Category Archives: war in Pakistan

Approval of Obama on Afghan war dives

Approval of Obama on Afghan war dives
By Susan Page, USA Today, November 24, 2009

Public approval of President Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan has plummeted, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, amid rising pessimism about the course of the conflict.

The nation is divided over what to do next: Nearly half of those surveyed endorse deploying thousands of additional U.S. troops, while four in 10 say it’s time to begin withdrawing forces. [continued…]

Two sides of the Coin
By Mehdi Hasan, New Statesman, November 26, 2009

The proponents of Coin – or “Coinistas”, as they have come to be known – point to the success of the 2007 US military “surge” in troop numbers in Iraq under the leadership of General David Petraeus, which they credit with reducing the levels of violence and insurgency across the country.

It is this “surge narrative” that has emboldened the Coinistas, but traditionalists, such as Colonel Gian Gentile, director of the military history programme at the US Military Academy at West Point, remain unconvinced.

The dramatic drop in violence in Iraq was the result of “a decision by senior American leaders in 2007 to pay large amounts of money to Sunni insurgents to stop attacking Americans and join the fight against al-Qaeda”, says Gentile, who remains an outspoken critic of Coin despite being an active-duty officer. “Coupled with this was the decision by the Shia militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr to refrain from attacking coalition forces.”

Gentile, who commanded a cavalry squadron in west Baghdad before the surge, says his “fundamental mission was to protect the people” and the “overall methods that the US army employed at the small-unit level where [he] operated were no different from the so-called new counter-insurgency methods used today”.

Aside from the Iraq surge, Coinistas also point to earlier examples from history where counter-insurgency methods seem to have succeeded – in particular, the British colonial experience in Malaya (now Malaysia) between 1948 and 1960.

“Malaya is the ‘gold standard’ for Coin,” says the historian Michael Vlahos, a member of the national security assessment team at Johns Hopkins University. But, he argues, this is a mistaken view: the Chinese Communist insurgents were a tiny and unpopular outside movement removed from the population, the British had a close and credible relationship with the ruling princes, and the local people were politically passive. And, it should be noted, it still took the British a dozen years to prevail. [continued…]

Merkel under fire as general resigns over Kunduz massacre
By Kim Sengupta, The Independent, November 27, 2009

The head of Germany’s armed forces has resigned over allegations of a military cover-up following a Nato air strike in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians. General Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s resignation caps a deeply embarrassing episode for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government over the country’s policy in Afghanistan.

The 4 September bombing of two oil tankers in the northern Afghan town of Kunduz caused carnage, and was the deadliest incident involving German troops since the Second World War. At first the German Nato forces, which had ordered the attack, claimed that all those killed in the incident were insurgents, although later the government in Berlin expressed regrets if innocent people had been among the victims.

Yesterday General Schneiderhan, the highest ranking official in the Germany armed forces, asked to be relieved of his duties for failing to pass on crucial information to ministers. Peter Wichert, a deputy defence minister who was in office at the time of the attack also stepped down. The resignations came after Bild newspaper published photographs from a secret army video indicating that civilian deaths were known about even as the then defence minister, Franz Josef Jung, was insisting that there was no evidence to show anyone but Taliban fighters had died. [continued…]

Taliban leader says U.S. faces defeat in Afghanistan
By Laura King and Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2009

As President Obama prepares to unveil his long-deliberated war strategy, the Taliban’s supreme commander declared Wednesday that U.S.-led forces would find only defeat, dishonor and “a bed of thorns” in Afghanistan.

The statement came as the White House announced that Obama will deliver a televised speech about the war Tuesday from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He is expected to announce higher troop levels for Afghanistan and detail a plan for ultimately withdrawing U.S. forces. [continued…]

Pakistan Taliban regrouping outside Waziristan
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times, November 26, 2009

Since the Pakistani army launched a long-awaited offensive last month to destroy the Taliban in South Waziristan, many militants have fled to nearby districts and begun to establish new strongholds, a strategy that suggests they will regroup and remain a potent threat to the country’s weak, U.S.-backed government.

Pakistani Taliban militants have escaped primarily to Kurram and Orakzai, districts outside the battle zone but still within Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal areas along the Afghan border, villagers there say. The military lacks a significant presence in much of these areas, making them an ideal environment for the Islamic militants to regroup.

Newly arrived militants have terrorized Pashtun residents and replenished their coffers through kidnappings and robberies, villagers said during interviews in the Kurram and Orakzai districts. With AK-47s and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, the militants have begun patrols through the new territory and have set up checkpoints. [continued…]

In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?

In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?
By Seymour M Hersh, The New Yorker, November 16, 2009

In the tumultuous days leading up to the Pakistan Army’s ground offensive in the tribal area of South Waziristan, which began on October 17th, the Pakistani Taliban attacked what should have been some of the country’s best-guarded targets. In the most brazen strike, ten gunmen penetrated the Army’s main headquarters, in Rawalpindi, instigating a twenty-two-hour standoff that left twenty-three dead and the military thoroughly embarrassed. The terrorists had been dressed in Army uniforms. There were also attacks on police installations in Peshawar and Lahore, and, once the offensive began, an Army general was shot dead by gunmen on motorcycles on the streets of Islamabad, the capital. The assassins clearly had advance knowledge of the general’s route, indicating that they had contacts and allies inside the security forces.

Pakistan has been a nuclear power for two decades, and has an estimated eighty to a hundred warheads, scattered in facilities around the country. The success of the latest attacks raised an obvious question: Are the bombs safe? Asked this question the day after the Rawalpindi raid, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We have confidence in the Pakistani government and the military’s control over nuclear weapons.” Clinton—whose own visit to Pakistan, two weeks later, would be disrupted by more terrorist bombs—added that, despite the attacks by the Taliban, “we see no evidence that they are going to take over the state.”

Clinton’s words sounded reassuring, and several current and former officials also said in interviews that the Pakistan Army was in full control of the nuclear arsenal. But the Taliban overrunning Islamabad is not the only, or even the greatest, concern. The principal fear is mutiny—that extremists inside the Pakistani military might stage a coup, take control of some nuclear assets, or even divert a warhead. [continued…]

Military refines a ‘constant stare against our enemy’

Military refines a ‘constant stare against our enemy’
By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times, November 2, 2009

The Pentagon plans to dramatically increase the surveillance capabilities of its most advanced unmanned aircraft next year, adding so many video feeds that a drone which now stares down at a single house or vehicle could keep constant watch on nearly everything that moves within an area of 1.5 square miles.

The year after that, the capability will double to 3 square miles.

Military officials predict that the impact on counter-terrorism operations in Afghanistan will be impressive.

“Predators and other unmanned aircraft have just revolutionized our ability to provide a constant stare against our enemy,” said a senior military official. “The next sensors, mark my words, are going to be equally revolutionary.”

Unmanned MQ-9 Reaper aircraft now produce a single video feed as they fly continuously over surveillance routes, and the area they can cover largely depends on altitude. The new technology initially will increase the number of video feeds to 12 and eventually to 65.

Like the Reaper and its earlier counterpart, the Predator, the newest technology program has been given a fearsome name: the Gorgon Stare, named for the mythological creature whose gaze turns victims to stone.

Unmanned aircraft, used both for surveillance and for offensive strikes, are considered the most significant advance in military technology in a generation. [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — This “advance” promotes and rests upon the core delusion of the modern era: that what can be seen is more real and more significant than what cannot be seen.

Yet consider how much inevitably eludes the “constant stare” of a drone: names, relationships, intentions, history — everything that transforms the gray shapes of human figures appearing on a drone controller’s monitor, into living breathing human beings. And here’s a prediction: one advance that’s unlikely to be made will be that these images are improved from black and white to color. In color, operatives would have to deal with the sight of blood.

And this leads to the other key dimension of high-tech killing: “The technology allows us to project power without vulnerability,” said a senior Defense official.

In other words, America’s most highly evolved warriors are able to kill without the slightest risk of being killed.

Callousness will soon be worth more to the Pentagon than courage.

Deadly Pakistan attack hits market filled with women

Deadly Pakistan attack hits market filled with women
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times, October 29, 2009

The locale of the latest spasm of violence to strike Pakistan — a car bomb attack that killed 100 people — wasn’t surprising. Perched on the fringe of the Taliban-infested badlands along the Afghan border, Peshawar has been hit several times by bombings that have claimed scores of lives this year.

But the target Wednesday marked a disturbing twist in the Islamic militants’ agenda: a bustling market that catered to women, many of them with children in tow. [continued…]

Doubts abound among people of S. Waziristan
By Haq Nawaz Khan and Karin Brulliard, Washington Post, October 27, 2009

As Pakistan’s army battles with guns and jets to wrest control of the restive South Waziristan region from the Taliban, it remains unclear whether the military will have another kind of ammunition it desperately needs: the support of people who have lived in the militants’ grip for years.

Among refugees who were jostling for donated blankets last week in this dusty town in North-West Frontier Province, few dared to discuss the Taliban fighters controlling their villages. Several whispered that there was no graver offense than speaking against the Taliban and seemed fearful that breaching that rule would cost them once the offensive — which several referred to as an artificial “drama” cooked up to satisfy the United States — was over.

“The operation is a joke just to please the foreign masters,” said Saidalam Mehsud, 59, a burly driver. “Whenever the dollars are floating into Pakistan, such operations are carried out.”

In the past week, refugees said, their doubts about the offensive have intensified because they have seen little evidence of the ground operation that Pakistan’s military says has killed nearly 200 insurgents. Although many said shells and bombs had been raining on the hilly terrain all week, some hitting houses of civilians, none said they had seen government soldiers in the area. [continued…]

Insurgents putting up a tough fight in Waziristan operation, analysts say

Insurgents putting up a tough fight in Waziristan operation, analysts say
By Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, October 24, 2009

Pakistan’s offensive in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan has met with significant resistance from insurgents, who have retaken one large town, targeted military vehicles with roadside bombs and held off the army’s attack helicopters with antiaircraft fire, U.S. military analysts said Friday.

The heavy fighting has slowed the advance of an estimated 36,000 to 40,000 Pakistani troops into the heart of the contested tribal region bordering Afghanistan, according to a detailed briefing on the week-old ground operation by researchers at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington think tank. Meanwhile, the report said, insurgents continue to coordinate suicide bombings and assassinations outside Waziristan.

But the large government force, aided by U.S. drone strikes and intelligence, outnumbers the insurgents and is expected to maintain its methodical, three-pronged push in an attempt to capture key territory held by the umbrella group Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the tribal stronghold of slain insurgent leader Baitullah Mehsud. [continued…]

Bomb hits outside suspected Pakistani nuclear-weapons site

Bomb hits outside suspected Pakistani nuclear-weapons site
By Saeed Shah | McClatchy, October 23, 2009

A suicide bomber attacked a suspected nuclear-weapons site Friday in Pakistan, raising fears about the security of the nuclear arsenal, while two other terrorist blasts made it another bloody day in the country’s struggle against extremism.

Increasingly daring and sophisticated attacks by terrorists allied with al Qaida on some of Pakistan’s most sensitive and best-protected installations have led to warnings that extremists could damage a nuclear facility or seize nuclear material.

Pakistan’s nuclear sites are mostly in the northwest of the country, close to the capital, Islamabad, to keep them away from the border with archenemy India, but that places them close to Pakistani Taliban extremists, who are massed in the northwest. Al Qaida has made clear its ambitions to get hold of a nuclear bomb or knowledge of nuclear technology. Several other sites associated with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been hit previously. [continued…]

Waziristan or bust: Pakistan army in fight for the state’s survival

Waziristan or bust: Pakistan army in fight for the state’s survival
By Ahmed Rashid, YaleGlobal, October 19, 2009

After nine suicide attacks in just eleven days that killed 160 people, including many from the security forces, the Pakistan army has finally started its long awaited offensive in South Waziristan where the Pakistani Taliban are based. The success of the offensive, against the backdrop of a serious civil-military division in Pakistan and unresolved debate in Washington, could be critical for the fate of Pakistan which is financially broke and politically paralyzed.

The army and the civilian government are once more at odds over policy towards the US and India, the insurgency in Baluchistan, and how to deal with militant Punjabi groups who are linked to the Taliban. Moreover, still unresolved and now an issue of growing international concern, is the sanctuary being given to Afghan Taliban in Pakistan.

Dozens of soldiers and police officers have been killed in suicide attacks from October 5 to 15 that included an embarrassing 22 hour siege of the army headquarters in Rawalpindi and the deaths of eight soldiers and three simultaneous attacks on police training camps and intelligence offices in Lahore. The spate of attacks could have been designed to prevent or delay the expected army offensive on its stronghold, but they also aimed to topple the government, impose an Islamic state, and, if possible, get hold of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. [continued…]

Yes, the Taleban are being thumped but . . .

Yes, the Taleban are being thumped but . . .
By Anatol Lieven, The Times, October 19, 2009

The Pakistani Government and Army have finally decided to heed the words of a former ruler: “No patchwork scheme — and all our recent schemes, blockades, allowances etc are mere patchwork — will settle the Waziristan problem. Not until the military steamroller has passed over the country from end to end will here be peace.”

Did Pervez Musharraf, the former President, say that? No, it was Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, more than 100 years ago. And for both strategic and humanitarian reasons Curzon added: “I do not want to be the person to start the machine.”

The inhabitants of Waziristan have resisted outside conquest since time immemorial. That is why Pakistan continued the British tradition of indirect rule, and kept only minimal forces in the region.

So crushing the local Taleban and establishing Pakistani authority in South Waziristan is going to be a long, bloody business in the face of bitter opposition backed by much of the local population — a population motivated as much by old tribal traditions of resistance as by support for the Taleban. This operation will cause great suffering to civilians and lead to deep unhappiness among many Pashtun troops in the Pakistani Army. That is why, like Curzon’s government of India, Pakistan has hesitated for so long before “starting the machine”. [continued…]

Pakistan fights ‘mother of all battles’ with the Taliban

Pakistan fights ‘mother of all battles’ with the Taliban
By Saeed Shah, Emal Khan and Dean Nelson, Daily Telegraph, October 17 , 2009

Pakistan’s generals have called the offensive the “mother of all battles” for the survival of a country under siege.

There were reports of Taliban compounds coming under aerial bombardment from Pakistan gunships as troops moved out in three columns from Razmak to the north, Jandola to the east and Shakai in the west, and advanced on notorious Taliban target towns like Makeen and Ladha.

The significance of Pakistan’s army having Makeen in its sights will not have been lost on Pakistan’s president, Asif Zardari: the late Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was in Makeen when he was allegedly recorded on a telephone intercept claiming responsibility for the assassination of Mr Zardari’s wife, Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistan prime minister. [continued…]

No end in sight for Pakistan’s struggle against the Taliban
By Ahmed Rashid, Daily Telegraph, October 17, 2009

The attacks in advance of the army’s ground offensive in South Waziristan were widespread, taking place in three of the country’s four provinces and involving not just Taliban tribesmen from the Pashtun ethnic group, but extremist Punjabi factions who were until recently trained by the Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to fight India in Kashmir.

Several of the militants killed had direct connections to the army or the ISI. ‘Dr Usman’, the leader of the group that attacked the army headquarters in Rawalpindi last weekend and held 42 hostages for 22 hours inside the compound, was a member of the army’s medical corps.

That attack and three subsequent co-ordinated strikes in Lahore on Thursday on police training compounds and an intelligence office also appeared to be inside jobs, as the terrorists knew the lay out and security arrangements of all the complexes. The intelligence building and one police compound had been attacked by militants in 2008 and 2009 and since then their security arrangements had been improved, but still the attackers knew how to bypass security.

While the army is unwilling to admit what many Pakistanis now believe – that there is penetration by extremist sympathisers within its ranks – the government also refuses to admit that the largest province of Punjab has become the major new recruiting ground for militants. [continued…]

Stanley McChrystal’s long war

Stanley McChrystal’s long war
By Dexter Filkins, New York Times, October 18, 2009

In his initial assessment of the country, sent to President Obama early last month, McChrystal described an Afghanistan on the brink of collapse and an America at the edge of defeat. To reverse the course of the war, McChrystal presented President Obama with what could be the most momentous foreign-policy decision of his presidency: escalate or fail. McChrystal has reportedly asked for 40,000 additional American troops — there are 65,000 already here — and an accelerated effort to train Afghan troops and police and build an Afghan state. If President Obama can’t bring himself to step up the fight, McChrystal suggested, then he might as well give up.

“Inadequate resources,” McChrystal wrote, “will likely result in failure.”

The magnitude of the choice presented by McChrystal, and now facing President Obama, is difficult to overstate. For what McChrystal is proposing is not a temporary, Iraq-style surge — a rapid influx of American troops followed by a withdrawal. McChrystal’s plan is a blueprint for an extensive American commitment to build a modern state in Afghanistan, where one has never existed, and to bring order to a place famous for the empires it has exhausted. Even under the best of circumstances, this effort would most likely last many more years, cost hundreds of billions of dollars and entail the deaths of many more American women and men.

And that’s if it succeeds. [continued…]

An inconvenient truth teller
By Holly Bailey and Evan Thomas, Newsweek, October 10, 2009

Joe Biden had a question. During a long Sunday meeting with President Obama and top national-security advisers on Sept. 13, the VP interjected, “Can I just clarify a factual point? How much will we spend this year on Afghanistan?” Someone provided the figure: $65 billion. “And how much will we spend on Pakistan?” Another figure was supplied: $2.25 billion. “Well, by my calculations that’s a 30-to-1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. So I have a question. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we’re spending in Pakistan, we’re spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?” The White House Situation Room fell silent. But the questions had their desired effect: those gathered began putting more thought into Pakistan as the key theater in the region. [continued…]

Why Joe Biden should resign
By Ariana Huffington, Huffington Post, October 14, 2009

It’s been known for a while that Biden has been on the other side of McChrystal’s desire for a big escalation of our forces there — the New York Times reported last month that he has “deep reservations” about it. So if the president does decide to escalate, Biden, for the good of the country, should escalate his willingness to act on those reservations.

What he must not do is follow the same weak and worn-out pattern of “opposition” we’ve become all-too-accustomed to, first with Vietnam and then with Iraq. You know the drill: after the dust settles, and the country begins to look back and not-so-charitably wonder, “what were they thinking?” the mea-culpa-laden books start to come out. On page after regret-filled page, we suddenly hear how forceful this or that official was behind closed doors, arguing against the war, taking a principled stand, expressing “strong concern” and, yes, “deep reservations” to the president, and then going home each night distraught at the unnecessary loss of life.

Well, how about making the mea culpa unnecessary? Instead of saving it for the book, how about future author Biden unfetter his conscience in real time — when it can actually do some good? If Biden truly believes that what we’re doing in Afghanistan is not in the best interests of our national security — and what issue is more important than that? — it’s simply not enough to claim retroactive righteousness in his memoirs. [continued…]

Afghanistan – the proxy war

Afghanistan – the proxy war
By Andrew J. Bacevich, Boston Globe, October 11, 2009

Obama ran for the presidency promising change. The doves sense correctly that Obama’s decision on Afghanistan may well determine how much – if any – substantive change is in the offing.

If the president assents to McChrystal’s request, he will void his promise of change at least so far as national security policy is concerned. The Afghanistan war will continue until the end of his first term and probably beyond. It will consume hundreds of billions of dollars. It will result in hundreds or perhaps thousands more American combat deaths – costs that the hawks are loath to acknowledge.

As the fighting drags on from one year to the next, the engagement of US forces in armed nation-building projects in distant lands will become the new normalcy. Americans of all ages will come to accept war as a perpetual condition, as young Americans already do. That “keeping Americans safe’’ obliges the United States to seek, maintain, and exploit unambiguous military supremacy will become utterly uncontroversial.

If the Afghan war then becomes the consuming issue of Obama’s presidency – as Iraq became for his predecessor, as Vietnam did for Lyndon Johnson, and as Korea did for Harry Truman – the inevitable effect will be to compromise the prospects of reform more broadly.

At home and abroad, the president who advertised himself as an agent of change will instead have inadvertently erected barriers to change. [continued…]

Civilian goals largely unmet in Afghanistan
By Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler, New York Times, October 12, 2009

Even as President Obama leads an intense debate over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan, administration officials say the United States is falling far short of his goals to fight the country’s endemic corruption, create a functioning government and legal system and train a police force currently riddled with incompetence.

Interviews with senior administration and military officials and recent reports assessing Afghanistan’s progress show that nearly seven months after Mr. Obama announced a stepped-up civilian effort to bolster his deployment of 17,000 additional American troops, many civil institutions are deteriorating as much as the country’s security.

Afghanistan is now so dangerous, administration officials said, that many aid workers cannot travel outside the capital, Kabul, to advise farmers on crops, a key part of Mr. Obama’s announcement in March that he was deploying hundreds of additional civilians to work in the country. The judiciary is so weak that Afghans increasingly turn to a shadow Taliban court system because, a senior military official said, “a lot of the rural people see the Taliban justice as at least something.” [continued…]

How to rig an election
By Peter W Galbraith, Time, October 19, 2009

No one will ever know how Afghans voted in their country’s presidential elections on Aug. 20, 2009. Seven weeks after the polling, the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is still trying to separate fraudulent tallies from ballots. In some provinces, many more votes were counted than were cast. E.U. election monitors characterize 1.5 million votes as suspect, which would include up to one-third of the votes cast for incumbent President Hamid Karzai. Once fraud occurs on the scale of what took place in Afghanistan, it is impossible to untangle.

Afghanistan’s fraudulent elections complicate President Obama’s job as he weighs a recommendation from General Stanley McChrystal, his top commander there, to send as many as 40,000 additional troops to support a beefed-up counterinsurgency strategy. But for that strategy to work, the U.S. needs a credible Afghan partner, which Afghanistan’s elections now seem unlikely to produce. [continued…]

U.N. official acknowledges ‘widespread fraud’ in Afghan election
By Sabrina Tavernise and Abdul Waheed Wafa, New York Times, October 12, 2009

A top United Nations official acknowledged publicly for the first time on Sunday that the country’s presidential election had been marred by “widespread fraud,” but said he has worked to ensure that the irregularities get documented.

Flanked by the ambassadors to the United States, Britain, France and Germany at a news conference, Kai Eide, the top United Nations official here, affirmed that the Aug. 20 election was tainted but insisted that he had pursued all claims of fraud that he was able to verify

“There was widespread fraud, but any specific figure would be pure speculation,” he said.

His remarks were intended to rebuff allegations by his former deputy that he was covering up fraud to benefit President Hamid Karzai. The deputy, the American diplomat Peter Galbraith, was fired this month after making his accusation public. [continued…]

Pakistani police had warned army about a raid
By Jane Perlez, New York Times, October 12, 2009

The mastermind of the militant assault on Saturday that shook the heart of the Pakistani military was behind two other major attacks in the last two years, and the police had specifically warned the military in July that such an audacious raid was being planned, police and intelligence officials said Sunday.

The revelation of prior warning was sure to intensify scrutiny of Pakistan’s ability to fight militants, after nine men wearing army uniforms breached the military headquarters complex in Rawalpindi and held dozens hostage for 20 hours until a commando raid ended the siege. In all, 16 people were killed, including eight of the attackers, the military said.

The surviving militant, who was captured early Sunday morning, was identified as Muhammad Aqeel, who officials said was a former soldier and the planner of this attack and others. Mr. Aqeel, who is also known as Dr. Usman because he had once worked with the Army Medical Corps before dropping out about four years ago, is believed to be a member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant group affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. [continued…]

Barack Obama to follow in Shimon Peres’ footsteps

Barack Obama to follow in Shimon Peres’ footsteps
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 9, 2009

Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama and Nobel Peace Prize laureate and President of Israel, Shimon Peres

“Very few leaders if at all were able to change the mood of the entire world in such a short while with such profound impact. You provided the entire humanity with fresh hope, with intellectual determination, and a feeling that there is a lord in heaven and believers on earth.

“Under your leadership, peace became a real and original agenda. And from Jerusalem, I am sure all the bells of engagement and understanding will ring again. You gave us a license to dream and act in a noble direction.” Nobel Peace Prize laureate and President of Israel, Shimon Peres.

_____

It’s important not to rush to judgment on Obama — unless the judgment is glowing, then it’s full steam ahead.

If the so-called “reality-based community” still existed, then the very same people who have been suggesting that Obama critics hold their fire should now be insisting the Nobel committee jumped the gun.

Unfortunately that isn’t happening as much as it should. Why? Obama loyalists feel personally embattled. The impulse to grasp on to this fleeting object of relief is for some, irresistible. It’s a quick salve to those whose own unflinching loyalties portend humiliations that lurk down the road.

Realists can’t indefinitely remain true believers. True believers eventually abandon realism.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said: “The award of the prize to President Obama, leader of the most significant military power in the world, at the beginning of his mandate, is a reflection of the hopes he has raised globally with his vision of a world without nuclear weapons.”

There’s a note of realism there — this is about hopes raised, not accomplishments. The problem is, hope can only be raised so far and for so long. It’s power and durability depends on a strengthening conviction that hope is on a trajectory that leads to actuality. The longer that trajectory remains unclear, the more likely it will be that hope has instead provided the foundation for disappointment, cynicism and bitterness.

Obama traded on hope as a path to power but now he has the power he has to dispense with a large measure of hope. Governance is about deliverables.

It’s not surprising that the Nobel Peace Prize committee have chosen to endorse Obama’s nuclear disarmament initiative. But whether that goal has actually raised hopes globally is something I’m skeptical about. Disarmament is on Obama’s wish-list, but since — in the name of realism — he warned that this might not be accomplished in his lifetime, and since a goal is a dream with a deadline, thus far Obama has merely inspired hope in a dream. Ronald Reagan had that dream too.

Is there a sliver of a silver lining here? Maybe. It’s possible that the Nobel Peace-Prize winning president might feel inhibited from using the Pentagon’s newly-ordered 30,000lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator for destroying nuclear facilities in Iran. On the other hand, he might be persuaded that the destruction of Iran’s nuclear program is a necessary step on the path to nuclear disarmament.

* * *

A few other responses.

Mickey Kraus:

Turn it down! Politely decline. Say he’s honored but he hasn’t had the time yet to accomplish what he wants to accomplish. Result: He gets at least the same amount of glory–and helps solve his narcissism problem and his Fred Armisen (‘What’s he done?’) problem, demonstrating that he’s uncomfortable with his reputation as a man overcelebrated for his potential long before he’s started to realize it. … Plus he doesn’t have to waste time, during a fairly crucial period, working on yet another grand speech. … And the downside is … what? That the Nobel Committee feels dissed? … P.S.: It’s not as if Congress is going to think, well, he’s won the Nobel Peace Prize so let’s pass health care reform. But the possibility for a Nobel backlash seems non-farfetched.

The Taliban:

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said it was absurd to give a peace award to a man who had sent 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan to escalate a war.

“The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the ‘Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians’,” he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“When Obama replaced President Bush, the Afghan people thought that he would not follow in Bush’s footsteps. Unfortunately, Obama actually even went one step further.”

Gideon Rachman:

The prize is clearly an award of huge significance, awarded after only the deepest reflection, and won only by demi-Gods.

Maria Farrell:

President Obama has changed how the world feels about America. He’s lifted the planet’s mood. This guy is global Prozac.

Swat Valley civilians turn to arms as uneasy peace takes hold

Swat Valley civilians turn to arms as uneasy peace takes hold
By Declan Walsh, The Guardian, October 2, 2009

Dr Naeem Khan was taking no chances. Walking through streets once filled with Taliban gunmen, the amiable country doctor looked ready for battle – an AK-47 in his hand, ammunition across his chest, and a chunky dagger tucked into his pocket.

He patted his weapon fondly. “This has become part of our everyday life now, like lunch and dinner,” he said as he entered the small hospital where he works.

In his surgery Khan pulled a stethoscope from a drawer and turned to his first patient of the day, a burka-clad mother bearing a sick infant. His gun remained tucked under the desk.

Thousands of civilians are joining village militias in Pakistan’s Swat valley as a precarious peace takes root in the former Taliban stronghold after a four-month army operation. [continued…]

Terror group builds big base under Pakistani officials’ noses

Terror group builds big base under Pakistani officials’ noses
By Saeed Shah, McClatchy, September 13, 2009

A Pakistani terrorist group that’s allied with al Qaida and sends jihadists to Afghanistan to fight U.S. and government troops is building a huge new base in full view of the authorities in Pakistan’s most heavily populated province, locals and officials told McClatchy.

Jaish-e-Mohammad (“Army of Mohammad”), which is linked to a series of atrocities, including an attack on the Indian parliament in Delhi and the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, has walled off a 4.5-acre compound three miles outside the town of Bahawalpur in the far south of the Pakistan’s heartland Punjab province.

Jaish, which the State Department designated a “foreign terrorist organization” in December 2001 and Pakistan banned in 2002, already has a headquarters and a seminary in the town’s center. However, the new facility, surrounded by a high brick and mud wall, has a tiled swimming pool, stabling for more than a dozen horses, an ornamental fountain and even swings and a slide for children. [continued…]

Pakistan army said to be linked to Swat killings
By Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times, September 15, 2009

Two months after the Pakistani Army wrested control of the Swat Valley from Taliban militants, a new campaign of fear has taken hold, with scores, perhaps hundreds, of bodies dumped on the streets in what human rights advocates and local residents say is the work of the military.

In some cases, people may simply have been seeking revenge against the ruthless Taliban, in a society that tends to accept tit-for-tat reprisals, local politicians said.

But the scale of the retaliation, the similarities in the way that many of the victims have been tortured and the systematic nature of the deaths and disappearances in areas that the military firmly controls have led local residents, human rights workers and some Pakistani officials to conclude that the military has had a role in the campaign. [continued…]

Seven days that shook Afghanistan

Seven days that shook Afghanistan
By Dexter Filkins, New York Times, August 30, 2009

The darker currents that have undercut the American-led war in this country have surfaced often over the past eight years, but rarely have so many come into view all at once.

In the space of a single week, a string of disturbing military and political events revealed not just the extraordinary burdens that lie ahead for the Americans and Afghans toiling to create a stable nation, but the fragility of the very enterprise itself.

On Tuesday, four American soldiers on patrol near in the southern city of Kandahar were killed when their armored vehicle, known as a Stryker, struck a homemade bomb, now the preferred killer of American troops. Their deaths brought the toll of foreign soldiers killed this year to 295, making 2009 the bloodiest so far for the American-led coalition. Of the dead, 175 were American — also the most for a single year since the war began. There are still four months left in the year, and the toll keeps rising. [continued…]

Increasing accounts of fraud cloud Afghan vote
By Carlotta Gall, New York Times, August 31, 2009

A Kabul teacher assigned to run a polling station in this village arrived at 6 a.m. on Election Day to find the ballot boxes already full, well before the voting was to start. When he protested, the other election officials told him to let it go; when he refused, he was taken away by the local tribal chieftain’s bodyguards.

Now he is in hiding and receiving threats, he said. And the village’s polling place is under investigation in one of the most serious reports of fraud that officials worry could affect the results of the country’s Aug. 20 elections — in this case, as in many others, in favor of President Hamid Karzai.

Afghan election officials said Sunday that the serious fraud reports that they were considering had suddenly doubled — to 550 from 270, in a development likely to stoke public outrage and perhaps even delay the official results past September. By law, each of the more serious cases, out of more than 2,000 complaints of irregularities so far, must be investigated before the elections results can be certified. [continued…]

Many women stayed away from the polls in Afghanistan
By Pamela Constable, Washington Post, August 31, 2009

Five years ago, with the country at peace, traditional taboos easing and Western donors pushing for women to participate in democracy, millions of Afghan women eagerly registered and then voted for a presidential candidate. In a few districts, female turnout was even higher than male turnout.

But on Aug. 20, when Afghans again went to the polls to choose a president, that heady season of political emancipation seemed long gone. This time, election monitors and women’s activists said, a combination of fear, tradition, apathy and poor planning conspired to deprive many Afghan women of rights they had only recently begun to exercise.

With insurgents threatening to attack polling places and voters, especially in the rural south, many families kept their women home on election day, even if the men ventured out to vote. In cities, some segregated female polling rooms were nearly empty, and many educated women who had voted or even worked at polling stations in previous elections decided not to risk going out this time. [continued…]

Organized crime in Pakistan feeds Taliban
By Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, August , 2009

Taliban fighters have long used this city of 17 million as a place to regroup, smuggle weapons and even work seasonal jobs. But recently they have discovered another way to make fast money: organized crime.

The police here say the Taliban, working with criminal groups, are using Mafia-style networks to kidnap, rob banks and extort, generating millions of dollars for the militant insurgency in northwestern Pakistan.

“There is overwhelming evidence that it’s an organized policy,” said Dost Ali Baloch, assistant inspector general of the Karachi police.

Jihadi-linked crime has surfaced in other Pakistani cities, like Lahore. But Karachi, the central nervous system of Pakistan’s economy, and home to its richest businessmen, is the hub. It has been free of the bombings that have tormented Pakistan’s other major cities this year, and some officials believe that is the result of a calculated strategy. [continued…]

U.S. sets metrics to assess war success
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, August 30, 2009

The White House has assembled a list of about 50 measurements to gauge progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan as it tries to calm rising public and congressional anxiety about its war strategy.

Administration officials are conducting what one called a “test run” of the metrics, comparing current numbers in a range of categories — including newly trained Afghan army recruits, Pakistani counterinsurgency missions and on-time delivery of promised U.S. resources — with baselines set earlier in the year. The results will be used to fine-tune the list before it is presented to Congress by Sept. 24.

Lawmakers set that deadline in the spring as a condition for approving additional war funding, holding President Obama to his promise of “clear benchmarks” and no “blank check.” [continued…]

U.S. says Pakistan made changes to missiles sold for defense

U.S. says Pakistan made changes to missiles sold for defense
By Eric Schmitt, New York Times, August 30, 2009

The United States has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying American-made missiles to expand its capability to strike land targets, a potential threat to India, according to senior administration and Congressional officials.

The charge, which set off a new outbreak of tensions between the United States and Pakistan, was made in an unpublicized diplomatic protest in late June to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.

The accusation comes at a particularly delicate time, when the administration is asking Congress to approve $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years, and when Washington is pressing a reluctant Pakistani military to focus its attentions on fighting the Taliban, rather than expanding its nuclear and conventional forces aimed at India. [continued…]

Court sets Pakistani scientist at liberty
By Nasir Khan, The National, August 29, 2009

Lahore’s High Court yesterday ordered that all restrictions be lifted on Dr AQ Khan, Pakistan’s infamous rogue nuclear scientist, believed by many to be the founder of a clandestine weapons proliferation network.

Acting on a petition filed by the scientist, the court said that as of August 28, Dr Khan was a “free man” and would no longer have to alert police to his whereabouts. The decision is likely to raise concern in the United States, where Dr Khan is still considered a proliferation risk.

“Of course I was delighted when my lawyer called me up to give me this good news,” Dr Khan said a few hours after the decision was announced. “I have been waiting for the day when I can move around easily and not be questioned and restricted at every step.” [continued…]

Is Pakistan’s Taliban movement on the way out?

Is Pakistan’s Taliban movement on the way out?
By Saeed Shah, McClatchy, August 23, 2009

Pakistan’s extremist Taliban movement is badly divided over who should be its new leader, and analysts and local tribesmen say the al Qaida-linked group may be in danger of crumbling.

A wave of defections, surrenders, arrests and bloody infighting has severely weakened the movement since its founder, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed Aug. 5 in a U.S. missile strike. The announcement this weekend that Hakimullah Mehsud, a 28-year-old with a reputation as a hothead, would succeed him is likely to further widen the split.

Hakimullah has support from Taliban groups in Orakzai, where he is based, and Bajaur, both parts of the wild Pakistan tribal zone that borders Afghanistan. But the heart of the Pakistani Taliban movement lies in the Waziristan portion of the tribal area, where the warlike Mehsud and Wazir clans live and where a commander named Waliur Rehman is backed as the next chief. Rehman was very close to Baitullah Mehsud.

“There’s no way that the Mehsuds and the Wazirs are going to accept Hakimullah as chief. During his lifetime, Baitullah had given every indication that when he’s no more, Waliur Rehman is the next guy,” said Saifullah Mahsud, an analyst at the FATA Research Centre, an independent think tank in Islamabad. “Waliur Rehman is a cool, calm, calculated guy, a very good listener… That’s why the Taliban had liked Baituallah so much, he was a very cool guy, a very calm guy.” [continued…]

Could Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam?

Could Afghanistan become Obama’s Vietnam?
By Peter Baker, New York Times, August 23, 2009

President Obama had not even taken office before supporters were etching his likeness onto Mount Rushmore as another Abraham Lincoln or the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Yet what if they got the wrong predecessor? What if Mr. Obama is fated to be another Lyndon B. Johnson instead?

To be sure, such historical analogies are overly simplistic and fatally flawed, if only because each presidency is distinct in its own way. But the L.B.J. model — a president who aspired to reshape America at home while fighting a losing war abroad — is one that haunts Mr. Obama’s White House as it seeks to salvage Afghanistan while enacting an expansive domestic program.

In this summer of discontent for Mr. Obama, as the heady early days give way to the grinding battle for elusive goals, he looks ahead to an uncertain future not only for his legislative agenda but for what has indisputably become his war. Last week’s elections in Afghanistan played out at the same time as the debate over health care heated up in Washington, producing one of those split-screen moments that could not help but remind some of Mr. Johnson’s struggles to build a Great Society while fighting in Vietnam.

“The analogy of Lyndon Johnson suggests itself very profoundly,” said David M. Kennedy, the Stanford University historian. Mr. Obama, he said, must avoid letting Afghanistan shadow his presidency as Vietnam did Mr. Johnson’s. “He needs to worry about the outcome of that intervention and policy and how it could spill over into everything else he wants to accomplish.” [continued…]

Editor’s Comment — It’s not too soon to be comparing Obama to LBJ and it’s not too soon to be asking whether he’ll seek a second term. To call the war in Afghanistan a “war of necessity” was a strategic blunder. Obama first paddled up shit creek and then decided to throw away his paddle.

‘Is he weak?’
By Jim Hoagland, Washington Post, August 23, 2009

Shortly after the Group of 20 summit concluded in London in April, Nicolas Sarkozy blurted out to a small group of advisers a question that weighed on him as he watched President Obama glad-hand his way through the gathering: “Est-il faible?” (Is he weak?)

The French president did not answer his own blunt query, which faded as the American leader commanded a hectic round of domestic economic intervention and agenda-setting abroad in the weeks that followed. Initial doubts about Obama’s toughness went on the shelf at the Elysee Palace and elsewhere.

But the Sarkozy question was abruptly dusted off as Obama began hitting resistance to some of his most ambitious goals, including health-care reform, Middle East peacemaking and engagement with Iran. Is Obama making tactical retreats to gain better position on these hard cases — or is he, well, weak? [continued…]

Marines fight Taliban with little aid from Afghans
By Richard A Oppel Jr., New York Times, August 23, 2009

American Marines secured this desolate village in southern Afghanistan nearly two months ago, and last week they were fortifying bases, on duty at checkpoints and patrolling in full body armor in 120-degree heat. Despite those efforts, only a few hundred Afghans were persuaded to come out here and vote for president on Thursday.

In a region the Taliban have lorded over for six years, and where they remain a menacing presence, American officers say their troops alone are not enough to reassure Afghans. Something is missing that has left even the recently appointed district governor feeling dismayed. “I don’t get any support from the government,” said the governor, Massoud Ahmad Rassouli Balouch.

Governor Massoud has no body of advisers to help run the area, no doctors to provide health care, no teachers, no professionals to do much of anything. About all he says he does have are police officers who steal and a small group of Afghan soldiers who say they are here for “vacation.” [continued…]

Taliban attacks leave poll soaked in Afghan blood
By Jon Swain, The Sunday Times, August 23, 2009

Making Helmand safe to vote had been Britain’s military priority this summer, the bloodiest since 2001. The aim of the five-week operation Panther’s Claw, involving 3,000 British troops, was to push the Taliban from the north of Lashkar Gah.

Ten British soldiers died in the campaign. Lieutenant-Colonel Gus Fair, commander of the Light Dragoons battle group, wrote in his diary afterwards that, as a result, people who had been subject to the rule of the Taliban could now live without the fear of them “visiting in the middle of the night”.

With some optimism he added that they now had “the freedom to vote … the chance to look forward to enjoy some of the rights and privileges that we are lucky enough to take for granted”.

In Babaji district, where the British claimed they had brought 80,000 villagers under government control during daylight hours at least, only 150 people cast their vote. “There were supposed to be three polling stations but they were closed,” said Sardar Mohammed, 54, who lives in the district. [continued…]

U.S. seeks overhaul in Kabul after vote
By Peter Siegel and Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2009

US officials are strategizing about how to persuade Afghan President Hamid Karzai to overhaul his government, which is widely viewed here as corrupt and ineffectual, if he wins a second term.

At the same time, some in Washington fear a runoff election could steal valuable time from the international efforts to stabilize the country. Both Mr. Karzai and his leading challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, have claimed significant leads.

Results of Thursday’s presidential balloting in Afghanistan may not be available until Tuesday. If no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, and a runoff is necessary, these U.S. officials said it could be Oct. 1 before there is a functioning government in Kabul. [continued…]

New leader of Pakistan’s Taliban is named, though officials believe he is dead
By Ismail Khan and Lydia Polgreen, New York Times, August 23, 2009

A senior leader of the Pakistani Taliban announced Saturday that a brash young commander with a reputation for pitiless violence appeared to have won the struggle to lead the group — even as the government wrestles with conflicting information about whether that commander is even alive.

Intelligence officials in Pakistan say that the newly proclaimed leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, is dead. But Pakistan’s interior minister, Rehman Malik, said Saturday in an interview that he was alive, although gravely injured, and that Taliban fighters were desperately searching for his younger brother as a stand-in.

The news on Saturday adds to the confusion that has surrounded the leadership of the group since its head, Baitullah Mehsud, was reportedly killed this month in a drone attack.

Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, deputy commander of the group, had proclaimed himself successor to Baitullah Mehsud just a few days ago. But on Saturday he told reporters by telephone that the much younger and more aggressive Hakimullah Mehsud would be the insurgency’s new leader. [continued…]