Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ???? | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ??????? | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | RUPEE NEWS | March 29th, 2009 | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | ????? ????? |

On Sunday, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Mr. Obama’s rival in last year’s presidential race, told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that “the outlines of this proposal are good. The best way to get out of Afghanistan fast is (for) people to think we’re staying.” Wall Street Journal

One can fool some of the people all the time, all the poeple some of the time, but not all the people all the time. After two years of campaigning, and several weeks in office, President Barack Obama walked into the microphones and produced a speech about high and low, and this that and the other. It had little substance and a lot of poetry, little content and a lot of rhetoric. All this bluster and bedizenment to hide the real core of the speech. So much rhapsody to hide the two unsaid words “Exit Strategy“.  The real question is, when will the real “Exit Strategy” be announced? When will the strategy to leave Afghanistan be enunciated.

In foreign policy (as in economic policy), it took the George W Bush team less than eight years to steer the ship of state into the shallows where it ran disastrously aground. And yet, in response, after months of “strategic review”, this team of inside-the-Beltway realists has come up with a combination of Af-Pak war moves that are almost blindingly expectable.

In the end, this sort of thinking is likely to leave the Obama administration hostage to its own projects as well as unprepared for the onrush of the unexpected and unknown, whose arrival may be the only thing that can be predicted with assurance right now. Whether as custodians of the imperial economy or the imperial frontier, Obama’s people are lashed to the past, to Wall Street and the national security state. They are ill-prepared to take the necessary full measure of our world.

If you really want a “benchmark” for measuring how our world has been shifting on its axis, consider that we have all lived to see a Chinese premier appear at what was, in essence, an international news conference and seriously upbraid Washington for its handling of the global economy. That might have been surprising in itself. Far more startling was the response of Washington. A year ago, the place would have been up in arms. This time around, from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (“There’s no safer investment in the world than in the United States … “) to the president himself (“Not just the Chinese government, but every investor can have absolute confidence in the soundness of investments in the United States … “), Washington’s response was to mollify and reassure. Asia Times. Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the Cold War and beyond. He also edited The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), an alternative history of the mad Bush years.

The writing on the wall is clear. President Barack Obama has to years to do his magic–then its more of the same for the USA as it was for the Russians, and the Brits, ignominious withdrawal from the Hindukush. 

 Justifying the Banality of a brutal Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Thinktanks attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public. The nation is forced to accept the only argument that it is being repeatedly inundated with

Obama’s new strategy as confused as Bush’s was inept. An administration that cannot figure out how many Billions it is going to spend on bailing out industries and banks hopes to figure out the trail of Dollars in the Hindukush. A government that was unable to find the AIG bonuses hopes to keep tabs on expenses in Pakistan. A team that didn’t know about the taxes of its proposed cabinet ministers now wants to track how the Pakistanis spend the money. An organization that cannot discern the difference between insurgents, the Taliban, and the ephemeral Al-Qaeda thinks it can monitor Islamabad. An alliance that lost 80% of Afghanistan to the insurgents wants to secure the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. An Army which got its derriere handed to it in Somalia only to be saved by the Pakistani Army, now wants to train the army in Counter Insurgency operations. The Pakistani perspective: Peace deals only way to precipitate face saving for US & Obama’s smooth Exit strategy from Afghanistan

..Pakistan’s security establishment, its concerns – the presence of India in Afghanistan, Kabul’s refusal to recognise the border, the festering Kashmir dispute – are strategic threats far greater than those posed by Islamist militants.

“The concept of pressuring Pakistan is flawed,” Ahmed Rashid and Barnett Rubin have written in the Foreign Affairs magazine. “No state can be successfully pressured into acts it considers suicidal.”

Ultimately America’s leverage is limited: in pushing too much, it may lose even the limited cooperation it has. American leverage in South Asia, By Barbara Plett, BBC News, Islamabad

The resilience of Pakistan and the nation’s continuing collective refusal to do what the west would like it to do

 
Pres. Obama, flanked by Sec. of State Clinton, Defense Sec. Gates, announces new strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan, 27 Mar 2009
U.S. President Barack Obama says the United States will give Pakistan the tools it needs to help defeat al-Qaida, but expects accountability in return.

President Obama has made defeating al-Qaida the focus of his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He says, as he did during his campaign for the White House, that he will take action against terror targets along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

“If we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we are going after them,” said President Obama.

But Mr. Obama says no American ground forces will be deployed in Pakistan.

“Our main thrust has to be to help Pakistan defeat these extremists,” he said.

The president spoke in an interview with the CBS television program Face the Nation – recorded Friday just hours after the announcement of his new Afghan-Pakistan strategy.

He said there is concern in Washington about a growing notion among the Pakistani people that somehow, this is just America’s war. VOA. Obama: America Expects Accountability From Pakistan, By Paula Wolfson
White House, 29 March 2009

Selective Amnesia of Americans: Pakistan is the most mistreated friend in the world. Tall pronunciations coming from Ceaser in Rome used to have some effects. Today in an increasingly multipolar world, haughty pronouncements made on the banks of the Potomac may or may not sway the residents of the Indus. Empires don’t end with a bang or whimper: Their collapse exudes the sibilant hiss of financial deflation. The decline of US power

It is pedagogical to note that all the speech was considered rude and ineffective.

“And that attitude has led to a steady creep of extremism in Pakistan that is the greatest threat to the stability of the Pakistan government, and ultimately the greatest threat to the Pakistani people,” said Mr. Obama.

The White House consulted with Pakistani leaders leading up to the announcement of its new strategy, and the initial response has been positive.

Mr. Obama promised a more regional approach to the fight against terrorists and extremists.

He said he would send more military trainers and U.S. civilian personnel to Afghanistan. He voiced support for an increase in aid to Pakistan, but he made clear he is looking for something in return.

“Our plan does not change recognition of Pakistan as a sovereign government,” he said. “We need to work with them and through them to deal with al-Qaida. But we have to hold them much more accountable.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has served in the Obama and Bush administrations. He told the Fox News Sunday program the U.S. objective has narrowed.

“Our long-term objective still would be to see a flourishing democracy in Afghanistan,” said Gates. “But I think what we need to focus on, and focus our efforts [on], [is] in making headway in reversing the Taliban’s momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police and really going after al-Qaida.”

Gates said al-Qaida is not as centralized and strong as it was before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. But he said it is still providing training and guidance to extremist elements in various countries and remains a serious threat.VOA. Obama: America Expects Accountability From Pakistan, By Paula Wolfson
White House, 29 March 2009

No matter what, the Pakistanis will not let anyone set up Kabul as an anti-Pakistani client. Islamabad will not allow foreign troops to cross into Pakistan.  The US gets very frustrated when the CIA operations run contrary to Pakistani domestic and international interests. In some measure some officials of the US government think that by sending aid, they have purchased all rights to all events in Pakistan. Over the decades most have been surprised that things did not go their way. Sanctions, threats, intrusive interference into Pakistani politics, drone attacks, covert operations and overt military intervention has not produced the desired results for America. A combination of some of the above may have produced short term gains for Washington, but it has lost a lot more than what it has gained.

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      

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