US attacks on Pakistan since 2004 fueled Afghan insurgency

Categorized | Afghan, Current Affairs, Pak CA, Politics, US CA, US Int Rel., US Poli

US attacks on Pakistan since 2004 fueled Afghan insurgency

Posted on 10 November 2008. Tags: American seals, US attacks on Pakistan

America’s Secret war in Pakistan-MSNBC uncovers Marines with long beards and without uniforms. The US has been attacking Pakistan for more than 8 years that we know of. Rupee News has been reporting on this for years. Now the New York Times has confirmed the reports. Pakistan nabs White US saboteur without uniform, with beard in FATA. US psy ops have been busy in Pakistan for the best part of the decade. This is one of the first cases that has made it to the media. US troops with long beards and wearing Pakistani dress has been the subject of much discussion in the media, however mainstream media hides some of this. MSNBC news recently divulged the details of a US division of American soldiers who do not wear the American uniform. Would that make them -Enemy combatants not covered by the Geneva Conventions (per recent US laws). Whose war is it?

Obama advisor Weinbaum predicts total Afghan policy review: Sees focus on talks & Reconciliation
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NYT says Navy Seals raided Taiban compound in Bajaur in 2006
Clinton: India chagrined at Obama’s Kashmir envoy proposal & U-turn in Afghan policy
Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan

The Bush Administration in covert acts and in violation of the War powers Act of the US raided sovreign Pakistani territory ostensibly to capture high value targets. On almost all occasions the raids were a collosal failure. The high casualties and the dearth of human intelligence led to a lot of civilian casualties. Judging from the result, the blowback from the raids was not worth it. War Crimes: Illegal attacks on Pakistan- counter-productive

War drums in the Gulf, Hindu Kush & the Khyber Pass

Is Bush stealing Obama’s war on Pakistan?

Don’t ask about the remotely-controlled American drones armed with missiles that are now hunting across the Pakistani border, searching through the mountain peaks, valleys and dusty villages inside Pakistan for the leaders of a few dozen networks of al-Qaida fighters, Taliban militants, warlords, weapons smugglers and opium traffickers.

VIDEO: Pakistan struggles to maintain power in a Taliban stronghold

And certainly don’t ask about the troops on bases here in Afghanistan who don’t wear uniforms, have long beards (so they can better blend in during covert operations), tattoos and don’t mingle with regular soldiers. MSNBC: JALALABAD. (http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/07/1500617.aspx)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.

The attacks were authorised by former Bush defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld with the approval of the president. The US military was given new authority to attack the Al Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world. In 2006, a Navy Seal team raided a suspected militants’ compound in the Bajaur region of Pakistan, according to a former CIA official. The 2004 order was issued after the Bush administration had already granted intelligence agencies sweeping power to secretly detain and interrogate terrorism suspects in overseas prisons and to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone and electronic communications. Targets in Somalia need the approval of the defence secretary, while targets in some countries, including Pakistan and Syria, require presidential clearance. An operation to send a team of Navy Seals and Army Rangers into Pakistan to capture Ayman Al-Zawahri, Osama Bin Laden’s top deputy, was aborted at the last minute. Zawahri was believed by intelligence officials to be attending a meeting in Bajaur and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command hastily put together a plan to capture him. There were strong disagreements inside the Pentagon and the CIA about the quality of the intelligence, however, and some in the military expressed concern that the mission was unnecessarily risky. CIA director Porter Goss urged the military to carry out the mission, and some in the CIA even wanted to execute it without informing Ryan Crocker, then the American ambassador to Pakistan. Rumsfeld ultimately refused to authorise the mission. US carried out secret raids into Pakistan’ by By Khalid Hasan

To support the Plan for a New American Century (PNAC) the Bush administration has created justification for the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. The “Operation Iraqi Liberation” (OIL) has set the fire from the Euphrates to the Oxus. Obama wants to build long lasting friendship with Pakistanis!

We must look askance at any strategy for Afghanistan that is premised upon expanding the war both in Afghanistan and into Pakistan. There are two main reasons why this would be foolhardy. First, an expansion of the war would fuel the insurgency. Second, this solution is based on a false reading of the underlying causes of the insurgency in Afghanistan.

There should be little doubt that the intensity of military operations is partly fueling the insurgency. It is almost daily now that we hear of scores of civilian deaths as a result of both air strikes and ground operations in Afghanistan. Although the recent deaths of up to 90 people following a US air strike, most of them children, have put this fact into the international spot light it remains the case that this has been an on-going issue for quite some time. Hitherto Afghan lives have been considered a cheap commodity. ( Where now for the West’s strategy in Afghanistan? By Marko Beljac – posted Tuesday, 14 October 2008 )

History is forgotten, stories have been created by the Neocons. A vulnerable population in Afghanistan already bombed out of existence by the USSR is now facing the brunt of the attack from drones and choppers 9which a just years ago were hailed as angles of mercy in the same region).

The New York Times report said, “The 2004 order also provided a foundation for the orders that Bush approved in July allowing the military to conduct raids into the Pakistani tribal areas, including the September 3 operation by Special Operations forces that killed about 20 militants, American officials said. Administration officials said that Bush’s approval had paved the way for Defence Secretary Robert Gates to sign an order – separate from the 2004 order – that specifically directed the military to plan a series of operations, in cooperation with the CIA, on the Qaeda network and other militant groups linked to it in Pakistan.” US carried out secret raids into Pakistan’ by By Khalid Hasan

Quite apart from its obvious moral consequences, which should be the paramount concern, an expansion of the war will increase the civilian death toll, providing the Taliban with much needed support among the domestic population. The most astute ground commanders in Iraq following the invasion quickly came to the view that the “centre of gravity” of post-invasion operations was the attitude of the broader public. A large scale increase in the level of firepower deployed in the Afghan theatre would only further see this centre of gravity fall to the Taliban. (Where now for the West’s strategy in Afghanistan? By Marko Beljac – posted Tuesday, 14 October 2008)

One of the most important purposes of UN is “to maintain international peace and security” by suppressing such wanton “acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace”. Article 2 (4) of its charter gives substance to this statement of intent by prohibiting all kinds of aggression aimed at other states. There are, however, two exceptions to this provision, and we have to ascertain whether America’s into Pakistan fall within their ambit. The first exception is provided under chapter VII of the Charter, whereby the Security Council may authorize collective action against the erring state to maintain or enforce international peace and security. It is to be noted that no such UN resolution authorizing an attack on Pakistan has been passed as yet and hence no question of UNSC-backed collective action arises against Pakistan.

Secondly, Article 51 of the Charter gives “the inherent right of collective or individual self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.” In this regard, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates recently told a Senate panel that the US had a right of “individual self-defence” under the UN Charter where a foreign government was either “unable or unwilling to take care of international terrorist activity inside its borders”. This assertion needs to be scrutinized. Crossing the border Thursday, October 16, 2008 by Nauman Qaiser and Osman Khan