Go to video piece aired by PBS on August 18 with links to other materials: PBS NewsHour, August, 18, 2010 .
Archive for the ‘Af-Pak War’ Category
Fears That Pakistan Flooding Will Further Destabilize an Already Unstable State
Friday, August 20th, 2010More Evidence of Pakistani Collusion With Taliban
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010The lead editorial of today’s New York Times “Pakistan’s Double Game” contains a good summary of the problems surrounding the behavior of Pakistan’s intelligence service (ISI) over the course of the last few decades, problems we have been discussing in this course since its inception in 2000. Pakistan has long used the Taliban as a proxy: its overall aim is to build and maintain influence over what happens in Afghanistan, thus preventing Afghanistan from falling into orbit around India, Pakistan’s biggest enemy.
More Evidence That Pakistan Provides Support to the Taliban
Monday, June 14th, 2010For years experts have been claiming that Pakistan supports jihadist movements in South Asia to advance its foreign policy interests and that the state bureaucracy chiefly responsible for the mission is the nation’s intelligence apparatus, “Inter-Services Intelligence” (ISI). A new report out of the London School of Economics suggests ISI support runs deeper than previously thought.
Fresh Uncertainties About U.S. Strategy in Af-Pak War
Sunday, May 9th, 2010In today’s New York Times “Week in Review” section, David E. Sanger (“Overseas, An Enemy That May Mutate and Grow”) describes how American strategy in the Af-Pak War is being reexamined. Excerpt:
“At the time of Mr. Obama’s strategy review [of a year ago], the logic seemed straightforward. Only Al Qaeda had the ambitions and reach to leap the ocean and take the war to America’s skies and streets. In contrast, most of the Taliban and other militant groups were regarded as fragmented, regional insurgencies whose goals stuck close to the territory their tribal ancestors have fought over for centuries.
Six months and a few attempted bombings later, including the near-miss in New York last weekend, nothing looks quite that simple. As commanders remind each other, in all wars the enemy gets a vote, too. Increasingly, it looks like these enemies have voted to combine talents, if not forces.”
Pakistan Considering Harder Line on Militants
Friday, April 30th, 2010State Building in Afghanistan
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010Sheri Berman (“From the Sun King to Karzai,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2010, vol. 89, no. 2, 2-9) writes that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan will not be complete until a strong central government capable of controlling the entire country has been put in place.
U.S. forces’ Afghanistan cover-up
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010On February 12, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force Public Affairs Office released a statement on the discovery of the bound and gagged bodies of two women and the bodies of two dead men in a house nearby the village of Khatabeh in the Paktia Province of Afghanistan. The bodies were found by NATO forces the day before, during an investigation for Taliban or militant activity in the area.
On the same day that NATO released their statement, Rod Nordland of the New York Times published an interview with the Paktia Province police chief, revealing that there were two men and three women killed in the home.
On April 4th, the ISAF issued a new statement: “A thorough joint investigation… has determined that international forces were responsible for the deaths of three women who were in the same compound where two men were killed by the joint Afghan-international patrol searching for a Taliban insurgent.”
Widening Rift Between Afghanistan’s President and the West
Monday, April 5th, 2010As President Hamid Karzai moves closer to Iran and China, his speeches have begun to take a stridently anti-Western tone. One Western diplomat in Kabul said, “‘The political situation is starting to deteriorate; Karzai is flailing around…At the moment we are propping up an unstable political structure, and I haven’t seen any remotely plausible plan for building consensus.’”
Alissa J. Rubin, “Karzai’s Words Leave Few Choices for the West,” New York Times, April 5, 2010, A6.
Marja Civilians “With” Karzai
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Bennett Carroccio
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8554332.stm
“Afghan President Karzai hears Marja complaints”
President Karzai visited Marja for the first time since NATO and Afghan troops retook the town from the Taliban during operation Moshtarak. There, he spoke to the townspeople and promised them a brighter future: improved security, opening schools and investing in roads and clinics). When he asked if the people were with him or against him, the crowd shouted with their hands raised in the air: “We are with you. We are supporting you.” This acknowledges that the people of Marja are for this new government in Afghanistan over the Taliban’s rule.
When Karzai opened up to the people and asked for their frustrations and complaints, the few responses he received in my opinion were somewhat hypocritical. They have every reason to complain about civilian casualties but I do not feel that they do regarding civilian arrests, house searchings and schools being turned into bases for “Western forces.” Afghanistan is currently undergoing to a certain extent, a revolution. The political structure, by means of force, is changing. This change cannot be expected to be successful without some form of sacrifice by the people. The situation is too major to go on without civilian sacrifices. NATO troops and Afghan soldiers, whose main goal is to not just drive the Taliban out but to keep them out, promised the people security. The soldiers cannot be expected to fulfill their promise if they are not properly keeping the people safe. It is their job, in order to keep the town out of danger, to search people and their houses. Especially in Afghanistan with the Taliban, a group of militants fighting with asymmetrical warfare, anyone has the potential to be a threat to security. Regarding troops stationed in schools— Would the people of Marja prefer them in their houses or the mosque?
The Afghan civilians, if they really are “with” and “supporting” Karzai, I feel should be thanking their protectors, and trying to help in anyway possible. If they are with Karzai and the Afghan government, they are against the Taliban. If even just NATO troops leave Marja, Taliban troops will most likely come right back into the town.
I Think We Killed Him
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Bennett Carroccio
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/06/AR2010030601284.html
“Possible loss of top Taliban leader in Pakistan a further blow to militants”
Yesterday, March 6, Pakistani officials announced that they “probably” killed Taliban leader, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed. This killing, if it actually happened, is extremely important, for Maulvi Faqir Mohammed was an al-Queda linked commander of the Pakistani Taliban and “his death would help reduce the Pakistani Taliban to something more like the patchwork of local insurgencies that it was before it grew into a lethal umbrella group.” According to this article, Mohammad was under consideration at one point for becoming the leader of the national Taliban organization. Aftab Khan Sherpao, a former Pakistani interior minister, seemingly full of confidence, then went on to call the Pakistani Taliban “shell-shocked” and said: “Pakistan is on the front foot right now.”
What bothers me is that this seems to all be conjecture. Pakistani officials do not actually know if Mohammed is dead. I see this almost as a cry of desperation, for other democratic countries like America to instill confidence and faith into the antiterrorism efforts made by Pakistan. If Mohammad is not dead and Pakistani officials think he is, that can also cause some serious trouble for Pakistani and other countries’ intelligence.
The most recent leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, is also thought to be dead. He is thought to be killed in a January drone attack. As long as the antiterrorist forces are continuously on attack mode, the Taliban will have great difficulties communicating with one another and will become extremely disorganized. One Taliban insurgent in a telephone interview said: “We are unable to pass information to each other. On the one hand, security forces are chasing us, and on the other, Americans are firing missiles.” Of course, however, this fighter can just be lying over the phone in order to portray a false message to his opposition, which in my opinion seems be a much more pragmatic approach, rather than admitting a state of fluster.
