The win-win of U.S. relief for Pakistan

This really is a no brainer. Pakistan doesn't trust our intentions in the region... with good cause given our track record. In order to gain some trust, the least we can do is funnel some aid their way to deal with the flooding which has displaced over 20 million people. Does America not care because Pakistan is a Muslim nation? America doesn't know Pakistan when they are down and out...

Obama must decide whether to talk to the Taliban

Neighboring countries and most Afghans believe that the endgame has begun for a post-U.S. Afghanistan. There are just 14 months for the U.S. military surge to show results while Washington simultaneously prepares to begin its July 2011 troop withdrawal and handover to the Afghan government. Already, efforts to jockey for future control of Afghanistan have been seen among Pakistan, India, Iran and even Russia. Several NATO countries eager to withdraw forces are frustrated. It is clear in the region that someone will have to mediate with the Taliban, but in the absence of U.S. leadership, a tug of war is taking place over who will do it, when, how and where.

Obama Narrows the Range of Possible Targets in New National Nuclear-Weapons Policy

Pakistan's War of Choice

Although Pakistan is stepping up its efforts, this article alludes to the main reason they refuse to commit fully.

Pakistan seems unwilling to move much more of its army away from the Indian border, meaning a further delay before operations commence in North Waziristan — home to the Haqqani network, a radical group headed by the Taliban commander Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which is believed to be behind some of the largest attacks in recent years.

I did not meet any Pakistanis who actually seemed to wish to see the Afghan Taliban back in power. But the country simply does not have the military capacity to make major moves against the Afghan fundamentalists. And, less understandably, Pakistanis tend to see Indian conspiracies behind what is happening in Afghanistan, and fear being trapped between their longtime nemesis on one side and an Indian puppet on the other.

At the headquarters of the Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, I was told that India was suspected of providing explosives to Tehrik-i-Taliban extremists through Afghanistan. Many Pakistanis claim that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai is essentially a reincarnation of the old Northern Alliance from the Afghan civil war — a union largely made up of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks and partly financed by India. (This despite the fact that Afghanistan’s ministers of defense and interior are Pashtun, as is President Karzai.)Pakistanis wonder why India is building so many consulates in Afghanistan, and even Indian-subsidized health clinics are considered suspicious.

Islamabad Boys

India Befriends Afghanistan, Irking Pakistan

This is exactly what we, the U.S., need to happen in Afghanistan! India and Pakistan fighting over who is the better friend of Afghanistan! Perhaps now Pakistan will focus harder on their border with Afghanistan rather than fighting the Indians in Kashmir?! Perhaps India and Pakistan will become friends like Sean Thornton and Will Danaher did in The Quiet Man? Doubtful...

Anyhow here is an excerpt from the article:

The two countries have sparred repeatedly about each other's activities in Afghanistan. Indian officials say their Pakistani counterparts have claimed that there are more than the official four Indian consulates in Afghanistan, and that they support an extensive Indian spy network. For years, Pakistan refused to allow overland shipment of fortified wheat biscuits from India to feed two million Afghan schoolchildren. India instead had to ship the biscuits through Iran, driving up costs for the program.

The World Food Program, which administers the shipments, said the Pakistan government gave its approval for overland shipment in 2008 -- six years after the first delivery from India. "Why did it take six years ... is something that WFP cannot answer," a spokesman for the aid organization said. "However, we are indeed thankful to the government of Pakistan for allowing transit for the fortified biscuits."

Also, here are some old posts on the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan relationship that help explain my opinions regarding the region:

A Man, A Plan, Afghanistan - September 12, 2008

Afghanistan Is in Its Worst Shape since 2001 - September 16, 2008

Pakistan Picks New Chief for Intelligence Agency - September 30, 2008

Confronting Taliban, Pakistan Finds Itself at War - October 3, 2008

Pakistan's Military - May 15, 2009

Pakistan Objects to U.S. Plan for Afghan War - July 22, 2009

Obama Facing Rising Anxiety on Afghanistan

Good job, Mr. Attackerman.


See also:
McChrystal Considers Abandoning Remote U.S. Troop Outposts

Again, as stated countless times on here, Pakistan's military doesn't really care about fighting the Taliban, especially when they view us as temporary allies. They want to fight the 300,000 Indian troops garrisoned in Kashmir.

More Than Missiles

The article addresses how Congress went into August recess without a definitive, reconciled between House and Senate, bill, aiding Pakistan. As usual, the House added language in which American contractors would be favored for projects in Pakistan just so the military industrial complex can keep chugging along.

The aid — and particularly its pledge of five years of uninterrupted help — is intended to demonstrate that this time Washington is in for the long haul. Many Pakistanis still accuse the Americans of using and then abandoning them after the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan. We fear that any more delay on the promised assistance would only reinforce that suspicion and bitterness...

It is time to show the Pakistani people that the United States has more to offer than missile strikes and empty promises.

Pakistan Objects to U.S. Plan for Afghan War

Pakistan just wants more money or weapons from the U.S. They also do not want the U.S. to really win, since we are always on the fence with regards to India. I've said this a million times already on this blog, but this "little war" on their border with Afghanistan is not what they consider their main battle... their frontline. Here is a quote reiterating what I have been saying for quite some time:

A Taliban spillover would require Pakistan to put more troops there, a Pakistani intelligence official said, troops the country does not have now. Diverting troops from the border with India is out of the question, the official said.

Can the U.S. Really Trust the Former (And Possibly Future) Pakistani Leader, Nawaz Sharif

In Search Of Success

For several months, the Obama Administration has been rethinking American policy, hoping to depart from this history of dysfunction. It has announced a formal strategy: an adaptive counterinsurgency doctrine that seeks to emphasize the security and the prosperity of the Afghan and Pakistani people above all; economic and development aid; vigorous diplomacy; and carefully targeted warfare, particularly aimed at Al Qaeda. Already, however, Obama and his advisers have had to confront the puzzle of which policies in their new portfolio will promote stability in the region, and which will promote instability...“A key aspect to the new strategy is to put more attention and resources toward Pakistan’s economic and governance challenges,” Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to the region, told Congress last week. Yet Pakistan’s prideful insistence on its sovereignty means, among other things, that the United States cannot provide relief directly to internally displaced civilians. Their fate will now depend on Pakistan’s fragile and unpopular government, with support from charities and the United Nations; the Obama Administration must stand in the rear, urgently working its bellows.

Pakistan Is Rapidly Adding Nuclear Arms, U.S. Says

One more example of how Pakistan views its border with Afghanistan as less of a problem than its border with India.

But the billions in new proposed American aid, officials acknowledge, could free other money for Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, at a time when Pakistani officials have expressed concern that their nuclear program is facing a budget crunch for the first time, worsened by the global economic downturn. The program employs tens of thousands of Pakistanis, including about 2,000 believed to possess “critical knowledge” about how to produce a weapon.

Pakistan's Military

This is an excellent overview of civil-military relations in Pakistan from Al Jazeera.

Towards the end of the piece, one commentator states that if the Taliban attempted to storm Karachi, or just walk through a city, they would stick out like a sore thumb and would be crushed. I guess this would be similiar to how a NASCAR fan from Pennsyltucky drinking a PBR in a koozie would stand out in crowd of coked-up, two-tone shirt and pinstripe suit wearing analysts in the financial district of Manhattan and be promptly arrested by the NYPD. Interesting.

The Pakistani military is the most important institution in the country.

Ayub Khan, a former military ruler, described the relationship between the Pakistani state and the military thus: "The military in our country is an institution for which a piece of real estate was attached."

Pakistan's army is the seventh largest in the world with 650,000 troops on active duty plus 302,000 paramilitary and 528,000 reservists; that gives the country a 1,400,000 fighting force.

The military institution of Pakistan received a huge boost in 1999 when the country entered the nuclear club.

As the Pakistani army intensifies its offensive against the Taliban, Inside Story asks: Is the army really committed to the fight? Is it properly prepared for counter-insurgency? What role other than fighting does the military hold in Pakistani politics and how much control does the army have over the future of the country?

Lauren Taylor, our presenter, is joined by Maria Sultan, the director of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute; Salman Ahmed, a journalist specialising on Pakistani Affairs; and Julian Schofield, a professor of political science at Concordia University and author of numerous books on Pakistani military affairs.

Gates: US Troops Won't Fight in Pakistan

The fact that this is even being talked about means that a) electronic Blue Force Tracker maps probably have been changed to make it seem like troops are doing missions only in Afghanistan and b) U.S. troops are/will fight in Pakistan.

Just Walk Away

This is exactly what Pakistan expects us to do in Afghanistan and one reason why they are not focusing on their border with Afghanistan... this is for the most part a good read, but, as with most of Ralph Peters' pieces, it goes overboard.

John Kerry: Darfur's "A Wild-Ass Place, But There's An Opening.''

Sadly, this man was not elected president in 2004... great article about Sen. Kerry.

Taliban Seize Vital Pakistan Area Closer to the Capital

Militants blow up bridge in NW Pakistan, cutting supply lines to foreign troops in Afghanistan

A smart move by the insurgents. Let's see how GEN McKiernan and the Obama administration reacts to such a big loss. I find it hard to believe that nations like Germany will not even allow their troops to provide security for logistics convoys, instead allowing their troops to live entirely inside the wire.

Pakistan Uses Tribal Militias in Taliban War

We will see if the United States and Pakistan leverage this with a turn the other way attitude towards air strikes in Pakistan...

It's Always Sunny in Pakistanelphia

20 in Pakistan Die in Bombing


Pakistan to deport Afghan refugees

Zardari has pledged his co-operation in the US 'war on terror', but he must tread carefully given strong domestic opposition to his country's alliance with Washington.

This balancing act has become increasingly complicated because of increasing US missile attacks against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban hide-outs in Pakistan's northwest and more recently by Zadari's comments to The Wall Street Journal suggesting he had consented to the strikes.

"We have an understanding, in the sense that we're going after an enemy together," the newspaper quoted him as saying on Saturday.

US, Britain, and UN weigh options amid rising violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan

Pakistan leader's India comments irk establishment: analysts