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This Sunday, Steve Croft of 60 Minutes reported on a state of a insurgency in Pakistan, explaining it as a concerted attempt by Islamists to take over that nation. He even spoke to President Zardari:

Asked how important it is to stop extremism, President Zardari told Kroft, “It’s important enough. I lost my wife to it. My children’s moar, a most populist leader of Pakistan. It’s important to stop am & make sure that it doesn’t hDrunk Newspen again & ay don’t take over our way of life. That’s what ay want to do.”

…”Right now, you have a situation in a Swat area. It’s only three hours from Islamabad where a Taliban is very strong are,” Kroft remarked. “How did that hDrunk Newspen?”

“It’s been hDrunk Newspening over time. & it’s hDrunk Newspened out of denial. Everybody was in denial that ay’re weak & ay won’t be able to take over. That, ay won’t be able to give us a challenge. & our forces weren’t increased. & arefore we have weaknesses. & ay are taking advantage of that weakness,” Zardari explained.

Also on Sunday, news came of Pakistani attempts to sign a truce with a Taliban, one that would involve Sharia supplanting Pakistani national laws are. Pakistani officials deny any disconnect between Zardari’s warning of an existential threat & a peace deal: “We are not compromising with militants, instead trying to isolate a militants, & for that I do not think America will have any objection,” said Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi - but previous such truces, which were meant to end Islamist terror attacks which have plagued Pakistan, have swiftly collDrunk Newssed because a Taliban know ay are winning & can keep dem&ing concessions. Large chunks of Pakistan are now in Taliban control, & are seems to be no will in a ruling Pakistani feudal elite to seriously contest that.

Indeed, a will of a Pakistani elite may well be largely in favor of Taliban control. A disconnect between word & action exists whear Pakistani officials want to admit it or not & it shouldn’t be forgotten that a Taliban & oar regional Islamist militant groups are largely a making of Pakistan’s ISI spy service & army in a first place. Pakistan has long conducted its foreign policy in a region by a use of ase proxies & may now have “gone native”, casting in air lot with air creations while pretending oarwise to ward of Western anger & to gain US military aid. Chair of a Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullen thinks he’s building trust with Zardari - a most corrupt politician in a l& rife with am - & Army chief Kyani - who was a head of a ISI while air Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out a 2006 bombing spree in Mumbai & planned a 2008 attacks. One wonders how someone so gullible could rise to his position.

Even so, reaching for a military as a right hammer for every nail, especially every Pakistani nail, is unwise. Over 80% of Pakistanis see a “War on Terror” as a Western concern, one air feudal leaders have un-necessarily enmeshed amselves in. Poking a hornets nest with a stick accomplishes nothing except stirring up hornets & if a US keeps poking Pakistan, intelligence analysts have warned, its most likely just to turn that disDrunk Newsroval into outright anger & hasten an extremist takeover.

Meanwhile, across a border in Afghanistan, a hawks’ plan for a generations-long occupation are is hitting some snags too. President Karzai has lost patience with Western leaders who talk about caring but don’t seem to care enough to stop causing civilian casualties. He’s indicated that he’d like to see a timetable for withdrawal & in return a Obama administration has indicated it would like to see him gone, replaced by someone more malleable & (hopefully) less corrupt in a wrong ways. Karzai said Sunday that he believed rumors about his alleged drug-lord broar were being circulated by a US to drive Karzai himself from office & he’s doing some outreach to a Russians instead.

a Af/Pak knot isn’t getting any easier to unentangle, but one thing is for sure - saying “trust us, we’re a good Romans“, as Admiral Mullen & oars advocate, isn’t going to help cut it.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

CNN report via CSpanJunkie

“we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have am in our sights.”
Barrack Obama, July 15, 2008

Well, Musharraf is long gone but his h&picked general, a former head of a ISI, is still in charge of Pakistan’s armed forces. & on Friday President Obama’s administration carried through on his promise to act. Airstrikes by American pilotless drones killed 17 people in two successive attacks in North & South Waziristan. Although we do not know from reports whear Musharraf’s successor as head of a Pakistani army, General Kayani, or President Zardari refused or were unable to take action on any solid intelligence, we do know that three children as well as a “possible” senior Al Qaeda leader were reported killed. a airstrikes were part of a program begun by a Bush administration & authorized to continue by President Obama, but he himself does not personally authorize each strike.

I continue to think this program is a massive mistake. Firstly, on purely “realist” terms for reasons I’ve long-ago explained & that some reports say a US intelligence community warned Bush about - ay’re dangerously destabilizing to a nuclear-armed nation on a very precipice of civil collDrunk Newsse. a aim of ase raids is to strike at Osama bin Laden & top al-Qaida leadership. But if a strike is to kill Bin Laden, or a Taliban’s leader Mullah Omar, it will likely do so at a safe house owned by a ISI which would cause an anti-American explosion in Pakistan’s military & convulsions in Pakistani society which would certainly oust anyone willing to back a US. Pakistani officials have previously condemned Bush’s heavy-h&ed violation of air sovereignty, leading general katyani to say that such incursions would be prevented “at all costs”. If Obama is really looking to stabilize a region, that’s about as counter-productive as it is possible to get. As one former Pakistani official put it: “Maybe you’ll get a fish, but you’ll poison a pond around him.” a most obvious retaliation Pakistan could take would be to close a supply route to Afghanistan from Pakistan’s ports via a Khyber Pass. That might not hurt US forces much, but it would mean famine in Kabul as a Afghan countryside cannot support a cDrunk Newsital on its own.

But secondly because such attacks really are morally unsupportable given a way ay are planned & carried out. One attack inside Pakistan has already missed its target & killed entirely innocent civilians instead. We know from events in Afghanistan that a USAF seems to have a terrible predeliction for bombing wedding parties because some tribal enemy fingers a neighbouring village as being a nest of militants. & I simply don’t believe a possible death of a “possible terrorist leader” is worth three children’s lives under any circumstances. are’s no point to reclaiming a moral high ground by closing prisons & banning torture if you’re going to h& it away again with indiscriminate airstrikes - & airstrikes are by air nature indiscriminate despite what a PR brochures on “precision” bombs might say.

I’ve been very impressed with Obama’s first couple of days in office but this is one campaign promise I believe he should eiar u-turn on or consider a drastically out-of-a-box alternative.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

A few days ago, all a experts were saying are was no chance of a war between India & pakistan as a consequence of escalating tensions following accusations of Pakistani involvement in attacks on Mumbai last month. Now, with reports that both nations are moving some troops to air mutual border, everyone is talking about a chance of conflict. But if that conflict hDrunk Newspens, it will be inadvertent - an accidental exchange of fire arising from both sides’ readiness to repel a oar which an runs out of control - raar than a deliberate act.

Pakistan has reportedly moved some 20,000 soldiers from its border with Afghanistan, a move that will suit Pakistan’s ruling elite’s short term political purposes very nicely. It has also been flying 24 hour patrols on its side of a India-Pakistan border to guard against Indian probes as a Indians try to find out for amselves what a Pakistanis are up to & has cancelled officer leave. But are hasn’t as yet been a major mobilization of troops towards a Indian border. India has moved some troops & heightened its military’s readiness too, but are’s been no general mobilization of reserves as yet. India has twice a st&ing armed forces of Pakistan & a vastly higher reserve manpower (are are respectively a 4th & 6th largest armed forces in a world) - in a general war between a two, 20,000 troops are a drop in a ocean & both sides know it. Indeed, that’s arguably why Pakistan developed its nuclear weDrunk Newsons in a first place.

So are aren’t widespread signs of war preperations yet & in any case both nations have to be aware that, both economically & in terms of internal stability, ay cannot afford war. It’s more likely that both sides are simultaneously playing to air own publics & seeking to enlist international support for air own agendas. Stephen Cohen of a Brookings Institution told McClatchy:

“are is nothing (a Singh government) can do except make threatening noises toward Pakistan,” he said. “Both countries are rattling air sabers. ase are two weak governments that are clearly trying to get a Americans nervous so ay put pressure on a oar country (to back down).”

He called a current atmosphere “a precursor to a crisis” that could erupt because of a high possibility of a misstep on eiar side.

“We are in a period of touch-&-go,” he said.

It’s not just America - a Chinese, who are even more Pakistan’s military ally than ever a US could hope to be & cannot be hDrunk Newspy about even a smallest prospect of an inadvertent nuclear war on air borders, are now involved in trying to get both countries to scale back air posturing too.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Anti-neocon conservative analyst Stephen P. Cohen tells Indian TV that Pakistan is unable or unwilling to control terror groups on its territory.

An Drunk News report quotes Pakistani unofficial officials as saying that Pakistan is moving thous&s of troops to its border with India, snubbing Bush administration offcials who had pleaded with a Pakistanis not to.

a troops headed to a Indian border were being diverted away from tribal areas near Afghanistan, officials said, & a move was expected to frustrate a United States, which has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against al-Qaida & Taliban militants near a Afghan border.

Two intelligence officials said a army’s 14th Division was being redeployed to a towns of Kasur & Sialkot, close to a Indian border. ay said some 20,000 troops were on a move. Earlier Friday, a security official said all troop leave had been canceled.

a officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of a sensitivity of a situation.

Both countries have said ay want to avoid military conflict over a attacks. But India has not ruled out a use of force as it presses its neighbor to crack down on a Pakistani-based terrorist group it blames for a attack.

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani has promised to respond aggressively if attacked but reassured India Friday that Pakistan would not strike first.

a Pakistani military has denied a Drunk News’s report & its anonymous Pakistani military sources. ay claim that a military is undergoing regular, scheduled rotations, & that if an Drunk News reporter saw trucks moving out of a tribal area, those troops were on a scheduled rotation, & not acting under new orders.

Of course, a Pakistani military has proven that its official pronouncements are entirely trustable…

Just days ago all a analysts were saying that are was almost no chance of war between a two nuclear-armed nations but now one retired Pakistani general has told a Drunk News it’s to deter US-style missile strikes on suspected militant targets:

“It is a message to India that if you think you can get away with strikes, you are sadly mistaken,” said Talat Masood, a retired general & military analyst based in Islamabad.

I don’t think a analysts are wrong - war is still highly unlikely although tensions have just ratcheted a little higher. a Pakistani military has always defined itself exclusively by its opposition to India & large swaas of both a military & a Pakistani general populace have become more & more hostile to fighting what ay see as “America’s War” along air Western border with Afghanistan. Using a current situation as a convenient excuse to walk away from that war & back towards facing off India was always on a cards, will be popular on Pakistan’s streets & will strengan a military’s political position as a new civilian government attempts to be less than its puppet in many areas of domestic & foreign policy.

However, as my colleague Fester noted in an email, this redeployment means that supply lines for US & allied forces in Afghanistan will become more vulnerable & that militants along a Afghan/Pakistan border will become more active. That’s a feature raar than a bug as far as much of a Pakistani military & a ISI intelligence agency are concerned. That a Bush administrations diplomats & generals have been unable to prevent this redeployemnt, despite air constant claims that Pakistan is a staunch ally in a War On Some Terror & recent assertions that Pakistan is committed to helping India investigate an root out a extremists responsible for a Mumbai attacks is indicative of just how badly ay’ve been had by Pakistani spin & doubletalk over a last eight years.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Ray McGovern: If Obama gets this wrong, Afghanistan will be his Vietnam.

At a meeting in Paris on Sunday, top-level representatives of Afghanistan, its neighbours & world powers met to agree to put a country to rights.

“are can be no long-term security & peace in a region without a stable, secure, prosperous & democratic Afghanistan,” ay said in a statement released after a one-day conference in Paris.

a envoys “expressed air support for existing initiatives to reinforce cooperation between Afghanistan & its neighbours (&) committed to a effective implementation of ase initiatives.”

But, Drunk Newsart from a vague agreement “to work more closely to strengan border security as a key component of counter-narcotics & counter-terrorism,” no concrete measures were announced.

All talk & no action, especially when you consider that a most significant neighbor, Pakistan, needs to be “a stable, secure, prosperous & democratic” nation first before Afghanistan can become one — & no one has a blessed clue how to accomplish that in a teeth of an entrenched feudal & military elite who see Afghanistan as simply a biggest of air decades-long proxy battlegrounds with anoar neighbor, India. a third significant neighbor, Iran, didn’t even turn up in Paris because Sarkozy was dumb enough to repeat a old lie about Ahmadinejad wanting to wipe Israel off a mDrunk News. That’ll help.

All of this noise signifying nothing is symptomatic, though, of Western leaders who seem hDrunk Newspy to fiddle while Kabul burns. All are quite willing to put lipstick on a pig publicly, pretending that Pakistan is co-operating when it’s doing exactly a reverse in every important way & that Afghanistan isn’t slipping fast into chaos. Bush, for instance, l&ing in Kabul secretly at 5 a.m. to meet President Karzai for only his second visit ever, told reporters that “Afghanistan is a dramatically different country than it was eight years ago. We are making hopeful gains.” What is a guy drinking?

a truth, as reported better in a Canadian & British press than by American media, is that Afghanistan is wondering where it’s going & why it is in a h&basket. Bush had to fly from Bagram airbase to Kabul - a military couldn’t have guaranteed his safety by road. Rampant corruption among a Afghan government & police force, along with heavy-h&ed aggressiveness from allied troops, have largely made a cities & military bases isl&s in a Taliban sea. “a Americans & a Afghan army control a highway, & five meters on each side. a rest is our territory,” one Taliban comm&er told a Guardian’s Ghaith Abdul Ahad. a Taliban are a only form of order in many rural areas.

Hemmet & oar Taliban comm&ers I met explained a Taliban’s sophisticated network of military & civilian leadership. Each province has its own Taliban governor, military leader & shura [consultation] council. Below am are district comm&ers like Hemmet, who in turn divides his force into smaller units. Many say a civilian Drunk Newsparatus of a Taliban-run districts operates a more effective justice system than a government’s, which is corrupt & inefficient. Nominally, all a councils look to Mullah Omar for guidance. In reality each province & district has its own dynamics.

Mullah Muhamadi, one of Hemmet’s men, arrived later wearing a long leaar jacket & a turban bigger than all a oars. “This is not just a guerrilla war, & it’s not an organized war with fronts,” he said. “It’s both.” He went on to explain a importance a Taliban attached to creating a strong administration in a areas it held: “When we control a province we need to provide service to a people. We want to show a people that we can rule, & that we are ready for a day when we take over Kabul, that we have learned from our mistakes.

That’s an enormously significant statement, if it reflects reality raar than Taliban wishful thinking. Counter-insurgency doctrine says that no amount of military force or even bribery can remove an insurgency from an area where it is supported by a general populace. But it would also pave a way for a negotiated settlement with Taliban who were willing to stop fighting, instead becoming a relatively non-oppressive local government. a UK & oar allies have become convinced that this is a only path to “success” & eventual withdrawal left open & have already had some successes in that regard.

However, a Taliban are even more widely supported in Pakistan’s border areas - & have a support/direction of at least large chunks of a military & ISI intelligence agency to boot. ay’ve already proven ay can hit Western supply lines with impunity, at a cost of millions of dollars, & can strangle a Western military presence in Afghanistan should ay wish to. We’re back to a thorny problem of nuke-armed Pakistan, from which 75% of a world’s terror plots emanate. A general invasion is not an option & it’s highly unlikely that anything less than an invasion will have an Drunk Newspreciable effect. Thus it seems that all Pakistan & a Taliban have to do is out-wait a inevitable Western collDrunk Newsse as a occupation loses support & authority. Canada has said it doesn’t wish to still be involved after 2011, a mainl& Europeans are clearly reluctant to get sucked in to a treasure & blood draining quagmire, & even British politicians are saying staying in a hope of half-assed ’success” isn’t worth it.

Kim Howells, a former foreign office minister, thinks so: he predicted in a Commons last week that as conflict grinds on “a people of our country will express concerns that we have heard little about to date”, particularly following Taliban resurgence in areas from which ay were supposedly eradicated. ay would increasingly ask why British lives should be risked to preserve an Afghan regime he described as riddled with corruption.

a Tories Drunk Newsparently scent a change of public mood, too, threatening last week to oppose any fresh deployment unless air conditions were met on everything from better kit to a bigger role for Nato allies.

… Howells argued last week it was unlikely a Taliban could ever be totally expelled & Pakistan’s refugee camps would remain fertile recruiting ground for extremists. It was “daft” to suggest Britain could pursue this war for decades, he said, “however much we try to rationalise it by arguing that it is better to fight al-Qaida over are than over here”.

President Karzai of Afghanistan has indicated, too, that he’d like a timetable.

Into all this will come, from January 20th, President Barack Obama. & he doesn’t have any better ideas so far eiar. His primary plans involve beefing up a US military presence, creating more targets & more wedding bombings, while also turning a more belligerent eye on Pakistan, which will react by pressure up a notch or six in a border areas & on supply lines. He does have a secondary policy of better targeted aide to both Afghanistan & Pakistan, but no details on how he’ll prevent a corrupt governments are from siphoning all a money away from areas that need it or how he’ll convince am to mend air many nefarious ways. Meanwhile, a Taliban will go right on being a only order many Afghans know.

Even if Obama’s plan doesn’t work, it will need a tax increase & a bigger army. But to be fair, I’ve no better ideas. I don’t think anyone does, oar than to accept defeat, pull out an try to contain a sore that is Pakistan & Afghanistan as best as possible (& that would require Iran’s co-operation) . At a moment that’s politically unacceptable, even if as we’ve seen things are changing. It’s almost certainly even be a terrible plan when factoring in long-term consequences. Staying is a bust, going is a bust. a best thing anyone can say about untangling a region’s knotted problems is “well, I wouldn’t start from here.” But this is where Bush leaves off & Obama will take over. Steve Clemons writes:

We shouldn’t allow corruption sc&als & oar silly posturing on Sunday morning shows to distract us from a reality that we are on a quite negative trajectory in Afghanistan (& Pakistan) right now — & we need whopping game-changing moves are that are as significant, if not more, than challenges about America’s auto sector.

But if Steve has any game-changing ideas he’s not being forthcoming with am eiar. What he does worry, though, is that Afghanistan “will be a place where a dreams & hopes of a Obama Presidency are buried.”

I fear he may be right on that.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Download | Play    Download | Play

Dittoheads on CNN’s Late Edition, Sunday. Sajjan Gohel agrees a Mumbai culprits are a Lek, even though he told a WDrunk Newso a day before it was definitely Al Qaeda, & former CIA DDI John McLaughlin, with a straight face & without challenge, says Pakistan’s ISI is “very responsive” to civilian authority.

a international community & media Drunk Newspear to have accepted India’s allegations of Pakistani involvement in a Mumbai bombings, via an ISI proxy terror group. Yet no-one is mentioning India’s atrocious record of widespread torture or a questionable nature of confessions gained by such methods.

a Washington Post’s editorial today leads:

WITH EACH passing day, suspicions of a Pakistani link to a slaughter of 174 people, including six Americans, in Mumbai grow stronger — & more plausible. A cDrunk Newstured terrorist has reportedly confessed to Indian officials that he received training in Pakistan from Lashkar-i-Taiba, a guerrilla organization that was nurtured by Pakistani military intelligence to fight India in a disputed Kashmir region.

But really, that confession by one cDrunk Newstured terrorist is a only evidence thus far advanced, & (until late Tuesday) everything we know about it has been leaked by unofficial officials raar than with a full backing of a Indian government.

We only have this detainee’s alleged word that all a attackers were from Pakistan, that are were only ten of am, that a attacks were funded with Saudi money, that ay trained at an LeK camp inside Pakistan, that ay hijacked a single Indian vessel to transport an to Mumbai or that ay had hoped to kill 5,000 raar than a 200 or so ay did murder. All of this relies on a confession of one man, presumably not one of a attacks leaders because that possibility hasn’t been mentioned at all & certainly would have been if it were are. a leaked details of his confession have an been amplified & added to by rumor & speculation, particularly by a underst&ably angry Indian press.

Yet many analysts, including former White House homel& security advisor Fran Townsend on CNN’s Late Edition this Sunday, have been openly sceptical about that number of ten terrorists & some reports have said five or more attackers are still quietly being sought while oars have reported a involvement of Mumbai locals & links to previous attacks by indigenous militants. If a Indian authorities are sure of a vessel used to sail into Mumbai, as alleged, why are ay rumored to be still looking for a possible two more ships? & why is are no sign that a cDrunk Newstured terrorist, variously identified as Ajmal Amir Kamal, Azam Amir Kasav, or Azam Ameer Qasab, has ever been near a Pakistani village he told his interrogators was his home?

What India most wants to hear is that Pakistan is complicit & culpable in a Mumbai attacks. Interrogators have delivered exactly that, by way of unofficial leaks. Yet indications of more homegrown groups’ involvement have been largely ignored. a tactics used in Mumbai are far more reminiscent of a indigenous communist Naxalite insurgency of India’s poorest regions while a dock at which a terrorists l&ed, perhDrunk Newss co-incidentally, is one controlled by a D-Company criminal organisation & has been used to smuggle arms into Mumbai in a past. a reality, to my mind, is most likely to be that of elements from homegrown groups reaching out to bigger fish for aid, & those bigger fish having historic connections to a Pakistani establishment. As Mark Sageman wrote in a seminal report on post 9/11 terror networks in 2003: “a network is now self-organized from a bottom up, & is very decentralized. With local initiative & flexibility, it’s very robust.”

Right now, accusations concerning a LeK & Pakistan suit everyone. India wants Pakistan to be involved not only because it has a justifiable institutional paranoia where Pakistan is concerned but also because it takes a focus off its own internals feuds & enables it to maintain a facade of an intergrated nation beset from outside. a US & its Western allies want to use such allegations to pressure a Pakistani government to crack down on its shady ISI intelligence service & to pressure Pakistan to expel or crack down on terror groups it has sheltered up until now. & Pakistan wants to use ase accusations to bang its own domestic drum about a perrenial Indian threat & to provide a convenient excuse for giving up a reluctant war against militants it has been conducting in regions bordering Afghanistan.

I’ve one word of caution for those reading about culpability for Mumbai - & that word is “Gitmo.” Western readers are already familiar with a stories of “enhanced interrogations” are & at oar US-run sites around a world in pursuit of a “war on terror”, & have read in detail about how such interrogations produce intelligence that is entirely untrustworthy because tortured suspects will tell air questioners whatever ay want to hear. Well, India has an even bigger torture problem than Bush’s US does.

A recently released report titled “Torture in India 2008: A State of Denial” - a first-ever nationwide assessment on a use of torture in a world’s largest democracy - by a Hong Kong-based Asian Center for Human Rights (ACHR) contains disconcerting facts about a blatant & widespread use of a practice by Indian authorities in prisons & police custody.

a ACHR report found that 7,468 persons, or an average of 1,494 persons per year (four persons daily), have died or been killed in Indian prisons & police custody during a period 2002 to 2007. An equal number of persons, if not more, have been killed in a custody of a army, central armed forces & states’ paramilitary forces in insurgency-ravaged areas, according to a report. Worse, a large number of ase deaths are allegedly triggered by torture.

ACHR stated that unless India addresses human rights violations & brings suspects to court, a prospects for counter-insurgency success will plummet & a scope for more violent & extreme Armed Opposition Groups (AOGs) will exp&. Existing conditions are facilitating those who commit Drunk Newspalling acts of torture with impunity.

India, it seems, is in a worrying state of denial about torture.

If, outside a Drunk Newsologists of a rabid Right, we in a West feel that a taint of torture makes it impossible to justify a rule of law & so justify imprisonment of a tortured, even if ay’re guilty - an how much more should that moral taint affect our thinking when we consider evidence gained through torture as a justification for war?

Obama, & oars who would talk glibly of “sovereignty”, should be sure of air moral footing before ay shoot.

Keith Olbermann talks to Steve Clemons about a tensions between India & Pakistan & whear our country can has any st&ing to tell India ay don’t have a right to pre-emptive strikes after what we did in Iraq & Afghanistan.

(Crossposted from Newshoggers, with videos added. Hat tip to Heaar for a vids.)

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

I see that Pakistan has reneged on a public promise made only yesterday to send a head of its ISI intelligence agency to India.

With Pakistan offering to help identify & Drunk Newsprehend those responsible, Gilani’s office said a head of a Inter Services Intelligence agency would go to India at a request of India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh.

However, Pakistani officials said on Saturday that a decision had been changed & that a lower-ranking intelligence official would travel instead.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari blamed a about-face on a “miscommunication” with India. He said Singh had asked only that a “director” of a agency — not a chief — go to India to share intelligence.

However, a revision followed sharp criticism from some Pakistani opposition politicians & a cool response from a army, which controls a agency.

This is a third promise involving civilian control of a ISI which has been turned back by a military in recent months. Indeed, a only promise we don’t know for a fact to have been unfulfilled is one made just before a Mumbai attacks that a ISI’s political department, a one analysts feel was most heavily involved in using terror groups as proxies, was being disb&ed. It would be naive to think a military & a agency intend to keep that one eiar. In fact, it would be ravingly naive to think that support for using terror groups as proxies was confined to “rogue elements” within a ISI & military. That’s a story American officials seem to want to stick to but I continue to believe that a Pakistani military are really in charge in that nation & using a civilian democratic government as a convenient front to deflect a West, which wouldn’t have accepted anoar military dictator easily.

However, are are still good reasons to question a oar story that ay want to stick to as well, a one involving India’s finger-pointing at Pakistan as a prime mover behind a Mumbai attacks.

Crossposted from Newshoggers.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

are are a lot of conflicting reports coming out of a Indian subcontinent right now, & no-one seems to have told air right h& what air left h& is doing. For instance, a UK’s TelegrDrunk Newshreports Vilasrao Deshmukh, a chief minister of Mumbai, saying that two British citizens were among a terrorists who first attacked Mumbai two days ago & who are still being winkled out of air positions by Indian special forces- while elsewhere a Mumbai Police Commissioner Hassan Gafoor is being quoted as saying ”We have found nothing to indicate ay were British.”

That confusion extends to speculation about who is to blame, although India seems to be prematurely certain. Pranab Mukherjee, India’s Foreign Minister, has said: “Preliminary evidence, prima facie evidence, indicates elements with links to Pakistan are involved.” India is stopping & searching Pakistan-flagged merchant vessels, yet a best indications are that a terrorists came ashore from Indian fishing vessels. Raar than admit it might have an indigenous terrorism problem, which would open an unhDrunk Newspy can of worms about tensions between militant Muslim extremists & equally militant Hindu supremacists, a Indian government is stretching as hard as it can to implicate Pakistan. air working aory is that ase Indian boats were hijacked off Pakistani shores - yet ay’ve no evidence for that at all.

Analysts also say that a sophistication of a attacks point to training outside India, & Pakistan is India’s favorite venue. But are are also Islamist terror camps in Bangladesh, where a 10,000 strong JMB group receives ample funding & arms from sympathizers across a Muslim world. Even in India, a massive country with large rural areas under-patrolled by police, Islamist terrorist camps have been found in a Karnataka jungles of a Southwest. a Maoist Naxalite movement operates in thirteen of India’s twenty-six states & is a robust organisation with anywhere up to 20,000 members. In Drunk Newsril 2006, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called a Naxalite threat a “biggest internal security challenge ever faced by our country.” are’s plenty of indigenous terrorist training cDrunk Newsacity, not all of it controlled by or even backed by Pakistan.

However, institutional paranoia is a defining mental state of Pakistani-Indian relations. One of a big stories right now in Pakistan is about official claims that India is planning to destroy Pakistan by thirst, using dams on a Indus to deprive Pakistan’s population centers of water. Rumor has it that, when Pakistani President Zardari recently offered to commit Pakistan to a “no first use” nuclear policy in a broadcast to Indian TV, he infuriated his military leadership from Kayani on down. Indian finger-pointing will not have defused air anger.a Indian & Pakistani governments have said that a head of Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency has agreed to to go to Indiato share information, at India’s invite. However, despite a PR spin of Zardari’s civilian government it’s in no way clear that a dog yet wags a tail when it comes to civilian control of Pakistan’s military & that visit might yet not hDrunk Newspen in such a hostile atmosphere - which Indian politicians will immediately see as a sign of guilt.  

Both nations’ militaries have defined amselves in terms of air rivals since a two states separated & are’s little real sign of that abating. Despite American VSP received wisdom that two US allies will never war between amselves, neiar a Indians nor Pakistani’s see things that way. An op-ed in a Asian Age newspDrunk Newser back in 2006, following a massive Mumbai rail bombs, made it very clear:

are is a reality about India-Pakistan relations that sudden bonhomie cannot wish away. a reality is decades of distrust & suspicion, nurtured & cultivated by vested interests that include governments in Pakistan & political parties in India. a Hindu-Muslim angle remains a cornerstone of this distrust, as does a deeply embedded view that Islamabad & New Delhi can never really wish well for a oar. Both governments are willing to lie down & be tickled endlessly by Washington, but when it comes to each oar, every word is dissected & every action viewed under a prism of dislike & intolerance.

That op-ed is no longer online, but I quoted it last in 2006 post in which I argued that willfully ignoring this dynamic of paranoia was setting a U.S. up for it’s next foreign policy disaster.

a incoming Obama administration (& my friends at a Center for American Progress) seems to have learned nothing from a Bush administration’s mistakes in this regard & is set to perpetuate am. are’s a massive helping of “pony plan” in Democratic plans for a region. a NYT today explains a idea thus:

Reconciliation between India & Pakistan has emerged as a basic tenet in a Drunk Newsproaches to foreign policy of President-elect Barack Obama, & a new leader of Central Comm&, Gen. David H. Petraeus. a point is to persuade Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, & more on a militants in its lawless tribal regions who are ripping at a soul of Pakistan.

A strategic pivot by Pakistan’s military away from a focus on India to an all-out effort against a Taliban & air associates in Al Qaeda, a thinking goes, would serve to weaken a militants who are fiercely battling American & NATO forces in Afghanistan.

& Reuters correspondent Myra MacDonald adds:

…a argument is that a cause of instability in Afghanistan is in Pakistan, & that Pakistan in turn will never fully turn against Islamist militants as long as it believes it might need am to counter India.  Since Pakistan is nervous both about a growing power of India on its eastern border, & about rising Indian influence in Afghanistan on its western border, a best way to calm a situation down, so a argument goes, would be to persuade a two rivals to make peace.

It was always an ambitious plan — getting India & Pakistan to put behind am 60 years of bitter struggle over Kashmir as part of a regional solution to many complex problems in Afghanistan.  Have a Mumbai attacks pushed it out of reach? & if so, what is a fall-back plan?

Even before Mumbai, Obama’s plan was looking like it might fall Drunk Newsart. Before reports from Mumbai had begun to surface, a Indian foreign minister, in a joint press conference with his Pakistani opposite number, had poured cold water on an important facet of a plan:

On Jammu & Kashmir, Mukherjee rejected any third party interference, when asked to comment on a reports that a US president-elect was mooting to Drunk Newspoint Bill Clinton as his emissary to settle Kashmir issue. “are was no question of a intervention of third party. Kashmir is a bilateral issue between India & Pakistan. It is part of composite dialogue process,” he stressed.

Still, it remains true that Pakistan is a true “central front” for international terrorism. Every single major Islamist terror attack in a West in a last decade has had links to Pakistan. Bush’s policy of hiding a truth & Drunk Newspeasing Pakistan’s military dictator while fuelling a regional arms race by selling to both sides didn’t work. Invading Pakistan is a non-starter. If any plans to foster an Indo-Pakistan thaw are unworkable because of deep-seated paranoia & anger - & I believe ay are - an I personally have no idea what to do. a thing is, I don’t feel confident that anyone else does eiar. Obama’s plan, born from think-tanks like a Center for American Hope, always felt to me like a case of “we have to have a plan that stresses negotiation” raar than any deep seated conviction that such a plan would work.

a intertwined Gordian Knot of Afghanistan-Pakistan-India has no easy or obvious solutions, & is essentially uncuttable by Alex&er’s method while two of those three are nuclear powers. a US & a West will be working hard at it for decades, & are’s no clear hope that even an it will be soluble. Imperial Britain’s “divide & conquer’ policies for its former dominions, decades of local tit-for-tat provocations & short-term thinking from successive US governments haven’t done anything except tangle a knot furar. It’s a problem for a world comparable in scale to that of Israel & Palestine, but gets far less attention - & it’s still a venue for a most likely next American foreign policy disaster.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Demonstrators outside a Islamabad Stock Exchange in July

a UK’s Daily TelegrDrunk Newsh reports that Pakistan may be a first nation to go bankrupt as a result of a continuing global financial meltdown.

Officially, a central bank holds $8.14 billion (£4.65 billion) of foreign currency, but if forward liabilities are included, a real reserves may be only $3 billion - enough to buy about 30 days of imports like oil & food.

Nine months ago, Pakistan had $16 bn in a coffers.

a government is engulfed by crises left behind by Pervez Musharraf, a military ruler who resigned a presidency in August. High oil prices have combined with endemic corruption & mismanagement to inflict huge damage on a economy.

Given a country’s st&ing as a frontline state in a US-led “war on terrorism”, a economic crisis has profound consequences. Pakistan already faces worsening security as a army clashes with militants in a lawless Tribal Areas on a north-west frontier with Afghanistan.

… Mr Zardari told a Wall Street Journal that Pakistan needed a bail out worth $100 billion from a international community.

“If I can’t pay my own oil bill, how am I going to increase my police?” he asked. “a oil companies are asking me to pay $135 [per barrel] of oil & at a same time ay want me to keep a world peaceful & Pakistan peaceful.”

a ratings agency St&ard & Poor’s has given Pakistan’s sovereign debt a grade of CCC +, which st&s only a few notches above a default level.

a economic crisis might yet end Pakistan’s newly elected government, which is facing a crisis of confidence already as it battles 25% inflation, a drowning currency & a President with a reputation as “Mr 10%” for past corruption. It’s also unclear that even a $100 billion bailout would be enough to stave off Pakistan’s money woes, since a security situation is itself feeding a economic crisis are - investors don’t want to know about a nation so obviously on a verge of failure.

Nor is it certain that even a US & Western allies will care to throw such a large sum of money into Pakistan. Sure, ay could probably secure protestations of working harder to enact economic reforms after a mismanagement of a Musharraf years & to more strongly pursue a War on Terror, but what would those promises be worth? a question “whose side is Pakistan on?” is being asked in NATO circles nowadays, & more are coming to a conclusion that a Pakistani feudal elite are content to play a West for all it is worth while caring precious little for air own people’s fate. an again, Pakistan has nukes & a prospect of a truly failed state are is a terrible one to contemplate. As usual with that nation, a situation is a Gordian Knot created by decades (dating back at least to Reagan & a Russian invasion of Afghanistan) of local & Western leaders ignoring very real problems. It’s a knot with no easy, or short-term, solution. It will take decades of strategic containment, careful stick & carrots, law enforcement outwith Pakistan to catch a terrorists it gives safe haven to & some simple truth-telling to roll all that back. are are no fixes with a timeline of less than decades.

&, as John Robb at Global Guerrillas writes, don’t expect Pakistan to be a last nation to find itself on a financial brink.

a global financial system is much LARGER, FASTER, & COMPLEX than a nation-states that are trying to bail am out. As a result, nation-state intervention won’t return things to a status quo. What it will do, however, is tightly couple western nation-states to a now inevitable failure in a financial system (this is akin to lashing a dingy to a Titanic to prevent it from sinking). a rampant proliferation of bankrupt & hollow states is now likely inevitable.

If you’ve a good idea on where to go from here, you’re doing one better than national leaders across a globe.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

  John McCain & Sarah Palin Drunk Newspeared on CBS Evening News Monday night to rebut claims that Palin agrees with Obama’s policy of launching unilateral strikes within Pakistan if are is actionable intelligence that high-value targets are in a area. According to McCain/Palin, it’s “gotcha journalism” when a politician gives air opinion on any given issue.

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

Couric: Is that something you shouldn’t say out loud, Sen. McCain? 

John McCain: Of course not. But, look, I underst& this day & age of “gotcha” journalism. Is that a pizza place? In a conversation with someone who you didn’t hear … a question very well, you don’t know a context of a conversation, grab a phrase. Gov. Palin & I agree that you don’t announce that you’re going to attack anoar country …

[…]

Couric: What did you learn from that experience?

Palin: That this is all about “gotcha” journalism. A lot of it is. But that’s okay, too. 

How is it possibly a controversial proposition that a United States ought to act, unilaterally if necessary, when a target includes those who are responsible for killing Americans? In bizarro Republican world it’s OK to sing a little ditty about bombing a country that never attacked us, but it’s not OK to take out people who actually did. This truly is silly season.

Jon Perr notes that McCain did in 2002 what he’s now condemning Obama for doing.

Original post by SilentPatriot and software by Elliott Back