Empire’s Paranoia About the Pashtuns [1 of 3]

The ongoing hysteria about lightly settled, mountainous Pashtun tribal lands in Pakistan or or near the ill-defined Afghan border might seem unique to our imperial moment. So imagine our surprise when Juan Cole tells us it actually has a history more than a century old. And there’s nothing like a little history lesson, there, to put the strange hysterias of our moment into perspective? So who better to offer a little history lesson in imperial delusions of grandeur and peril? If you feel like a more extensive lesson in what to make of the gamut of issues where the U.S. and the Muslim world meet, or rather collide, don’t miss what he says. It’s a continual eye-opener. [In the image above: Winston Churchill in the Hussars just before he saw action in Pakistan].

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A CENTURY OF FRENZY OVER THE NORTH-WEST FRONTIER

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by Juan Cole

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First a Note from WoP: The Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan (FATA) have either, traditionally been autonomous or semi-autonomous region. Before the British, Pathan chieftains had their sway and prior to Mughals, the Pathan dynasty of Lodhis ruled the subcontinent. Later during the Mughal and the successive Punjab kingdom of Raja Ranjit Singh even, the Pashtun chieftains exercised their might though they either remained as satraps of the Delhi Darbar or were completely autonomous. During these epochal periods of history, they sometimes aligned themselves with the rulers in Delhi and other time with the man occupying the throne in Kabul. However, in the heydays of these empires, they retained their autonomous/quasi autonomous status in one form or another.

When the British expanded their rule, after the end of the Sikh kingdom of Lahore (which was the only region in the subcontinent which last of all, finally annexed to the Delhi Darbar), even during British rule, in spite of the best military maneuvering (a part of the great game played then between the British and the Tsarist Russia) the British could not subdue the whole of Pashtun borderlands.  Excepting the garrison towns of Peshawar, Kohat, Nowshera and Bannu, where every morning Union Jack was unfurled at all the cantonments, the areas beyond the garrisons, were completely autonomous and most of the time at war with Gora lords of the Delhi Darbar.

After various episodes of war and peace between tribes of the frontier and the central authority in Delhi, ultimately the parties agreed to maintain a status quo but now and then skirmishes always did take place.

In 1947, when British were to pack up, two independent states emerged on the landscape of Hindostan. The people of the North West frontier decided through a referendum to join the newly established state of Muslim Pakistan.

Qaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a statesman that he was, had the vision to assure at the very outset that all tribesmen inhabiting the PAKISTANI borderlands will enjoy an autonomous status within the state of Pakistan. Central Govt. will not interfere with the local customs and they will continue to have their tribal jirgas according to Pakhtunvali, the traditional Pathan code of life, and ever since they have enjoyed this status as loyal citizens of Pakistan.

Before 2001, one never heard of a single suicide attack from any area in the tribal agencies or FATA (as they are administratively called). There was never any trace of an Islamic Zealot from the Pashtun tribal belt of Pakistan nor was there any thing called Taliban or some Mujahid /s plotting to bomb some embassy, some building, fortress or army convoys in Pakistan, India or any where else in the world.

The plane hijackings were initiated and undertaken by Palestinian guerrillas in the sixties and suicide bombings were also initiated either by LTTE insurgents in Sri Lanka or the Palestinians in the Mideast peninsula.

Such things have entered in our borderlands only after 2001, when the neoconservatives under the senior Bush and later by his son Bush junior unleashed their all out offensive against Muslims under the banner of the so called clash of civilizations.

An outfall of these activities especially in Afghanistan has been the Pakistani borderlands. Unfortunately the militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan has taken many nuances some very ugly indeed. The ulterior motives of wars for control of energy and its transmission lines have made this area a hot bed of geopolitical endeavors, military ventures, adventures and misadventures.

It is in this context that you will find Juan Cole’s post as a highly interesting and thought provoking read. Its an eye opener for all actors on the great Asian stage, the Afghans, the Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, Russians but above all for our American friends in the Pentagon and the State Department. [Nayyar]

Funniest Thing Published by a News Magazine in the History of News Magazines

Holy Christ, this is a Newsweek “web exclusive” .

Gerald Herbert / AP

Swallow your milk

by Joshua Holland, AlterNet

Stand In

Why Obama should make George W. Bush his Mideast envoy.

By Gregory Levey

On Sunday, George Mitchell, President Obama’s Middle East envoy, arrived in Israel to confer with its leaders. Also visiting this week are Defense Secretary Robert Gates, national-security adviser James Jones, and Gulf States envoy Dennis Ross. It’s a full-court press on the Israelis, and the American wish list is long. They want Israel to stop expanding settlements; to stop building Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem; and for hawks in the government to chill out while the U.S. is negotiating with Iran. And yet, odds are, they’ll come back to Washington empty-handed, for reasons having to do as much with atmospherics as policy: Team Obama just doesn’t have Israel’s full trust.

But there is someone who does—someone who could use a job, someone who argued straightforwardly for a Palestinian state, and yet someone who has the implicit admiration and regard of Israel. President Obama needs a new envoy to the region who can get results—and George W. Bush is his man.

Words fail me.

I do have this, however, which sums up my thoughts on the matter pretty well …

The Writer Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

Source: Posted  July 30, 2009

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Are We at (Robot) War in Pakistan?

It’s almost Shakespearean. But since we’re in the 21st century instead of the 16th, we seal our pact with the king by sending machines, not human assassins.

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by Noah Shachtman

Washington and Islamabad are “drawing up a fresh list of terrorist targets for Predator drone strikes“ in Pakistan, according to the Wall Street Journal. Militants crossing the border into Afghanistan would still be in the drones’ bullseyes, just like before. But Pakistani officials are also “seeking to broaden the scope of the program to target extremists who have carried out attacks against Pakistanis.”

If that’s the case, isn’t America, for all intents and purposes, at war in Pakistan? Only in this war, it’s our flying robots doing most of the fighting?

Crossing a border to chase militants is one thing — an organic expansion of a pre-existing conflict. This feels like a different matter: a commitment to the Pakistanis to put down their internal rebellion. It’s certainly linked to the first conflict (the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban have officially teamed up). But it’s not the same as the original fight — the one that started in Afghanistan.

Note: I’m not suggesting that we are at war with Pakistan, its people, or its government. But it seems pretty clear that the U.S. is almost (if not already) at war in Pakistan, against a whole series of militant networks.

UPDATE: It’s important to note that all of these militant groups share training, money, gear, and goons. So it’s natural to hop from one to the other — to keep on moving an inch further down this insurgent playing field. But travel one inch after another, and, eventually, you’re a mile down the road. Or, as Spencer Ackerman puts it: “Here’s where you feel like the frog who went for a leisurely dip in the warm stockpot bath and suddenly finds himself boiling,” he writes. “The American people are being asked to recommit in a major way to the Afghanistan war. It’s untenable to commit to a Pakistan war without their consent.”

“The American military has to be really, really careful about mission creep,” Jim Arkedis warns. “The military, as the Pentagon thinks it believes, can’t kill its way out of this problem, but this expanded target list only perpetuates the mindset that we can.”

I’d be curious to hear what you guys think. Drop me a line, or sound off, in the comments.

The latest drone strike went down yesterday — an attack on the network of Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud that killed at least eight. Continue readig…

Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians.

Mehsud is the main suspect behind the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Her widower, Asif Ali Zadari, is now president of Pakistan — and, according to the Journal, a prime supporter of the unmanned strikes.

Which leads Slate’s William Saletan to wonder: “Are we buying his support by sending our drones to avenge his wife’s death?”

It’s almost Shakespearean. But since we’re in the 21st century instead of the 16th, we seal our pact with the king by sending machines, not human assassins, to bring heaven’s wrath on the warlord who slew his beloved. And this time, the wrath really does come from heaven. Put yourself in Zardari’s shoes. You’re being offered the chance to destroy your enemy with a power unknown to history’s greatest kings and generals: a bloodless, all-seeing airborne hunting party.
Would you refuse?

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[Photo: USAF]

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Source: Danger Room, Posted July 26, 2009

From Iraq to Afghanistan, US Wars Not Going According to Plan

Protesters brandished a plethora of handcrafted signs and banners reading: “Obama it’s your war now,” “America is losing its soul in Gaza,” “U.S. out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan NOW,” “College not combat,” “Hey Obama take a stand, U.S. out of Afghanistan” and “OK Democrats, now stop the war.” Bill Hackwel

by William Pfaff

Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, was in Washington this week to consult with Barack Obama and American military and political officials, three weeks after the Status of Forces Agreement concerning U.S. forces in Iraq came into effect.

On the same day, in Iraq, tension was reported to be increasing between the Americans, whose combat forces were supposed to evacuate Baghdad and other cities at the end of June, and the Iraqi military and security forces, who were supposed to take over the Americans’ responsibilities.

American commanders complain that the Iraq authorities have greatly reduced the number of joint patrols, supposed to continue, and in other ways “clearly are signaling that we are no longer wanted” — according to an American officer quoted in The Wall Street Journal. Iraqi commanders have told the Americans no longer to run patrols, and not to conduct raids on suspect locations, without coordinating them with the Iraqis.

A foreign diplomat in Baghdad has said that the Iraqis are determined to show that they are now in charge, in the run-up to national elections next year. Robert Gates, the U.S. Defense secretary, says that the situation is not bad. However, attacks have sharply increased in recent days, and some observers insist that the Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated government must do more to reconcile the former ruling Sunni minority if sectarian conflict is not to break out again.

The Iraqi prime minister is playing the nationalist card, a dangerous one to play when the Sunnis also have sectarian revindications, and a lot of grievances. Washington itself has a hand to play in this game, with 130,000 troops (and at least as many contract forces) still in the country, whom Barack Obama has promised to withdraw, and the American public wants withdrawn — and a demagogic American right, for whom national failure means treason.

This is not the way this war was supposed to end. For younger readers: Six years ago the American intervention was supposed to end in a multi-party democratic government, an ally of Israel against the supposed menace of Iran, the strategic base and headquarters for the U.S. as dominant actor in a “New Middle East,” and a permanent and secure source of oil for the United States. None of this has happened. Iran is the principal beneficiary.

Move to another front: Pakistan-Afghanistan. Here there was also supposed to be a straightforward job to do: drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan, into their refuges in the semi-inaccessible Tribal Areas of the Pakistan border. There, the Pakistan army, with American urging and help, would defeat and disarm them, asserting Pakistani national control over the region, as well as U.S.-NATO success in Afghanistan.

What actually is happening is unsurprising. Pakistan continues to look after its own national interests, as it has always defined them. This means that the separate radical religious and tribal movements that make up the Taliban continue to be considered an asset to Pakistan in its long-term struggle with India, in defense of its own security, and in order to recover Muslim-populated Kashmir, which India controls.

The “K”  word (the vale of Kashmir) in the Himalayan region continues to mar relations between two nuclear neighbours in South Asia.

The Taliban have also been for Pakistan an important instrument (originally supplied and financed by the United States — but there’s no time to go into that now, although the fact should be kept in mind), in keeping Afghanistan out of hostile hands in Pakistan’s equally long-term effort to control that country as providing Pakistan strategic depth and an additional Muslim bulwark against the threat of India.

Pakistan has made it clear now to Washington — to those who can read between the lines — that it wants no American troops inside Pakistan and no more collateral-damage bombing, and considers the American war in Afghanistan a futile and destructive effort, against whose consequences Pakistan must protect itself.

The growing opinion in Europe is that Afghanistan is the United States’ “new Vietnam.” The truth is that it is worse than Vietnam.

In Vietnam, the United States had a clearly identified enemy, supported by a responsible Communist state in North Vietnam with its government in Hanoi. The U.S. had a theory about what it was doing: suppressing the insurrection in the South, and bombing North Vietnam until the government stopped the war. All of this was, in principle, possible.

However the U.S. acted on a nonsensical theory about the world “going Communist” if the U.S. didn’t win, just as today the U.S. has an even more nonsensical theory about radical Islam conquering Muslim Asia and all of Europe, and then attacking the U.S., if Washington fails.

Unlike the Viet Cong, the Taliban are not a disciplined force acting under some government’s orders, and have neither the intention nor means to attack anybody outside Central Asia. They are motivated by nationalism, today focused against the United States, and by a desire to propagate their form of Islam.

In that respect it’s a war of ideas, which the United States has no theory about how to “win.” There is no way to make the Taliban surrender. At most they will temporarily fade away when U.S. and NATO forces begin to fade away, and fight again another day. There is no Taliban government to bomb. And there is no way to “make” Afghanistan a democratic ally of the United States. The “no’s” have it.

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Source: Mathaba / (c) 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. #

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Wall Street Journal Cheers on Obama’s Drone War on Pakistan: “Unmanned Bombs Away”

July 26, 2009 by Jeremy Scahill

Source: Rebel Reports

WSJ editors attack journalists who report on civilian deaths. Instead, they say, we should all just shut up and listen to U.S. intelligence agencies.

The Wall Street Journal is officially in love with President Obama’s undeclared air war inside of Pakistan’s borders. In an unsigned editorial, the paper enthusiastically endorses Obama’s use of predator drones to bomb areas throughout Pakistan. The WSJ editors praises the administration, saying “to its credit, [the White House] has stepped up the use of Predators.” The editors declare: “When Pakistan’s government can exercise sovereignty over all its territory, there will be no need for Predator strikes. In the meantime, unmanned bombs away.”

The paper accurately notes some of the reasons for opposing drone strikes: “the belief that the attacks cause wide-scale casualties among noncombatants, thereby embittering local populations and losing hearts and minds.” The WSJ also accurately reports:

Lord Bingham, until recently Britain’s senior law lord, has recently said UAV strikes may be “beyond the pale” and potentially on a par with cluster bombs and landmines. Australian counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen says “the Predator [drone] strikes have an entirely negative effect on Pakistani stability.” He adds, “We should be cutting strikes back pretty substantially.”

But Bingham and Kilcullen are naive fools, according to the WSJ editors. Moreover, they are fools who have been suckered by evil un-embedded reporters. “If you glean your information from wire reports — which depend on stringers who are rarely eyewitnesses,” the editors quip, “the argument [against drone attacks] seems almost plausible.” Right, these “stringers” who often risk their lives to reveal the human toll of U.S. bombings are far less credible than the fat cat editors of the WSJ (some of whom are probably in the Hamptons having servants clip their toe nails or mix their Martinis as I write this).

The WSJ editors descend from their thrones to mingle among the mortals and teach us the error of our ways:

Supporters of a religious party Tanzim-e-Islami rallying against U. S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The banners in Urdu demand on Zardari regime to either leave the government or get Drone attacks stopped.

Yet anyone familiar with Predator technology knows how misleading those reports can be. Unlike fighter jets or cruise missiles, Predators can loiter over their targets for more than 20 hours, take photos in which men, women and children can be clearly distinguished (burqas can be visible from 20,000 feet) and deliver laser-guided munitions with low explosive yields. This minimizes the risks of the “collateral damage” that often comes from 500-pound bombs. Far from being “beyond the pale,” drones have made war-fighting more humane.

Ah, yes, that famous humane war we have all been waiting for. Finally!

The WSJ editors then reveal the highly independent, impeccable source for their information: “A U.S. intelligence summary we’ve seen corrects the record of various media reports claiming high casualties from the Predator strikes.” Wow. Remember when the Bush administration was correcting all those errors about Saddam’s WMDs? Not surprisingly, the WSJ states that “In each of the strikes in 2009 that are described by the intelligence summary, the report says no women or children were killed. Moreover, we know of planned drone attacks that were aborted when Predator cameras spied their presence.”

The WSJ wants this U.S. “intelligence” shared with the American public and the world, arguing, “We understand there will always be issues concerning sources and methods. But critics of the drone attacks, especially Pakistani critics, have become increasingly vocal in their opposition. They deserve to know about the terrorist calamities they’ve been spared thanks to these unmanned flights over their territory.”

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

Jeremy Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Source

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“Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies”

After US Strikes, Afghans Describe “Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies;”

How many innocent civilians will die before the US changes its approach to the ongoing war in Afghanistan. This is an old but not very old essay on cruelty of the war in Afghanistan.

by Jeremy Scahill

As President Barack Obama dispatched some 21,000 more US troops into Afghanistan, anger started rising in the western province of Farah, the scene of a US bombing massacre that possibly killed as many as 130 Afghans, including 13 members of one family. At least six houses were bombed and among the dead and wounded were women and children.

As of this writing reports indicate some people remain buried in rubble. The US airstrikes happened just hours after Obama had met with US-backed president Hamid Karzai, hundreds of Afghans—perhaps as many as 2,000— poured into the streets of the provincial capital, chanting “Death to America.”

The protesters demanded a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.In Washington, Karzai said he and the US occupation forces should operate from a “higher platform of morality,” saying, “We must be conducting this war as better human beings,” and recognize that “force won’t buy you obedience.” And yet, his security forces opened fire on the demonstrators, reportedly wounding five people.

According to The New York Times:

As President Barack Obama prepares to send some 21,000 more US troops into Afghanistan, anger is rising in the western province of Farah, the scene of a US bombing massacre that may have killed as many as 130 Afghans, including 13 members of one family. At least six houses were bombed and among the dead and wounded are women and children. As of this writing reports indicate some people remain buried in rubble. The US airstrikes happened on Monday and Tuesday. Just hours after Obama met with US-backed president Hamid Karzai Wednesday, hundreds of Afghans—perhaps as many as 2,000— poured into the streets of the provincial capital, chanting “Death to America.” The protesters demanded a US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In Washington, the US installed Karzai said at the time that the US occupation forces should operate from a “higher platform of morality,” saying, “We must be conducting this war as better human beings,” and recognize that “force won’t buy you obedience.” And yet, his security forces opened fire on the demonstrators, reportedly wounding five people.

According to The New York Times:

In a phone call played on a loudspeaker to outraged members of the Afghan Parliament, the governor of Farah Province, Rohul Amin, said that as many as 130 civilians had been killed, according to a legislator, Mohammad Naim Farahi. Afghan lawmakers immediately called for an agreement regulating foreign military operations in the country.“The governor said that the villagers have brought two tractor trailers full of pieces of human bodies to his office to prove the casualties that had occurred,” Mr. Farahi said. “Everyone at the governor’s office was crying, watching that shocking scene.”

Mr. Farahi said he had talked to someone he knew personally who had counted 113 bodies being buried, including those of many women and children. Later, more bodies were pulled from the rubble and some victims who had been taken to the hospital died, he said.

The US airstrikes hit villages in two areas of Farah province last May. The extent of the deaths only came to public light because local people brought 20-30 corpses to the provincial capital. If the estimates of 130 dead are confirmed, it would reportedly be the single largest number of deaths caused by a US bombing since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton initially “apologized” Wednesday for the civilian deaths and Obama reportedly conveyed similar sentiments to Karzai when they met in person, later in the day Clinton’s spokesperson, Robert Wood, framed her apology as being based on preliminary information and, according to AP, said they “were offered as a gesture, before all the facts of the incident are known.” By day’s end, the Pentagon was seeking to blame the Taliban for “staging” the massacre to blame it on the US. Last night, NBC News’s Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski said military sources told him Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to “stage” a massacre and then blame it on the US.

The senior US military and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, spoke in general terms: “We have some other information that leads us to distinctly different conclusions about the cause of the civilian casualties,” he said. McKiernan left the specific details of the spin to unnamed officials.

According to The Washington Post,

“A U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that ‘the Taliban went to a concerted effort to make it look like the U.S. airstrikes caused this. The official did not offer evidence to support the claim, and could not say what had caused the deaths.” Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, a senior Defense official who did not want to be identified “said late Wednesday that Marine special operations forces believe the Afghan civilians were killed by grenades hurled by Taliban militants, who then loaded some of the bodies into a vehicle and drove them around the village, claiming the dead were victims of an American airstrike. A second U.S. official said a senior Taliban commander is believed to have ordered the grenade attack.”

As the AP reported, “it was the first time the Taliban has used grenades in this way.”

While the Pentagon spins its story, the International Committee of the Red Cross has stated bluntly that US airstrikes hit civilian houses and revealed that an ICRC counterpart in the Red Crescent was among the dead. “We know that those killed included an Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed in an air strike,” said the ICRC’s head of delegation in Kabul, Reto Stocker. “We are deeply concerned by these events. Tribal elders in the villages called the ICRC during the fighting to report civilian casualties and ask for help. As soon as we heard of the attacks we contacted all sides to warn them that there were civilians and injured people in the area.”

Read the entire ICRC statement here.

The Times, meanwhile, interviewed local people who contradict the unnamed US Defense officials’ version of events:

Villagers reached by telephone said many were killed by aerial bombing. Muhammad Jan, a farmer, said fighting had broken out in his village, Shiwan, and another, Granai, in the Bala Baluk district. An hour after it stopped, the planes came, he said.In Granai, he said, women and children had sought shelter in orchards and houses. “Six houses were bombed and destroyed completely, and people in the houses still remain under the rubble,” he said, “and now I am working with other villagers trying to excavate the dead bodies.”

He said that villagers, crazed with grief, were collecting mangled bodies in blankets and shawls and piling them on three tractors. People were still missing, he said.

Mr. Agha, who lives in Granai, said the bombing started at 5 p.m. on Monday and lasted until late into the night. “People were rushing to go to their relatives’ houses, where they believed they would be safe, but they were hit on the way,” he said.

In her earlier statement regarding the bombing, Clinton told Hamid Karzai “there will be a joint investigation by your government and ours.”

But before that investigation began, the Pentagon was already using its unnamed officials to blame the Taliban. It also bears remembering that the US track record of thoroughly “investigating” US massacres is pathetic. The UN said there was convincing evidence that last year’s US attack on the village of Azizabad in western Afghanistan killed 90 civilians, but the military only acknowledged 30 civilian deaths.

Standing between Hamid Karzai and Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari both of whom were in Washington for a tripartite meeting, , Obama said the US would “make every effort” to avoid civilian deaths in both countries (which are regularly bombed by the US). But as he was making those remarks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Kabul the very next week “to make sure that preparations were moving forward for the troop increase and that soldiers and Marines were getting the equipment they needed.”

Jessica Barry, a spokesperson for the ICRC said, “With more troops coming in, there is a risk that civilians will be more and more vulnerable.”

Writer Jeremy Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

Note: To update the post, some minor changes done in the text.

Posted: July 25, 2009

Source: Rebel Reports/www.alternet.com

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China may attack India by 2012

A leading defence expert has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from “unprecedented” internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country.

The Times of India

“China will launch an attack on India before 2012. There are multiple reasons for a desperate Beijing to teach India the final lesson, thereby ensuring Chinese supremacy in Asia in this century,” Bharat Verma, Editor of the Indian Defence Review, has said.

Verma said the recession has “shut the Chinese exports shop”, creating an “unprecedented internal social unrest” which in turn, was severely threatening the grip of the Communists over the society.

Among other reasons for this assessment, were rising unemployment, flight of capital worth billions of dollars, depletion of its foreign exchange reserves and growing internal dissent, Verma said in an editorial in the forthcoming issue of the premier defence journal. In addition to this, “The growing irrelevance of Pakistan, their right hand that operates against India on their behest, is increasing the Chinese nervousness,” he said, adding that US President Barak Obama’s Af-Pak policy was primarily Pak-Af policy that has “intelligently set the thief to catch the thief”.

Verma said Beijing was “already rattled, with its proxy Pakistan now literally embroiled in a civil war, losing its sheen against India.” “Above all, it is worried over the growing alliance of India with the US and the West, because the alliance has the potential to create a technologically superior counterpoise.

“All these three concerns of Chinese Communists are best addressed by waging a war against pacifist India to achieve multiple strategic objectives,” he said.

While China “covertly allowed” North Korea to test underground nuclear explosion and carry out missile trials, it was also “increasing its naval presence in South China Sea to coerce into submission those opposing its claim on the Sprately Islands,” the defence expert said. He said it would be “unwise” at this point of time for a recession-hit China to move against the Western interests, including Japan.

“Therefore, the most attractive option is to attack a soft target like India and forcibly occupy its territory in the Northeast,” Verma said. But India is “least prepared” on ground to face the Chinese threat, he says and asks a series of questions on how will India respond to repulse the Chinese game plan or whether Indian leadership would be able to “take the heat of war”.

“Is Indian military equipped to face the two-front wars by Beijing and Islamabad? Is the Indian civil administration geared to meet the internal security challenges that the external actors will sponsor simultaneously through their doctrine of unrestricted warfare? “The answers are an unequivocal ‘no’. Pacifist India is not ready by a long shot either on the internal or the external front,” the defence journal editor says. In view of the “imminent threat” posed by China, “the quickest way to swing out of pacifism to a state of assertion is by injecting military thinking in the civil administration to build the sinews. That will enormously increase the deliverables on ground – from Lalgarh to Tawang,” he says.

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Posted: July 23, 2009

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War Without Purpose

U.S. marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, trying to push into Garmser, in Helmand province, Afghanistan. As war intensifies, so do the casualties on both sides. Nobody knows how many more will be sacrificed on the altar of this endless war becoming terror itself, especially for the non combatant civilians who have nothing to do with the war games being fought in the area.

Before you go to the main post by Chris Hedges, here is a brief note from www.brusselstribunal.org/

The occupation is not about “security” for the Afghan people, any more than the occupation in Iraq is about “security” for the Iraqi people. Hiring of intelligence staff won’t help the present‘unintelligent’ US-NATO activities.

Nor will the present U.S. bombing campaign in Pakistan bring them “democracy” — the many “apologies” for killing civilians ring hollow.

Too many innocent civilians have suffered murder for this U.S.-NATO “security” in the so-called “War on Terror.” In the last two months, civilian deaths have multiplied exponentially. US contempt for life is evident.

by Chris Hedges

Al-Qaida could not care less what we do in Afghanistan. We can bomb Afghan villages, hunt the Taliban in Helmand province, build a 100,000-strong client Afghan army, stand by passively as Afghan warlords execute hundreds, maybe thousands, of Taliban prisoners, build huge, elaborate military bases and send drones to drop bombs on Pakistan. It will make no difference. The war will not halt the attacks of Islamic radicals.

Terrorist and insurgent groups are not conventional forces. They do not play by the rules of warfare our commanders have drilled into them in war colleges and service academies. And these underground groups are protean, changing shape and color as they drift from one failed state to the next, plan a terrorist attack and then fade back into the shadows. We are fighting with the wrong tools. We are fighting the wrong people. We are on the wrong side of history. And we will be defeated in Afghanistan as we will be in Iraq.

The cost of the Afghanistan war is rising. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed or wounded. July has been the deadliest month in the war for NATO combatants, with at least 50 troops, including 26 Americans, killed. Roadside bomb attacks on coalition forces are swelling the number of wounded and killed.

In June, the tally of incidents involving roadside bombs, also called improvised explosive devices (IEDs), hit 736, a record for the fourth straight month; the number had risen from 361 in March to 407 in April and to 465 in May. The decision by President Barack Obama to send 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan has increased our presence to 57,000 American troops. The total is expected to rise to at least 68,000 by the end of 2009. It will only mean more death, expanded fighting and greater futility.

We have stumbled into a confusing mix of armed groups that include criminal gangs, drug traffickers, Pashtun and Tajik militias, kidnapping rings, death squads and mercenaries. We are embroiled in a civil war. The Pashtuns, who make up most of the Taliban and are the traditional rulers of Afghanistan, are battling the Tajiks and Uzbeks, who make up the Northern Alliance, which, with foreign help, won the civil war in 2001. The old Northern Alliance now dominates the corrupt and incompetent government. It is deeply hated. And it will fall with us.

We are losing the war in Afghanistan. When we invaded the country eight years ago the Taliban controlled about 75 percent of Afghanistan. Today its reach has crept back to about half the country. The Taliban runs the poppy trade, which brings in an annual income of about $300 million a year. It brazenly carries out attacks in Kabul, the capital, and foreigners, fearing kidnapping, rarely walk the streets of most Afghan cities. It is life-threatening to go into the countryside, where 80 percent of all Afghanis live, unless escorted by NATO troops. And intrepid reporters can interview Taliban officials in downtown coffee shops in Kabul. Osama bin Laden has, to the amusement of much of the rest of the world, become the Where’s Waldo of the Middle East. Take away the bullets and the bombs and you have a Gilbert and Sullivan farce.

No one seems to be able to articulate why we are in Afghanistan. Is it to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaida? Is it to consolidate progress? Have we declared war on the Taliban? Are we building democracy? Are we fighting terrorists there so we do not have to fight them here? Are we “liberating” the women of Afghanistan? The absurdity of the questions, used as thought-terminating clichés, exposes the absurdity of the war. The confusion of purpose mirrors the confusion on the ground. We don’t know what we are doing.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new commander of U.S. and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, announced recently that coalition forces must make a “cultural shift” in Afghanistan. He said they should move away from their normal combat orientation and toward protecting civilians. He understands that airstrikes, which have killed hundreds of civilians, are a potent recruiting tool for the Taliban. The goal is lofty but the reality of war defies its implementation. NATO forces will always call in close air support when they are under attack. This is what troops under fire do.

They do not have the luxury of canvassing the local population first. They ask questions later. The May 4 aerial attack on Farah province, which killed dozens of civilians, violated standing orders about airstrikes. So did the air assault in Kandahar province last week in which four civilians were killed and 13 were wounded. The NATO strike targeted a village in the Shawalikot district. Wounded villagers at a hospital in the provincial capital told AP that attack helicopters started bombarding their homes at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday. One man said his 3-year-old granddaughter was killed. Combat creates its own rules, and civilians are almost always the losers.

CIA Claims of Cancelled Campaign are Hogwash

[Note for WoP readers: As the resistance in Afghanistan grows up day be day [About a few days back, CNN in its headline news informed viewers that the current month so far has been the deadliest in Afghanistan. More number of US and British soldiers have died in Helmand province and elsewhere than in Iraq.

It appears Washington’s policy makers are shifting the burden of their setbacks in Afghanistan to Pakistan. Consequently drone attacks in Pakistani borderlands have been intensified as well. First were the reapers. Predators were primarily used in Afghanistan only but now these deadly machines are also in operation in Pakistan as well.

One can though give some element of doubt to US policy makers of “droning” Pakistani borderlands but who knows these assassins in the air bomb the hardcore militants or common civilians. In our last post some estimates on civilian vs. militants’ causalities were provided. A simple glance shows the number of civilian deaths far exceeds the number of militants.

It is understandable to some extent as the US officials themselves admit they gather the data on whereabouts of militants or the Al-Qaedists as they say is either based on media inputs or the common populace in the area. In both cases the wisdom of such a policy can be judged as nothing but fallacy.

The stark naked fact which people sitting in the glass houses of Washington D.C. are unable to understand these attacks are turning more and more youth not only in the FATA regions but also in the hitherto neutral or anti militants – anti-Taliban (the Pakistani brand) areas of Pakistan as well. According to recent reports, in the southern Punjab too, many youth have joined the ranks of militant groups, some of whom have also reportedly been involved in the suicide bombing attacks at Manawan Police Training Centre and a Rescue Centre in Lahore.

Question arises whom do these drone attacks benefit and till when? Does the US president want to bomb every home, every city to flush out terrorists?

If the State Department is banking upon the views held by a totally incompetent, impotent and an imbecile bunch of  Pakitani  nincompoops in Washington and Islamabad, then it is high time they revise their policy for they are falling into the same paranoia which the previous US administrations had in the Korean and Vietnamese wars. US is bound to loose this war as it lost the previous two wars. Interestingly, in the post WWII era, the only war it won was against the Soviets which it did with an active and solitary participation of the very people it is bombing now day and bight.

Tragedy of this whole scenario is that in the name of terrorism, so many lives will be lost, of Pakistanis, Afghans and the US, British and other nations’. Soldiers will be killed for a war which has no end.

At the end of my note, a few words from Chris Hedges (follows next) and Eric Margolis (following post):-

So says Chris Hedges: we’re in a quagmire in Afghanistan, and that we are, by meeting violence with violence, creating more problems for ourselves than we are solving:

India, not Afghanistan, is Pakistan’s primary concern. Pakistan, no matter how many billions we give to it, will always nurture and protect the Taliban, which it knows is going to inherit Afghanistan. And the government’s well-publicized battle with the Taliban in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, rather than a new beginning, is part of a choreographed charade that does nothing to break the unholy alliance.

The only way to defeat terrorist groups is to isolate them within their own societies. This requires wooing the population away from radicals. It is a political, economic and cultural war. The terrible algebra of military occupation and violence is always counterproductive to this kind of battle. It always creates more insurgents than it kills. It always legitimizes terrorism. And while we squander resources and lives, the real enemy, al-Qaida, has moved on to build networks in Indonesia, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan and Morocco and depressed Muslim communities such as those in France’s Lyon and London’s Brixton area. There is no shortage of backwaters and broken patches of the Earth where al-Qaida can hide and operate. It does not need Afghanistan, and neither do we.

And Eric Margolis ends his finest piece on the subject as do I:

Dropping 2,000-pound bombs on apartment buildings in Gaza or Predator raids on Pakistan's tribal territory are as much murder as exploding car bombs or suicide bombers. Nayyar]…

The U.S. has been trying to kill al-Qaida personnel (real and imagined) since the Clinton administration. These efforts continue under President Barack Obama. Claims by Congress it was never informed are hogwash.

by Eric Margolis

.

CIA director Leon Panetta just told Congress he cancelled a secret operation to assassinate al-Qaida leaders. The CIA campaign, authorized in 2001, had not yet become operational, claimed Panetta.

I respect Panetta, but his claim is humbug. The U.S. has been trying to kill al-Qaida personnel (real and imagined) since the Clinton administration. These efforts continue under President Barack Obama. Claims by Congress it was never informed are hogwash.

The CIA and Pentagon have been in the assassination business since the early 1950s, using American hit teams or third parties. For example, a CIA-organized attempt to assassinate Lebanon’s leading Shia cleric, Muhammad Fadlallah, using a truck bomb, failed, but killed 83 civilians and wounded 240.

In 1975, I was approached to join the Church Committee of the U.S. Congress investigating CIA’s attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, Congo’s Patrice Lumumba, Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, and Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Add to America’s hit list Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan’s Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Indonesia’s Sukarno, Chile’s Marxist leaders and, very likely, Yasser Arafat.

Libya’s Moammar Qadhafi led me by the hand through the ruins of his private quarters, showing me where a 2,000-pound U.S. bomb hit his bedroom, killing his infant daughter. Most Pakistanis believe, rightly or wrongly, the U.S. played a role in the assassination of President Zia ul-Haq.

To quote Josef Stalin’s favourite saying, “No man. No problem.”

Assassination was outlawed in the U.S. in 1976, but that did not stop attempts by its last three administrations to emulate Israel’s Mossad in the “targeted killing” of enemies. The George W. Bush administration, and now the Obama White House, sidestepped American law by saying the U.S. was at war, and thus legally killing “enemy combatants.” But Congress never declared war.

US Predator strikes in Pakistan: Observations

Drone War Escalates; 365 Dead So Far in ‘09, Study Says

If you’ve been following the American drone war in Pakistan, you probably have a vague sense that the unmanned armada has been striking more frequently, and with greater lethality this year. The following study by the Long War Journal shows just how deadly, and just how fast-paced, the drone attacks have become: 31 reported strikes this year, compared to 36 in all of 2008; 365 already killed in 2009, as opposed to 316 last year. .

Of course, this is all based on media accounts of the attacks — and those reports are often sourced from Pakistani intelligence officials, who may have either dubious motives or limited information. Still, this study is definitely worth a look — especially to see which Taliban factions are facing the brunt of the American unmanned assault. [Photo: USAF] Source: Danger Room

by BILL ROGGIO AND ALEXANDER MAYER

The dramatically increased use of covert US air power to target al Qaeda and Taliban assets in Pakistan’s lawless tribal zones has sparked a controversy in the US and abroad. Critics of the airstrikes, which are carried out by unmanned Predator attack aircraft, contend that the actions violate Pakistan’s sovereignty, kill innocent civilians, and make enemies of Pakistani tribesmen. Proponents of the airstrikes say that they are necessary to prevent the next major attack against the West and to disrupt al Qaeda and the Taliban’s operations directed against Coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Whatever the case may be, the directive to ramp up the air campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas has been issued, first by President George Bush in the summer of 2008, and continued by President Barack Obama only days after his inauguration.

A look at the publicly available data on the US air campaign in Pakistan shows a marked increase in the frequency in attacks since 2008. These attacks are also becoming increasingly lethal. A little more than one in five of the strikes have killed a High Value Target. And an overwhelming number of strikes – nearly 90 percent – have taken place against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in North and South Waziristan.

Frequency of US strikes trending upward

Since mid-2008, the United States has dramatically increased the frequency of its airstrikes against al Qaeda and Taliban forces based in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Agencies.

Beginning in August 2008, the US began stepping up strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda elements in the tribal agencies. There were 28 airstrikes in the tribal agencies between August and December 2008 – nearly double the total number of airstrikes in the previous four years combined (the first recorded Predator strike in the tribal agencies took place in June 2004). There was one recorded strike in 2004, one in 2005, three in 2006, and five in 2007. [see Chart 1, Number of US Airstrikes]

In 2009, the frequency of Predator strikes in Pakistan has continued to trend upwards. There have already been 31 Predator strikes in Pakistan this year (as of July 18) – nearly matching the total of 36 strikes for all of 2008.

Charts on the number of US airstrikes inside Pakistan per year, the frequency of strikes in 2008 and 2009, the number of deaths in 2008 and 2009, a distribution of strikes by tribal agencies, and the territories targeted. Click image to view.

If airstrikes continue at the current rate, the number of strikes in 2009 could more than double the dramatic increase in Predator activity seen in 2008.

Increasing lethality of airstrikes

The lethality of Predator strikes inside the tribal agencies has also increased during 2009. Using low-end estimates of casualties (including Taliban, al Qaeda, and civilian) from US strikes inside Pakistan, we have determined that airstrikes resulted in 317 deaths during 2008. Already, the airstrikes in 2009 have surpassed that total, with 365 killed in 2009 as of July 18.

With the exception of October 2008, which had the highest monthly total for both number of airstrikes (10) and number of casualties (99), June and July of 2009 have been the most lethal months since the US airstrike campaign began in 2004 (85 and 70 killed, respectively).

Another indicator of the increasing lethality of US airstrikes inside Pakistan is the rising average number killed per attack. So far in 2009, the average casualty rate has been 11.77 killed per strike, compared to 8.81 in 2008.

High Value Targets statistics

Since the first recorded US Predator strike inside Pakistan in June 2004, the US has killed a total of 22 High Value Targets (HVTs), which include some of the high- and mid-level Taliban and al Qaeda leadership in the tribal agencies.

Some of the most important al Qaeda and Taliban leaders killed by US airstrikes include: Abu Jihad al Masri, the chief of al Qaeda’s intelligence council; Abu Sulayman Jazairi, the chief of al Qaeda’s external operations branch; Khalid Habib, the commander of al Qaeda’s paramilitary Shadow Army; Osama al Kini, the head of al Qaeda’s operations in Pakistan; Abu Laith al Libi, the commander of Brigade 055; Abu Khabab al Masri, the chief of al Qaeda’s WMD program; Abu Hamza Rabai, al Qaeda’s operations chief in Pakistan; and Nek Mohammed, the leader of the Taliban in South Waziristan.

Despite these successes, many of the airstrikes have failed to kill senior al Qaeda leaders. On aggregate, since 2004 the US has killed a High Value Target in only 17 out of 76 airstrikes (22%). Of these 22 High Value Targets killed since 2004, nine should be considered top tier commanders. In 14 strikes, the US reportedly attempted to target a specific Taliban or al Qaeda leader (or leaders), but failed to kill the intended target. These strikes have included two failed attempts to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri – who is thought to be hiding somewhere in the Taliban-controlled areas of the tribal agencies – as well as two attempts to take out Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, who is based in South Waziristan. It was not possible to determine if High Value Targets were targeted in the remaining 45 strikes.

There are two reasons for this seemingly low ratio of High Value Targets killed per airstrike. First, the information on the targets is obtained from open sources, such as the media, so it is not always evident who or what was the target of a specific the attack; second, not all of the airstrikes have targeted al Qaeda and Taliban HVTs.

One major objective of the air campaign has been to disrupt al Qaeda’s network and prevent the group from striking at the US and her allies. Al Qaeda and Taliban training camps that are used by al Qaeda’s external operations branch have been a primary target. The external operations branch is tasked with carrying out attacks in the US, Europe, and India, and against other allies of the West outside the Afghan-Pakistan region. Al Qaeda operatives known to have lived in the West and holding foreign passports have been killed in several Predator strikes. One such strike on a al Qaeda in South Waziristan on Aug. 30, 2008 killed two Canadian passport holders as they trained in an al Qaeda camp.

The US has also targeted the senior leadership of al Qaeda’s external network. For instance, Abu Sulayman Jazairi, the former chief of al Qaeda’s external operations branch, was killed in a strike on May 14, 2008

Another major objective has been to disrupt the Taliban and al Qaeda’s operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan receive significant support from within Pakistan, and the US has an interest in preventing nuclear Pakistan from becoming a failed state. Taliban groups that are very active against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, such as the Haqqani Network and Mullah Nazir, have flourished in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas. Several large Taliban training camps that are known to train fighters for the Afghan front were the target of attacks.

One such attack took place in the Kurram tribal agency on Feb. 16, 2009. More than 30 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were killed after airstrikes targeted a a training camp in the Sarpal region of Kurram. The camp was run by Bahram Khan Kochi, a commander of Taliban forces operating inside Afghanistan.

Locations of strikes

The vast majority of US airstrikes (88.2%) have been aimed at targets in North and South Waziristan, the heartland of the Taliban and the origin of the Taliban’s expansion throughout the tribal agencies and the Northwest Frontier Province.

Fully half (50.0%) of all strikes have been in South Waziristan. The area around Wana, the largest town in South Waziristan, has been hit by 11 US Predator drone strikes. Targets in North Waziristan have accounted for another 38.2% of all airstrikes. The North Waziristan town of Miramshah (and its surrounding villages) has been the recipient of 12 US strikes.

Areas controlled by Taliban leaders Baitullah Mehsud and Mullah Nazir have been the most frequently targeted (19 strikes each). Eight of the last 10 strikes have targeted Baitullah’s forces. The Haqqani Network has also been a major target, having been struck 13 times. The territories of various other Taliban commanders have also been hit several times, including that of Hafiz Gul Badhar (4), Hakeemullah Mehsud (4), and Faqir Mohammad (3). A region administered by Abu Kasha al Iraqi, an al Qaeda operative who is active in North Waziristan, was attacked 6 times.

The US has recently been expanding its area of operations, however, directing Predator strikes in other nearby districts, including Bajaur, Kurram, and Orakzai. Two of the strikes have occurred in the Jani Khel region in Bannu, outside the tribal agencies. Al Qaeda’s Shura Majlis is known to have met in Jani Khel in the past.

Kifayatullah Anikhel

A Taliban commander under Baitullah Mehsud.
Date killed: July 7, 2009

Mufti Noor Wali

Suicide bomber trainer for the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Date killed: July 3, 2009

Khwaz Ali Mehsud

A senior deputy to Baitullah Mehsud.
Date killed: June 23, 2009

Abdullah Hamas al Filistini

A senior al Qaeda trainer.
Date killed: April 1, 2009

Osama al Kini

(aka Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam)
Al Qaeda’s external operations chief who was wanted for the 1998 bombings against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Date killed: January 1, 2009

Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan

A senior aide to Osama al Kini who was wanted for the 1998 bombings against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Date killed: January 1, 2009.

Abdullah Azzam al Saudi

Served a liaison between al Qaeda and the Taliban operating in Pakistan’s northwest. Azzam facilitated al Qaeda’s external operations network. He also served as a recruiter and trainer for al Qaeda
Date killed: November 19, 2008

Abu Jihad al Masri

The leader of the Egyptian Islamic Group and the chief of al Qaeda’s intelligence branch, and directed al Qaeda’s intelligence shura. He directed al Qaeda’s external operations in Egypt.
Date killed: October 31, 2008

Khalid Habib

The commander of the Lashkar al Zil or the Shadow Army, al Qaeda’s paramilitary forces in Pakistan’s northwest and Afghanistan.
Date killed: October 16, 2008

Abu al Hasan al Rimi

A senior al Qaeda operative.
Date killed: October 2008 – exact date unknown

Abu Wafa al Saudi

An al Qaeda commander and logistician.
Date killed: September 4, 2008

Abu Khabab al Masri

The chief of al Qaeda’s weapons of mass destruction program and a master bomb maker.
Date killed: July 28, 2008

Abu Mohammad Ibrahim bin Abi al Faraj al Masri

A religious leader, close to Abu Khabab al Masri.
Date killed: July 28, 2008

Abdul Wahhab al Masri

A senior aide to Abu Khabab al Masri.
Date killed: July 28, 2008

Abu Islam al Masri

Aide to Abu Khabab al Masri.
Date killed: July 28, 2008

Abu Sulayman Jazairi

The chief of al Qaeda’s external network. Jazairi was a senior trainer, an explosives expert, and an operational commander tasked with planning attacks on the West.
Date killed: March 16, 2008

Dr. Arshad Waheed (aka Sheikh Moaz)

A mid-level al Qaeda leader.
Date killed: May 14, 2008

Abu Laith al Libi

Senior military commander in Afghanistan and the leader of the reformed Brigade 055 in al Qaeda’s paramilitary Shadow Army.
Date killed: January 29, 2008

Liaquat Hussain

Second-in-command of the Bajaur TNSM.
Date killed: October 30, 2006

Imam Asad

Camp commander for the Black Guard, al Qaeda’s elite bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri. Asad was a Chechen with close links to Shamil Basayev.
Date killed: March 1, 2006

Abu Hamza Rabia

Al Qaeda’s operational commander. He was involved with two assassination plots against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Date killed: December 1, 2005

Nek Mohammed

A senior Taliban commander in South Waziristan who had links to Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.
Date killed: June 18, 2004

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/07/us_predator_strikes_3.php#ixzz0LuJayGLR

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the ‘Wonders of Pakistan’. The contents of this article too are the sole responsibility of the author(s). WoP will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article.

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