Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ????  | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ???????  | Notizie di Rupia |  PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: Save/Share | RUPEE NEWS | October 28th, 2008 | Moin Ansari |  ???? ??????? | ????? ?????  |  

One of the reasons for the defeat of foreign armies in Afghanistan is the precarious nature of the supply lines.  The Mongols far removed from their homeland could not survive in the deserts and mountains of Hindu Kush. Unable to live off the land, the foreign armies are forced to bring in basic supplies, and arms to the area. The Afghans know this well. They attack the occupiers in short well planned hit and run operations and they attack the supply lines. No army in the world has been able to maintain the supply lines. The mighty armies of Alexander the Great could not continue his trek because his supply lines had been cut. Lor Curzon faced the same dilemma. The Russians had the same problem. There are some unspoken rules of engagement. American forces are dependent on going through Pakistan–a thousand miles of territory that is absolutely essential to the trucks that rumble on to Kabul. The insurgent know where the supplies come from and where they go. About 70% of the transportation in Karachi and other areas is in the hands of the Pakhtuns. According to some Russian estimates only 50% of the supplies reach Kabul. General Paraeus and others have been bragging about alternative routes to Kabul. The Russians if they ever allow access to NATO want extract their pound of flesh. The Central Asian states also are aware of the stakes. Pakistanis know that the roads from Karachi t Kabul are essential for NATO. Let us try to enumerate them so that they make Dollars and Sense to some.

Lesson Number One: Africa is not a country. South Africa is a country. Noruth America includes Canada, US and Mexico. These were the lessons that the Republicans failed to grasp and lost an election.

Lesson Number Two: Afghanistan is a landlocked country. Karachi is the Pakistan port throught which 80% of the arms and food itemsto Afghanistan flow. All supply lines to Afghanistan run through Pakistan.

Lesson Number Three: Blaming Pakistan won’t help the war on terror.. If you continue to kill Pakistanis, the nation cannot support the US war in Afghanistan. Pakistan Assembly: War not in its interest-Want it stopped!

Lesson Number Four: No pay. No Play.

There has been a big spike in US attacks on Pakistan. This creates huge problems for Pakistan and peace loving peoples of the region. Most of the drone attacks are proverbially inaccurate and have bombed innocent civilians. US attacks on Pakistan since 2004 fueled Afghan insurgency

According to the DOD, Pakistan suffered a loss of $20 Billion per annum as a result of the US attack on Afghanistan. Afghanistan received $15 Billion in aid in the past few years–most of is wasted on arms. Pakistan wanted a Free Trade Agreement with the US which would have propelled its exports to America to $15 Billion. Pakistan wanted Reconstruction Opportunity Zones (ROZs) in FATA, NWFP and Baluchistan.

The $650 million per annum never quite made it to Pakistan. None of these materialized. By law half of the US is spent in America. 25% of the rest is “spent” on administrative and logistical expenses. The remaining 25% is given to the US Ambassador’s favorite US based NGO deposited back to the States. Almost none makes it to the poor Pakistanis. Pakistan has been caught in the midst of the global financial crisis and spiraling inflation fueled by rising gasoline prices. The US had promised

Obama advisor Weinbaum predicts total Afghan policy review: Sees focus on talks & Reconciliation  

What about the $10 Billion mentioned over and over again by the “Drive By Media“? About $5 Billion is actually reimbursement for the use of four bases in Pakistan and logistical support–fuel, bullets, Humvees,everything needed for the war in Afghanistan.

Pakistan is in a pinch right now. The US is witholding funds! AND the US has increased the number of attacks on Paksitan. When US troops landed in FATA, Pakistan shut of the spigot. The raids stopped–at least the announced one. The drones attacks continued. These attacks create a blowback for Paksitan–like the attack on the Marriott Hotel (often called Pakistan’s 911).

• While Pakistan struggles to pick up the pennies to cope with a global financial crisis, $1 Billion in reimbursement (not aid) is held in the GAO accounting La La land.
• Pakistan has lodged protests at the highest level to stop bombing sovereign Pakistani territory
• “Afghanistan is a landlocked country. Everything we want to use to eat, drink and to shoot has to come in from outside,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA agent and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute.
• “The Taliban and al Qaeda recognize completely this is a vulnerability and a place where it’s easier for them to operate inside Pakistan than it is for us, and the way to really turn the screws on the NATO forces in Afghanistan is to go after the logistics pipeline.”
• “The majority public sentiment must be behind Pakistan’s participation on war on terror. That cannot be compromised. If the people turn against it, it will be very difficult for the government to ensure this [supply] line,” Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province, told ABC News in Peshawar. “Because it has to come all the way through the entire Pakistan, from the sea to this place.”
• “The American military and NATO military officials are well aware of their vulnerability here and have been looking for long time for alternatives to develop so we don’t have to rely on Pakistan,” Riedel said. “But the problem is the geography doesn’t change
• There is no other way to bring in supplies.” If the attacks cripple the supply line, Riedel said, U.S. troops are “not going to have the equipment they need, they’re not going to have the food they need, and you’re going to have an American and NATO force which is literally cut off and dependent on whatever can be brought in by air, which is incredibly expensive and very, very difficult.”
• US carried out secret raids into Pakistan’ * Operations against Qaeda conducted under 2004 mandate by Bush * NYT says Navy Seals raided Taiban compound in Bajaur in 2006  By Khalid Hasan. WASHINGTON: US commandos have carried out in secret around a dozen attacks against Al Qaeda and other militant outfits in Pakistan, Syria and elsewhere, the New York Times reported on Monday. The recent ‘American boots on the ground’ September 3 raid in Bajaur Agency, therefore, was not the first one in Pakistan.
• President Zardari about the military operation in the Bajur tribal region. “We feel that the strikes are an intrusion on our sovereignty, which are not appreciated by the people at large, and the first aspect of this war is to win the hearts and mind of the people,” Zardari said.
• Zardari said that he expected US President-elect Barack Obama to take a “new look” at Pakistan’s objections to the missile attacks on suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban targets. He was not sure that if Obama would halt them.Geo TV
• “This is the most traditional, most used land route to connect Afghanistan and Pakistan,” says Talat Masood, a security expert and retired general of the Pakistani Army. The same supply route was used to support the mujahideen in their fight against the Soviet Union, he says. Christian Science Monitor
• “There were some U.S. military materials that were taken — Humvees and water tank trailers,” said Maj. John Redfield Associated Press

After controlling most of Afghanistan, the insurgents target supplies from Uzbekistan and the Central Asia Republics Uzbekistan pressured the IMU is scared of Taliban reprisals on supplies to Kabul Anti-Occupation forces choke US Afghan war Reality check on War in Afghanistan The implications of the IMU activity in Pakistan The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game Tough lessons in geography

Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistani Taliban militants hijacked a convoy carrying wheat and military vehicles headed for Afghanistan Monday, underscoring for NATO forces the vulnerability of their only practical supply route into landlocked Afghanistan.

In a brazen attack in Jamrud, near the capital of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, 60 masked militants held up a convoy of 13 trucks, according to official reports. The trucks, 12 of which were carrying wheat and one carrying two Humvees for Western forces in Afghanistan, were hijacked without the militants having to fire a single shot.Taliban hijacking threatens key NATO supply route By Shahan Mufti | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor from the November 12, 2008 edition

 Pakistan Assembly: War not in its interest-Want it stopped!

Pakistan first: The devastating effects of appeasing India and kowtowing to the USA

Mr. Kissinger still living in the 70s should learn the new realities. Waving goodbye to US Hegemony.

An American Humvee races across a desert, a flag waving from the side, a gunman in the turret taking sight.

But there is something wrong with this picture. The flag is not American, and the gunman is not wearing a U.S. uniform.

The Humvee had just been stolen by the Taliban movement in Pakistan, which is led by one of the most wanted men in Pakistan: Baitullah Mehsud. His men were taking a joy ride, Mehsud’s flag waving from the side of the Humvee, a masked, armed man sitting on top waving at a camera.

Today in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency, which borders eastern Afghanistan, Mehsud’s Taliban fighters hijacked 13 trucks filled with U.S. and NATO supplies destined for Afghanistan. It is the latest sign that the U.S. supply line for the Afghan war — 80 percent of which goes through Pakistan — is as vulnerable as ever.

“About 60 masked gunmen popped up on the road and took away the trucks with their drivers,” Bakhtiar Mohmand, a local government administrator, told Reuters. “Not a single shot was fired anywhere.”

Earlier this year dozens of trucks were burned to a crisp in the same area. Over the summer, a truckful of Humvees was destroyed by a mob in Karachi.

Truck operators told Reuters today that about two dozen trucks and oil tankers have been attacked in the past month near the Afghan border.

“The government is a silent spectator. [Militants] attack our trucks, loot them and kill our drivers in broad daylight, even near security checkposts, but [the government] can’t do anything,” Eshtiar Mohmand, who owns a trucking company, told Reuters.

Every day hundreds of trucks make the 1,100-mile journey from Karachi to Kabul, rumbling along some of the least-hospitable territory in the world. These “jingle trucks,” as they’re known here, may not look like much, but they contain the lifeblood of the American army in Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan is a landlocked country. Everything we want to use to eat, drink and to shoot has to come in from outside,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA agent and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute. “The Taliban and al Qaeda recognize completely this is a vulnerability and a place where it’s easier for them to operate inside Pakistan than it is for us, and the way to really turn the screws on the NATO forces in Afghanistan is to go after the logistics pipeline.”  U.S. Supply Lines at Risk along Pakistan Border. The U.S. Supply Line for the Afghan War Remains as Vulnerable as Ever By NICK SCHIFRIN and HABIBULLAH KHAN PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 10, 2008 —

The idea of becoming subservient to India is abhorrent. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

Events on the ground have overtaken the election rhetoric of the tow major US presidential candidates.

A series of interlocking “grand bargains” backed by the relevant regional players as well as major global powers – aimed at pacifying Afghanistan; integrating Iran into a new regional security structure; promoting reconciliation in Iraq; and launching a credible process to negotiate a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world – must offer a very tempting, if extremely challenging, prospect to any new resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Two, three, many ‘grand bargains’? Jim Lobe Asia Times

Taliban Targets U.S.Supplies in Khyber Agency

The Pakistani militarylaunched an operation in the Khyber Agency in June and declared the area free of militants. But the Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda continue to use the tribal areas along the border as a safe haven and training space. It is those militants who have virtually free rein to do what they want when they want.

If the attacks cripple the supply line, Riedel said, U.S. troops are “not going to have the equipment they need, they’re not going to have the food they need, and you’re going to have an American and NATO force which is literally cut off and dependent on whatever can be brought in by air, which is incredibly expensive and very, very difficult.”

The threat to the supply line is also political.

The Pakistani government and military, which received some $13 billion from the United States since 9/11, have mostly helped the supply line since the war in Afghanistan began.

But in September, immediately after the United States acknowledged that American special forces conducted a raidinside Pakistani territory, government officials began threatening to end their support of the supply line. The United States was becoming so unpopular in Paksitan that, they warned, they could no longer guarantee the supply trucks’ safety.

“The majority public sentiment must be behind Pakistan’s participation on war on terror. That cannot be compromised. If the people turn against it, it will be very difficult for the government to ensure this [supply] line,” Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province, told ABC News in Peshawar. “Because it has to come all the way through the entire Pakistan, from the sea to this place.”

Laj Akbar knows all too well how vulnerable the supply line is. He sits gingerly on a day bed near the Afghan border, leaning against his cane. His leg is wrapped in white gauze, and when he lifts his shirt, he reveals a deep scar that runs from his back around his side and finishes near his stomach.

Akbar, a Pakistani truck driver, was shot by members of the Taliban in Afghanistan as he drove a NATO fuel truck toward Kabul.The U.S. Supply Line for the Afghan War Remains as Vulnerable as Ever By NICK SCHIFRIN and HABIBULLAH KHAN PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 10, 2008 —

• Obama challenge: A vision for peace? Strike Grand Bargains?
• No more ground Attacks in Pakistan: Why did Bush back off & change US policy?

U.S. Supplies End Up in Pakistani Market

“They came after us. They were in a white station wagon,” he said in Pashto, his face resigned. “The Taliban came out from the side. They started firing at us. One bullet came through the door and hit me.”

Long before many of the trucks get even close to the border with Afghanistan, they get looted. The booty ends up in Sitara Market in Peshawar, the largest city in northwest Pakistan.

There, for a few dozen dollars, you can buy poker sets, knives, even family photos that have been stolen from supply trucks and sold to the highest bidder. Also available: American weapons, whose prices have shot up sevenfold in the last year, locals said.

On a recent day, an ABC News camera filmed locals looking through high-tech binoculars destined for the American military. A young boy played with something he didn’t quite understand, shaking a baseball glove and, after it made no sound, finally putting his hand inside.

“This is the only road that goes to Afghanistan, there is no other road. So definitely there are some incidents,” said the owner of Sitara Market. Boxes of Gatorade are sold for $5-$10. American-made chocolate muffins go for $3 a basket. American army uniforms are sold for close to $100.

Despite the evidence, NATO officials in Kabul insisted that the vast majority of gear is still arriving safely into Afghanistan.

“There are always difficulties, there are always challenges, but so far, our supply line have been well established,” Brig. Gen. Richard Blanchette, NATO’s chief spokesman in Kabul, told ABC News. “That’s their bread and butter,” he said of the contractors who oversee the supply line. “That’s what they do to support our mission, and so far, it has worked, and [we] certainly hope it will continue like this.”

There is no doubt that the majority of supplies destined for Afghanistan makes it all the way from Karachi to Kabul. But the image of a Talib driving an American Humvee with a Baitullah Mehsud flag waving in the air will give the most sanguine American military leader pause. The U.S. Supply Line for the Afghan War Remains as Vulnerable as Ever By NICK SCHIFRIN and HABIBULLAH KHAN PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 10, 2008 —

Blaming Pakistan won’t help the war on terror.

American Military Aware of Vulnerability

“The American military and NATO military officials are well aware of their vulnerability here and have been looking for long time for alternatives to develop so we don’t have to rely on Pakistan,” Riedel said. “But the problem is the geography doesn’t change. There is no other way to bring in supplies.” ABC News Internet Ventures.The U.S. Supply Line for the Afghan War Remains as Vulnerable as Ever By NICK SCHIFRIN and HABIBULLAH KHAN PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 10, 2008 —

The hijacking took place a week after Pakistani officials lodged strong complaints over cross-border bombings by US drone aircraft with Gen. David Petraeus, during his first trip to Pakistan as chief of US Central Command. General Petraeus had said that the US would take Pakistan’s complaints under consideration.

But a few days later another drone attack in northwestern Pakistan killed at least 13 people, signaling that there had been no immediate change in US policy. Since August there have been more than 18 such attacks on Pakistani soil, which the Pakistani government have repeatedly protested.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Pakistan is reluctant to strongly follow up on this incident,” says Masood, of the hijacking. The government and military are probably frustrated with America’s continued lack of response to Pakistani protests against cross-border strikes, he continues.

“They might be tempted to highlight their leverage over the situation in Afghanistan,” he says.CSM

Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ????  | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ???????  | Notizie di Rupia |  PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | DefensebriefsIntellibriefs Translate to: RSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS | October 28th, 2008 | Moin Ansari |  ???? ??????? | ????? ?????  |

Concerted Police Action, without a failed war, can solve Afghan terror

 US AfPak policy review results mimic Chinese demads given to Hillary Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived. ~Abraham Lincoln In 1821 The Taliban was a construct of the CIA and was armed by the CIA:–Congressman Dana Rohrabacher Obama’s Vietnam & Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Solutions to “Obama’s Vietnam” Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO? Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it? UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop      

Pakistan’s do more list for the USA Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan & Swat run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India

 

 

 

 

 

Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan

 

 

 

 

The folly of the UKs “Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN reminds us of Britian’s previous defeat in Afghainstan. Unfortunately the lessons of the unmitigated disaster of “Auckland’s Folly”, (First Anglo-Afghan War 1838–42) have not been taught to the Oxbridge students.

 

 

 

Bin Laden used Reagan’s USSR strategy to Destroy US Capitalism? Cambodiazation of the Afghan war Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan

 

 

Unite! Erase the Durand Line Solution: Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan & Afghanistan The emerging “Leave Pakistan to Afghanistan” strategy goes mainstream–Extricating the US from the Lost in the Khyber