increasingly deadly war in Afghanistan are the U.S. (almost 100,000), Britain (9,500) and Germany (4,500).

Petraeus's remarks on the occasion of accepting his new dual command contained the standard U.S. and NATO characterization of their war in Afghanistan as aimed exclusively against armed extremists, in particular those portrayed as fighters from other countries. A representative quote states "al-Qaeda and its network of extremist allies will not be allowed to once again establish sanctuaries in Afghanistan." Two hundred and forty-five years ago the government of King George III may well have spoken in a similar vein concerning the likes of Johann de Kalb, Thaddeus Kosciuszko, Casimir Pulaski, Friedrich Von Steuben and the Marquis de Lafayette illegally entering British territories along the Atlantic Seaboard and waging warfare against the Crown's troops.

Petraeus arrived in Kabul on July 2, direct from Belgium where he had addressed NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the 28 member states' permanent representatives in the North Atlantic Council and representatives of 46 ISAF contributors at NATO Headquarters in Brussels and Admiral James Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Egon Ramms, Commander Joint Force Command Brunssum, and other senior military staff at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe near Mons. (Two days later at NATO headquarters in Kabul he had two flags bestowed on him, “one for the U.S. and the other for NATO.”) [1]

NATO chief Rasmussen was in Lisbon, Portugal the day Petraeus left Belgium for Afghanistan, in part to prepare for the November summit of the world's only military bloc there in November, where NATO will adopt its new, 21st century, Strategic Concept and endorse plans for an integrated interceptor missile grid to cover almost the entire European continent in conjunction with, and under the control of, the U.S.

In reference to General Petraeus taking up his new duties, Rasmussen stated at a press conference with Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado that "It has been a change of command but it will not be a change of strategy."

A week after Stanley McChrystal's resignation as head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan [2], an ephemeral scandal that disappeared as quickly, which is to say instantaneously, as it developed, the U.S. Senate voted as it customarily does in matters of foreign policy - unanimously - and in a 99-0 vote confirmed Petraeus as the new commander of the world's longest and largest-scale war.

He told Senate members on June 30 that "My sense is that the tough fighting will continue; indeed, it may get more intense in the next few months."

A few days earlier he said of President Barack Obama's proposed date for beginning the withdrawal of American and NATO troops from Afghanistan that the meaning of that pledge by the president, Petraeus' commander-in-chief, was "one of urgency - not that July 2011 is when we race for the exits, reach for the light switch and flip it off." Last December Petraeus asserted that there was no plan for a "rush to the exits" and that there "could be tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan for several years." [3]

In May he spoke at an Armed Forces Day dinner in Louisville, Kentucky - on a day that Afghan President Hamid Karzai was visiting the same state - and insisted that "the US must continue to send troops to Afghanistan...." [4]

To indicate how thoroughly the Pentagon and NATO are inextricably enmeshed in not only the Afghan campaign but in a far broader and deeper partnership, a few days before Petraeus, speaking of his then-role as chief of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said that he has striven to "operationalize" U.S.-NATO military integration at CENTCOM "where up to 60 representatives of coalition partner countries serve. In addition, officers from the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia act as representatives of CentCom, increasing further the need to share sensitive information." [5]

Afghanistan falls within CENTCOM's area of responsibility and the war in that country is a mechanism for extending the Pentagon's military contacts, deployments, acquisition of bases and general warfighting interoperability with scores of nations both within and outside CENTCOM's formal ambit.

In April, three months before taking up his Afghan war post, Petraeus was in Poland - covered by U.S. European Command (EUCOM) - to meet with the nation's Chief of the General Staff, General Franciszek Gagor, discuss the war that has now cost the lives of nineteen Polish soldiers, and disclose that "in a few months a 800-1,000 strong U.S. battalion would reinforce Poland's ISAF forces in the Afghan province of Ghazni.

"Petraeus said that the U.S. troops would be placed under the Polish commander who is responsible for the province." [6]

He also met with Polish Defense Minister Bogdan Klich and President Lech Kaczynski as well as delivering a lecture at the National Defence Academy. Kaczynski, who would perish in an airplane crash three days later, presented Petraeus with the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland and the Iraq Star. [7]

Other new NATO members in Eastern Europe are equally involved, with the Pentagon employing seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania to train Stryker brigades and airborne troops for the war in Afghanistan. [8]

As commander of CENTCOM and superior to General McChrystal in Afghanistan, Petraeus methodically laid the groundwork for expanding the scope of the greater Afghan war throughout his command's broad geographical reach, the heart of what has been deemed the broader Middle East - from Egypt in the West to Kazakhstan in the East, taking in Iraq and the rest of the Persian Gulf region, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, and all of Central and much of South Asia.

On January 2 of this year he traveled to Yemen and met with President Ali Abdullah Saleh after the Christmas Day airline bomb scare outside Detroit, though Petraeus had also been in Yemen the preceding summer. Pentagon assistance to the Yemeni government, administered under what is described as a counter-terrorism program, had grown from $4.6 million in fiscal 2006 to $67 million in fiscal 2009.

While in Iraq the day before his departure for Yemen in January, Petraeus stated, "We have, it's well known, about $70 million in security assistance last year. That will more than double this coming year." [9]

At the time leading U.S. officials and those of its NATO allies strained to link their counterinsurgency wars - overt and otherwise - in the Horn of Africa and Gulf of Aden regions as extensions of the Global War on Terror from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and Somalia. Then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown even affirmed that “The weakness of al Qaeda in Pakistan has forced them out of Pakistan and into Yemen and Somalia.” [10]

In May the New York Times revealed that last September Petraeus had authorized covert special forces operations under a directive called the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order.

A United Press International feature last month indicated part of the order's designs:

"The recent disclosure that the U.S. military is expanding its
covert operations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa is widely seen as a dangerous precedent, with Iran as one of the main targets....Officials stressed that the directive...permits operations that could pave the way toward possible military attacks against Iran if the confrontation over Tehran's nuclear program worsens." [11]

This March the U.S. Defense Department's website featured an article entitled "Centcom Looks Beyond Iraq, Afghanistan, Petraeus Says" in which, in addition to discussing counterinsurgency operations in Pakistan and Yemen, "Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the
United States must remain vigilant in overseeing broader security challenges throughout the region.

"Petraeus called Iran the 'primary state-level threat' in the Middle East. He told the panel that Iran undermines security throughout the region in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons, which threatens a broader arms race, and uses its paramilitary force to influence Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Afghanistan and the Gulf region." [12]

Two months before he announced the U.S. was maintaining several Aegis class warships in the Persian Gulf, ships equipped with advanced missile radar and Standard Missile-3 interceptor missiles. "The U.S. positioned eight Patriot missile batteries in the Middle East and Aegis ballistic missile cruisers in the Persian Gulf, Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command leader, told the Institute for the Study of War on Jan. 22." [13]

The Patriot Advanced Capability-3 theater missile interceptors are to be deployed to Iran's Persian Gulf neighbor states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

In early March Petraeus was in what is now crisis-stricken Kyrgyzstan, less than a month before President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was overthrown in a bloody uprising [14]. He had arrived in Kyrgyzstan on March 10, one day after "the U.S. embassy said [a] $5.5 million anti-terrorist center would be built in Batken in southern Kyrgyzstan - where Russian and Kyrgyz officials had earlier said Moscow might consider building a similar military facility." [15] It would appear that Petraeus and the Pentagon once more beat Russia to the punch.

He met with Bakiyev (who would be forced into exile early the next month) "to discuss bilateral cooperation and the situation in Afghanistan." [16] The U.S. has used an air base at the Manas International Airport near the nation's capital since 2001 for moving troops in and out of Afghanistan, recently at a rate of 55,000 a month.

A political analyst based in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, Aleksandr Knyazev, was quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty during Petraeus' visit on the repercussions of the Pentagon constructing a counterinsurgency/special forces base in the country: "Such a demonstrative act by the Kyrgyz side to agree...to (build a U.S.-funded counterterrorism center) is like throwing down a challenge to Russia and China."

The feature from which the above comment is borrowed added:

"The Kyrgyz plan to set up a U.S.-funded training center in Batken might upset Russia, as the Russian-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization announced its intention last year to build a military base in southern Kyrgyzstan.

"Kyrgyzstan had been under pressure by Russia and China to close the U.S. air base. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security treaty
dominated by Russia and China, has called on the United States to close its
military bases in Central Asia.

"According to the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Washington has committed $5.5 million toward the completion of the counterterrorism center." [17]

Petraeus also visited Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in early April and immediately after his return Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev met with President Barack Obama in Washington. Nazarbayev announced that he had granted the Pentagon the right to fly troops and military equipment over his nation for the expanding war in Afghanistan. According to Michael McFaul, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, "the agreement will allow troops to fly directly from the United States over the North Pole to the region.” [18]

In early June a report titled "Pentagon Looks to Plant New Facilities in Central Asia" disclosed that the U.S. is "preparing to embark on a mini-building boom in Central Asia" and "the US military wants to be
involved in strategic construction projects in all five Central Asian states, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan." [19]

In what was described as the major component of the project, the aforementioned training center in Kyrgyzstan, the report also stated, "The facility was originally intended to be built in Batken. But now it appears that it will be situated in Osh." [20]

Three days after the above excerpts appeared online the city of Osh erupted into violence, a deadly conflict between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks which cost hundreds of lives and led to hundreds of thousands of Uzbeks being displaced.

An account of an announcement reported to have been posted on the U.S. government's Federal Business Opportunities website in the middle of this May included this quote: "We anticipate two different projects in Kyrgyzstan. Both are estimated to be in the $5 million to $10 million dollar range."

The posting "added that up to $5 million each was earmarked for Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. It also listed two separate proposals for Tajikistan, one valued at up to $5 million, the other worth up to $10 million." [21]

The U.S. military was evicted from the Uzbek air base at Karshi-Khanabad in November of 2005 and neither troops nor planes have returned since. But this April General Petraeus visited Uzbekistan, met with President Islam Karimov, and "the sides exchanged opinions on the issues of further development of Uzbek-US cooperation and other areas of mutual interest." [22] American troops and pilots may soon join their German NATO allies operating from the air base at Termez near the Uzbek-Afghan border.

On June 25 Western news agencies reported that Ken Gross, the American ambassador to Tajikistan, where a French-dominated NATO operation has been run since early 2002 at the Dushanbe Airport but where to date no U.S. forces have been stationed, revealed that the Pentagon is to "build a facility for training local troops" to be opened next year. The American envoy said that "The plan [includes] almost $10 million to build this national training centre for the Tajik armed forces." [23]

An Agence France-Presse report added that "The United States has in past years built training facilities, financed military programs and established airbases in a handful of strategic ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia....These include Georgia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus as well as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia." [24]

Petraeus's visits to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in April followed up on trips to the same three Central Asian nations last August, to Tajikistan in October and to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan in January of last year.

What his visits have focused on and in large part accomplished is to secure transit rights and, as has been seen above, a military foothold in the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. Starting in earnest with his tour of Central Asia in January of 2009, Petraeus has solidified what is known as a Northern Distribution Network for the Afghan war, a three-prong project that takes in a majority of the fifteen nations that formerly constituted the Soviet Union and that circumvents Pakistan, hitherto the main land route for U.S. and NATO supplies into Afghanistan but one which is more endangered by attacks with each passing day.

The first route starts in Latvia on the Baltic Sea and proceeds overland through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Last month "NATO marked a new first in its Afghan campaign...as officials announced that the alliance had sent supplies by rail to its troops via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan for the first time...."

"The first trial shipment of the NATO train departed Riga, Latvia on May 14 and arrived in Afghanistan on June 9...." [25]

The second starts at the Georgian Black Sea port cities of Poti and Batumi and moves south and east to Azerbaijan, then across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, from there to Uzbekistan and then to Afghanistan. A third option bypasses Uzbekistan by going, as the first does, from Latvia through Russia to Kazakhstan, but then from the last country through Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan.

As commander of Central Command Petraeus oversaw a proxy war on the Arabian Peninsula [26] in Yemen and in conjunction with NATO engineered the military buildup against Iran in the Persian Gulf. [27]

He also to varying degrees pulled the Central Asian nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan deeper into the Afghan war nexus. Even nations outside of Central Command's area of operations - Bulgaria, Romania, Poland, Latvia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and now Russia - are part of the network. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine have troop contingents serving under NATO in Afghanistan, with Moldova likely to provide troops soon. Of the fifteen former Soviet republics, then, only Belarus would remain completely aloof from the war.

While speaking outside NATO headquarters in Kabul on July 4, General Petraeus stated "We are in this to win." Only four days before, the deadliest month of the war for NATO forces ended and with it the lives of over a hundred foreign soldiers.

Petraeus's 150,000 U.S. and NATO troops are not going to turn the tide in America's longest, and NATO's first ground, war. Nor will the conflict be shortened by pulling more nations, with almost a third of the world's already embroiled, into the Afghan vortex.

Tags:

Afghanistan

Taliban

Pakistan Army

India

ISI

Islam

CIA Mossad RAW nexus

Asif Haroon Raja

It is now an established fact that no South Asian state has ever indulged in covert operations or cross border terrorism against its neighbors. The only culprit is India which resorts to this evil practice against all its neighbors, be it Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Maldives, Bhutan, China and Myanmar. It has dovetailed clandestine operations into its war strategy to apply it against its foes during peace time for harassment, intimidation and blackmailing purposes and for weakening them from within. Afghanistan has been used by Russia and India to raise the bogey of Pashtunistan, render support to Pakistani runaways and rebels and to launch covert operations against Pakistan. Karzai has belatedly assured Pakistan that it would not allow its soil against Pakistan. Hopefully he sticks to his commitment. Marching orders given by Karzai to his intelligence chief and interior minister, both venomously anti-Pakistan and favorites of Washington are positive signs though some more steps are needed to scatter away clouds of distrust built over nine years. The US military has starting packing its bags to wind up its business in Afghanistan and go home starting July 2011. The US and Karzai’s tilt towards Islamabad are ominous developments for India vying to have complete sway over Afghan affairs after the departure of coalition forces. The entire Indian leadership is in a state of depression. Its spin doctors are at a loss but are still scratching their heads how to retrieve the situation. Indians are feeling out of place since they are akin to traits of a scorpion which stings compulsively.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Home Minister Chidambaram were here in Islamabad to renew talks. An Indo-Pak talk is a drama staged by India at the behest of USA. India loses all and gains nothing out of composite dialogue, which she had purposely stalled after Mumbai attacks. She stubbornly clung to her one-point agenda of no talks without Pakistan tackling India’s concerns about terrorism. After intense pressure from USA, stuck in Afghanistan and urgently requiring Pakistan’s services for a bailout, India has reluctantly relented and agreed to resume talks. However, the entire focus of talks was on terrorism. Chronic issues such as Kashmir dispute, Siachin and Sir Creek problems, water problem, RAW’s support to terrorists in Balochistan and in FATA were skipped. India wants solution to Kashmir as suggested by former President Gen Musharraf. It had been mutually decided to sideline UN resolutions on Kashmir, convert Line of Control (LoC) into soft border and to put the dispute in cold freezer as had been done during Simla Agreement in 1973.

But for lawyers movement which weakened Musharraf, the sellout plan would have been implemented in 2008. It is for this reason that Indian leaders fondly remember Musharraf and pray for his return. President Zardari was also in favor of this plan as was evident from several statements he had made on Kashmir and the so-called ‘good news’ he wanted to give to the nation. Had the Army under Gen Kayani not taken a firm stand and had Zardari not lost his reputation and credibility, he would have given a go ahead signal to the plan. Zardari’s inability to open up nuclear program for US and IAEA inspection, bring ISI under Interior Ministry and to implement Indian dictated Kashmir solution has disappointed USA and India. To twist his arm, he is off and on subjected to barrage of vilification campaign, most of which is based on facts.

Pakistan had been led up the garden path by India through much hyped composite dialogue in early 2004. It was pledged that all issues including Kashmir would be resolved through dialogue. Four rounds of talks were held but nothing concrete came out of the meetings. While Pakistan lost a lot, India gained a lot. Under the garb of friendship, India successfully completed fencing of LoC, defanged armed resistance in Held Kashmir, redirected all Jihadi outfits towards Pakistan, made Balochistan, FATA and large parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa restive, lowered the image of Pak Army and other institutions through propaganda campaign, consolidated tentacles of RAW within Pakistan, disturbed law and order situation, built several dams over rivers Chenab, Jhelum and Indus and reduced flow of water into Pakistan. India not only enhanced its presence in Afghanistan significantly but also spread hatred amongst Afghans against Pakistan to keep the two neighbors perpetually hostile to each other. Through these acts, it impoverished the economy of Pakistan.

While preaching friendship, Indian military feverishly built up its strength and former Indian chief Gen Kapoor hurled threats of Cold Start and limited war under a nuclear overhang. Pakistan quietly digested all the insults and harms inflicted upon the body of Pakistan under the skewed policy of appeasement and under a misperception that Kashmir issue would be resolved. In return, India didn’t budge an inch over any of the disputes and continued to maintain its pre-2004 rigid stance on all issues. It showed its ugly face after Mumbai carnage and reverted to its old policy of antagonism.

Having gained on all fronts, India is unprepared to dole out any concession to Pakistan. It still wants more from Pakistan. It wants Pakistan not to oppose its key role in Afghanistan, its right for a land route to Afghanistan via Wagah, and its membership to UNSC. It also wants Punjab based banned Jihadi groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamat-ud-Dawa, Jaish Mohammad and Sipah-Sahaba to be crushed and Muredke religious centre to be dismantled. India is keen to extend physical support to help Pak security forces to tackle these outfits. Punjab being the only stable province, it has become an eyesore for India and it desperately wants its destabilization. The likes of Salman Taseer and RAW sponsored Tehrik-e-Taliban are helping India in its nefarious designs. RAW is among the leading terrorist organization which is bleeding South Asia but surprisingly no finger has ever been raised on it. The US and western think tanks and newspapers never tire of concocting stories against ISI but see RAW, Mossad and CIA chaste and spotless. This is because they are birds of same feather and are flocking together in pursuit of common objectives. Pakistan and other South Asian countries have remained the victims of intrigues and conspiracies of India for the last 63 years. It pretends to be well meaning and friendly but it always carries a dagger under its armpit and strikes whenever opportunity comes its way. It is principally responsible for impeding the growth of SAARC because of its habit of hegemony and selfishness. It is high time for SAARC countries minus India to get together and collectively combat the Indian menace.

I propose immediate establishment of a joint intelligence centre at Islamabad or Colombo on the pattern of the one working in Jabal-al-Siraj, north of Kabul. Both are well trained in the art of counter terrorism and have successfully fought RAW sponsored terrorism. The new intelligence setup should have tentacles in all the affected South Asian countries to share intelligence and monitor activities of home based and foreign based terrorists, spies and double agents. Assistance of China may be sought or it may be co-opted. Intelligence Centre should maintain close liaison with intelligence agencies of selected Muslim states which follow independent foreign policies and are not close to India. Intelligence can be exchanged with CIA, FBI and MI-6 prudently and on need basis only.

Besides, a joint media and publicity cell should be opened to counter Indo-US-Israeli propaganda. In addition, each country should raise a counter terrorism force fully equipped with requisite firepower, mobility and technology superior to what the terrorists possess to be able to dismantle terrorist networks, disrupt supply routes and sources of funding. Collective efforts should be made to beat RAW in its own game.

—The writer is a retired Brig & security & defence
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