President-elect Barack Obama says that Afghanistan is "the right war." "It's time to heed the call from General [David] McKiernan and others for more troops," Obama said in late October, referring to the US commander in Afghanistan. "That's why I'd send at least two or three additional combat brigades to Afghanistan." He's coupled that with tough talk about hitting Al Qaeda anywhere, including next door in Pakistan. "If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act, and we will take them out," Obama said in the second of his three debates with John McCain. "We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda."
Despite such rhetoric, however, nearly two years ago Obama began assembling a cast of experts steeped in the intricacies of South Asian affairs, and they have provided him with a far richer and more sophisticated view of the Afghanistan-Pakistan tangle than emerged in the campaign. "The format of presidential debates does not lend itself to a nuanced discussion," says Bruce Riedel, wryly. A former CIA specialist on South Asia who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Riedel led an advisory task force on Afghanistan-Pakistan for Obama. Interviews with Riedel and other Obama advisers--who made it clear they were not speaking for the president-elect--suggest that Obama intends to reorient US policy in the region significantly, and a key plank in that reorientation includes negotiations with the enemy. But assertions by the US command and the Obama team that we can both "surge" and negotiate overlook the glaring reality that sending more troops into the Afghan quagmire and urging the Pakistani government to escalate the war it is fighting against its own people will make the crisis worse, not better.
The outlines of Obama's strategy, which aren't likely to be articulated fully until after the inauguration, include a repudiation of the strident "global war on terror" rhetoric that marked President Bush's years and that only inflamed Muslim attitudes toward the United States. Campaign sloganeering aside, Obama may try to curtail the indiscriminate use of air power in Afghanistan against often ill-defined targets ("just air raiding villages and killing civilians" was how he put it in 2007), though how he'll do that while adding more troops and escalating the war isn't clear. He'll slow down, if not halt, the provocative cross-border attacks into Pakistani tribal areas against insurgent bases, even as he reserves the right to hit bin Laden. The incoming administration will take steps to strengthen the fledgling civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari in Pakistan against the machinations of the Pakistani army and its Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), which maintains covert ties to a wide range of extremist groups, including the Taliban. And it will support a major boost in economic aid to both countries.
Nearly all of Obama's advisers--along with members of a parallel task force at the Center for American Progress, a think tank likely to be the source of many Obama appointees--insist that a central part of a new US policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan must be to facilitate a peace process between Pakistan and India, its giant neighbor to the east. For decades, Pakistan's military and the ISI have lent covert support to Islamist terrorist groups, in Afghanistan and in the disputed territory of Kashmir, as part of a strategy of asymmetric warfare against India. A Pakistan-India accord would strengthen Pakistan's civilian government and undercut the rationale for the army and ISI's ties to the Taliban, allied Afghan Islamist warlords and Kashmiri Islamist militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, suspected of involvement in the Mumbai terror attack. Wendy Chamberlin, US ambassador to Pakistan on 9/11 and a member of Obama's Pakistan task force, is a strong supporter of efforts to forge a Pakistan-India accord. "I argued for it [in 2002]," she says. And I got dismissed."
Many of Obama's advisers are open to the notion of bringing Iran into the mix, pointing out that Iran was helpful in 2001 in building the original coalition behind Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Iran's role was also highlighted in a September report by a private working group led by Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, co-chair of the 9/11 Commission. They suggested connecting Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Iran in a regional economic community, concluding, "The U.S. should...reconsider its opposition to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline project." Tariq Ali, a British-Pakistani scholar and author of The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power, has called for creation of a South Asian Union to facilitate a regional economic resurgence.
Even as they favor eventual talks with "reconcilable" elements of the Taliban movement, some of Obama's advisers and Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, defend their call for a surge by arguing that their first priority is to stabilize Afghanistan militarily. "Trying to divide your enemy is always a smart thing to do," says Riedel. "But until we break the momentum that the Taliban has today, where they feel that they're the winner, I don't see that you have any credible chance of persuading even a small number of Taliban to break. They think they're winning, and if you look at the numbers, you can make a pretty convincing case."
In the first ten months of this year, 255 US and NATO troops were killed in Afghanistan, more than all those who died in the first four years of the war in Afghanistan put together. Entire swaths of southern Afghanistan, in provinces along the Pakistan border south and east of Kabul, are controlled by the Taliban and their allies. Lately they have been able to strike with impunity even within Kabul, the Afghan capital. The CIA has been warning for more than two years that Afghanistan was spinning out of control. A forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate, representing the views of sixteen US intelligence agencies, warns that Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral" and, according to the New York Times, "casts serious doubt on the ability of the Afghan government to stem the rise in the Taliban's influence there." The enemy has also evolved as a fighting force. Already by 2006, according to a report for West Point by retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Taliban were fielding battalion-size units of more than 400 fighters. In some provinces the Taliban and their allies are creating a parallel state, appointing governors and provincial officials and establishing Sharia-style courts.
The counterinsurgency is made all the more difficult by the nature of the enemy, an exceedingly complex, multiheaded Islamist insurgency in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It goes far beyond Mullah Omar's Taliban and Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda. "Calling it the Taliban is a failure to understand what's going on," says Seth Jones, an expert on Afghanistan and terrorism at the RAND Corporation. "It's a movement, not an organization," explains Chas Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council and a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia. "What we conveniently have been labeling 'the Taliban' is a phenomenon that includes a lot of people simply on the Islamic right." In all, the US military has identified at least fourteen separate insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, and according to Riedel, there are as many as fifty separate Islamist formations in neighboring Pakistan [see Anand Gopal, page 17, for more on the insurgency].
At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Anthony Cordesman, a sober-minded, conservative military analyst, sounded the alarm. "We are running out of time," he wrote. "We currently are losing, and the trends have been consistent since 2004...we face a crisis in the field--right now." The situation, he said, is far more urgent than anything that can be solved by economic aid or nation-building efforts. "At least during 2009-10, priority must be given to warfighting needs." McKiernan, the US commander, has called for at least four more brigades, perhaps as many as 25,000 troops. He warned that the mission in Afghanistan will require a "sustained commitment" lasting many years, and the United States has announced plans to help more than double the size of the Afghan National Army (ANA), to 134,000 troops. "This is a decades-long project," says Ashley Tellis, a former National Security Council specialist on South Asia, who adds that it will take at least ten years before the United States can withdraw and let the ANA fight its own battles. "The transition alone will take a decade, until you can switch to the ANA," he says.
But surging troops into Afghanistan would be akin to sending the fabled 600 into the valley of death. As in Vietnam, tens of thousands more troops will only provide the Taliban with many more targets, sparking Pashtun nationalist resistance and inspiring more recruits for the insurgency. Advocates of sending additional US forces into this maelstrom have yet to articulate exactly how another 25,000 can turn the tide. Tariq Ali says that pacifying the country would require at least 200,000 more troops, beyond the 62,000 US and NATO forces there now, and that it would necessitate laying waste huge parts of Afghanistan. Many Afghan watchers consider the war unwinnable, and they point out that in the 1980s the Soviet Union, with far more troops, had engaged in a brutal nine-year counterinsurgency war--and lost. British Ambassador to Afghanistan Sherard Cowper-Coles has warned against precisely the escalation that Obama and Petraeus advocate. Sending more troops, he says, "would have perverse effects: it would identify us even more strongly as an occupation force and would multiply the targets [for the insurgents]." A top British general, Brig. Mark Carleton-Smith, says, "We're not going to win this war.... It's about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic threat."
"What began as a punitive raid aimed at beheading Al Qaeda and chastising its Afghan household staff has somehow morphed--with no real discussion or debate--into a prolonged effort to pacify Afghanistan and transform its society," says Freeman. "This moving of the goal posts gratified neoconservatives and liberal interventionists alike. Our new purpose became giving Afghanistan a centrally directed state--something it had never had. We now fight to exclude reactionary Muslims from a role in governing the new Afghanistan." Freeman suggests that this is an untenable goal, and that it is time to co-opt local authorities and enlist regional allies in search of a settlement.
Those who insist the war is winnable, including US and NATO commanders, also say that it can't be won without taking the war across the border to Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas, an escalation that's already under way. But this poses a whole new set of problems. The situation in Pakistan is only slightly less dire than in Afghanistan. The country emerged this year from nearly a decade under a US-backed military dictatorship and faces a daunting set of challenges. A multipronged insurgency based in the tribal areas is spreading its influence into the neighboring North-West Frontier Province, and it has reached all the way to Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, where assassinations and suicide bombings occur regularly. The new government is weak and divided, with little or no control over the Pakistani army and ISI. And its economy is virtually bankrupt: with inflation at 25 percent and vast unemployment, the country is desperately seeking $10 billion to $15 billion in immediate financial aid.
Yet the fragile Pakistani state is being pushed to the breaking point by the Bush administration. Since August, nearly two dozen CIA Predator missile attacks in tribal areas have inflamed much of the country against the United States. Already, before the spate of attacks, public opinion polls showed that 86 percent of Pakistanis say the goal of the United States is to "weaken and divide the Islamic world," 84 percent say the United States is a greater threat than Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and 89 percent oppose Pakistan's cooperation with the US "war on terror." Many Pakistanis blame the United States for its fifty-year record of propping up military dictators, which makes it hard for the United States to support even its allies, such as President Zardari. "Right now, we're kind of the kiss of death," says Marvin Weinbaum, a scholar at the Middle East Institute who was part of Obama's Pakistan task force.
Since 9/11, Pakistan has received more than $11 billion in US aid, but almost all of it has flowed into the coffers of Pakistan's army and ISI, with little or no oversight. According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, between 2002 and 2007 only 10 percent of US aid was devoted to development and humanitarian assistance. That avalanche of cash to the military has allowed the ISI free rein to support its network of Islamist extremists, which it has built up systematically since the 1980s. As long as ISI helped nab an occasional Al Qaeda bigwig, even as it tolerated or supported the Afghan Taliban and other Islamist radicals, the United States went along. "We've got to put an end to this dirty game, where Pakistan uses surrogate terrorist groups," says Chamberlin.
Even those fighting the war have difficulty distinguishing friends from enemies. Michael Vickers, assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflicts, who oversees a Pentagon anti-terrorism force, isn't sure. Asked if ISI is on our side or not, he pauses. "It's complicated. I'll put it that way," he says finally. "It's not black and white." Last summer Zardari attempted to bring ISI under the control of the civilian-run Interior Ministry, but the idea was quickly shot down. "That lasted eight hours," says Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars, a book about the CIA and Afghanistan that Obama was recently seen carrying. "Somebody told the ISI about the announcement, and they said, 'No, that won't be happening.'" Then, in the fall, Pakistan's army chief of staff installed a new set of generals atop the ISI, though there was widespread skepticism that the move reflected a real policy change by the army.
Yet Pakistani attitudes are slowly changing, even inside the military, analysts say. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto a year ago and the massive bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad in September alarmed many generals about the threat to Pakistan from its Islamist creations. "Pakistan has had a tolerance and a see-no-evil attitude toward the Taliban," says Riedel. "But the Afghan Taliban has also created a Pakistani Taliban, which is a Frankenstein the Pakistani army can't control. So it still has relations with parent Taliban, but the infant Taliban is now increasingly a threat to the cohesion of the Pakistan state, and it's a physical threat to the Pakistani army and even to the ISI. This is the classic case of a covert action program getting out of control."
As a result, of late the army is scrambling to control a crisis of its own making, without much success. It has launched a three-pronged military offensive in the tribal areas and nearby districts, but--having spent a half-century preparing for a tank war with India--the Pakistani army is not well equipped to fight a counterinsurgency war. And in the tribal areas the Pakistani army, which is mostly Punjabi, is seen as a foreign force by local Pashtuns, while many Pakistani officers and enlisted men are loath to fight against their compatriots in what they see as America's war. Both the military and the Pakistan government have tried to build tribal militias to combat the Taliban, but so far this effort hasn't paid off. And the government has tried to encourage the holding of tribal jirgas, or councils, to generate grassroots opposition to the dominance of Taliban-like elements in and around the tribal areas. That, too, hasn't worked well, since the Taliban have engaged in murderous counterattacks, including gruesome killings and suicide bomb attacks aimed at the jirgas. Many in Pakistan are operating under outdated assumptions about the tribes in the northwest, says Christine Fair, an independent expert on South Asia who took part in the Center for American Progress study. "The jirgas used to be made up of secular tribal leaders," she says. "Now, they meet in mosques and madrassas." Since the US-backed anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s, madrassas, or religious schools, have become factories and recruiting areas for militant Islamists.
Part of the solution, stressed by all of Obama's aides, is more economic support to both countries, targeted toward building infrastructure, improving agriculture, providing microcredit for small business and constructing schools and clinics. One member of Obama's task force on Pakistan is Jonah Blank, a senior staff member at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who is a key aide to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. Blank was a driving force behind the Biden-Lugar-Obama bill to provide $1.5 billion a year for ten years in economic support to Pakistan. A parallel effort for Afghanistan, including what Obama calls a Marshall Plan-style mobilization, is also under way. "Call it a democracy dividend," says Blank. "The civilians can say, 'See? We deliver.'"
But economic development takes a long time to be felt, and the crisis is now. If the wars in Pakistan and Afghanistan aren't going to be resolved militarily--and they won't be--the solution to both crises, now inextricably linked, must be a diplomatic one: first, negotiations with many of the forces opposing the two governments and the US presence in the region, and, second, progress toward a Pakistan-India accord.
In Pakistan, the Zardari government and the Parliament have strongly endorsed talks with the Taliban, better organized than the faltering accords announced in 2004 and 2006. In Afghanistan, Karzai declared in mid-November that he is open to direct talks with Mullah Omar. And in late October, tribal elders and dozens of Pakistani and Afghan officials convened a two-day "mini-jirga" intended to be the start of a dialogue with the Taliban. Owais Ghani, governor of the North-West Frontier Province and a leader of the secular, nationalist ANP party, said at the mini-jirga: "We will sit, we will talk to them, they will listen to us, and we will come to some sort of solution."
Karzai's offer to Mullah Omar, which was unprecedented, followed two years of quiet discussions in South Asia, Europe and the Middle East among Pakistani and Afghan officials, former leaders of the Taliban and members of Saudi Arabia's royal family, including King Abdullah. Among the participants: Karzai's brother and Nawaz Sharif, a Pakistani politician with close ties to the religious establishment who spent years in exile in Saudi Arabia. According to news reports, London and Paris provided logistical and diplomatic support for the contacts. The Pakistani daily Dawn reported that French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner is supporting talks between Karzai and "moderates within the Taliban," and he has invited Iran and Pakistan to Paris to participate in talks on Afghanistan.
So far, Mullah Omar has rejected Karzai's offer of direct talks, and the Taliban continues to insist on the withdrawal of US and NATO forces before any deal. A deal with the Islamist insurgency, or at least enough of it to make it stick, is an exceedingly difficult undertaking, and most of Obama's advisers are skeptical that it can work. India, Iran and Russia, which supported the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in the decade before 9/11, won't look with favor on a US-Saudi effort to allow the Taliban back in power, so their concerns will have to be taken into account. The fragmented nature of the Taliban movment makes it hard to figure out whom, exactly, to negotiate with. And though parts of the movement may be pragmatic enough to strike a deal, other parts are likely to fight to the bitter end.
The Obama team is far more supportive of an urgent diplomatic initiative to bring Pakistan and India toward an accord. But after the Mumbai attack, with its potential to bring the two countries back to the brink of war, that is a task that has just become far more difficult. "This requires great subtlety and a degree of sophistication that, I have to say, is not the norm in American diplomacy," says Riedel. "It calls for a stretch. I think the way to start is with very, very quiet conversations between the United States and India, and I think that the new relationship that we have with India gives us a better platform than ever before." India, Riedel says, is worried that the United States will seek a deal with Pakistan at India's expense. But closer US-India ties, cemented by a recent deal over India's nuclear program, give Washington new credibility to assure New Delhi that its interests in Kashmir and Afghanistan, where India is worried about a Taliban resurgence, will be protected.
India is deeply involved in Afghanistan now, and its role there is causing a degree of paranoia in Pakistan. India, along with Iran and Russia, helped oust the Pakistan-backed Taliban in 2001. India has provided $1.2 billion in aid to Afghanistan since then, and it has opened consulates in four Afghan cities that, Pakistan fears, could be bases for Indian intelligence. It is against that threat, historically, that Pakistan has supported right-wing Islamists. But India is a power with global ambitions, a thriving economy and powerful armed forces, and it is becoming clear in Pakistan that it can no longer compete with India, which is causing an outbreak of realism inside the Pakistani army. Ashley Tellis, now of the Carnegie Endowment, has had extensive contacts with Pakistan's military. "The mainstream of the Pakistani army no longer sees India as the main threat," he says. "There may be some of the far right, among the Islamists, who believe that India is the central danger." But Tellis says they are a minority. "To protect their institutional interests, they know that they must have a rapprochement with India."
The opportunity for a dialogue with elements of the Taliban and the possibility of a peace process between Pakistan and India constitute the true exit strategy for the United States in Afghanistan. But to nail down a deal with the insurgents, the United States will have to offer them what they most want, namely, a timetable for the withdrawal of US and NATO forces.
"What the insurgents do seem to agree about is that foreigners shouldn't run their country, and that the country should be run according to the principles of Islam," says Chas Freeman.
"We need to recall the reason we went to Afghanistan in the first place," he says. "Our purpose was...to deny the use of Afghan territory to terrorists with global reach. That was and is an attainable objective. It is a limited objective that can be achieved at reasonable cost. We must return to a ruthless focus on this objective. We cannot afford to pursue goals, however worthy, that contradict or undermine it. The reform of Afghan politics, society and mores must wait."
Meanwhile, the stage is set. The governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan want peace talks with Islamist insurgents and the Taliban. Outside powers, led by Saudi Arabia and quietly supported by Britain and France, are facilitating behind-the-scenes contacts between the Taliban and key Afghan and Pakistani leaders. Neighboring states, including India, Russia and Iran, while hardly enamored of the Taliban, might underwrite a truce. And the possibility of a regional economic pact linking Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India could tie it all together.
Al Qaeda, pushed into remote redoubts in Pakistan's mountains, is most certainly still plotting against the United States. But many, perhaps most, of its fair-weather allies on the Islamic right, including the Taliban, might very well be persuaded to make a final break with Osama bin Laden and his like if they can get a better deal, including a share of power in Kabul. Will President Obama seize the moment? Will he have the courage to offer an end to US occupation of Afghanistan if the Taliban-led movement abandons its ties to Al Qaeda?
Obama's Afghan Dilemma
How Obama should fight al Qaeda and its allies
Peter Bergen:
U.S. needs stronger understanding of terrorist networks
U.S. leaders must realize that Afghan policy is long-term and regional, he says
He urges help for Pakistani counterinsurgency efforts, settlement of Kashmir dispute
Bergen also says new president should solicit matching funds from Gulf nations
By Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst
Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst. His most recent book is "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader." This commentary is based in part, on a paper Bergen wrote for the New America Foundation, where he is a senior fellow, and an article he wrote for The New Republic in September, "A Man, A Plan, Afghanistan."
(CNN) -- The Mumbai attacks remind the world that the intertwined problems of Pakistan, India and Afghanistan will be the most extreme foreign policy challenge that President Obama will face as he assumes office.
To dismantle al Qaeda and its allied jihadist groups, such as the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba that carried out the Mumbai attacks according to Indian and American officials, and also to bring peace to the entire South Asian region, the Obama administration should take the following measures:
1. Fight al Qaeda and its allies
Seven years after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government must continue to improve its understanding of terrorist networks throughout the region to identify the linkages between jihadist groups from the Taliban to al Qaeda to the Kashmiri militant organizations such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba that threaten not only the South Asian regional order but also global peace.
One of the building blocks of such a database should be the identification of suicide attackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which could be accomplished using DNA samples, accounts on jihadist Web sites, good intelligence work and media reports.
The mapping of the social networks of terrorists should also include identification of the clerical mentors of suicide bombers, as it seems likely that only a relatively small number have convinced their followers of the religious necessity of martyrdom. Armed with such intelligence, the United States and NATO could ask Pakistan, where most of the suicide attackers originate, to rein in especially egregious clerics.
2. It is a regional problem requiring a regional solution
A careful study by the United Nations released last September found that suicide attackers in Afghanistan are mostly drawn from religious schools across the border in Pakistan. In 2007, there were more than 50 suicide attacks in Pakistan and some 140 in Afghanistan, many of them carried out by the Taliban.
The United States must re-conceptualize its Afghan policy as a regional problem. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are embedded in a sea of ethnic Pashtuns who live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.
In fact, there are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than there are in Afghanistan -- some 40 million altogether, according to the CIA World Factbook-- making them the largest ethnic grouping in the world without a state.
The next U.S. president should take every opportunity to make it clear that America's commitment to Afghanistan is not just until the next election cycle, but for years to come.
The American public, which understands that Afghanistan's reversion into a failed state would be a prelude to al Qaeda regaining a haven in the country, will support this approach.
Pakistan is holding on to its radical groups to assert de facto control over Afghanistan should the Americans withdraw; only a long-term U.S. commitment will persuade Pakistan's government to end its tolerance for the militant groups headquartered on the country's western border.
To help combat al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan, the United States has earmarked $750 million in development funds for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the seven tribal agencies along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, and $400 million to bolster the Frontier Corps, the local paramilitary force.
This is a good start, but it may be premature: The FATA is in the grip of a violent insurgency, and even the less violent agencies, such as Khyber, are unsafe. Reconstruction in such a context may not be possible.
A further problem is that the FATA, arguably one of the most strategically important places on the planet, is an information black hole, off-limits to all but locally based journalists. The Pakistani government should be encouraged to lift its de facto ban on travel there by international journalists -- as well as the similar bans in effect regarding Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).
To help tamp down the insurgency in FATA and other areas of the NWFP, America should help the Pakistanis build up their counterinsurgency capabilities. The Pakistani army is built for a land war with India, not for fighting terrorists and insurgents.
Pakistani officers should be encouraged to attend counterinsurgency courses at American war colleges, and the United States should support such courses at Pakistan's National Defense University. None of this would cost a lot of U.S. dollars and would yield potentially large results, as the new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has done in Iraq.
Small amounts of U.S. aid in support of de-radicalization programs for jailed Pakistani militants could also yield large returns. Such programs that use clerics, psychiatrists and even former militants to work with jailed terrorists have had some success in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Singapore, but have not been tried in Pakistan.
Pakistani officials would benefit from learning about best practices in countries that have already spent years building up their own counter-radicalization programs.
3. A regional grand bargain
The United States must also put serious diplomatic effort into settling the Kashmir dispute, which the Indians and Pakistanis have been moving forward on for the past several years with scant American support. Kashmir is a core grievance for many Pakistani Muslims and a training ground for jihadist terrorists, some of whom end up working with al Qaeda.
An equitable Kashmir settlement would curtail militancy and likely lead those elements of the Pakistani establishment who aid Kashmiri jihad groups allied with al Qaeda and the Taliban to withdraw their support.
As part of a regional grand bargain aimed at satisfying Pakistan, the United States should encourage Afghanistan to formally recognize the Durand Line of 1893 that demarcated Afghanistan's border with the British Raj and is the de facto border with Pakistan today.
Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line and so technically claims territory deep inside Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. For Afghan leaders to continually complain about Pakistani incursions over a border they don't formally acknowledge as the international border makes no sense.
Finally, a regional grand bargain could be accomplished in part by the new U.S. president convening a meeting of key concerned states, as happened at the Bonn Conference in late 2001, and which set the course for the Afghan political compact that held up reasonably well until the past year or so.
The key players include Iran, Russia, India, China, Pakistan and NATO countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, all of which have an interest in preventing the continued rise of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Such a conference would have the side benefit that Pakistan would finally get the message that the continued existence of a haven for militants on its western border is intolerable to the international community, including key allies such as China and the UK.
4. Matching funds from regional partners
The new president should solicit matching funds from the Gulf nations, which are now sitting on one of the largest wealth transfers in history in the form of windfall oil profits. Those countries have so far done almost nothing to help the poorest Muslim country in the world.
In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia matched U.S. expenditures in Afghanistan dollar for dollar in the effort to defeat Soviet occupiers. It should do at least as much today to help with reconstruction, as should its neighbors. After all, the Gulf countries are belatedly beginning to realize that they are also threatened by the rise of global militant jihadists.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peter Bergen. His letter to the president about rescuing the war in Afghanistan appeared last month on CNN.com.
India-Pakistan conflict to cause a severe crisis: US think-tank
A top US think-tank warned the incoming Obama administration on Friday not to allow a military conflict between India and Pakistan as it would generate a grave and severe crisis.The Washington-based Brookings Institution also warned that a failure against the Taliban in Afghanistan would create serious problems for the United States and the international community.“A complete state failure in Pakistan would generate a grave and severe crisis, as would any serious military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” said a memo the think-tank has written for the Obama administration which assumes control on Jan 20.The “memo to the president” by Brookings security expert Vanda Felbab-Brown painted a bleak picture of a growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, an Al Qaeda stronghold in that country’s mountainous border with Pakistan and of troubling Pakistani political and economic weakness.
Across the border in Afghanistan, failure against the Taliban would indicate how limited the United States and the international community can be in helping countries achieve security and development,” it said.
The memo reminded the Obama team that they needed to match security measures with efforts to build the rule of law and achieve sustained economic development in Afghanistan, and to boost security in Pakistan.
Mr Obama vowed during his election campaign to boost US troop levels in Afghanistan, convince Nato allies to increase their troop contributions and to press for better governance in Afghanistan.He also threatened to hit alleged terrorist targets inside Pakistan if the Pakistani government failed to remove them.There are 65,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including more than 30,000 from the United States, which plans to send 20,000 additional troops.The memo urged Mr Obama to step up counterinsurgency aid and training for the Pakistani military and undertake military action against major jihadist targets in Fata. But she also urged him to avoid civilian casualties.“The war in Afghanistan is not being won,” the memo warned. “Tensions are running high between India and Pakistan … Your administration will need to deal urgently with many interrelated dimensions of the crisis” in South Asia.
Ms Felbab-Brown noted that the Afghan people were questioning the performances of the government of President Hamid Karzai and were “deeply troubled by the growing insecurity, the weakness and corruption of the government, the rise in criminality and the lack of rule of law.” Across the border in Pakistan, the Taliban and Al Qaeda were now threatening the security of Pakistan itself, she warned.“The current tensions between India and Pakistan easily could escalate into a proxy war in Kashmir or Afghanistan, if not into a direct military confrontation,” she warned.
“Highly dangerous in itself, an escalation would—as before—divert Pakistan’s military resources away from its border with Afghanistan and weaken the government’s resolve to take on the jihadist groups.”The author advised the Obama administration to seek multilateral engagement with Pakistan, noting that the Pakistani civilian leadership of President Asif Ali Zardari had repeatedly indicated its willingness to reach accommodation with India and counter the terrorist threats facing both countries. The memo has the following recommendations for the Obama administration:
Increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, seeking a similar contribution from US allies and pressing the Afghan government to meet more of the needs of its population and tackle corruption and the opium trade.
It also urges an increase in non-military aid to Pakistan while holding it accountable for disrupting Taliban safe havens and providing security along the border with Afghanistan.
The memo notes that the Biden-Lugar bill that would commit $15 billion in development aid to Pakistan over 10 years provides a vehicle for assistance. While beefing up economic assistance, the Obama administration needs to stress to Pakistan that jihadist terrorism now threatens its own security and that combating terrorism is in its own national interest.
PAKHTUNKHWA VS POLITICIANS !!!
Mwaqar
I was shocked to read some news reports and statements of PML(N) Leaders over the name Pakhtunkhwa and it seems like they are generating new issue of hate and divide in this province. Lets not make it a political issue. one should not politicize an issue for own interest.
I see no reason for denying Pukhtoons the legitimate name of their province on the grounds that this will increase ethnic tension. On the contrary, if anything, it will defuse the existing tension. Lets not forget what happened to East Pakistan when West Pak denied them their right of Bengali language. The problem is Pakistani politicians never learn from history, these politicians needs to understand that Pakistann’ s imposition of Urdu on east Pakistan was a mistake. It seems like some opportunist politicians of PML(N) IN THE province are trying to create political tension over Pakhtunkhwa. People in Pakhtunkhwa wants to be recognized as a nationality in their own right and for this they want their living place to be given their name Pakhtunkhwa. Why can Punjabis have Punjab, Sindhis Sindh , Baloochis Balouchistan , but Pakhtoons can't have Pakhtoonkhwa ???why Pakhtoon are being treated like occupied Palestine who will breakaway at the first chance...? and if do decid to break off , trust me with all its might, Pakistan can't prevent that. Pakistan couldn't beat Bengalis into submission and it can never force Pakhtoon into submission. Its stupid that some people who consider themselves super patriotic imply that Pakhtoons are any less patriotic than themselves. Let me remind those self declared super Pakistanis that Punjab did not have any option except joining Pakistan. Punjab had to chose between joining Pakistan or cleaning after the Hindus. But we Pakhtoon had a choice to join our brothers in Afghanistan, with whom we share not only our ancestry but our culture, our history, our tradition, and our language, but Pakhtoons decided to stay with Pakistan .
How can someone from Punjab or Sindh or any other part of Pakistan give us a lecture on patriotism..? I think these people are the one who needs a lesson in patriotism101, because by suppressing minorities right and denying them their identity they are weakening Pakistan NOT Pakhtoons.. Its tragic that Pakistani politicians did NOT learn any lesson from history. Bengalis were at the forefront in the struggle for Pakistan but when Pakistan suppressed them and denied them their rights and their identity what happened ..? We all know the end result. By calling Bengalis traitors because they demanded their rights they were converted into traitors. Alas we could learn from history because if we don't , history is doomed to repeat itself. Acceptance of history is a good sign, no wonder, but learning no lesson from it is unforgivable. Pease someone help me to Understand how renaming NWFP is gonna break Pakistan or divide people in this province? and please don't give me the crap about patriotism and Islamic unity. Whats wrong with Pakhtoons having their identity in Pakistan like Punjabis, Sindhis, and Balouchis..? it’s the politicians who are making mess over the name not the people living in this province. Sindh, punjab and Balochistan are border provinces too why they are not called ,east-south,north-east or south west provinces why these provinces are call with identity of race reside in side that territory? We are unanimous on one thing that people from this province are all pathan if all are not Pashtun. So please take back the British name and give us our own name. The usage of Pakhtunkhwa in Pushtu poetry dates back to the middle ages. The word is a combination of two words - that is Pakhtun and Khwa. Pakhtun or Pashtun is a noun while Khwa means side. Culturally there is no doubt that the land was called Pakhtunkhwa in Pushtu literature since 15th century .The word Pakhtunkhwa was also used in the modern poetry by contemporary poets like Qanaldar Momand (1930-2003) long before it was suggested as the nomenclature for the NWFP.
The name NWFP is certainly a misnomer today since it does not satisfy the aspirations of the people of the province. Three of the four provinces the Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, got their own identity either through their environment or inhabitants. But the NWFP has been named neither after the historical and cultural background of the inhabitants nor derived its name from environment. Since the name (NWFP)does not reflect the true ethnic identity of its inhabitants, therefore a demand for its change is a logical consequence but unfortunately the matter has turned into a controversial issue again by so called politicians.
Those opposing the word Pakhtunkhwa argue that the name will not represent non Pashto speaking population of the province. The argument is unjustified and impractical. There is hardly any country in the world which does not have ethnic minorities. Even in Pakistan ;Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan have large number of people who do not speak the language their names ostensibly suggest. The 74 percent population of NWFP speaks Pashto as mother language in present day NWFP and the proportion will greatly increase when FATA will ultimately be merged in the province, choosing a proper name for the province is the fundamental right of its residents. It would help strengthen the federation besides removing the sense of deprivation among people of the smallest province of the country.
It is time that politicians belonging to different factions of Muslim League too come out of their mindset and start and objectively treating the demands the smaller provinces. It will help us build a stronger and more vibrant federation. Instead of debating again and again over this issue, politicians are wasting their time, they should either spend their time on development of this province or quit politics. There is no need to challenge the Pakhtunkhwa issue as it has been passed with overwhelming majority in the provincial assembly, members of this assembly should discuss how to solve the problems in this province. Renaming the NWFP province to Pakhtunkhwa has a long political history in Pakistan. Pakhtoons and nationalist groups, which are passionate about naming their inhabited land after their identity as Pakhtoons, have been demanding the change of the province’s name for decades. But a number of political groups and opportunist politicians are not in favor of calling NWFP as Pakhtunkhwa and they are trying to divide people in Pakhtunkhwa. These members of assembly should be discussing creating jobs, hiring police officers, opening new schools, colleges and universities, hospitals and providing clean water and electricity to their voters and keeping province safe, rid Province of violence and terror, generate productive employment for youth, provide education, health care, and bring progress to the doorstep of workers, farmers and small businesses elimination of child labor etc . These are the issues people elected these assembly members to solve.
NON STATE ACTORS
Mwaqar
In Pakistan Democracy has severely been threatened by Taliban and religious fanatics and militant activities. These militants are not merely the sudden attackers to any vulnerable area. They are very competent and bearing high intelligence and power of innovation in taking decision timely in fulfilling their target. What a great commitment they possess overall? Most of these militant are from poor background and have no education. These militants are inter-connected globally and aided by opportunist weapon traders, drug mafia and opportunist politicians and sometimes they have been well supported as well as guarded by rival countries. Pakistan’s internal administration ,police department and intelligence agency would require to be upgraded and more efficient to intercept the militants action with greater accuracy. Terrorist activities have been appeared as a common problem to every nation and should be tackled in coordinating manner by a compact relationship between every nation in the world and it might be rival or friendly country. Militants are global enemy. Blaming someone is not wise rather than finding own fault. When I was in Pakistan, We used to hear bomb blasts in Beirut, middle east, Africa ,violence in Somalia etc and used to say thank God we are not living there, used to love peaceful streets of Peshawar, but now I hear it’s a night mare living in Peshawar ;where mostly our puckhtoons are target of barbarian ignorant Taliban; my heart and feelings go for all those innocent people who were recently target of this barbarian act of violence just before Eid in Peshawar.
I am surprised that there are so many religious groups in Pakistan, mostly operating from Punjab , who are using name of Islam and are involve in terrorism, few months ago Governor of pukhtoonistan mentioned that terrorists have roots in Punjab; killing not only their own citizens but spreading hate and killings everywhere, Islam or any other religion does not allow killing of innocent people whether they are in Khyber or Mumbai. we all know that how this happened, it starts from Zia era when these so called religious groups were given money and weapons to fight against Soviets in Afghanistan with the help of CIA and other Western powers, when Soviets left Afghanistan, everyone forgot about their so called freedom fighters, those freedom fighters used to get red carpet reception at White House. when these so called freedom fighters turned into monsters, now they are called Taliban . One can feel sympathy for Zardari's plight. He and his new civilian government did not train or a ssist the Pakistani terrorist organizations that probably carried out attacks in Mumbai. Nor is it his fault that al-Qaeda, the Taliban and other dangerous groups operate in Waziristan and the FATA Areas of western Pakistan, from which they launch attacks . For that we can thank elements of the Pakistani military, Pakistani intelligence and the late military dictatorship of Zia and Pervez Musharraf. Reversing decades-old policies of support for these groups may be impossible for any Pakistani leader, especially when the only forces capable of rooting them out are the same forces that created them and sustain them. So if the world is indeed not to be held hostage by non-state actors operating from Pakistan, what can be done? In my previous letters on this forum I said several times that Pakistani nation and Govt needs to end and stop supporting these terror groups before we see foreign troops walking on Pakistani streets, after Mumbai attacks it is very much clear that entire world is loosing patience with Pakistan, A clear vision to sanitize the terror camps and the mullah power in Pakistan should be discouraged. It is very much necessary to do this to protect the world from terror and protect innocent citizens in Pakistan itself who are getting killed by suicide attacks of these barbarians who are called Taliban . I hate to say this but lets admit that Pakistan has become the training ground for the terrorists. We have to start now to see the end of this may be in 3 to 5 years time. That would mean cleaning up the mess in the political, military, intelligence and administration in Pakistan .Senseless killing of innocent human beings in the name of Islam is wrong and Islam doe not allow such actions. It is an act which is destroying a noble faith. The real sufferers are the God fearing true Muslims. It is a culture that is supported by some mullahs, for whatever reason. They have been able to create a feeling of hate in the hearts of Muslims against others w ho are non-believers. The result of this that everybody is suffering.
Can't the majority of Muslims who do not support terrorism rise and throw such barbarians out of Islam. It is an internal problem of Islam and my request to my Muslim brothers and sisters is that it time they wake up and save Islam. The mullahs, media and politicians all seem to be living in denial and misleading its own people. Pakistanis should stand up and wage the true "jihad" against the terrorists. Pakistan is a great nation but dark clouds loom over Pakistan. If people don’t start taking action against these terrorists, this great country would be destroyed in no time. Today its Mumbai and Pukhtoonistan, tomorrow it will be Karachi. There are no doubts that these dirty worms of LeT did the act in Mumbai , Taliban in Pukhtoonistan , these men should be castrated and be-headed publicly. Terrorism has no religion. A terrorist can neither be a Hindu nor a Musalman nor a Christian. No religion preaches viole nce and hatred.
While Pakistan itself is fighting a big war against terrorism and losing a lot of lives in the cowardly acts of terrorism, it is in the greater interest of Pakistan and to that extent India also, that we jointly make an exercise to flush out terrorists and their breeding grounds. Where are the fatwas against these terrorists. It is time for people of Pakistan to come out from illusion that India or America is the biggest threat to them. People of Pakistan have to realize that today's war cannot be won with arms and terror, but only with economy, peace and stability. Provide employment and right education to all citizens to avoid them to become terrorists. How long the population of Pakistan will sit back and allow the fragmentation of the country? People took to the streets to reinstate a judge, but no one is showing up, when the militants are taking the country apart. In a true democracy, people will be on the street demanding action and letting the militants know that they are not welcome. Instead of blaming others for the situation look inward and be proactive. What will take to make Pakistanis understand that Taliban and Al Qaeda do not have their interests at heart, but their goal is to take Muslim countries back to their perception of 7th century, and to pursue that goal they disregard the Quran and are willing to destroy hard built assets. These assets will not be easy to replace. World looks at the silence of the majority of Pakistanis as tacitly supporting the destructive force. Don't blame each other for terrorism instead try to reach the roots of terrorism. If there is peace in the country, then India or any other country can't dare to threaten Pakistan. These countries know our weak point, we don't have unity, all the political parties quarreling with each other, every one blames others, nobody accepts his mistakes, so try to be united, fare with the nation, give them some rel ief. Once everything is controlled in the country, then India will not dare to even blame on Pakistan.
Present Pakistani regime and Military needs to think seriously and sincerely before its too late and I repeat one more time, before someone else send tanks, army and turn Pakistan into stone age, we must get rid of these fanatics. Get rid of the bloody trash, the potential suicide bombers, kidnappers of ambassadors and Chinese engineers, murderers of innocent men women and children, get rid of ignorant in this country who authorized rapists of women, the dishonorable honor killers of daughters, sisters the unwashed barbarians, who bury girls alive and their immoral apologists, who become then education ministers , these assorted vermin that have infested Pakistan for decades and have multiplied like rabbits need not be tolerated any more ,it is time to ship this garbage abroad to undertakers around the world who want them. They are not Muslims ,they are anti- Islam , they are the biggest enemy of Islam and its billion Muslims followers all over the world. They are hell bent on demeaning the Muslims diminishing them, putting them on defensive everywhere making them unwelcome suspicious characters wherever they reside. They are a bloody dark blot on the otherwise shining forehead of the Muslim community from Africa to Europe from Asia to Americas. These rabid dogs of religious extremism, communalism and sectarianism with their foaming mouths spouting nothing but poisons of pure hatred and bigotry against other communities, other sects of their own communities, against other's ethnicity, other religions and other countries , are not only the biggest danger to world peace and democracy , they pose a very mortal, a very urgent threat to Pakistan's very own existence. It is absolutely wrong for the world to accuse the government of Pakistan for the carnage in Bombay -- the government of Pakistan led by peace makers like Zardaris, Gilanis, Qur eishis, Asfandiyaris and others of Pakistan can be accused neither of the crime of commission, nor of the crime of omission because the government is only a few months old infant and the plague Jihadi terrorism is decades old. It is a golden opportunity for the Government of Pakistan to redeem itself -- to absolve itself of the stigma of harboring terrorism , the government and its army should restore the good name of Pakistan by throwing away all its stinking bad eggs to whoever wants to take them home to make omelets of them -- send them to India if the Indians want them -- to USA if the Americans want them -- to England if the Brits want them to Russia if the Russians want them or of course to China if the Chinese want them get rid of them one and all , or arrest them and kill them and hang their bodies in public places.. Its time for Pakistanis to stand behind present Govt, you can’t afford another martial law or war with anyone ,India provides solid proofs of Mumbai terror or not, we must admit that there are elements in Pakistan who are involve in suicide bombings and other barbarian activities. Pakistan needs to replace the social services provided by terror groups and their fronts like the Jamaât-ud Dawa if it is to seriously root out terrorism. Pakistani Govt should ban all these so called religious groups to form charity etc work, it’s the responsibility of the Govt to help poor citizens not those groups who help and then misuse poor people. Pakistan is not responsible for all this mess and I do agree to some extend with the critics who blame other foreign powers in supporting so called Pakistani terror groups but lets admit that we are also responsible to some extend of this mess, lets confess that our hands are not clean either. President Zardari should disclose names or groups of those ‘’NON STATE ACTORS’’ and people involve in terrorism; those people should be arrested and punished. Its also media’s responsibility to start programs on Radio/TV and educate people about the dangers of terrorism. When extremist distort and totally misinterpret the Prophet Mohammad's teachings, they act like a bunch of crazed teen-agers high on Ecstasy with loaded weapons, It's a shame .Its not ‘’jihad’’ to kill innocent people, There are many levels of Jihad: Struggling to remove poverty; fighting against material and corruption; struggling against all kinds of social, political, and economic injustices; struggling to restore basic human rights; fighting against tyranny and oppression; constantly exerting to advance human knowledge; fighting against environmental pollution. No covert operations are allowed in Islam. Above all, Jihad must be done for the good of humanity which, in Islam, is referred to as fighting in the cause of God. Under no circumstances, are they allowed to exploit the weak and the vulnerable. Suicide attacks are horrific acts of genocide similar in psychotic madness as to what surged through the veins of Hitler.
Pakistani general’s killers,Shocking Report.....
From The Sunday TimesDecember 14, 2008
UK may help find Pakistani general’s killers
Carey Schofield The brother-in-law of VS Naipaul, the British novelist and Nobel laureate, was murdered last month after threatening to expose Pakistani army generals who had made deals with Taliban militants.
Major-General Faisal Alavi, a former head of Pakistan’s special forces, whose sister Nadira is Lady Naipaul, named two generals in a letter to the head of the army. He warned that he would “furnish all relevant proof”.
Aware that he was risking his life, he gave a copy to me and asked me to publish it if he was killed. Soon afterwards he told me that he had received no reply.
“It hasn’t worked,” he said. “They’ll shoot me.”
Four days later, he was driving through Islamabad when his car was halted by another vehicle. At least two gunmen opened fire from either side, shooting him eight times. His driver was also killed.
This weekend, as demands grew for a full investigation into Alavi’s murder on November 18, Lady Naipaul described her brother as “a soldier to his toes”. She said: “He was an honourable man and the world was a better place when he was in it.”
It was in Talkingfish, his favourite Islamabad restaurant, that the general handed me his letter two months ago. “Read this,” he said.
Alavi had been his usual flamboyant self until that moment, smoking half a dozen cigarettes as he rattled off jokes and gossip and fielded calls on two mobile phones.
Three years earlier this feted general, who was highly regarded by the SAS, had been mysteriously sacked as head of its Pakistani equivalent, the Special Services Group, for “conduct unbecoming”. The letter, addressed to General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of army staff, was a final attempt to have his honour restored. Alavi believed he had been forced out because he was openly critical of deals that senior generals had done with the Taliban. He disparaged them for their failure to fight the war on terror wholeheartedly and for allowing Taliban forces based in Pakistan to operate with impunity against British and other Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.
Alavi, who had dual British and Pakistani nationality, named the generals he accused. He told Kayani that the men had cooked up a “mischievous and deceitful plot” to have him sacked because they knew he would expose them. “The entire purpose of this plot by these general officers was to hide their own involvement in a matter they knew I was privy to,” he wrote. He wanted an inquiry, at which “I will furnish all relevant proof/ information, which is readily available with me”.
I folded up the letter and handed it back to him. “Don’t send it,” I said. He replied that he had known I would talk him out of it so he had sent it already. “But”, he added, “I want you to keep this and publish it if anything happens to me.”
I told him he was a fool to have sent the letter: it would force his enemies into a corner. He said he had to act and could not leave it any longer: “I want justice. And I want my honour restored. And you know what? I [don’t] give a damn what they do to me now. They did their worst three years ago.”
We agreed soon afterwards that it would be prudent for him to avoid mountain roads and driving late at night. He knew the letter might prove to be his death warrant.
Four days after I last saw him, I was in South Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan, to see a unit from the Punjab Regiment. It was early evening when I returned to divisional headquarters and switched on the television. It took me a moment to absorb the horror of the breaking news running across the screen: “Retired Major General Faisal Alavi and driver shot dead on way to work.”
The reports blamed militants, although the gunmen used 9mm pistols, a standard army issue, and the killings were far more clinical than a normal militant attack.
The scene at the army graveyard in Rawalpindi a few days after that was grim. Soldiers had come from all over the country to bury the general with military honours. Their grief was palpable. Wreaths were laid on behalf of Kayani and most of the country’s military leadership.
Friends and family members were taken aback to be told by serving and retired officers alike that “this was not the militants; this was the army”. A great many people believed the general had been murdered to shut him up.
I first met Alavi in April 2005 at the Pakistan special forces’ mountain home at Cherat, in the North West Frontier Province, while working on a book about the Pakistani army.
He told me he had been born British in Kenya, and that his older brother had fought against the Mau Mau. His affection for Britain was touching and his patriotism striking.
In August 2005 he was visiting Hereford, the home of the SAS, keen to revive the SSG’s relationship with British special forces and deeply unhappy about the way some elements of Pakistan’s army were behaving. He told me how one general had done an astonishing deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the 35-year-old Taliban leader, now seen by many analysts as an even greater terrorist threat than Osama Bin Laden.
Mehsud, the main suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto late last year, is also believed to have been behind a plot to bomb transport networks in several European countries including Britain, which came to light earlier this year when 14 alleged conspirators were arrested in Barcelona. Yet, according to Alavi, a senior Pakistani general came to an arrangement with Mehsud “whereby – in return for a large sum of money – Mehsud’s 3,000 armed fighters would not attack the army”.
The two senior generals named in Alavi’s letter to Kayani were in effect complicit in giving the militants free rein in return for refraining from attacks on the Pakistani army, he said. At Hereford, Alavi was brutally frank about the situation, said the commanding officer of the SAS at that time.
“Alavi was a straight-talking soldier and some pretty robust conversations took place in the mess,” he said. “He wanted kit, skills and training from the UK. But he was asked, pretty bluntly, why the Pakistani army should be given all this help if nothing came of it in terms of getting the Al-Qaeda leadership.”
Alavi’s response was typically candid, the SAS commander said: “He knew that Pakistan was not pulling its weight in the war on terror.”
It seemed to Alavi that, with the SAS on his side, he might win the battle, but he was about to lose everything. His enemies were weaving a Byzantine plot, using an affair with a divorced Pakistani woman to discredit him.
Challenged on the issue, Alavi made a remark considered disrespectful to General Pervez Musharraf, then the president. His enemies playeda recording of it to Musharraf and Alavi was instantly sacked.
His efforts to clear his name began with a request that he be awarded the Crescent of Excellence, a medal he would have been given had he not been dismissed. Only after this was denied did he write the letter that appears to many to have sealed his fate.
It was an action that the SAS chief understands: “Every soldier, in the moment before death, craves to be recognised. It seems reasonable to me that he staked everything on his honour. The idea that it is better to be dead than dishonoured does run deep in soldiers.”
Alavi’s loyalty to Musharraf never faltered. Until his dying day he wanted his old boss to understand that. He also trusted Kayani implicitly, believing him to be a straight and honourable officer.
If investigations eventually prove that Alavi was murdered at the behest of those he feared within the military, it may prove a fatal blow to the integrity of the army he loved.
Britain and the United States need to know where Pakistan stands. Will its army and intelligence agencies ever be dependable partners in the war against men such as Mehsud?
James Arbuthnot, chairman of the defence select committee, and Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, were among those who expressed support this weekend for British help to be offered in the murder investigation.
Inside the Pakistan Army by Carey Schofield will be published next year by Soap Box Books.
Why the families of traitors?
Why the families of traitors?
M Waqar New York
I agree with Mr. M. K. Bangash's letter of December, 6. He has made a good point about sons and families of past dictators and traitors on national TV, although I can't keep up with Mr. Bangash letters in Frontier Post, I always admire his views. It seems like not only the media but entire nation does not have any criteria of politicians in this country. It is true that there are hundreds of intellectuals in Pakistan and when I was a student at Islamia College, I came across my professors who were more educated and talented than any Pakistani politician. What citizens of this country needs to do is to get rid of old generation of politicians and Mr Bangash is right in saying that media has always ignored well educated and devoted intellectuals, I think media can play a great role by inviting progressive, well educated, liberal minded people, who can teach and train new generation of Pakistan for their future. I was in my very early years of life when Zia took over the reigns of power in Pakistan back in the 1970s. However, I do remember vividly the days when and how the ugly change was brought about. Yet another elected government was toppled by the military, thanks to the mullahs conniving with Zia.. During Zia's reign, Pakistan got AK 47, heroin, Afghans, sectarian rifts. His appointment was controversial, so was his rule. A dictator who halted the democratic process, publicly hanged, flogged political opponents, implicated and murdered the country's greatest mainstream politician. He misused name of Islam for his greed and power, actually he was not interested in Islam but he was aiding imperialists. Why do we need new generation of politicians who are not family members of past hypocrites, dictators and traitors Pakistani political parties never developed into viable institutions capable of generating leadership. There are talented emerging politicians in some political parties of Pakistan but they stand no chance of occupying their party top slots. In this elitist political system of Pakistan, party office is a lifetime prerogative passed from father to son. None of them is willing to make way for fresh leadership to emerge. There are deep structural and constitutional problems within Pakistani politics that necessitate the presence of Pakistani military in civil affairs for the time being. Only the educated people can help break the choking grip of wealthy, autocratic feudal politicians. In Pakistan the military has been part of the problem because it has been encouraging the monopoly of a handful of politicians in the country, perpetuating a troubled system and never encouraging its replacement with a better one. The Election Commission must introduce the requirement of a verifiable, free and secret ballot for the top slots within Pakistani political parties as a precondition to contesting general elections. This will rid us of stagnating lifetime party leaderships, giving a larger number of Pakistanis a chance to serve the public and pave the way for a better class of politicians to emerge. Drastic changes in the Pakistani constitution, the political system and the composition of Pakistani politics hold the only key to ensure a strong, emerging Pakistan in the 21st century. Islamabad has already wasted too much time. Except Afghanistan, almost all of Pakistan's neighbours Iran, the Gulf, China, and India are well on their way to strong economic growth. The political systems in these nations, despite being different, do not offer loopholes that allow for domestic instability or foreign interference. The objective of a major overhaul of the Pakistani state is to create a government that is able to project its interests while maintaining a robust internal political system that creates and breeds leadership and focuses on the future. Tough reforms will have to target the existing and future political parties. Regular and transparent internal party election has to become a prerequisite for the party to qualify for participating in national elections. This will end leadership rot and allow fresh leaders to emerge. New legislation will have to be introduced to control party finances and expenditure. Today's politicians who only know how to bring people on streets to protest and spread hate can't be a model politician. Main reason for Pakistan's vulnerability is weak leadership and a flawed political system that breeds instability. To get over this, a strong federal government will have to be introduced in Islamabad. This government cannot be drawn from the existing failed political class and cannot be a repeat of past military governments. Cleaning the slate in Pakistan will require some creative thinking. The prevalent feudal system of Pakistan is the main obstacle in the progress of the country and the prosperity of the people. Since the creation of Pakistan the Pakistani people are left at distant from the corridor of power so that the ruling elite can do what they wanted to do in favour of their interest, leaving the Pakistani people at the mercy of circumstances. As this policy is denial of right of Pakistani people to rule their country according to their aspiration and desire to build this country, which can provide equal opportunity to all without any discrimination for the establishment of welfare society. Only the society base on tolerance, equality and justice can be the real guarantee for the prosperous and strong Pakistan therefore your attention is invited to the crucial movement which could be the point of distraction or disaster. Because of corrupt politician of Pakistan the army was tempted again and again place, for one after another military rule. It would be wrong to blame Pakistan army alone for having usurped power for more than half of its life. It was in fact feudal corrupt politicians that facilitated first martial law in Pakistan and again in 1999. How long shall we suffer? How long the future of our coming generation will be at stake. With a population of over 160 million, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and the second most populous country with a Muslim majority. However, the country faces significant development challenges, with one in 10 children dying before their fifth birthday, and 50% of adults classed as illiterate, no clean drinking water, load shedding and so many other countless problems Pakistanis face everyday.
Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=le&nid=892&ad=14-12-200
Dated: Sunday, December 14, 2008, Zil Hajj 15, 1429 A.H.
US moves to declare former Pakistani officers international terrorists
Time to arrest General (R) Hamid Gul, Brigadier (R) Ijaz Shah and other rogue elements in Pakistan's intelligence agencies'Who killed Benazir Bhutto? Foot-soldiers of Al-Qaeda/Taliban/Sipah-e-Sahaba. Who were the masterminds? General Hamid Gul, Brigadier Ijaz Shah, other rogue elements in Pakistan's ISI and other intelligence agencies.Who are their mouth-pieces in the Pakistani media? Irfan Siddiqi, Ansar Abbasi, Kashif Abbasi, Mushtaq Minhas, Hamid Mir, Roedad Khan, Orya Maqbool Jan
Who are their political supporters?Ijazul-Huq, Pervez Elahi, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Imran Khan, Hafiz Saeed, and other pro-jihadi, pro-Taliban and sectarian elements.
Hamid Gul and other ISI former officers are on pay roll of ALQUIDA.What Pakistan Government needs to do,is to arrest and punish former army generals of ISI like HAMID GUL ETC,HAMID GUL was ISI cheif once and is supporter of Osama and fanatic religious groups,he should be arrested by NATO forces and they should investigate him,he is invole in terrorism and supports all those mullahs who spread hate.Presnt Pakistani Govt is afraid of its generals and BHUTTO family was killed by these fanatic army and ISI generals like HAMID GUL.Terrorists are using poor people for their crimes,killing anyone any where is a crime aginst humanity.
Written by Bill Roggio on December 4, 2008 2:20 PM to The Long War Journal
Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/12/us_moves_to_declare.php
The US government is seeking to add several former Pakistani intelligence officers to the United Nations’ list of international terrorists, The News reported. A senior US intelligence official familiar with the effort to reign in Pakistan’s intelligence service confirmed to The Long War Journal the US wants to get the United Nations Security Council to designate several senior former officers of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency as international terrorists.
Included on the list of former Pakistani intelligence officers being submitted to the UNSC are Hamid Gul, Javid Nasir, and Zahirul Islam Abbasi, as well as Aslam Beg, a senior Army officer, the intelligence official said.
The placement of the former Pakistani officers on the United Nations list would open their international accounts up to scrutiny and eventual seizure, the US official said. "We could do some major damage" to the officers' "slush funds" in international bank accounts. The US will also seek to place the officers on INTERPOL's wanted list.
News of the US move broke after Gul spoke to the Pakistani press about being added to the list. Gul "was informed of this by a highly responsible person, who had personally seen the written US request," The News reported.
The US intelligence official expressed concern that Gul still has access to such sensitive information. Gul's knowledge of the effort "is indicative that he still has friends in very high places."
According to The News, Gul said "the government should immediately move to protect the ISI from this indirect attack from Washington. He said the United States and some other Western nations were against him for the simple reason that he did not support their war on terror which, he said, was based on Washington’s greed for energy."
Gul's message is calculated to rally support within Pakistan's intelligence community, the US official said. "He is playing to a very particular crowd there, to convince people in the ISI that those against him are also against them."
Both the United States and India have accused the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based terror group backed by the ISI, of conducting last week's 62 hour assault on Mumbai that resulted in more than 180 Indians and foreigners killed and more than 300 wounded. Indian police captured a terrorist who admitted to training inside camps Pakistan and to being a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba.
While there have been no direct links between the Mumbai attackers and the Pakistani government, India has accused the Pakistani government of allowing numerous groups to operate on its soil. India has demanded the Pakistani government hand over about 20 wanted terror leaders and operatives, including Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
Elements of the Pakistani state may have aided in the training of the Mumbai terrorists and the execution of the operation. The captured terrorist claimed members from Pakistani Navy aiding in his training, while Dawood Ibrahim, the ISI-backed mafia don, provided logistical support. Indian intelligence sources told PTI that the country has "proof that the Inter Services Intelligence was involved in planning the Mumbai terror attacks and training the terrorists." The unconfirmed report stated "the names of trainers and the places where meticulous training took place are also known to the government." US intelligence has additional information, according to the report.
Just this year, the ISI was directly implicated in the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Fifty-four people, including an Indian defense attaché, were killed in the July 7 bombing. The Indian embassy bombing was carried out by the Haqqani Network, with the direct backing of the ISI, The US confronted the Paksitani government with evidence of the ISI's involvement in August. Within two months after the US confrontation with Pakistan, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, the Director of the ISI, was relieved of his command,
Background on Gul, Nasir, Abbasi, and Beg
The four senior retired Pakistani officers put forth to be sanctioned by the United Nations have a long history of dealing with extremist groups, and particularly al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Kashmiri terror groups.
Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989. Gul is known as the Godfather of the Taliban for his efforts to organize the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and the helping to facilitate the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. Gul supports the terrorist insurgency in India-occupied Kashmir and opposes the US-led effort to defeat Islamic extremism.
"God will destroy the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there," Gul said in August 2003. "The Muslim world must stand united to confront the U.S. in its so-called War on Terrorism, which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped." Gul openly admits he maintains contacts with the Taliban and other extremist groups.
Lieutenant General (Retired) Javid Nasir commanded the ISI from 1992 to May 1993. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Nasir helped unite the warring mujahideen factions and establish a government. Nasir, and avowed Islamist, provide support to terrorist movements throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Nasir, along with Gul, kept in close contact with Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.
Major General (Retired) Zahirul Islam Abbasi was a senior officer in the ISI during the Afghan war and served as a senior military commander. In 1995, he led a failed coup against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He planned to kill the entire senior leadership of the Army command. Abbasi was implicated in the plot along with Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the radical Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, an al Qaeda and Taliban-linked group. Akhtar later testified against Abbasi, who was then sentenced to seven year in prison. He was released by Pervez Musharraf after serving just four.
General (Retired) Mirza Aslam Beg served as Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army after the mysterious death of General Muhammad Zia ul Haq in 1998. Beg is known to profess sympathy for the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Kashmir terror groups. He has openly bragged that foreigners train in Afghanistan and fight in Kashmir. Beg, along with Gul, purportedly met with Osama bin Laden and more than 300 jihadi leaders at Darul Uloom Haqqania Islamic conference held in Peshawar in
OBAMA: INSPIRATIONAL LEADER !!!!
Slavery is a bitter history that many would prefer to forget, but it continues to cast a dark shadow over a nation not only in America that was founded on the promise that “all men are created equal” and endowed with the “unalienable rights” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Though it may seem like a phenomenon of an impossibly distant past, slavery is only just outside living memory. Slavery also reminds many in third world countries who were forced to become colonies of so called great Britain. In America, before the victory of the Civil Rights Movement black people were banned from using the same toilets, water fountains, schools and even bus stations as their white counterparts. The last anti miscegenation laws, which barred marriage between blacks and whites, were overturned by the Supreme Court only in 1967, and in 2000 Alabama became the last state to remove language prohibiting inter-racial marriage from its state constitution. Before this remarkable year, almost no African-Americans expected a black man to become President of the United States. Over almost four centuries, countless Africans were chained in slave ships for the dreaded “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic. Although there is no definitive total, Unesco estimates that 14,270,000 Africans were sold into slavery in the New World. By the time of the American Revolution, one out of five people in the Colonies was a slave. Olderr black Americans who lived through segregation in public institutions until the mid-1960s and who were alive when barriers to voting were finally removed in 1965 were filled with emotion when Sen. Barack Obama was declared the president-elect of the United States. They never thought they would live to see the day a nation of people who had enslaved each other, who had segregated schools to keep their children apart and who had grudgingly come together in the past would vote in masses, waiting in lines for hours, to elect the first bi-racial man to govern the country. Today, when historians will write new chapters, they will add BARAK OBAMA name in their books, they will record story of a kid, whose father was from Kenya, mother was white American, was raised by white grand parents ,a kid who struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage ,he was not son of a famous politician, wealthy landlord or was born with golden spoon in his mouth, he is not like many other US politicians is from feudal society, he struggled, worked hard, Challenged seasoned politicians of American politics, he raised slogan of change, broke barriers of race and color and became first Afro-American President of America. He proved America is a country of great opportunity. Obama overcame prejudice is not only a tribute to his campaign, but also to the hope that, given a chance, ordinary people can overcome injustice to create a more humane world. The Election of Barack Obama as the 44th US President is a real tribute to Martin Luther King , whose dream is fulfilled. Americans put aside their racial prejudices on Tuesday Nov 4 and picked the best son of the land for the job, Obama's election does not suggest racism is wiped out once and for all, but it does signal that a sizable majority of voters believe America is the land of equal opportunity where anyone born in that land, irrespective of race, ethnicity or religion, can become its president. contest and win at the White House, by abolishing slavery. He seems to be pro-poor and has promised to reduce the difference between the ultra-rich and abject poor. Most of the time, he spoke with his personal convictions, not bothering whether his comment would bring or lose votes for him. And I think in the end, this streak of honesty won him the presidency. When TV screens were reporting that Obama won, people danced in the streets, wept, lifted their voices in prayer and brought traffic to a standstill. From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles to all over the world, Americans celebrated Barack Obama's victory and marveled that they lived to see the day that a black man was elected president. His election speaks volumes for a bunch of people," Children of single mothers, people who put themselves through college. It says, you can do it, you can do it. Change has come to America." With this statement, Barack Obama encapsulated the feelings of hundreds of millions of his supporters around the globe. Obama's thumping electoral win will go down as one of the most transformational events in political history as he becomes the 44th U.S. president his victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place .
Pakistani politicians can learn a lot from Obama and changing of guards in Washington, Obama and his team is busy to provide best cabinet to the nation so they can develop better life for American citizens, while in Pakistan, politicians love to travel all over the world, in just past eight months Zardari and PM made more then one foreign trips and members of parliament in Pakistan have no clue what to do with so many problems in Pakistan, In Pakistan you haven’t even started fighting corruption. Indeed, leaders are still at the lip-service stage. The Pakistani politics is like Pakistani movies where the same old story repeated endlessly with the change of faces but in politics, even the faces remain the same with repeated role, which proves that while the world may have moved on we remain stuck in the same grooves. In Pakistan ,the painful dilemma in the political fête is that the politicians who always cry for democracy are unable to produce democracy in their own parties. When the national political figureheads could not maintain fair and clean election within their parties how can they provide or maintain the true democracy in the country. When the power greedy politicians are ready to split their parties to retain the headship of the party or not allow the other person to contest for party leadership, how can one expect from them to run a true democracy in Pakistan. When the leaders of a country start buying properties outside the country and their children get educated and stay abroad then the people of the country should know that there is something seriously wrong with the country which the leaders know but are not telling the people of the
country. Since the creation of Pakistan the Pakistani people are left at distant from the corridor of power so that the ruling elite can do what they wanted to do in favor of their interest, leaving the Pakistani people at the mercy of circumstances. As this policy is denial of right of Pakistani people to rule their country according to their aspiration and desire to built this country, which can provide equal opportunity to all without any discrimination for the establishment of welfare society. Only the society base on tolerance, equality and justice can be the real guarantee for the prosperous and strong Pakistan there for your intention is invited to the crucial movement which could be the point of distraction or disaster. The question is can we expect from them to provide solution to burning issue and will they allow the oppressed people of Pakistan to share decision making process and enjoy fruit of democracy in Pakistan with transparency and accountability. The dominant feudal and corrupt politician in Pakistan, since last 60 years are like a cursed and they have gifted Pakistan many evil like, unchecked corruption, religious and ethnic divisions, religious extremism, feudalism, social disparity, frequent military rules, corrupt bureaucracy, and the worst most generation of corrupt politicians. The only way out of these crucial circumstances is to empower the common Pakistani at grass route level i.e. the change of system. This change is inevitable for the prosperous Pakistan . Along with basic guarantees for the creation of welfare state, where in public representative and institution shall be answerable and accountable to the masses. Every country in the world has a army, Pakistan is the only country where army has a country, The army of Pakistan has been and is a major force in the politics which has always been interfering and intervening time and again in the system of governance. They are not just military-men now. They have become real-estate agents, bankers, educators, etc. The Army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan with assets in the tens of billions, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities.
The poor people of Pakistan need free schools, free hospitals, and a decent future for their children. American People expect high standards both morally and integrity from their politicians. Elitism in everything is alienating the people of Pakistan. Pakistani public used to seeing its corrupt elite sending their kids to exclusive English medium schools, eating and drinking imported food, wearing foreign made clothes, driving foreign made cars. Pakistan has experienced three decades of corruption, drugs, military rule, rising Islamist extremism and a general decline in education and health standards. Who is responsible for this ?
Pakistan‘s future looks quite uncertain and a fundamentalist revolution is likely to follow if the wealthy, self-indulgent elites don’t clean up their act and provide proper leadership. Pakistan’s condition in more then 60 years of its ‘independence.' is one of tragedy; it is a country which has lost its way and whose politicians care little for its reputation. it is not sufficient to change from military leaders to political leaders without changing the underlying political system. It will not work now, nor has it ever worked in the past. There is no check and balance in Pakistan. What Pakistan therefore needs is clear, a comprehensive change of system not a return to the failed politics of the past and another set of cosmetic leadership changes. PAKISTAN'S democracy hasn't suffered because of the illiterate but because of the literate, because of abuses by the privileged who went to Oxford and Cambridge. Ninety percent of Pakistan's politicians are feudal. We have to break the hold of tribal leaders who won't permit development. India got it right when it broke up the great landholdings after independence .Pakistani politicians lack moral values, they have no principals, for the last 60 years they are neglecting education, health, justice and other basic needs of citizens. Pakistan’s endless disputes between army and politicians have turned the country’s governing apparatus from one big feudal calculus to one big military calculation. In 2005 Pakistan ranked 34 in the list of “Top Failed States of the world”, when the list was first published. Pakistan is now ranking at position 12 in the same list, Even countries like North Korea, Bangladesh and Uganda are ranking better than Pakistan in the list. Who is responsible for this??? the answer is military/civilian beau racy, bourgeois and elite class of Pakistan. How can we solve this??? The common man has to come out on the streets, take over the government, form a true democracy, reject all forms of religious intolerance and extremism, reject all these selfish and greedy politicians and develop the country. The common man till to date has been a silent voice in Pakistan. It is the opportunistic politicians, greedy mullahs , military, ISI that have been playing the cards to decide the Pakistani future. It is high time that the common man in the streets of Pakistan takes charge of the country. Unless this happens, there is little hope for Pakistan. Pakitsan needs new faces, educated people in political life of this country . Its up to people in Pakistan to vote for their selfish politicians or reject them. In pakiistan, political parties are family business, this has to be change. Pakistani politicians never had any agenda for development of the country, listen to your members of parliament what they are talking about??? Where is the discussion about the higher education in Pakistan? How are the top notch scientists, engineers and doctors going to be trained? When will govt start pouring funds into these fields? I don’t really understand whether Pakistan and Pakistanis wants to become a peaceful and hopeful country or not.
It is pointless to debate whether the army or the politicians have been responsible for Pakistan.s stillborn democracy. The fact is that democracy would not have failed without their partnership. When Lincoln called democracy the government of the people, by the people and for the people, he basically meant a system of government that empowered the people. But unfortunately, .democracy. in Pakistan, whether of political lineage or genetically modified by the army, has only empowered the already empowered. And it has become a government of them, by them and for them. The challenges that Pakistan faces such as ethno-linguistic divisions, sectarian conflicts, competing visions of national identity, cultural wars, existential struggles between extremism and moderation, civil-military tensions and tussle between the centre and provinces, and above all, the stranglehold of feudalism and the civil-military bureaucracy are not susceptible to resolution by prosperity. So what is the solution? What we need is a reform movement not a political party that should address the fundamental issues confronting Pakistan. What is required is a national re-awakening like the ones that brought about the Meiji Restoration in Japan and launched the Chinese reform movement around the beginning of the 20th century.
The problem is Pakistani society as a whole does not know what Democracy is, this includes the media, public and politicians. Pakistan needs stability, economic vibrancy, poverty alleviation, more education. Its really amazing to observe political developments and politicians in Pakistan, it seems like Pakistani politicians does not have any agenda for the welfare of their voters. I don’t see anyone talking and discussing how to solve crisis like load shedding, clean water to all citizens, health benefits for people, education etc.. Pakistan can never be a true democratic nation, unless the illiteracy is reduced, the judiciary is clean, bureaucracy is defeated and every Pakistani from cities, rural areas develops the political acumen. Barack Obama's victory is a clear message for the oppressed people of those societies and countries of the world who are suffering a lot because of injustice, outdated socio-economic system, and varieties of slavery. Now the time has come that people of Pakistan should stand up for their genuine rights and protest against all social and economic ills and discriminations and search out their own OBAMA.
Peshawar trembling
The Frontier Post
Commitment to Journalism
Not long ago, Peshawar was such a wonderful place to live in; a pleasantly peaceful, tranquil and lovely metropolis it then was. Even on the atrocious watch of the holy fathers, this capital city of the Frontier Province wasn’t as scary a place as has it become now in just a few months of the ANP-led rule. Rampaging lawlessness has become this beleaguered metropolis’s saddening watchword. Just in the past two days, this seat of the Pakhtun pride and honour was a witness to two ignoble criminal acts. In one, an American aid worker was murdered by gunmen along with his local driver. In the other, an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped by armed thugs, who gunned down his guard. Earlier, the Afghan ambassador-designate was similarly seized in the city two months ago and till-date he remains untraced. All these criminal acts were, notably, perpetrated in the provincial capital’s posh quarters, having a greater measure of security. Yet, no feather seems this criminality to have ruffled in any niche of the ruling ANP tribe and its subordinate official hierarchy. Indeed, while criminals of every type and of every category are having a field day, not just in Peshawar but all over the province, the ANP troupes are just entertaining the folks with lullabies, of which they have had enough by now. The ANP tribe talks big but acts small. It makes a brave talk but walks not this talk. It speaks of great Pakhtun traditions but practises these not. It sings of non-violence creed of its great leaders but shows itself to be no worthy followers of theirs. The people are really bored and fed with its incessant hymns and songs. And now they want this ANP tribe, for a change, to do some administrating, instead of keep tormenting them with its intermittent haranguing, hectoring, sermonising and pious vowing. And that is where the tribe is, so far, coming a cropper. The Tuesday’s suicide bombing of the metropolis’s sports stadium could give it an excuse, even as slim. But it can have no excuse at all for failing in averting and stopping the incidence of kidnapping, abductions, robberies, thefts, and street murders and crimes. There obviously is a culpable flaw with its policing and governance. Its top hierarchy’s oft-repeated assertion that it had struck peace deals with the extremists but those were aborted by some third party doesn’t wash. To come convincing, it must specifically identify that third party, which it does not, giving the sense that it is just lying. In any case, the popular perception is that it went for those deals expediently, without doing the proper homework and without making adequate preparations, just to accumulate a few brownie, but uncertain, points. In tatters is thus its peace deal in Swat where Fazlullah in effect used the accord to regroup his mauled thugs. And its Malakand deal with Sufi Mohammad too is in deep troubles, with that old ogre camping out with his fanatical flocks now for over a month to have the accord executed the way he wills. The ANP tribe must understand that governance is very serious, tedious and complex business. It admits of no shallowness, no populism, no bunk talk. It requires mature thinking, creative ideas, wise counsels, pragmatic approaches and practicable strategies. It needs deeds, not words. And this tribe has to show all this in it if it wants to succeed in overcoming what is troubling the province so horrendously. Hitherto, this ANP tribe had been figuring up, at best, as a junior partner in ruling coalitions in the province. It is for the first time that it is in the vanguard of a rainbow governing coalition. And it shouldn’t let this opportunity to earn it good name in annals go waste with its shallowness, inaction, inertia and opportunism that it is presently putting on display.
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Dated: Saturday, November 15, 2008, Zi'qad 16, 1429 A.H.
