Sequential Destruction of Muslim Nations

Now Pakistan

By LIAQUAT ALI KHAN

A conspiratorial view of the world is frequently inaccurate, exposing more the paranoia of the view rather than the reality of the world. The sequential destruction of Muslim nations — Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, (and Iran is on the list) — may or may not be a conspiracy hatched in Washington D.C., but it is becoming an international reality.  It is no secret that the United States and Europe, with varying degree of mutual cooperation and some make-believe internal discord, superintend the sequential destruction of Muslim nations. This War of Sequential Destruction (WSD), despite Nobel-Laureate Barack Obama’s denials, refuses to go away.

The WSD is multi-frontal. It crosshairs Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Bashir,  Ahmadinejad, Sunni, Shia, Wahabi, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan. Many Western policymakers rarely see Muslim nations, including allies, with any inherent respect.  Vice President Dick Cheney described the Muslim world as “brute and nasty.” Obama advisers, though more guarded in their word choices, see Muslim nations no differently. The idea that Islam is inherently violent, openly expressed during the Bush administration, continues to animate foreign policy. The White House holds a new President but Congressional leadership and Washington policymakers are more or less the same. Anti-Islamic policies of warfare and destabilization are intact.

Therefore, the WSD will continue and gather momentum. The picture is not pretty. Palestinians are penned in misery and their territorial cage is constantly shrinking to meet the “natural growth” of vociferous settlers. Oil-rich Iraq is under American occupation and its communities have been torn apart with irreversible harm. Afghanistan, one of the poorest nations in the world, is placed under the boots of Western armies. Thousands of Afghans have been murdered, their houses bombed, their villages devastated. The International Criminal Court headquartered in Holland has indicted the first sitting head of the state, the Muslim President of Sudan. The United States and Europe, themselves armed with thousands of nuclear heads, are strategizing to punish Iran for asserting a treaty-based right to produce nuclear energy, leaving open the option of attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities.

After razing Iraq and Afghanistan, the WSD has now turned to ravage an ally, Muslim Pakistan. Pakistan is a nation that the British, in 1947, carved out of India and that India, in 1971, broke into two, liberating Bangladesh from the murderous clutch of the Pakistani military. Over the past sixty-two years, Pakistan’s military and civilian rulers, one after the other, and without exception, have turned to America for military training, weapons, money, and strategic instructions.  Eager to send their sons and daughters to Western cities for education and employment, Pakistani politicians, generals, and bureaucrats all look for ways, and create the ways, to oblige Western capitals, particularly Washington D.C.  Partly for personal interests and partly out of faulty readings of geopolitical situations, Pakistani rulers, like most rulers in Muslim nations, frequently compromise national sovereignty and public welfare.

The Pakistani orientation for self-destruction serves American interests. Facing a failing campaign in Afghanistan, Obama advisers decided to expand the war into Waziristan and other parts of Pakistan.  The United States desperately solicited the Pakistani military to join the Afghan war. Pakistani rulers, this time a democratically elected government, listened to the American call. They first permitted the CIA to fly drones armed with missiles, which killed a few militants but hundreds of civilians in the tribal areas. The United States later urged Pakistan to invade Swat to kill militants. Pakistan did. Millions of civilians were made homeless.

Source// COUNTERPUNCH

MI5 accused of colluding in torture of terrorist suspects

British agents alleged to have questioned men at Pakistani interrogation centre after they had been brutally mistreated

The London headquarters of MI5. Photograph: Frank Baron

Officers of the Security Service, MI5, are being accused of “outsourcing” the torture of British citizens to a notorious Pakistani intelligence agency in an attempt to obtain information about terrorist plots and to secure convictions against al-Qaida suspects.

A number of British terrorism suspects who have been arrested in Pakistan at the request of UK authorities say their interrogation by Security Service officers, shortly after brutal torture at the hands of agents of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), has convinced them that MI5 colluded in the mistreatment.

Those men have given detailed accounts of their alleged ordeals at the hands of the ISI over the last four years. Some of them appear to have been taken to the same secret interrogation centre in Rawalpindi, where they say they were repeatedly tortured before being questioned by MI5.

Tayab Ali, a London-based lawyer for two of the men, said: “I am left with no doubt that, at the very worst, the British Security Service instigates the illegal detention and torture of British citizens, and at the very best turns a blind eye to torture.”

One man from Manchester says that in 2006 he was beaten, whipped, deprived of sleep and had three fingernails slowly extracted by ISI agents at the Rawalpindi centre before being interrogated by two MI5 officers. A number of his alleged associates were questioned in Manchester at the same time and two were subsequently charged. This man’s lawyers say his fingernails were missing when they were eventually allowed to see him, more than a year after he was first detained. They say they have pathology reports that prove the nails were forcibly removed.

(Continue reading: The Guardian)

U.S. Military Seeks to Widen Pakistan Raid

 

American commanders in Afghanistan have in recent months urged a widening of the war that could include American attacks on indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside Pakistan, according to United States officials.

 requests have been rebuffed for now, the officials said, after deliberations in Washington among senior Bush administration officials who fear that attacking Pakistani radicals may anger Pakistan’s new government, which is negotiating with the militants, and destabilize an already fragile security situation.

American commanders would prefer that Pakistani forces attack the militants, but Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas have slowed recently to avoid upsetting the negotiations.

Pakistan’s government has given the Central Intelligence Agency limited authority to kill Arab and other foreign operatives in the tribal areas, using remotely piloted Predator aircraft. But administration officials say the Pakistani government has put far greater restrictions on American operations against indigenous Pakistani militant groups, including one thought to have been behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

(Continue reading: New York Times)

 

Protest over graves in Kashmir

Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have lobbed teargas shells to break up a violent demonstration in Srinagar.

The demonstrators were protesting over the issue of nearly 1,000 unmarked graves discovered in border areas of the valley.

Several people, including three members of the media, have been injured in the clashes.

The incident began with a procession by a group of women from the Jama Masjid, or Grand Mosque, in the city.

They demanded an investigation into the whereabouts of the people who have disappeared after, it is alleged, they were arrested by the Indian security forces.

The procession was led by the mother of a prominent militant, Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar.

Prayer meeting

Her son-in-law Sirajuddin has been missing since his arrest, allegedly by the paramilitary border security force (BSF) in 1992.

The main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) organised namaz-e-janaza, or funeral prayers, on Friday for the people buried in unmarked graves.

The biggest prayer meeting was held in the Jama Masjid.

The APHC Chairman Umar Farooq also attended the prayers. 

He said the discovery of the unmarked graves has caused concern among parents about the well-being of the disappeared persons.

He appealed to what he called “the civilised world” to put pressure on the Indian government to inform next-of-kin about the whereabouts of those who have disappeared.

He said the unmarked graves were an example of the kind of atrocities the Indian government had perpetrated in Kashmir.

“Such examples are hard to find even in the times of Halaku and Changez Khan,” he said.

Amnesty International and other human rights organisations have urged the Indian government to launch urgent and impartial investigations into the unmarked graves.

Pakistan has also expressed its concern and demanded an investigation.

But the Indian army has said the reported discovery of the unmarked graves is an attempt to malign the military. 

/bbc news

Musharraf swears in Pakistan cabinet full of foes

By Augustine Anthony

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf swore in 24 members of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s cabinet on Monday, six weeks after opposition parties won a general election.

There is strong speculation the new government will force U.S. ally Musharraf, who came to power as a general in a 1999 coup, to quit within weeks or months.

There has been some apprehension within Pakistani media and political circles that the United States could try to prop up Musharraf so that counterterrorism operations in the region are not disturbed by the changing of the guard in Islamabad.

“I expect from the international community that it will support democracy in Pakistan and will help us in strengthening democratic institutions,” the country’s new Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, told reporters after being sworn in.

Eleven of the new ministers, including Qureshi, belonged to assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s party, which won the most seats in the February 18 vote. A further nine were from the party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.

Of the other four, one was an independent member of parliament and three were from two junior coalition partners.

Members of Sharif’s party wore black armbands as they were sworn in, to protest against Musharraf, whom they consider an unconstitutional president.

“We took the oath because there is a larger objective and that is the restoration of the judiciary,” Senior Minister Nisar Ali Khan, who was given the communications and farm portfolios, said.

Musharraf purged the judiciary in November when he resorted to emergency rule for six weeks to stop the Supreme Court ruling his re-election by the outgoing parliament was unconstitutional.

Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded her as leader of the Pakistan People’s Party, and Sharif have promised to reinstate deposed Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and his colleagues through a parliamentary resolution within 30 days of forming a government.

That is likely to trigger a show-down with Musharraf, who will fear the judges will resurrect constitutional challenges to his re-election last October.

Pakistan’s stock market set a life high last Thursday and appears insensitive to the doubts lingering over Musharraf’s fate. The Karachi 100-share index lost almost 1 percent on Monday, but dealers said it was a temporary setback.

“Market fundamentals are still strong, and investors are cautiously optimistic about the new government,” said Ashraf Zakaria, a dealer at brokers Ali Hussain Rajabali and Co.

The rupee eased slightly to close at 62.70/76 on Monday, still stronger than the six-year low of 63.11/14 struck on February 16, just before the election.

INVESTORS OPTIMISTIC

As expected, Ishaq Dar, a member of Sharif’s party, was appointed finance minister, but he is taking over at a difficult time with inflation hitting Pakistan’s poor, fiscal and current account deficits widening alarmingly, fears of recurrent grain shortages and increasingly frequent power cuts.

“Our economy is currently facing a lot of challenges,” said Zubair Tufail, vice president, Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“We hope that he (Dar) and the government will give a solid plan to ease the pressures on the economy.”

Dar, 60, was appointed commerce minister in a pro-business Sharif government in 1997.

He became finance minister a year later, when he had to negotiate an IMF rescue package to tackle an economic crisis triggered by sanctions over Pakistan’s nuclear tests.

Dar was detained for nearly two years after Musharraf overthrew Sharif in a 1999 coup.

The four-party coalition is made up of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), the ethnic Pashtun-based Awami National Party and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam religious party.

//reuters//

US/UK’s war ‘failure sparked Pakistan violence’

A senior former ally of President Pervez Musharraf claimed America and Britain’s “failure” in Afghanistan sparked a wave of violence in Pakistan.

“The West has failed in Afghanistan and so has shifted the blame to Pakistan,” Lt-Gen Orakzai, told The Daily Telegraph in his first interview since resigning earlier this year as governor of the restive North West Frontier province.

Gen Orakzai said US demands for Pakistan “to do more, more and more” had led to the military bombing its own citizens in the border tribal areas, and prompting a “war of resistance”.

He added the threat posed by al-Qa’eda in the tribal areas had been “greatly exaggerated” by the West, and the military strikes had caused many innocent deaths and a lot of collateral damage.

“There was a lot of resentment… people wanted revenge for the loss of their loved ones. It snowballed.”

Gen Orakzai, a Pushtun from the tribal areas, was reportedly asked to resign as governor after brokering a controversial peace agreement in North Waziristan.

US officials said the deal had led to a threefold increase in cross-border infiltration of militants from Pakistan to Afghanistan and allegedly leant on Mr Musharraf to remove him.

“Nobody has said don’t fight terrorism. But if the US keeps asking us to do more, Pakistan will be in a critical position,” said Gen Orakzai. “So leave us alone for some time and let us give a political solution a chance.”

His remarks came amid increasing US concerns Pakistan’s counter-terrorism co-operation may wane as the new coalition government looks set to clip the power of Washington’s ally, Mr Musharraf, or possibly oust him.

Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of the senior coalition partner, the Pakistan’s People’s Party, and Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister, have both stated the new government would “redefine” Pakistan’s stance on the US-led “war on terror”.

Mr Musharraf’s support for the US-led campaign has been deeply unpopular and the new government of prime minister Yusf Raza Gilani has pledged to reach a national consensus on how to deal with tribal militants.

A sullen-faced Mr Musharraf swore in Mr Gilani, an aide of the late Benazir Bhutto whom he once jailed for five years on trumped-up political charges. Supporters chanted “Long Live Bhutto” as the new prime minister repeated the oath.

//telegraph//

Pakistan Elects First Female Speaker of Parliament

New crop of Pak. lawmakers are richer, flashier and more secular

Islamabad: Gold-trimmed SUVs idle outside the parliament. Among new female lawmakers, Muslim veils are out and Gucci bags are in.

Civilian rule has returned to Pakistan, and its politicians have come back with bling.

Last month’s elections ushered into parliament a new crop of business leaders and wealthy elites opposed to U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf’s one-man rule.

The new body is headed by followers of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, secularists who have vowed to fight Islamic extremism.

Many are also veterans of a series of civilian governments that nearly bankrupted the country in the 1990s.

Eight years after Musharraf took over in a military coup, they’re back in power, accessories and all.

“It’s their cars, their fashion. They have all the latest models,” said Sana Asad, a Pakistani journalist covering parliament. “They’re richer and more secular.”

“Perhaps it’s because they’re connected to the previous administrations, the wealthy elites,” she said, sunning herself outside parliament’s housing complex Wednesday.

Parliament’s parking lot was crowded with new sports utility vehicles festooned with flashy tire rims and hood ornaments. Women in bright colors clogged past in heels and huge sunglasses. Bodyguards fanned out.

The Feb. 18 elections saw a hardline coalition of religious groups lose control of the country’s northwest along the Afghan border. Also, many conservative-minded allies of Musharraf lost their seats.

In the last parliament, about a dozen female lawmakers from the religious alliance wore body-shrouding black veils that concealed everything except their eyes.

But as parliament elected its first female speaker Wednesday, just a single lawmaker, one of 74 women in the 342-seat house, covered her face with a light beige wrap. Others wore traditional flowing gowns, some with bare heads and others with their hair only partially covered by loose scarves.

The National Assembly elected its first woman speaker on Wednesday, a member of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) which won elections last month.

Fehmida Mirza, 51, a medical doctor from a political family from Sindh province, easily defeated a candidate from the main party that backs President Pervez Musharraf by 249 votes to 70, said outgoing speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain.

“It’s a tremendous thing and something Pakistan can be proud of,” said Nasim Zehra, a Pakistani analyst and fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center.

“There’s a different texture in politics now. The orientation of this parliament is different, with a different kind of people with different backgrounds,” she said.

On Wednesday, Khaled Mahmood Javed sat behind the tinted windows of a shiny sedan flying the flag of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party.

His brother, Rai Ghulam Murtaza, is an incoming lawmaker who first served under Bhutto in the 1980s.

“A lot of them are businessmen, and none are poor. They’re big men, important men, and they’re less religious, too,” Javed said of the new breed of legislators.

Millions still live in poverty in the Islamic nation despite annual economic growth of about 7 percent for the past five years. Much of it was due to cash being sent home by Pakistani expatriates. Murtaza was one of them, his brother said.

“My brother lived abroad for the past 15 years. He’s a dual citizen of Canada,” Javed said proudly.

Many of Pakistan’s top politicians are feudal landlords. Others amassed fortunes in Pakistan’s booming banking and telecom sectors while they sat out politics under Musharraf.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, a Bhutto loyalist and contender for prime minister, acknowledged that the lawmakers’ ostentatious wealth could raise doubts about their commitment to solving the problems of ordinary Pakistanis.

“Austerity should be exercised, given the economic compulsions that we have,” Qureshi told Dawn News television Tuesday. He said the country faced “huge challenges,” with high inflation and power shortages.

Economic hardships persist for most Pakistanis. The country has yet to fully overcome a severe shortage of wheat flour, a staple here, and fuel prices have spiked sharply in recent weeks.

Outside parliament Wednesday, policemen sat in clusters under small pine trees, watching new lawmakers parade past multicolored banners lining the drive up to the legislature’s marble pillars.

“Rich candidates always do better. They have more connections,” said one of the officers, lazily picking at wild dandelions. A policemen earns just over $100 USD a month.

“Islam doesn’t allow women to unveil themselves, but the atmosphere in Pakistan is changing day by day. You can see it in the fashion here,” he said, requesting anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to media.

“It’s a bit of a charade, but it’s also a big sign of democracy and hope,” he said.

//the-hindu/ + /reuters//

‘You Have to Rethink War’

By Jeffrey Bartholet

Henry “Hank” Crumpton has spent most of his career as a spy or spymaster for the Central Intelligence Agency. An expert on running covert operations in difficult regions of the world, he began tracking and battling Al Qaeda in 1998 and oversaw the CIA’s Afghan campaign to topple the Taliban after 9/11. Crumpton later served as the senior counterterrorism official in the U.S. State Department, a job he held until early 2007. He now runs the Crumpton Group, a private consulting firm in Washington and Warsaw that brokers information, access, and business deals in emerging markets. He spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Jeffrey Bartholet about the current war against Al Qaeda and the successes and failures of American policy since 9/11.

NEWSWEEK: How plugged in are you now on Afghanistan and Pakistan?
Hank Crumpton: Very.

The last time we spoke, you were telling me about what you would do if you were going after Al Qaeda. You said the U.S. had to make deals with the tribes in Waziristan and the areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and turn them against the Arab foreigners in their midst.
Exactly.

Do you see any of that happening? Did anyone listen to you?
No. [Laughs] But it takes time for ideas to percolate. Policymakers, not only in America but abroad, should reflect not only on what we did in Afghanistan but also on what [Gen.] David Petraeus has been able to do in Iraq. And Pakistan now is saying the right things. They’re talking about a more enduring counterinsurgency effort that reaches into the tribal areas.

What do you hear about that?
I’m hopeful, just because we have so many common interests. There’s going to be a period of coalition government in Pakistan, figuring out who’s who and how to work together with the Pakistani military and security services. That’s going to take a little while, which is unfortunate, because time is our enemy. But they may figure out an even better relationship with us.

Does Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, have more leeway to cooperate with the Americans, and perhaps to give the Americans more leeway to operate in the tribal areas, than Musharraf did?
That’s a good question, and though I don’t know, I wouldn’t rule it out. What’s perhaps more important than the military [aspect] are some of the comments made about economic investment, working with locals, and negotiating with some of the militants. I’ve spent my adult life talking to people I don’t agree with, and I encourage that because maybe half of them will come around.

In the past, that hasn’t worked in the tribal areas. Musharraf and his people have made deals with the militants and the militants didn’t follow through on their end of the bargain.
It was a disaster.

So why do you hope now that they may be more trustworthy or—
I think it’s less a question of trust and more a question of benefits. Coercive force is a variable in their thinking, but more important is positive reinforcement or positive incentives. An example is energy. The [tribes along the border] are desperate for energy. And with energy you could improve the quarries there.

What kind of energy do they need, what kind of quarries can they exploit?
They’ve got some wonderful stone, marble and granite …

This is in Waziristan?
Yeah, and all the way down to Baluchistan, in all the tribal areas. The way they mine it is by using explosives to blow it up. By some estimates they lose as much as 80 or 90 percent. And they pick up what’s usable and truck it out. You could go in there with some big wind turbines or solar panels, you name it, and generate some energy. Then we could bring in some first-class mining equipment. Their wages and productivity [would jump] overnight, creating more jobs, more wealth. That’s the way you have to wage war. You go in there and clean the enemy out of that district, then come in the next day with wind turbines and say this is what we’re going to do. They want it; they own it.

Are you involved in anything particular like this?
No. I’ve been talking about it for years, and people say, “That’s a great idea.” [But nothing happens.] The reason I focus on energy is because once you have that, people can set up their satphones and have good communications to the world. Then you’re talking about education, microfinance, and a connection to the global community of nations, which is the last thing Osama bin Laden wants.

Unfortunately, I think the majority of the militants trying to blow us up are very educated people who have lots of access to education, the Internet and so on. They’re not the poverty-stricken folks.
The educated ones are the leaders who are taking advantage of the poverty-stricken folks.

Did you see this report recently that the French had an informant who had been in Waziristan and who helped break up a Spanish terror plot?
Yeah, I read that in the press.

What do you make of that: having an informant among the jihadists in Waziristan?
That’s always been happening, with varying degrees of access and reliability.

That’s the first time I’ve heard of a tip from someone close to Al Qaeda central that led to [breaking up a plot in the West].
Yeah, well, I obviously can’t go into any kind of detail. But it happens often. It’s not a rare occurrence for global intelligence services working together to stop plots and save lives.

No, but having someone in Waziristan, presumably in close geographic proximity to bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri …
It’s not a rare event.

On the Abu Laith al-Libbi hit: [the senior Al Qaeda operative] apparently was killed by a predator missile … There was clearly good intelligence there. We’re led to believe that a lot of that [valuable intelligence] is electronic.
I can’t comment on recent history. What really works is all-source intelligence, the combination of human intelligence with technical intelligence. And grinding through that hour after hour, working that continuously. That’s how you have tactical success.

Do you get the sense that the tide is turning either way in the war against Al Qaeda?
If you see how U.S. intelligence, Special Operations, and law enforcement are working together on the battlefield, it’s breathtaking. It’s better than you see in movies. That part of the story is the good news. Where it really falls short is the strategic policy piece. You have one tactical success after another, but at the same time strategic weakness or a sense of strategic failure. What’s frustrating for a lot of the intelligence operators is that there’s an expectation of perfection on their part. You have to stop every attack, every infiltrator from coming to the U.S. And when you don’t have an effective overarching policy [including economic development and building civil society] to match …

In Afghanistan right now—where you mostly had success—has it become a strategic failure?
No, but it could become that. I don’t think it will. I think we will learn and adjust, although it’s certainly painful and taking a long time. But I hope some of the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan in ‘02 will be applied. I’ll give an example: the poppy crop. Why don’t we subsidize wheat and barley at 10 times the price and wean them away from poppies?

I think the reason is that if you heavily subsidize wheat and barley, people start bringing in wheat and barley from elsewhere—Pakistan, Iran—and you really undermine the local farmers.
Well, it would need to be tied to local production somehow. My point is that we don’t think of conflict in those terms. Whether it’s subsidies or irrigation systems … The Taliban intentionally encourages poppy production, in part because it draws the farmer away from central authority. We need to do the opposite.

What we hear is that the system in Afghanistan is thoroughly corrupt, from ministers and warlords down to police chiefs and judges. The Taliban has been able to essentially buy their way out of prison. How do you change that?
Ashraf Ghani, the former finance minister and a smart guy, estimates that for every dollar in international aid spent, about 10 cents gets to the Afghans. It goes to overhead, salaries, and some gets siphoned off. It’s a stunning figure. We talk about a narco-economy and criticize the Afghans, but we’re not doing too good a job ourselves, or setting a good example. We’re not approaching this with the endgame in mind.

Why is that?
We have an archaic way of thinking about war.

Which is?
Which is armies fighting armies and diplomats doing diplomacy. You don’t have an expeditionary foreign service or AID [Agency for International Development] department or department of transportation. Take the example of Justice. One of the best programs we have is to take U.S. attorneys and send them overseas to serve as an ambassador’s legal adviser and work with local governments. We only have a handful of these fellows around. We should have a thousand. Think of how smart they [would be] if they came back from two years in Jakarta and went to Phoenix. It’s a terrific education for our U.S. attorneys. That should be a robust program.

It sounds a little bit like a colonial service.
But it’s more about independence than a colonial mandate. It’s about building the partnerships and learning from others. It makes us a lot smarter in Arizona about Jamaa al-Islamiya. That’s the benefit for us.

We’ve heard reports that Al Qaeda is putting more emphasis on Afghanistan these days—more money from the Gulf, more Arab fighters.
I don’t have any empirical evidence or intelligence I could share, but I wouldn’t doubt it. They’re getting their butts kicked in Iraq. In Afghanistan they’ve got a lot of money they’re siphoning off from the opium trade.

Do you think Iraq is going well?
In a tactical sense, an operational sense, I’m really proud of what our people have done: the intelligence service, the military, what the Iraqis have done. But we need to do that [with the] other 80 percent … We need to reform our entire national security structure. The U.S. attorneys program is a part of that, but there are lots of other parts.

One of the points you’ve made before is the need to give more power to people in the field. You’ve argued that the government is too bureaucratic, and Washington has too much control.
Yep. You can’t get “inside the enemy’s turning radius” from Washington. You’ve got small, flexible enemy cells making decisions at a very rapid pace compared to this process back here. But that means you need to select the right ambassadors and representatives, you’ve got to train them, hold them accountable. You have to rethink war. It’s that big a deal.

What is your view on Iran?
I’m very concerned about Iran. But I also have said repeatedly that there is a whole host of options between going to war, in a conventional sense, and not talking to them. We need to engage diplomatically, and also need to engage in other ways.

What are the other ways?
Everything [should be considered], from economic sanctions to covert actions to more forceful diplomacy. Mostly it’s about understanding and listening to the Iranian people and responding to them. You know opinion polls in Iran are very favorable to Americans. The last thing you want to do is push the Iranian people toward this terrible, corrupt regime. They have to import their gasoline because they can’t build refineries. They’re exceedingly corrupt, and the Iranian people know that, so there are huge opportunities if you look at the internal dynamics of Iran.

What do you make of the U.S. election campaign? Is anybody courting you?
Courting is probably too strong a word. Both Republicans and Democrats know that I won’t be drawn into that. I’m willing to talk to anybody. But I have no interest in going back into government.

One of the arguments going on now is that Barack Obama doesn’t have sufficient foreign policy credentials. And it’s true that he’s not surrounded by people who are considered the top tier of the foreign policy establishment, or from the military. He doesn’t have senior Army or Marine—
Let me ask you this: how wise have they been? I know your point, but most of these guys are still thinking in archaic terms.

Do you have a sense that he’s more prone to the kind of holistic approach to foreign policy that you’re talking about?
I don’t know for sure, but I’m hopeful. I’ve testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in public hearings, and I’ve been dinged a couple of times by Democrats. His questions were not only precise and deep, but the courtesy and respect he afforded me in that forum I was grateful for. He didn’t have to do that. It wasn’t necessary, but he listened; he asked good questions. I don’t want to read too much into that encounter, but it made a positive impression on me. [Crumpton considers himself an independent.]

When you say deep questions, what—
The nature of the enemy, what is their motivation? The kind of questions he ought to be asking. What’s driving the enemy, and what’s the enemy strategy? We didn’t get into this in the testimony, but this goes back to Sun Tzu: you’ve got to know what the enemy’s strategy is and attack the strategy. You don’t just attack the enemy. You don’t just attack IEDs. He was trending in that direction. And I didn’t get a lot of questions from [other] guys going that way. It was, “How come you haven’t got bin Laden?”

//newsweek

Afghanistan. Pakistan. Forgotten.

by Joe Biden

That is where those who attacked us on 9/11 came from, where the attacks in Europe since originated and where Al Qaeda is regrouping. It is the real central front in the war on terrorism.

Afghanistan is slipping toward failure. The Taliban is back, violence is up, drug production is booming and the Afghans are losing faith in their government. All the legs of our strategy — security, counternarcotics efforts, reconstruction and governance — have gone wobbly.

If we should have had a surge anywhere, it is Afghanistan. And instead of eradicating poppy crops, which forces many farmers to turn to the Taliban, we should go after drug kingpins.

We also need to make good on President Bush’s pledge for a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. In six years, we have spent on Afghanistan’s reconstruction only what we spend every three weeks on military operations in Iraq.

Afghanistan’s fate is directly tied to Pakistan’s future and America’s security. When President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan concluded that we were not serious about finishing the job in Afghanistan, he began to cut deals with extremists in his own country.

As a result, the border area remains a freeway of fundamentalism: the Taliban and Al Qaeda find sanctuary in Pakistan, while Pakistani suicide bombers wreak havoc in Afghanistan.

The recent Pakistani elections gave the moderate majority its voice back and gives the United States an opportunity to move from a Musharraf policy to a Pakistan policy. To demonstrate to its people that we care about their needs, not just our own, we must triple assistance for schools, roads and clinics, sustain it for a decade, and demand accountability for the military aid we provide.

If Afghanistan fails or Pakistan falls to fundamentalism, America will suffer a terrible setback. The candidates should tell Americans how they will handle what may be the next president’s most difficult challenge.

Joe Biden is a Democratic senator from Delaware.

via//New York Times

Surprising Outcomes in Pakistan

In an election replete with surprises, Pakistan’s voters have chosen wisely. Now it is up to the elected parties to rule wisely

In an election that produced many surprises, perhaps the greatest surprise was that it proceeded smoothly. In the weeks leading up to the polls, opposition parties and civil society alike had expressed fears that President Pervez Musharraf and his loyalists in the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) would rig the elections massively. As it happened, they didn’t–or couldn’t. Polling was largely fair and free. Intelligence agencies in Pakistan routinely manipulate national elections to produce results of their choosing. That the all-powerful army chose not to meddle this time is significant.

Since Gen. Yahya Khan presided over the dismemberment of the country after a humiliating war with India in 1971, seldom has the military’s stock been so low. Not only is the army loathed for the imposition of a repressive state of emergency, but its intelligence agencies are also widely believed to have been involved in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, leader of Pakistan’s largest political party. Conscious perhaps of the military’s increasing unpopularity, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the new army chief, had begun reducing the military’s encroachment into civilian life soon after taking office last November, withdrawing his generals from key civilian posts to which Musharraf had appointed them. Almost certainly a strategic retreat in the face of intense pressure from ordinary Pakistanis and increasingly impatient Western aid donors, this withdrawal nonetheless provides much-needed space for civilians to reassert themselves.

Another unexpected but wholly welcome result of this election was the humiliation of religious parties. Campaigning on the platform of anti-Americanism in the 2003 election (and allegedly assisted by some creative number-crunching behind the scenes by military agencies), a coalition of religious parties had, for the first time in Pakistan’s history, not only seized control of two of the country’s four provinces but also netted fifty seats in the national assembly. This election saw them routed. Not only did they lose Baluchistan and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)–the two provinces bordering Afghanistan–but their takings at the center plummeted from fifty to three. News of the religious parties’ defeat in Peshawar, the capital of NWFP, triggered street celebrations. Inept, repressive and corrupt, the mullahs were eventually thrown out by an electorate that places prosperity and security far above religious rhetoric. This election, then, successfully debunks the notion that Pakistan is a nation of religious zealots. Provided the newly elected democrats do not disappoint, there is reason to hope now that the rise of liberal democracy will defeat the vestiges of religious extremism in Pakistan.

No less stinging was the rebuke delivered to Musharraf and his allies. The PML, commonly known as the King’s Party, lost two-thirds of its seats in Parliament, with twenty-two former cabinet ministers failing to get re-elected. Since the sacking of an intransigent Chief Justice and the subsequent crackdown on civil society last year, Musharraf and the PML had hemorrhaged support. What little goodwill they had built up through economic growth in the past five years was lost through recent microeconomic mismanagement, resulting in acute power shortages and spiraling wheat prices. Without the carapace of his military uniform and with his parliamentary support in tatters, President Musharraf stands exposed, isolated and deeply unpopular. He has no obvious role left to play in a democratic dispensation. If he were less autocratic, he would voluntarily step aside. But having dismissed demands from the victorious parties for his resignation as “way off,” this ex-commando is more likely to fight to the bitter end, resulting probably in his impeachment. George W. Bush, though he loathes to admit mistakes, also will find it difficult to continue backing his old ally in the war against terror in the face of such wholesale rejection from his own people. The next American government would do far better to ally itself with the people of Pakistan and their chosen representatives than with a discredited, illegitimate President and an unpopular army.

The fact that Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has emerged as the overall winner and the only truly nationalist party with a footprint in every province, is no surprise. Indeed, the surprise is that it didn’t bag more seats. The sympathy vote generated by Bhutto’s murder was probably diluted by her party’s perceived readiness to do business with a dictator. Even after her assassination, Asif Ali Zardari, her widower, continued to claim that his party had no quarrel with Mr. Musharraf and obligingly did not mention Musharraf’s bête noir, the sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. (But had it not been for Bhutto’s willingness to engage with Musharraf, perhaps this election would not have taken place at all.) The PPP has not received a sufficient majority to form government. For this it will have to enter into a coalition with another party, most likely the Muslim League of the Saudi-backed former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the second-biggest winner.

Zardari, who was bequeathed the chairmanship of the PPP in Bhutto’s will, has a difficult task ahead. Having swept northern Punjab, Sharif’s party is resurgent. Coalition governments are notoriously hard to manage, but particularly so for these old adversaries. In the past their one imperative had been to achieve power and then jostle to keep it, at whatever cost to their own credibility and the democratic process. Indeed, Bhutto and Sharif habitually sided with the establishment to topple each other’s elected governments from power throughout the 1990s.

But more is at stake now than ever before. Both Sharif and Bhutto had been elected prime minister twice and dismissed twice on charges of corruption and misrule. Zardari and Sharif are aware that they are running out of political lives. Regional tensions are at a simmering point. Unemployment, inflation and lack of security has made the public less forgiving and more demanding, as seen in the defeat of the PML and the religious parties. There is real anger, which boiled over in the days following Bhutto’s assassination.

Much will depend on how the opposition parties conduct themselves after the election. Thus far both Sharif and Zardari have made all the right noises, but now they will have to put their talk into practice. Sharif, whose party did not win any seats in Sindh or Baluchistan, must recognize that if any single party can heal the rifts between the provinces, it is the PPP. Hence he must not try to strengthen his bargaining power in the coalition by accepting defectors from the ragtag remnants of the PML. Zardari in turn must respect Sharif’s mandate and not block his wishes to address the issue of the sacked judiciary. The mullahs may have lost at the polls, but Al Qaeda and Taliban-backed insurgents still prowl the border with Afghanistan. To fight them effectively, the army and new government will have to act in unison, the government rallying the people behind the army. The government of NWFP, dominated now by secular ethnic Pashtuns, will have a key role in rehabilitating an unpopular Punjabi army with their tribesmen.

Given their limited choices, the people of Pakistan have chosen wisely. Now it is up to the elected parties to rule wisely. Sharif and Zardari must usher in a stable, democratic Pakistan. They must ensure that they do not provide the army with the excuse for yet another coup. This is the time for healing, redemption and reconciliation. He who manages all three will be the ultimate winner of this election.

via//The Nation

New Pakistan Army Chief Orders Military Out of Civilian Government Agencies, Reversing Musharraf Policy

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The new army chief of Pakistan has ordered the withdrawal of military officers from the government’s civil departments, officials said Tuesday, an action that reverses an important policy of his predecessor, President Pervez Musharraf.

The order by the chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was his boldest step to disentangle the military from the civilian sphere of the government since he assumed the post after Mr. Musharraf stepped down as military chief in November.

An army spokesman said General Kayani made the decision last week, but the order was announced Tuesday, less than a week before parliamentary elections on Feb. 18. It was welcomed by Musharraf critics, who have long demanded that the military distance itself from politics.

Pakistan faces further deterioration of law and order in the northwestern tribal areas straddling the Afghan border, a refuge for the Taliban, Al Qaeda and their allies. Two technicians working for Pakistan’s atomic agency were reported to have been kidnapped there on Tuesday, and the police said they had no word on the fate of Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who was reported missing on Monday after he tried to drive through the Khyber Pass headed to Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said they, too, believed that the ambassador had been kidnapped, but blamed local criminals.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, an army spokesman, said that General Kayani decided last week to recall military officers from civil departments and said that it would take three to six months to do so. “A letter has been written by the Ministry of Defense to work out the details of getting the release of military officers working in several civilian departments,” he said Tuesday.

As army chief, General Kayani has moved gradually to separate the military from civil affairs and politics, ending an unpopular policy of Mr. Musharraf, who had moved the military into running Pakistan’s affairs since taking power in a coup in 1999.

Last month, General Kayani warned officers not to maintain contacts with politicians.

Ikram Sehgal, a former military officer and editor of Defense Journal, said General Kayani’s actions were overdue and showed “the seriousness of the army in getting out of civilian affairs.”

Mr. Sehgal said he saw the withdrawal as “solely on the directions of General Kayani.” If Mr. Musharraf had wanted to do this, Mr. Sehgal said, “he would have done it many months ago.”

Local news media reported that army officers would be withdrawn from 23 civil departments, including the National Highway Authority, National Accountability Bureau, Ministry of Education, and Water and Power Development Authority.

Mr. Azizuddin, the Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan, disappeared after he left Peshawar, a Pakistani frontier town, and headed through the tribal areas to the Afghan border on Monday morning. He did not meet his security escort waiting in Afghanistan, said Muhammad Naeem, a the news media counselor at the Pakistani Embassy in Kabul.

The ambassador was in his official car, with a guard and a driver, Mr. Naeem said. The embassy lost phone contact with him half an hour after he left Peshawar.

Mr. Azizuddin’s vehicle was found Tuesday off the road in an area known as Spinkumar, where had last been seen, officials said.

The two abducted officials belonging to the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission were identified only as technicians, local news media reported.

They were seized Monday with their driver and five other local residents in the Sheik Badin area, adjacent to the Laki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan districts in North-West Frontier Province. No one has claimed responsibility, and Pakistani officials said they were unsure who was responsible. The five local residents were released.

“The technicians were going for some geological survey in the area when they were kidnapped at gunpoint along with their driver,” Reuters quoted Romail Akram, a senior police official, as saying.

via//New York Times

ANALYSIS: Pakistan elections set to sideline Islamic extremists

Islamabad (dpa) – Neither billions of dollars in US aid nor the military muscle America occasionally flexes inside Pakistan as part of its global war on terrorism have defeated Islamic extremism inside the country.

But ironically, the extremists are defeating themselves as around 80 million Pakistanis prepare to vote in crucial parliamentary elections next Monday.

Riding on the wave of hatred towards the US following its invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Ammal (MMA), a religious alliance of six Islamic parties, won nearly one-sixth of the seats of Pakistan’s National Assembly the following year as well as control of the local government in the important North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

What a difference one election cycle makes. While anti-American sentiment remains strong in Pakistan’s strife-torn north-western region, political support there for the religious parties has dropped sharply after the Islamic extremists turned on their own people.

Instead of fighting US-led forces across the border in Afghanistan, militant groups including the Taliban and al-Qaeda have killed more than 1,000 Pakistani security personnel, political workers and civilians in a 13-month suicide bombing campaign.

Dozens of music shops, girl’s schools and barber shops were also destroyed, and women were warned to wear burkhas in many parts of the NWFP under threat of death in a bid by militants to enforce a Taliban-style religious code.

Voters are blaming the MMA for encouraging and backing the militants, and the Muslim-based political parties are expected to be punished at the polls.

“I love Islam and follow anyone who promises me they will work for its glory. That is why I voted for MMA in the last elections, but now I repent,” said Wali Mohammed, a shopkeeper in the NWFP capital of Peshawar. “These mullahs delivered nothing but violence. The Taliban continued their violent activities under their noses and they did nothing to stop them.”

Anger at the religious parties is widespread across the province, which borders Afghanistan and includes the ungoverned tribal areas where the Taliban and al-Qaeda have regrouped under the protection of local warlords.

“According to several assessments, progressive parties like the (secular) Awami National Party are going to lead,” said Ismail Khan, a Peshawar-based journalist and analyst.

Besides suffering from public anger over its inability to contain bloodshed, the MMA had an internal implosion, splitting late last year on whether to boycott the upcoming elections.

One faction led by the fundamentalist Jamaat Islami is boycotting the polls, leaving Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam, the other main Muslim party, alone to battle secular and nationalist parties that are increasingly gaining ground in the province as a result of the public revulsion to violence.

The same pattern of liberal, secular political parties dominating the election is expected across the country next week, according to recent opinion polls.

A survey released Monday showed that 50 per cent of voters supported the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The party is capitalizing on public sympathy and anger over the assassination last December of its leader, pro-democracy icon Benazir Bhutto, a vocal critic of Islamic radicalism, who was allegedly killed by pro-Taliban militants.

The survey, conducted by the US-based International Republican Institute, also showed 22 per cent were willing to vote for the Pakistan Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, another moderate opposition party.

Voters expressed growing concern with Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan, with 73 per cent agreeing that religious extremism was a serious problem. In addition, 65 per cent said the presence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the country was a serious problem, the survey said.

The Pakistani magazine Newsline said in a separate survey that the MMA was expected to win only eight seats in the national parliament compared to 111 for Bhutto’s PPP.

If the outlawed Taliban were allowed to participate in the elections, only 1 per cent of the public would vote for them, a survey by the US-based group Terror Free Tomorrow said.

Pakistani voters are desperate for a solution after months of political turmoil and suicide attacks, and are on the cusp of ushering in dramatic change after more than eight years of military-backed rule that some analysts say has only benefited Islamic militancy.

Khan said Muslim-based groups like the MMA are being increasingly marginalized and must rethink their political strategy or risk being dumped by the public altogether.

via//dpa

Pentagon Charges Six 9/11 Suspects, Kangaroo Court To Rule On Death Penalty

US charges Guantánamo detainees with 9/11 murders

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Photograph: AP

The US today charged six Guantánamo Bay detainees with murder and war crimes in connection with the September 11 attacks and said it would seek the death penalty if they were convicted.

The men are set to be the first detainees brought before a military tribunal in Guantánamo Bay over the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

A spokesman told reporters one of the men charged was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who he named as the “mastermind of the 9/11 attacks” and who proposed the mission to Osama bin Laden as early as 1996.

Brigadier general Thomas Hartmann, a legal adviser to the US military tribunal system, said: “There will be no secret trials.” He said the suspects would receive rights “virtually identical to the rights we provide to our military members”.

However, critics likened the military tribunal, where the six defendants are likely to face trial, as a “kangaroo court”.

Last week, the CIA admitted interrogators used “waterboarding”, a technique widely perceived as torture, on Mohammed shortly after the September 11 attacks.

Mohammed was among 15 so-called “high-value detainees” who were held at length by the CIA in secret overseas prisons before being handed over to the military in 2006.

In Guantánamo Bay hearings that have been attacked as unfair, he allegedly confessed to the September 11 attacks and a string of other terror plots last March.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” Mohammed said in a statement read during the session, according to hearing transcripts released by the Pentagon.

The other five suspects are Mohammed al-Qahtani; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of al-Qaida; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who has been accused of being Mohammed’s right-hand man; Baluchi’s assistant, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi; and Walid bin Attash, who investigators believe selected and trained some of the hijackers.

All six were charged with murder, terrorism and violating laws of war.

Officials plan to hold the trial in a specially constructed court at Guantánamo that will allow lawyers, journalists and officials in but leave victims’ relatives and others to watch through closed-circuit TV.

The men will be tried in the military tribunal system that was set up by the US administration after the September 11 attacks. The system has been widely criticised for its rules on legal representation for suspects, hearings behind closed doors and allegations of the abuse of detainees at Guantánamo.

Reprieve, a legal charity which supports prisoners on death row in the US and has acted for Guantánamo detainees, has condemned the decision to seek the death penalty as “absolutely the wrong decision”.

Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, said: “Military commissions in Guantánamo Bay are not about justice, they are about politics. The proceedings these men would face are deeply flawed. Someone could be put to death based on secret or third or fourth-hand evidence. That is not the American way.”

He added: “What will the US achieve by hauling these men before a kangaroo court and executing them? Anyone can see the hypocrisy of espousing human rights, then trampling on them. We will infuriate our allies who firmly oppose the death penalty. We will anger the world. The most effective counter-terrorism strategy is the enforcement of human rights.”

via//Guardian Unlimited

U.S. Helps Pakistan Expand Commando Unit

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military advisers are helping the Pakistanis double the size of their elite commando force in an ongoing effort to blunt the rising threat of terrorist groups and anti-government militants operating in the country’s unruly tribal areas, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.

The American military presence is fewer than 100 personnel, said Mike Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, and is focused on what he called “targeted training.” That includes assisting Pakistan’s Special Service Group and teaching specialized fighting techniques, such as helicopter assaults.

“It’s been ongoing for a while,” Vickers said during a meeting with reporters. “They’re expanding their capability substantially — they’re essentially doubling their force. So we’re helping them with that expansion, and trying to improve their capabilities at the same time. There’s also some aviation training. It’s been ongoing for several years.”

The number of U.S. forces in Pakistan is a sensitive issue. Many Pakistanis openly support or sympathize with al-Qaida, the Taliban or militant groups and would view a sizable American presence in their country as an unwelcome intrusion.

That means the United States won’t conduct military operations on its own inside Pakistan unless President Pervez Musharraf’s government requests such direct support.

“We have to be careful conducting operations in a sovereign country, particularly one that’s a friend of ours and one that has given us a lot of support,” Dell Dailey, the State Department’s counterterrorism chief, said last month. “The blowback would be pretty serious.”

U.S. intelligence believes al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is in the tribal area, a large swath of rugged land that runs along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Defense officials told Congress on Wednesday that al-Qaida is operating in safe havens in “under-governed regions” of Pakistan — posing a direct threat to Europe, the United States and the Pakistan government itself. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in written testimony that the next attack on the U.S. would likely be launched by terrorists in that region.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he believes that Pakistan understands the threat al-Qaida poses to its government, but is sensitive to an American military presence. Gates has said the U.S. remains ready, willing and able to provide military support and conduct joint operations with the Pakistanis.

Until Pakistan “sort of gets on top of the whole situation and what their needs are, I think we’re kind of in a standby mode at this point,” he said.

The top American commander in the region, Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, was in Pakistan in January meeting with senior Pakistani officials, including the new army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani. Following the meeting, Fallon told reporters that Pakistani officials were more willing to seek U.S. assistance.

Mullen is scheduled to travel to Pakistan later this week, Vickers said.

Echoing testimony delivered to Congress on Tuesday by U.S. intelligence chief Mike McConnell, Vickers said the unsettled tribal region “remains a source of sanctuary for the al-Qaida senior leadership.”

Vickers gave the Pakistani military high marks for keeping al-Qaida in check in Pakistan’s cities and other “settled” locations.

“They have been less effective in the tribal areas of western Pakistan, and that’s the problem we face right now,” Vickers said. “It’s getting worse in Pakistan, I think, it’s fair to say.”

If U.S. forces teamed up with the Pakistanis, their support would be “by, with and through” the Pakistani troops, Vickers said. The phrase refers to a key tenet of unconventional warfare and underscores the disguised approach the United States would take.

“We have certain capabilities that we can do in a low-visibility manner that can enhance the operations of Pakistani forces,” Vickers said. Those capabilities could include night vision devices, air transport, and sophisticated gear for gathering intelligence and conducting surveillance.

Vickers, a former Green Beret and ex-CIA agent, took over last year as the Pentagon’s top special operations official. He has substantial experience in Afghanistan. In 1984, at age 31, he engineered the clandestine arming of the Afghan rebels who drove the Soviet Union out of their country nearly a quarter century ago in what was the largest covert action in CIA history.

Then, as now, Vickers maintains that success depends not on a large U.S. military presence, but on the right mix of military backing, economic support, and political will.

“Surges of forces create important but temporary effects,” Vickers said. “I don’t think we’re going to defeat the insurgency (in Afghanistan) over the long haul with a large foreign presence. I think substantial foreign assistance and continued engagement is critical. But in the long run it will be the Afghans that do it with our support.”

Army Gen. Dan McNeill, the top U.S. officer in Afghanistan, on Wednesday challenged the widely held view that the insurgency there is worsening.

Vickers had a different view.

“The insurgency has certainly picked up in Afghanistan in the past couple of years, and the link with narcotics has made for a challenge,” he said, referring to the country’s escalating production of opium, the main ingredient in heroin.

Afghanistan cultivated a record 477,000 acres of opium in 2007, a 14 percent increase over the previous year. Total production, spurred by unusually high rainfall, increased even further, by 34 percent, according to a new report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

“Defeating insurgencies takes a period of time,” Vickers said. “I am still very optimistic about the long haul in Afghanistan.”

via//Associated Press

Backing Musharraf hurting US: Pakistan’s Khan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Continued U.S. backing of President Pervez Musharraf risks alienating Pakistanis and increasing extremism in the nuclear-armed Islamic country, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan said on Tuesday.

Khan said he came to the United States “to try and convince the politicians in Washington that the policy they have adopted is a disaster for Pakistan and it is a disaster for America.”

His main message to senior U.S. lawmakers including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was that Washington must apply more pressure to make Musharraf reinstate the senior Pakistani justices who were sacked under emergency rule late last year.

“Sadly, the U.S. administration talked about elections, but did not talk about the reinstatement of the judges, which is the key to holding free and fair elections,” said Khan.

“This flawed policy has not only increased anti-Americanism in Pakistan but it has also inadvertently fueled terrorism in the country,” he added.

Khan’s small Tehrik-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice) party is boycotting February 18 elections, which he accused Musharraf of planning to rig to ensure a compliant parliament.

Khan, who led Pakistan to victory in the 1992 Cricket World Cup and founded his own party with Islamic overtones a decade ago, was among thousands of opponents and lawyers Musharraf detained after he imposed emergency rule on November 3.

Although the politicians were released and emergency rule was formally lifted in mid-December, the Supreme Court Chief Justice and other sacked judges have not been reinstated and remain a popular rallying point, Khan said.

He said President George W. Bush’s backing for Musharraf, regarded as a valued U.S. ally in the fight against al Qaeda, is compounding Pakistan’s problems.

“The strategy should be that only a genuinely elected government should be able to deal with terrorism by mobilizing the people and marginalize the terrorists,” said Khan.

Musharraf took power in a military coup in 1999 but was embraced by Washington after the September 11 attacks.

via//Reuters, Boston Globe