Betrayals & Blackmail in Bakiyev: Cloaking failure as success, hiding the defeat, declaring victory & withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months

Posted on 17 February 2009. Tags: Afghan, Bakiyev, Pakistan, Russia, US Supply Chain to Afghanistan runs through Pakistan, USA

In 2001 the US was considered the liberator and was immensely popular in Afghanistan and even though there was a tiff with Islamabad on the Nuclear bomb, America was still popular in Pakistan. The elites in both countries were definitely pro-American–many educated and trained in the USA. There was tremendous goodwill left over from the First Afghan war. President Bush had an opportunity to use the weakened USSR to build bridges and spread American influence from Karachi to Kabul and then spread it to Baku, Samarkhand, Bokhara and right up to the Chinese border and beyond.

How can you convert a population full of American fans into US policy haters? It is a classic test case of lessons learned in a tragedy of errors. What did the Neocons do and how did they do it? Instead of using a covert force of 5000 Navy seal to nab the evil guys, the Bush Neocons waged a global war on terror. They used daisy cutters on Afghanistan, nuclear tipped bombs in Iraq and drones in Pakistan. Abu Graib, Gitmo, renditions and torture have tarnished America and its image as the beacon of freedom. The fire is raging from the Nile to the Euphrates; From the Indus to the Amu Darya. All goodwill is gone.

Vietnam, half a world away, seemed alien to many Americans and to Westerners generally. Afghanistan might as well be the moon. At least Vietnam had been a French colony, albeit a troubled one. Afghanistan resisted colonization, dispatching 19th-century British and 20th-century Russian soldiers with equal efficiency. “Afghanistan is not a nation, it is a collection of tribes,” according to a Saudi diplomat who did not wish to publicly disparage a Muslim neighbor. In Vietnam, the Ngo Dinh Diem government was seen as illegitimate because Diem was a Roman Catholic in a mostly Buddhist country and because it was propped up by the United States. In Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai’s government was essentially created by the United States after local warlords, backed by American airpower, ousted the Taliban in 2001. (Karzai was elected in his own right in 2004, but at a time when he was clearly favored by America and faced no serious rivals.)

As in Diem’s Vietnam, government corruption is epic; even Karzai says so. “The banks of the world are full of the money of our statesmen,” he said last November. His former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, rates his old government as “one of the five most corrupt in the world” and warns that Afghanistan is becoming a “failed, narco-mafia state.” In a country where seven out of 10 citizens live on about a dollar a day, the average family each year must pay about $100 in baksheesh, or bribes (in Vietnam, this was known as “tea” or “coffee” money). Foreign aid is, after narcotics, the readiest source of income in Afghanistan. But it has been widely estimated that because of stealing and mismanagement in Kabul, the capital, less than half of the money actually finds its way into projects, and only a quarter of that makes it to the countryside, where 70 percent of the people live. Newsweek, With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Today as a result of thee failed policies, 80% of Afghanistan is in the hands of wealthy drug-lords who have money and arms. Pakistan is seething with anger at the loss of civilian casualties in FATA and Swat. The writing on the wall for US policy makers is clear. How do they deal with it? They can continue the flawed policy of covert sabotage, and overt war or they can build a new Central Asia.

The war in Afghanistan is unwinnable (British and American Generals). UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
The economic price of the war is untenable for the UK and the US. Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it?
The mini-surge of 30,000 troops is not materializing and has been reduced to three brigades only.Reality check on War in Afghanistan
The traditional supply route via Pakistan’s tribal areas and the mountainous Khyber Pass has become increasingly vulnerable to Taliban attack.Uzbekistan pressured the IMU is scared of Taliban reprisals on supplies to Kabul
US base at Minas is being “sold” to the Russians cutting off a possible route to Kabul. Russia asserts itself in Central Asia
80% of Afghan territory is under insurgent control. US attacks on Pakistan have fueled the Afghan insurgency
The price of transferring “non-military” hardware through Russia is to give up Ukraine and Georgia back to Russia is too big a price to pay. Moscow’s pound of flesh for allowing base & supplies to Afghanistan
Failure and Defeat in Afghanistan: Inevitable Frustration & misdirected Payback for ally Pakistan
Hot War: A response to Cold Start. American attempts to use India to pressure Pakistan backfired as Pakistan moved its forces to the Eastern front. Pakistani response to India’s Cold Start Strategy
According to Bruce Reidel Mullah Omar promised safe passage to the Americans and was interested in joining the government if the foreign troops would leave.Kabul: The Final Spring Offensive? End of NATO?
Imran Khan predicts that the USA will leave Afghanistan in one year. Other analysts and “Taliban” leaders are willing to allow them 2 years. The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game
Solutions to “Obam’as Vietnam”

The 20th anniversary of the defeat of the USSR in Afghanistan is a poignant reminder to occupation armies that the Hindu Kush mountains are the “graveyard of empires“. The Khyber for 5000 years has witnessed the hordes of invaders come down to the Indus–but the Khyber Pass is a one way street. No invader has been able to go up the Khyber and occupy Pakhtun lands. The Mongols, Alexander, the British, the Russians all discovered it the hard way.NATO war: UK 1880 defeats in Afghanistan.The rising fire of Anti-Americanism has engulfed the land from the Indus to the Amu Darya.

OTTAWA, Feb 17 (Reuters) – The situation in Afghanistan seems to be getting worse and a solution will require more than just military force, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday. “There are a lot of concerns about a conflict that has lasted quite a long time now and actually appears to be deteriorating at this point,” he told CBC television in an interview ahead of his visit to Canada on Thursday. Obama voiced appreciation for Canada’s military engagement in Afghanistan and gave no hint that he would ask Prime Minister Stephen Harper to extend the combat mission there beyond the mid-2011 date agreed by Parliament. “Very soon we will be releasing some initial plans in terms of how we are going to approach the military side of the equation in Afghanistan,” he said. “But I’m absolutely convinced that you cannot solve the problem of Afghanistan, the Taliban, the spread of extremism in that region, solely through military means,” he added. “We’re going to have use diplomacy, we’re going to have to use development, and my hope is that in conversations that I have with Prime Minister Harper that he and I end up seeing the importance of a comprehensive strategy.” (Reporting by Randall Palmer; Editing by Frank McGurty). Reuters. Obama sees Afghan situation deteriorating. Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:53pm EST

Several tectonic shifts have happened in the land of the Pamirs in the past few weeks. The reverberations from these earthquakes will be felt all the way to Washington and beyond. Facing the Khyber poltergeist & Ganges hobgoblin. The election campaign in Afghanistan has already started. Installing an Anti-Pakistan government in Kabul. Unable to venture beyond the confinement of his own capital, the mercurial Mr. Karzai was seen campaigning in Moscow and Delhi. The last days of the last “emperor”. The “Mayor of Kabul” is being replaced. Mr. Hobrooke rebuffed Mr. Karzai by not meeting him for three days. The snub was very evident by the itinerary of the American envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan (“K” for Kashmir is silent in his portfolio). Mr. Holbrooke like President-Elect Biden (a few weeks ago) mentioned the inefficiency of the government in front of the frustrated host. The Grand Bargains for Kabul

While neighboring Iran is predominantly Shiite, and has traditionally backed the Sunni Taliban’s foes in the Northern Alliance, Tehran may also be the source of some of the more sophisticated IEDs turning up on the battlefield in Afghanistan. Certainly Iran has some interest in seeing the American forces on its border bleed a little. At times, though, the United States can seem like its own worst enemy in Afghanistan. Lacking enough troops, forced to cover vast areas, U.S. forces depend far too heavily on strikes by A-10s, F-15s, even B-1 bombers. In 2004, the U.S. Air Force flew 86 strike sorties against targets in Afghanistan. By 2007, the number was up to 2,926—and that doesn’t count rocket or cannon fire from helicopters

The American people have had enough of these “perpetual mimetic wars”. They want to throw the Orwellian “1984″ into the dustbin of history. How do Hillary Clinton, Bruce Reidel and Joseph Biden use Big brother’s “War is peace and Peace is War” philosophy to camouflage the campaign rhetoric? The challenge for the architects of the “new” Afghan policy is to place all blame on Karzai’s incompetence, NATA recalcitrance, and Pakistan duplicity:– then cloak failure as success, hide the inevitable defeat, declare victory now and withdraw from Kabul while they can– with some sense of respectability. Here is the rhetoric that we can expect. Newsweek, With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

The Grand Bargain? Pakistan key to Afghan Great Game. The secular Pakistani Awami National Party (ANP) which has been missing in action for months, finally stood up to be counted and has arranged a peace deal between the Swati militants and the Pakistani Army. Much to the chagrin of the West, there is celebration in Swat and people across the spectrum wants the fighting to stop.

ISLAMABAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — Britain said Tuesday that it had concerns over an agreement for the introduction of Islamic courts in parts of Pakistan’s northwest. “We need to be confident that they will end violence, not create space for further violence,” said British High Commission spokesperson Jennifer Wilkes in a statement. “They need to be clear, robust and monitored long-term, and include enforceable measures on cross-border movement to tackle cross-border militancy,” he said.

Wilkes said that Britain also recognized the Pakistani government’s efforts to restore peace and security to Swat. “Swat’s problems require a comprehensive approach, bringing together security measures, development and governance. Any solution should also reflect the will of the people of Swat,” he said. Pakistan’s provincial government in the northwest and leader of a pro-Taliban banned Islamic group signed a deal Monday, abolishing un-Islamic laws and setting up Islamic courts in Malak and Division in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The courts will also be set up in the Swat valley where Pakistani Taliban have been fighting against the security forces over the past two years.

Meanwhile Sufi Muhammad, chief of the banned Tehrik Shariat-e-Nifaza Muhammadi (TSNM), Tuesday led thousands of his followers to Swat to convince the local Taliban to lay down arms and accept the agreement on Islamic laws. Muhammad, father-in-law of Maulana Fazalullah, the chief of Swat Taliban, will meet Fazaullah Wednesday, according to local press reports. Britain expresses concerns on Pakistan’s Islamic law agreement, www.chinaview.cn 2009-02-17 23:00:49

The “peace deal” will be sabotaged in due course by “the powers to be” who do not want to see stability in Pakistan. That is inevitable, however it buys the Pakistani government some time to sort our the players and put together a long term strategy on coping with the problems in the restive Malakand Division. Pakistanis see a difference between the insurgents fighting the Americans in Afghanistan and the insurgents within Pakistan. There is no stomach in Pakistan to bomb and kill their own fellow citizens. Much to the chagrin of the West, Pakistan has signed a peace deal with the Swat militants.Obama’s advisor predicts focus on talks and reconciliation

Islamabad: Maulana Sufi Mohammad, leader of the Tahreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) and spiritual leader of Swat Taliban, has reached Swat valley to persuade his son-in-law and militant leader Maulana Fazlullah to accept the recently signed peace deal with the government.

Sufi Mohammad was warmly welcomed in Swat as he reached there from Timar Garah on Tuesday along with a convoy of supporters which consisted of hundreds of vehicles. Banners and posters by locals on roads and in bazaars welcomed Sufi’s convoy and his peace initiative.

Sufi Mohammad will persuade Fazlullah not to challenge the government’s writ, lay down arms and restore peace to the restive Swat valley where Taliban fighters have pitched themselves against the military troops for the last several months resulting in dozens of civilian casualities and a loss of billions of rupees to property and business. Leader arrives in Swat valley with message of peace. By Fasihur Rehman Khan, Correspondent
Published: February 17, 2009, 23:56

Tough lessons in geography. The US has been thrown out of Kyrgyzstan. Russia promised to pay double the rent of the base and also gave Kyrgyzstan double its national budget–cool cash worth $2 Billion. This creates a huge problem for America. Her supply lines are already been choked at the Kyber and harassed along the way. Russia is asking for its pound of flesh for allowing the supplies through Russian territory. Moscow is asking for an end to NATO expansion which may be a hard bargain for NATO and the US to accept. Kyrgyzstan in a well calculated move throws out the US bases. Anti-Occupation forces choke US Afghan war

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Kyrgyzstan will close an air base used by the U.S. as a staging point for operations in Afghanistan, potentially undermining President Barack Obama’s planned troop increase aimed at defeating the Taliban. For three years, the Kyrgyz government tried to renegotiate the amount paid by the U.S. to use the base, “but we encountered no understanding from the U.S. side,” Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev told reporters in Moscow today. The decision was made “in the last few days,” he said.

The U.S. Defense department said the base issue is still being discussed with Kyrgyzstan. Before Bakiyev’s announcement, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia will lend Kyrgyzstan $2 billion and provide another $150 million in economic aid. The two countries reached an agreement on settling Kyrgyzstan’s debt to Russia, part of which will be written off and the rest repaid with assets. Obama plans to boost U.S. forces in Afghanistan under a strategy similar to the troop “surge” ordered by former President George W. Bush in Iraq. There are currently about 36,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Other NATO members have contributed another 32,000 troops to the Afghan mission, according to the alliance.

Base at Manas

The base at Manas Airport near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek was established in 2001 and serves U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. It gained additional strategic importance when Uzbekistan closed a similar base on its territory in 2005. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said today he believed the terms for continued use of Manas were still under negotiation.

“I’ve seen President Bakiyev’s comments, but we have received no formal notification from him or any other Kyrgyz official to close the base,” Morrell said in an interview. “We’ve been in discussions with Kyrgyz authorities for some time now, and we anticipate continuing those discussions to the point where we are able to resolve them to our mutual satisfaction.” Earlier, in a Pentagon briefing, Morrell told reporters that Manas is “a hugely important air base for us” because it provides “a launching-off point to provide supplies to our forces in Afghanistan.” Later, in the interview, he said it wasn’t the only means.

‘Multiple Supply Lines’

“We have multiple supply lines into Afghanistan, both by air and ground,” Morrell said. “While we would much prefer to continue operations in Manas and will work to make sure that’s the case, there are a number of routes by which we can continue to supply our troops and sustain our operations.” The announcement about Manas came on the same day that insurgents attacked and damaged a bridge on the U.S.’s main land supply route into Afghanistan along that country’s border with Pakistan. Insurgents have stepped up attacks on the route in recent months. As a result, Morrell said, the U.S. has sought to open alternatives into Afghanistan from the north. Medvedev said Russia and Kyrgyzstan would combine forces to help provide stability in Central Asia. He also reiterated Russia’s willingness to cooperate with the U.S. to bring order to Afghanistan.

“Our countries will also help operations in the region that are being conducted against terrorism, and we’re prepared for coordinated actions with coalition countries,” he said. Medvedev visited Uzbekistan, which borders Afghanistan, last month on the heels of a tour through the region by Army General David Petraeus, commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. Petraeus said on Jan. 20 that the U.S. had secured “additional logistical routes into Afghanistan” through Central Asia as its main supply route through Pakistan becomes increasingly vulnerable to attack by the Taliban. Petraeus visited Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, skipping Uzbekistan, which in 2005 told U.S. forces to leave a base used as a transit point for supplies, troops and aircraft coming in and out of Afghanistan. Kyrgyzstan to Close U.S. Air Base Used for Afghan War By Lyubov Pronina . To contact the reporter on this story: Lyubov Pronina in Moscow at lpronina@bloomberg.net

US Charge of the Light Brigade into Pakistan is a US failure and has to stop. The mini-surge has begun. Pat Buchananan reports that the 30,000 promised troops may not materialize and the mini-surge may only be confined to the regiments. Khyber Pass choked for NATO supplies

US commanders have been contemplating sending up to 30,000 more soldiers to bolster the 33,000 already here, but the new administration is expected to initially approve only a portion of that amount. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday the president would decide soon.

The new unit — the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division — moved into Logar and Wardak provinces last month, and the soldiers from Fort Drum, NY, are now stationed in combat outposts throughout the provinces. Several roadside bombs also have exploded next to the unit’s MRAPs — mine-resistance patrol vehicles — but caused no casualties, he said.Dawn

The brilliant intellectual and one of the most quoted men on the planet, Noam Chomsky and former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf say that there will be no change in American policy in South and West Asia. The results on the ground certainly do not show any change, however the realities on the ground may force the administration to come out of the thinktank cocoons and not simply react to conditions on the ground. President Barack Obama had a small window of opportunity where he could have made a difference. His silence on Gaza and continuation of drone bombings in Pakistan is fast depleting his capital. All this spells disaster for Obama.

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has approved a modest increase in U.S. forces for the flagging war in Afghanistan, administration, defense and congressional officials said Tuesday. The Obama administration was announcing Tuesday that it will send one additional Army brigade and an unknown number of Marines to Afghanistan during the coming six months. Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the total is about 17,000 troops. About 8,000 U.S. Marines are expected to go in first, followed by about 9,000 Army troops.The new units are a Marine Expeditionary Brigade from North Carolina and an Army Stryker brigade from Fort Lewis in Washington state. International Herald Tribune. Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven, Lolita C. Baldor, Pamela Hess, Anne Flaherty and Lara Jakes contributed to this report.

The lack of troops shows a huge supply and demand problem in the US army and NATO forces. There are no additional troops to spare. So while the thinktanks dictate a continuation of the failed policies, the conditions on the ground dictate a lack of will at implementing the policies. This is a classic setup for failure. The USSR had 250,000troops plus another 150,000 irregulars in Afghanistan. 400,000 troops and a 150,000 strong Afghan Army was unable to keep them from being routed. The NATO troops do not venture out of their comfort zones. It is only the US army that pursues the insurgents. 60,000 soldiers in Afghanistan will be unable to quell the insurgency and reverse the march to Kabul.

There are external factors to the malaise. Another challenge would to assuage India, keep Russia at bay and try to maintain some links with the Central Asian Republics who have not fully returned to the Russian fold.. Moscow’s pound of flesh for allowing base & supplies to Afghanistan. The American War Strategy has been impacted by the changes in Kyrgyzstan. Cambodiazation of the Afghan war has not helped the US war effort.“American Taliban in Kabul?

Russia has been pressuring Kyrgyzstan amid unease at the US’s growing footprint in central Asia. US attempts to supply coalition troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan were in danger of suffering a major setback today after Kyrgyzstan signalled it was considering shutting down a key US military base. The central Asian republic is contemplating closing down the US military facility near its capital Bishkek. The Manas airbase – home to 1,000 US army personnel since 2001 – is a key staging post for coalition forces fighting in nearby Afghanistan. Both US and Nato commanders have expressed dismay at the possible closure. It comes at a time when Nato is desperately trying to expand its supply routes to Afghanistan via the northern countries of central Asia following a series of devastating attacks on truck convoys from Pakistan.

Russia has been pressuring Kyrgyzstan to evict the Americans, amid unease in Russia’s military at the US’s growing footprint in central Asia, an area Moscow regards as its backyard. The Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev was today in Moscow holding talks with Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev. Tonight, Kanat Tursunkulov, an official from Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry, told the Guardian: “Our president has said the [US] base is very helpful for the stability of the region and Afghanistan.” Asked whether that meant the president would now shut it down, he said, “There’s no comment on this.”

But Kommersant newspaper reported that Bakiyev is seeking a $450m (£312.5m) loan from Russia for his impoverished ex-Soviet republic, and the write-off of $180m in debts. In return, Russia “counts on a favourable decision on the destiny of the US Manas airbase on Kyrgyz territory”, the newspaper reported – possibly even tomorrow. Today, however, analysts said that Russia would not want the issue to jeopardise its relationship with the Obama White House. Rather, Moscow wanted to use the Kyrgyzstan base as a bargaining chip in a much wider strategic dialogue – over the future of the US missile defence shield in Europe, for example, and Nato membership for Georgia and Ukraine.

“Russia is inviting the west for a dialogue. At the same time it is showing off some of its trump cards. The Manas base is one of them,” Andrei Grozin, a central Asian analyst at the Institute for the Study of Post-Soviet States in Moscow, said. He added, “In effect Russia and China are saying, ‘We can get rid of this base. That doesn’t mean we want to do it now. We want to cooperate.’ But in return Russia wants concessions [from Washington] on missile defence and no invitation from Nato to Georgia or Ukraine.”

Yesterday Robert Simmons, the special envoy to Nato’s secretary general, visited Kyrgyzstan and urged its government not to shut the base. He described it as a “vital link in our fight against international terrorism”, adding, “The presence of the airbase is a large contribution to Nato operations.” The US military chief in the region, General David Petraeus, visited Kyrgyzstan last month to explore new transport routes to Afghanistan. He also toured Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Russia has offered to transport non-military supplies to Afghanistan. But Nato has yet to reach a comprehensive transit deal with Afghanistan’s immediate central Asian neighbours.

Since the 2001 war in Afghanistan, central Asia has been at the centre of a strategic competition between the US and Russia. The rivalry is reminiscent of the 19th-century conflict between imperial Britain and tsarist Russia, played out in the velvet mountains of the Hindu Kush, and famously dubbed the Great Game. In a significant victory, the Bush administration persuaded Uzbekistan’s authoritarian rulers to allow a US military base on its territory. In 2006, however, the Uzbek regime kicked the Americans out following a secret deal with Moscow. China is also a significant player in the region’s complex geo-politics. President Barack Obama has already signalled a shift in foreign policy – with the war in Afghanistan and a new relationship with Iran the two priorities in the new post-Bush era. He plans to build up US troop numbers in Afghanistan, possibly doubling numbers to 60,000 this year. But the traditional supply route via Pakistan’s tribal areas and the mountainous Khyber Pass has become increasingly vulnerable to Taliban attack.

Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, is in deep economic trouble. The small country faces rising unemployment, a growing trade deficit, and is struggling to pay its gas and electricity bills. The normally disunited opposition has got its act together and now threatens President Bakiyev. Closure of US base in Kyrgyzstan could alter Afghanistan strategy. Luke Harding in Moscow , guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 3 February 2009 19.50 GMT

Pakistan & drones. The PPPP controls the Senate, the National Assembly, and has coalition governments in three provinces. The Prime Minister belongs to the PPP and President Zardari essentially has all the powers that General Musharraf used to have. It is amazing the the New York Times calls Mr. Zardari’s government weak. “Shoot the drones”: Shireen Mazari. Even if the Pakistan Peoples Party government is able to last the firestorm over the drone bombings, it will be under tremendous pressure to withdraw the base facilities that hosts the drones. Halting the suicide bombers needs a holistic strategy and an immediate stopping of drones. If it continues the current policy, it will be thrown out of office in 2012 or before. Pakistan’s legitimate interests?. The “government in waiting” is the irascible Nawaz Sharif whose popularity has soared over this issues. How long can the “wink wink nod nod” farce of Drones go on? Imran Khan has also taken advantage of the confusion and his popularity has increased, specially among the Pakhtuns. Nawaz Sharif aligned with Imran Khan and the Jamat e Islami would not bode well for American interests in Pakistan. Pakistan’s “Do More” list for the USA. The Amir e Jamat e Islami recently visited Beijing and both Imran Khan and Mr. Sharif have been very critical of American policy in the region. Imran Khan in a recent interview saw the US withdraw out of Afghanistan in years time. Sabotaging Obama: CIA provoking Pakistan into shooting the drones

Americans are appropriately skeptical about the chances of success in Afghanistan. A recent NEWSWEEK Poll shows that while 71 percent of the people believe that Obama can turn around the cratering economy, only 48 percent think he can make progress in Afghanistan. Deploying a U.S. force of 60,000 will cost about $70 billion a year. Training and supporting the 130,000 to 200,000 troops required for a proper Afghan Army would take another decade and could cost at least $20 billion. Petraeus has consistently warned that Afghanistan will be “the longest campaign in the long war” against Islamic extremism. But it’s far from clear that Americans have the appetite for such a commitment: after the economy, their top priority is health care (36 percent). Only 10 percent put Afghanistan at the top of their list, even fewer than nominate Iraq. If there is no real improvement on the ground, by the 2010 midterm elections, candidates for office may be decrying “Obama’s war.” Newsweek. With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Does Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (Afghanistan). Is the US ready to withdraw from Afghanistan. The US has been negotiating with the “Taliban” for several months now and a meeting was held under the auspices of the Saudi monarchs. Mullah Omar promised safe package to the Americans and was interested in joining the government if the foreign troops would leave. Convincing the US Tin ear–of the Pakistani point of view

The idea of becoming subservient to India is abhorrent. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. USA has not met with any appreciable success to divide the Taliban by winning over the moderate elements and making them share power. Efforts will be renewed to win over Mullah Omar who has hinted at sharing power provided a firm time-table of foreign troop withdrawal is announced. Two-year timeframe will be offered as in case of Iraq, which will subsequently be dishonoured. Negotiations for power sharing will be undertaken only when the US-Nato military tilts the balance in its favour to be able to bargain from a position of strength. This implies more bloodshed, not realising that more the provocations by US troops, fiercer will be the response from the militant forces. Its oppressive acts will accelerate rather than de-accelerate violence thereby making foreign troops based in Afghanistan that much vulnerable to attacks. Military power can win a war but cannot defeat terrorism, which grows like wild weeds. Terrorism is a product of injustice; without eradicating root causes which breed terrorism, the disease cannot be cured by applying force. Obama and his team must take into account the consensus that has emerged among the western analysts that dialogue based on sincerity of purpose and genuine efforts to remove root causes is the key to settle Afghan imbroglio. The Statesman. US converting defeat into victory in Afghanistan. The writer is a retired Brig and a defence and political analyst based in Rawalpindi. ah.raja@yahoo.com . Asif Haroon Raja: Pakistan first: The devastating effects of appeasing India and kowtowing to the USA

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India

So why not just get out? As always, it’s not so simple. If the Americans pull their troops out, the already shaky Afghan Army could collapse. (Once they lost U.S. air support, South Vietnamese troops sometimes refused to take the field and fight.) Afghanistan could well plunge into civil war, just as it did after the Soviets left in 1989. Already, the Pashtuns in the south regard the American-backed Tajiks who dominate Karzai’s administration as the enemy. The winning side would likely be the one backed by Pakistan, which may end up being the Taliban—just as it was in the last civil war.

Some argue this wouldn’t be such a bad outcome, if the Taliban could be bribed or persuaded to not let Al Qaeda set up terrorist training bases on Afghan territory. According to one senior Taliban leader, a former deputy minister in Mullah Mohammed Omar’s government who would only speak anonymously, some Pakistani officials are urging the insurgents to do something like this now—in return for talks with the Americans. On the other hand, Islamabad could be playing with fire. Given the longstanding ties between the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, a jihadist state on its border is a threat to Pakistan, too. And here, U.S. national-security interests definitely do come into play. Newsweek. With Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai

Rescueing the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan
Unite! Erase the Durand Line The only solution is the inevitable confederation between Pakistan and Afghanistan