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Pakistan Objects to US Plan for Afghan War
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan is objecting to expanded American combat operations in neighboring Afghanistan, creating new fissures in the alliance with Washington at a critical juncture when thousands of new American forces are arriving in the region.
Pakistani Army soldiers in June at a former Taliban base near Khwazakhela in the Swat Valley. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times) Pakistani officials have told the Obama administration that the Marines fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will force militants across the border into Pakistan, with the potential to further inflame the troubled province of Baluchistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on the Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India, the officials said. Dialogue with the Taliban, not more fighting, is in Pakistan's national interest, they said.
The Pakistani account made clear that even as the United States recommits troops and other resources to take on a growing Taliban threat, Pakistani officials still consider India their top priority and the Taliban militants a problem that can be negotiated. In the long term, the Taliban in Afghanistan may even remain potential allies for Pakistan, as they were in the past, once the United States leaves.
The Pakistani officials gave views starkly different from those of American officials regarding the threat presented by top Taliban commanders, some of whom the Americans say have long taken refuge on the Pakistani side of the border.
Recent Pakistani military operations against Taliban in the Swat Valley and parts of the tribal areas have done little to close the gap in perceptions.
Even as Obama administration officials praise the operations, they express frustration that Pakistan is failing to act against the full array of Islamic militants using the country as a base.
Instead, they say, Pakistani authorities have chosen to fight Pakistani Taliban who threaten their government, while ignoring Taliban and other militants fighting Americans in Afghanistan or terrorizing India.
Such tensions have mounted despite a steady rotation of American officials through the region. They were on display last weekend when, during a visit to India, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said those who had planned the Sept. 11 attacks were now sheltering in Pakistan. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry issued an immediate rebuttal.
Pakistan's critical assessment was provided as the Obama administration's special envoy for the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, arrived in Pakistan on Tuesday night.
The country's perspective was given in a nearly two-hour briefing on Friday for The New York Times by senior analysts and officials of Pakistan's main spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. They spoke on the condition of anonymity in keeping with the agency's policy. The main themes of the briefing were echoed in conversations with several military officers over the past few days.
One of the first briefing slides read, in part: "The surge in Afghanistan will further reinforce the perception of a foreign occupation of Afghanistan. It will result in more civilian casualties; further alienate local population. Thus more local resistance to foreign troops."
A major concern is that the American offensive may push Taliban militants over the border into Baluchistan, a province that borders Waziristan in the tribal areas. The Pakistani Army is already fighting a longstanding insurgency of Baluch separatists in the province.
A Taliban spillover would require Pakistan to put more troops there, a Pakistani intelligence official said, troops the country does not have now. Diverting troops from the border with India is out of the question, the official said.
A spokesman for the American and NATO commands in Afghanistan, Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, said in an e-mail message on Monday that there was no significant movement of insurgents out of Afghanistan, and no indication of foreign fighters moving into Afghanistan through Baluchistan or Iran, another concern of the Pakistanis.
Pakistani and American officials also cited some positive signs for the alliance. Increased sharing of information has sharpened the accuracy of strikes against militant hide-outs by Pakistani F-16 warplanes and drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. And Pakistani and American intelligence operatives are fighting together in dangerous missions to hunt down fighters from the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas and in the North-West Frontier Province.
But the intelligence briefing clearly illuminated the differences between the two countries over how, in the American view, Pakistan was still picking proxies and choosing enemies among various Islamic militant groups in Pakistan.
The United States maintains that the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, leads an inner circle of commanders who guide the war in southern Afghanistan from their base in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.
American officials say this Taliban council, known as the Quetta shura, is sheltered by Pakistani authorities, who may yet want to employ the Taliban as future allies in Afghanistan.
In an interview last week, the new leader of American and NATO combat operations in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, paused when asked whether he was getting the cooperation he wanted from Pakistani forces in combating the Quetta shura. "What I would love is for the government of Pakistan to have the ability to completely eliminate the safe havens that the Afghan Taliban enjoy," he said.
The Pakistani intelligence officials denied that Mullah Omar was even in Pakistan, insisting that he was in Afghanistan.
The United States asked Pakistan in recent years to round up 10 Taliban leaders in Quetta, the Pakistani officials said. Of those 10, 6 were killed by the Pakistanis, 2 were probably in Afghanistan, and the remaining 2 presented no threat to the Marines in Afghanistan, the officials said.
They also said no threat was posed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Taliban leader who American military commanders say operates with Pakistani protection out of North Waziristan and equips and trains Taliban fighters for Afghanistan.
Last year, Washington presented evidence to Pakistani leaders that Mr. Haqqani, working with Inter-Services Intelligence, was responsible for the bombing last summer of the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed 54 people.
Pakistani officials insisted that Mr. Haqqani spent most of his time in Afghanistan, suggesting that the American complaints about him being provided sanctuary were invalid.
Another militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is also a source of deep disagreement.
India and the United States have criticized Pakistan for allowing Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, to be freed from jail last month.
The Pakistani officials said Mr. Saeed deserved to be freed because the government had failed to convince the courts that he should be kept in custody. There would be no effort to imprison Mr. Saeed again, in part because he was just an ideologue who did not have an anti-Pakistan agenda, the officials said.
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8 Comments so far
Show All......."Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on the Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India, the officials said. Dialogue with the Taliban, not more fighting, is in Pakistan's national interest, they said."
Pakistans national interest is to tie down Afghanistan using their venomous spawn, the Taliban. They waited 8 long years for this and Mullah Omar and other dipsticks are gonna walk triumphantly back into Kabul, while Pakistan will rejoice. Obviously they will not support any other outcome.
........"Increased sharing of information has sharpened the accuracy of strikes against militant hide-outs by Pakistani F-16 warplanes and drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency."
Great. So now we can send them the rest of the F-16's so they can pretend to flush out militants in the mountains (!!), while the real purpose is to beef up their airforce against India. Hey ... but thats what we do best ... prop up weak, autocratic governments that we can bully. Its in OUR interest.
...... "India and the United States have criticized Pakistan for allowing Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, to be freed from jail last month."
And he is still free and plotting his next strike. Between us (U.S.) and Pakistan we will manage to turn the region inside out and destabilize it for the next 50 years.
That is why the US should get out now and mind our own business.
Does Pakistan REALLY think India is going to invade them? I mean, wasn't the world's response to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait enough of an example of what happens when one nation invades another?
But wait! Then again, the United States pre-emptively invaded Iraq so I guess all bets are off on a world where there might be fairness. The United States could just close their eyes should India invade Pakistan.
America has proven itself to be a nation which cannot be trusted.
This.
Makes me sad.
"bfriesen July 22nd, 2009 5:27 pm
...
America has proven itself to be a nation which cannot be trusted."
True for the reason(s) you stated, but people need check out the following for additional reasons that are very underreported.
"Dick Cheney's 'Executive Assassination Ring'
Was British Weapons Expert Dr. David Kelly a Target ?",
by Tom Burghardt, antifascist-calling.blogspot.com, July 17, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14423
The article is about much more than the "mysterious" death of Dr Kelly. It's very much about bio. weapons, germ warfare, ... R&D, and states that not only is Dr Kelly one world expert in these areas of expertise who ended up "mysteriously" committing so-called suicide, but some others also have, or else died from very questionable accidents.
It has much to do with ANTHRAX and Tom Burghardt refers readers to the topic of the anthrax attacks on the U.S. Congress, some members of it anyway, and on other Americans within weeks following the attacks of 9-11, Sep. 11, 2001. As part of this topic, he refers us to the documentary film, "Anthrax War". He provides the link to the official website for that film, but there's also a 7-clip copy of a CBC (cbc.ca) Newsworld airing of the film, which seems to have been aired on CBC tv over the past couple of months, and these clips are at Youtube, posted by TheParadigmShift. The following is clip 1 (10:05).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQw1XMEL6To
In clips six and seven there is some important interviewing of Dr Francis Boyle and he has very serious words about the bio., germ, ... warfare R&D that's going on, especially in the US, which, during President Bush Jr established some official stipulation that the US may actually commit strikes using some of these deadly warfare agents. Like Dr Boyle says, those strikes would be acts of aggression, offence, [not] defence.
The whole documentary is good and important, but his words of warning strike me as describing our world situation as even more frightening than we can think from all or most of the earlier part of the documentary.
It's all good and important though, and it's very interesting to see the investigative work performed by the filmmaker(s). They also did some of the filming at and inside of some of the labs used by the US, where they interview some director(s?) of the R&D labs.
Oh, and all of this involves rather criminal cover-up by the FBI, as well as CIA.
You're right, the US "cannot be trusted"!
Of course Pakistan objects afterall its Pakistan's ISI that funds the Taliban any Afghan will tell you that.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB227/index.htm
George C. Brown - While I don't particularly care for the politics of Pakistan, either past or present, nonetheless, I don't blame them for being critical of the U.S. policy or strategy in Adghanistan, so am I - - but for different reasons. Afghanistan is a "Black Hole" for all intents and purposes; they are continuing to swallow up outside nations who try to control them (or "bring them democracy", or whatever else you may want to call it). Can't we learn some of the lessons of history - - like great Britain did and the Soviet Union did? Maybe not - - we didn't learn in Iraq, either!
Perhaps this sounds trite, but isn't about time someone (nationally) took a different tack, and tried to eliminate war and the mindset of war and tried peace for a change? I realize that this would be a fundamental attitudinal shift for most of humankind (even hordes of the followers of the Prince of Peace), but wouldn't it be worth a try?
AFPAK is where empires go to die.
Give 'em the rope.