Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | ??????? ????? | ???? | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ??????? | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | ???????? ????? | RUPEE NEWS | March 7th, 2009 | Moin Ansari | ???? ??????? | ????? ????? |
“People talk glibly of ‘the total disarmament of the frontier tribes’ as being the obvious policy…but to obtain it would be as painful and as tedious an undertaking as to extract the stings of a swarm of hornets, with naked fingers.” Winston Churchill
In 2001 the Pakistani government advised the Bush Administration to talk to the moderate “Taliban“, make a deal with them, and then execute a thorough Police Action to search and nab the Evil Doers who had attacked the US. Riding the high horse of hubris, the Bush Administration opted for brute force. They carpet bombed Afghanistan and antagonized the Pakhtuns of Pakistan. Three Trillion Dollars later, the American people liked the message from the prophet of change–Barack Obama. Hindu Kush cul de sac: Why are we in Afghanistan?
Afghanistan, entangled with nuclear-armed Pakistan by a porous border and tribal loyalties, is an impossibly complex military challenge. Those who detect a 21st-century hubris in the military’s new faith in counterinsurgency doctrine are not entirely off base. Current US strategy in the region is fundamentally incoherent. Security in Kabul and in rural areas is deteriorating at a frightening clip. The Taliban now control 70 percent of the country, including the Khyber Pass, a choke point for US military convoys. As their power increases, their attacks on US forces grow bolder. Russ Hoyle is the author of Going to War (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, 2008). He is a former senior editor at the New York Daily News, Time, and The New Republic. Hoyle is at work on a new book about counterinsurgency and the U.S. military.
Can President Obama move fast enough to engage the Pakhtun population that straddles the Afghan-Pakistan border.
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama is holding out hope that U.S. forces in Afghanistan can peel away elements of the Taliban and possibly move them toward reconciliation.
There may be such opportunities, but the situation in Afghanistan is more complicated than the challenges the American military faced in Iraq, Obama said in an interview with The New York Times posted Saturday on the newspaper’s Website. Associated Press
After several thousand Americans have been sent back in body bags, some in the Obama Administration have recognized the reality on the ground and are willing to talk to the moderate “Taliban“. AfPak solutions: Beyond hubris, dictation, threats, sanctions, bombings, overt invasion & covert sabotage
A policy review is under way – a fourth policy review; Obama was greeted by three when he took office, but none was entirely satisfactory. This was something of a surprise because one of the studies was conducted by General David Petraeus, whose counterinsurgency doctrine and strategic brilliance turned the tide in the Iraq war. In this case, Petraeus brought in hundreds of people from a range of government agencies and a raft of outside experts. “You had people from the Department of Agriculture weighing in,” one expert, a Petraeus admirer who participated in the study, told me. “There were too many cooks. The end result was lowest-common-denominator stuff. The usual Petraeus acuity wasn’t there.”
Indeed, several senior Obama Administration officials told me that the least heralded of the three studies – the one by General Douglas Lute, the Bush Administration’s “war czar” – was the most valuable. Lute, who is staying on in the Obama Administration, is known to be very skeptical about the Pakistani army’s willingness to fight the Taliban, and equally critical of the Karzai government in Afghanistan. But Lute was operating with the smallest staff, and didn’t provide much detail about what to do next. (Read “Pakistan’s Prospects.”) Joe Klien. Time Magazine
General Patraeus is still hoping to duplicate the “success” he has achieved in Iraq. Senator McCain said it best when he said “if you are not winning, you are losing, and we are winning“.
If you talk to Gen. Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us,”…
“There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region, but the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex,” President Batack Obama.
Rupee News reported President Obama’s intentions a few weeks ago. Obama’s Exit strategy: Negotiating with the “Taliban” (Pakhtuns)
Thisis has now become part of the mainstream media.
“I think it is clear that you have to have a political solution to Afghanistan, and I wouldn’t rule anything off the table, including conversations with some aspects of the Taliban,” said Reuben Brigety, an Afghanistan expert at the Center for American Progress.
It is a point that European – particularly British – officials have pressed on the Americans for some time. With the Bush administration, one European diplomat said, “there was a complete ideological block to the notion of coming to any kind of deals with anything that could be called the Taliban. But now,” the diplomat added, speaking on condition of anonymity, “we’re in a different ballpark.”
Indeed, last Friday, in an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Obama opened the door to approaching elements of the Taliban, if his administration’s review recommends it. He cited an argument he attributed to Gen. David H. Petraeus that “part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us.” he New York Times
NEW YORK, March 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama is open to the idea of reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
In an interview with the newspaper published on its website, Obama said that some of the U.S. success in Iraq involved reaching out to Islamic fundamentalists who had been alienated by the tactics of al Qaeda in Iraq.
“There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region,” he said. “But the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex.”
Obama, who last monthapproved the deployment of 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan as part of an effort to stabilize the country, had suggested before becoming president that he was open to talks with more moderate Taliban leaders.
Insurgent violence is at its highest in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001. Obama, who sees the Afghan conflict as a more pressing concern than the unpopular war in Iraq, is trying to convince other NATO nations to boost troop commitments to the international operation. New York Times. Obama mulls reaching out to moderate Taliban – NYT. Sat Mar 7, 2009 5:05pm EST
That is actually the rationale that Pakistan’s government used to explain its recent and much-criticized reconciliation deal with local Taliban leaders in Pakistan’s Swat region. Pakistani officials have sought to reassure the Obama administration that their deal, which allows Islamic law and Taliban figures to hold sway in Swat, was not a surrender to the Taliban, but an attempt to drive a wedge between hard-core Taliban leaders and local pro-Taliban Islamists who might be wooed back to the government’s camp. Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of the Taliban (March 8, 2009). The New York Times
Part of the solution as described by Joe Klein in Time magazine is to give Pakistan some space.
What to do? Actually, there’s a consensus within the Obama Administration about how to approach the Pakistan part of the problem. The policy might be described as comprehensive diplomacy accompanied by lots of money. The diplomatic task is to nudge India and Pakistan, who nearly came to an agreement in their eternal Kashmir dispute in 2007, toward a lessening of tensions in the hope that the Pakistani army will turn to the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The money would come in a massive economic-aid package, the Kerry-Lugar bill, which would send $1.5 billion to Pakistan for each of the next five years – although how that aid would be distributed, a crucial question given Pakistan’s rampant corruption, has yet to be determined. Military aid to Pakistan will continue as well, but with more strings and supervision than during the Bush Administration. “We have to re-establish close personal relationships with the army,” said a senior member of the National Security Council, who was involved in an intense series of meetings with the Pakistani military leadership during the first week of March. “We have to be sure they’re on the same page as we are. Time Magazine
Pakistan’s Eminent Domain–Solutions to AfPak 
Fixing Afpak: Inability to define exit strategy spells inevitable US military catastrophy in Kabul
Obama’s sane policy: Negotating with the Taliban 
Betrayals, blackmail in Bakiyev cloaking failure as success hiding the defeat declaring victory withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months
WASHINGTON (AP) – Rep. John Murtha said Tuesday the situation in Afghanistan is so challenging that he estimated it would take 600,000 troops to fully squelch violence in the country.
The Pennsylvania Democrat, who chairs the powerful subcommittee that funds the military, said his figure was based on the country’s history of rigorous fighting and its size.
“That’s what I estimate it would take in a country that size to get it under control,” Murtha said in an interview. Associated Press
There is not enough money in King Soloman’s treasure to fund 600,000 soldiers. Neither the US, nor the US can come up with that number.
Obama to unveil new policy: Marshal Plan & end to bombing raids in Pakistan
Convincing the US tin ear of the Pakistani point of view 
Peek into Obama’s brains: Bruce Reidel on Pakistan 
Growing consensus in the Obama team: Much of Pakistan’s problems originate in Afghanistan
Obama advisor Weinbaum predicts total Afghan policy review: Sees focus on talks & Reconciliation
Afghanistan: Gen. Petraeus’ Pakistani advisers: Indians jittery
Obama adviser gives deep insights into new Afghan policy
After losing 80% of Afghanistan to the insurgents and being defeated by the militancy in the Hindu Kush, the Obama team is now seeking reconciliation with the surrogates of Mullah Omar.
“Unite and fight not your own people, but the occupiers of Afghanistan.” Mullah Omar: Leader of the Afghan Taliaban
After demonizing the Pakistanis for over a decade, Washington has now been using the services of Islamabad to make peace with Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Times said that in the interview, Obama also left open the option for American operatives to capture terrorism suspects abroad even without the cooperation of a country where they were found.
“There could be situations — and I emphasize ‘could be’ because we haven’t made a determination yet — where, let’s say that we have a well-known al Qaedaoperative that doesn’t surface very often, appears in a third country with whom we don’t have an extradition relationship or would not be willing to prosecute, but we think is a very dangerous person,” he said.
“I think we will have to think about how do we deal with that scenario in a way that comports with international law and abides by my very clear edict that we don’t torture.”
Obama’s new CIA Director Leon Panetta disappointed European opponents of secret CIA transfers of terrorism suspects when he said that Obama was keeping rendition as an option in the fight against terrorism.
Last month Panetta told a Senate hearing that suspects might still be sent to third countries for questioning, subject to assurances they would be treated humanely. Rendition cases during the Bush administration raised allegations by human rights groups that detainees were tortured while in the custody of third countries. (Reporting by Deborah Charles; Editing by Xavier Briand).Reuters on the New York Times story. Obama mulls reaching out to moderate Taliban – NYT. Sat Mar 7, 2009 5:05pm EST
Fixing Afpak: Inability to define exit strategy spells inevitable US military catastrophy in Kabul
AfPak backstage: Bombing the ephemeral Hindu Kush “Ho Chi Minh trail” nurtures the Khemer Rouge of the Khyber–the Taliban . Bruce Reidel in a recent interview revealed that during peace negotiating put together by the Pakistanis between the representatives of the Taliban, and the government of Mr. Hamid Karzai, the Taliban made the following demands.
1) They would agree to join the government after the withdrawal of all occupation forces from Afghanistan
2) They would offer safe passage to the withdrawing armies, just like the Pakhtuns gave free passage to the retreating Soviet forces.
Bruce Reicel was incensed with the conditions and said that he wanted to crush this self confidence of the “Taliban”. What a difference a few weeks make. That was then and this is now.
In Bajuar, Maulvi Faqir Mohammed, a Taliban spokesman, has told Al Jazeera that they will take their fight to Afghanistan instead of the Pakistani army.
The reason for this change in tactics? Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
Omar has reportedly been watching events in Pakistan with concern. He is said to have dispatched a high-level delegation to Taliban fighters with a simple message: “Unite and fight not your own people, but the occupiers of Afghanistan.”
It would appear that message has now being heeded and that may be the real reason the Taliban have decided to engage in the Swat valley and Bajuar.
This is a real issue for the Americans who want to reach out to the Taliban.
According to Masood, the US is weak. “It’s in no position to negotiate with anyone. The Taliban have made it clear that peace talks cannot take place without the occupier first leaving Afghanistan.” Al Jazeera. Talking to the Taliban By Imran Khan in Islamabad
President Barack Obama now wants to make peace in Afghanistan and wants to begin charting an exit strategy. The emerging “Leave Afghanistan to Pakistan” strategy goes mainstream. Extricating the US from the Lost war in the Khyber
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
“Charge of the Light Brigade” in Afghanistan AGAIN: 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
