Afg

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The US occupation has not brought security to Afghan women. There are several factors which have led to the impasse in the White House.  AfPak countercurrents beyond the Oxus to AfPakAzUzbKazTurkKyr-istan. Some of them has been identified by Bob Woodward in his recent front page article in the Washington Post. Obama’s Afghan timeout vs. Mullen’s surge. There are several factions in the administration. One of them is the geostrategic reality that NATO doesn’t buy the Obama Doctrine. It seems that the “Exiters” seem to be winning. “Can Karzai get away with a stolen election”- Carter. Various Democrats seem to be warning Mr. Obama about the impending catastrophe. We are running the risk of replicating the fate of the Soviets” Mr. Brzezinski. Mr. Obama could have fallen into the routine acceptance for a request for more troops. He has resisted to repeat the historical mistakes of Vietnam. Justifying the Banality of 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. He has stepped back to ask a more basic question. Hindu Kush cul de sac: Why are we in Afghanistan? The main question is, whether President Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (AfPak). President Obama is planning an Exit strategy by negotiating with the “Taliban” (Pakhtuns). Can he go through with it? Trade First not Aid First

September 2009

  • A Figment of Washington’s Imagination–the Afghan Army
  • Neocons are back!–forcing the Afghan war
  • Liberating the women of Afghanistan
  • The European folly in Afghanistan
  • “Genius,” — is “knowing when to stop.”
  • McChrystal’s “clear, hold, build” is a rehash of Lyautey’s Algerian & Westmoreland’s Vietnam failed strategy
  • A seething civil war erupts in Occupied Afghanistan
  • Obama’s Three metrics for Afghan war
  • Rupture: Obama’s civilian advisors balk at military request for surge in Afghanistan
  • McChrystal malarkey on Afghanistan hides incompetence of NATO, ISAF & US forces
  • Indian hullaballoo creates paranoia. Forces Australian premier away from Mumbai
  • Afghanistan: Bad to worse
  • ‘Naked’ India needs Nuclear tests to deal with China: Santhanam
  • McChrystal wants India to scale back Afghan operations
  • Obama rejects McChrystal’s surge: Withdrawal Inevitable in 2011!
  • March 2009

  • Real India: Rodent infestations, Monkey barrels, Cow kines, Stray dog kennels, & Rat packs present in Delhi’s President House & ubiquitous in all Indian cities
  • Between the Devil & the Deep Sea–India’s vulnerability in the Malacca Straits & the Ariabian Sea
  • Can the US exit Afghanistan with honor?
  • Pakistan Myanmar relations: Past, Present & Future
  • Fire Citibank’s Indian CEO: The Vikram Pandit Punishment Act should set an example for corporate greed
  • Obama must avoid creating a backlash in neighboring Pakistan by heavy-handed U.S. military intervention there: David Kilcullen
  • Eurotrash Hitler & Fritzl! How many more monsters will Austria manufacture?
  • “NATO is in Afghanistan to contain China”: NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Schaffer
  • Why did Indira Gandhi’s grandson publicly repeat the Indira-Nehru-Sanjay-Mohandas bigotry?
  • US faces ignominious defeat in Afghanistan because it ignored Pakistani advice
  • PAF: Nuclear armed deterrent to hegemony
  • Hindu Kush Curtain Call: The End Game in Afghanistan
  • The Caliban of South Asia—an artificial state called Bharat (aka India)
  • Taliban apprehend fugitive killers of Univ. of Malakand security: Return stolen vehicles to the University
  • Democratic pretenders to the throne: Hypocrites courted Martial Law again! Judiciary at what cost?
  • Fixing Afpak: Inability to define exit strategy spells inevitable US military catastrophy in Kabul

    The emerging “Leave Afghanistan to Pakistan” strategy goes mainstream. Extricating the US from the Lost war in the Khyber

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Afpak backstage: Bombing the ephemeral “Hindu Kush Hoci Minh trail” nurtures the Khemer Rouge of the Khyer– The Taliban

       

     

     

     

     

      80% of Afghanistan is under insurgent control. Taliban sanctuaries around Kabul thumb thier noses at ISAF, NATO & US forces. Why would Taliban need safe havens far away in Pakistan? Getting out of Valhalla or new goals for war in AfPak: Can Obama’s “Neocon Lite” advisors sell old wine in new bottle

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Revising Finance 101 for the Chinese Century: Political impact of Center of Gravity shift from New York to Beijing

    Obama’s “Surgers” vs. “Exiters”: Exit strategy now or scrambled hasty retreat later

    China sets conditions for bailing out US and buying US T-Bills

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Why the US gave up India as a strategic partner

    India’s worst nightmares come true: Long term strategic malaise

     

     

     

     

    Betrayels and Balckmail: Cloaking failure as success, Hiding the defeat, declaring Victory, Withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months

    Kabul: The Final assault begins. How long can NATO hang on? Does Obama have the courage to implement the real solutions to Obama’s Vietnam (AfPak)

    2009: Obama’s South Asian policy: A Marshall Plan for AfPak

    Selective Amnesia of Americans: Pakistan is the most mistreated friend in the world

    Fixing AfPak expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan

    The Algeriafication of Pakistan, the Egyptianization of Bangladesh may will yield Iranian type of revolutions

    India’s worst nightmare come true: Long term strategic malaise

    Mumbai False flag: Indian hawk & Gujarat Chief Minister Modi exonerates Pakistan’s position. Delhi’s fails to prove Pakistan is complicit

    India intoxicated by meager success is blind to real self-portrait of caste infested penury and balkanization

    When will India handover terrorists Advani, Thackery, Purohit & 38 other murderers

    Nuclear war in South Asia guarantees total and absolute annihilation and mutually assured destruction for India and Pakistan

    Response to the Dossier: Some Inexplicable questions for Indian Leaders

    Delhi outwitted at its own game

    When Freedom fighters turn terrorist

    =================================

  • Why did Senator Diane Feinstein embarrass the Zardari’s PPPP on drones flying from Pakistani Shamsi Airbase?
  • Fixing “AfPak” expedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan
  • Betrayals & Blackmail in Bakiyev: Cloaking failure as success, hiding the defeat, declaring victory & withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months
  • Afghanistan: The writing is on the wall. Can Obama read it?
  • Fatima Bhutto and George Clooney an item?
  • Swat spells death knell of US defeat & Afghan occupation
  • Reality of “Slumdog’s” extreme poverty irks Indians living in Bollywood dreams
  • More CIA Psy-Ops: Sanger Justifies drone terror attacks on an ally in his book “The Inheritance”.
  • How long can the “wink wink nod nod” farce of Drones go on?
  • Convincing the US Tin ear–of the Pakistani point of view
  • Kabul: The final assault begins-How long can NATO hang on?
  • Solutions to AfPak

      Betrayals, blackmail in Bakiyev cloaking failure as success hiding the defeat declaring victory withdrawing from Afghanistan within 12 months

    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

    The story of Afghanistan and colonialism begins a long time ago. British tried to take up White Man’s burden in Afghanistan. It suffered badly in Kabul and could not hold it. NATO Lessons: 1880 UK defeat at Maiwand-Afghanistan. Today ISAF is making the same mistakes as the British did more than a century ago. Is NATO committing suicide in Afghanistan? There is a powerplay going on. …the CIA assassination. Juggling all the permutations and the permutations, the US has considered every possibility. However the most obvious one escapes the $80 Billion think tank industry in the USA. Saving the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan. Eradicating the Pashtun plight and ending occupation.

     
     
     
     

     

     

    Mumbai False flag: Indian hawk & Gujarat Chief Minister Modi exonerates Pakistan’s position. Delhi’s fails to prove Pakistan is complicit

    I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Thomas Jefferson Afghan picks up baby killed

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Graveyard of Empires

  • 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 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
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    These invasions ended in defeat – for the Europeans.

    The first British occupation of Kabul lasted for four years. When the British garrison retreated from Kabul in 1842, it was picked off by Ghilzai warriors as they trudged through the snow. Only one British officer, William Brydon, survived this harrowing retreat. This solitary survivor was memorialized in a haunting painting by Elizabeth Butler, titled, Remnants of an Army.

    The British occupied Kabul a second time in 1878, withdrew a year later, leaving behind a British resident to keep an eye on the Afghans. They returned the same year, when their resident in Kabul was killed in an uprising. When the British withdrew in 1880, discretely, they did not insist on leaving behind a British resident.

    Nearly a hundred years later, 30,000 Soviet troops, invading from the north, occupied Kabul in December 1979. In order to oppose the growing Afghan resistance, the Russians soon raised their troop strength to 100,000 but never controlled any areas beyond the limits of a few cities. With 15,000 deaths, and unable to sustain growing casualties, the Soviets retreated in February 1989.Into the Chasm Afghan Pitfalls By M. SHAHID ALAM

     

     

     

     

     

    THE LESSONS FROM AFGHANISTAN DEFEATS: RETREATING FROM DEFEAT

     

     

     

     

  • McCain,Obama Afghan bluster on Pakistan overtaken by events
  • Seven Years in Afghanistan by Gary Leupp
  • The War Spreads to Pakistan by Gary Leupp
  • UK Brig. Smith: “We’re not going to win this [Afghan] war”
  • People hate Karzai support Taliban: Afghan Senator Ahmadzai
  • America’s Secret war in Pakistan-MSNBC uncovers Marines with long beards and without uniforms
  • Nightmare scenario for India in Kabul: The Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
  • Karzai the biggest drug baron in Afghanistan
  • Guess whose coming to dinner in Kabul—they are back!
  • It all came tumbling down…the house of cards that George built—in Kabul
  • Can American Taliban bring Peace in Afghanistan? Impact & Analysis
  • Erase the Durand Line: The inevitable union between Paksitan and Afghanistan. It is time to erase the Durand Line.

    Battle of Maiwand

    Defeat in Afghanistan: Battle of Maiwand

    RECENT ARTICLES ON AFGHANISTAN: 

  • French Voltaires question France’s role in Afghan war
  • 10% on Defense of Pakistan Day
  • Insidious plan for Pakistan? Is US a Trojan horse in Afghanistan?
  • Rousseau, Tito, and the Obamas
  • Hekmatyar’s Afghan Hezb-i-Islami teach a French lesson
  • GWOT & Afghan war useless: SWAT teams could nab OBL
  • Proxy war in Afghanistan: Strategic depth vs Strategic clout   http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/07/proxy-war-in-afghanistan-strategic-depth-vs-strategic-clout/
  • India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”
  • India vs. Pakistan–Gwador vs. Chabahar. http://rupeenews.com/2008/02/08/pakistani-gwador-to-china-links-threatened-by-indian-chahbahar-links-to-kabul-via-iran/
  • India a secret player in Afghanistan: Bases—Lashkargarh, Qushila Jadid,Khahak,Hassan Killies
  • Another daring attack on Kabul rattles Karzai’s shakey regime     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/another-daring-attack-on-kabul-rattles-karzais-shakey-regime/
  • Kabul bombing: Ruse to send Indian troops to Afghansitan?
    http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/09/kabul-bombing-ruse-to-send-indian-troops-to-afghansitan/
  • Afghanistan: Why was India attacked in Kabul?     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/afghanistan-why-was-india-attacked-in-kabul/
  • http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/5288/
  • Afghanistan audacious attack: Karzai-Kabul weaknesses exposed      http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/afghanistan-audacious-attack-karzai-kabul-weaknesses-exposed/ 
  • Pakhtuns to India: Get out of Afghanistan     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/08/pakhtuns-to-india-get-out-of-afghanistan/
  • Kabul bombing: Ruse to send Indian troops to Afghansitan?     http://rupeenews.com/2008/07/09/kabul-bombing-ruse-to-send-indian-troops-to-afghansitan/
  • Kabul ventriloquist’s bravado-Puppet Karzai’s bluster

    Remember Maiwand

    Defeat in Afghanistan: Remember Maiwand

    TERROR IN AFGHANISTAN

     Pakistan’s National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) submits proof of Indian RAW involvement in terror bombing in Pakistan. Blunt message to New Delhi to stop!

  • India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”
  • India a secret player in Afghanistan: Bases—Lashkargarh, Qushila Jadid,Khahak,Hassan Killies
  • For more articles on Afghanistan visit: http://rupeenews.com/ideas-on-afghanistan/
  • http://rupeenews.com/2008/01/20/bla-a-threat-to-international-peace-by-ahmad-shah-baloch-the-bla-is-the-creation-of-indian-intelligence-agencies-which-are-trying-to-create-instability-in-the-areas-bordering-iran-and-afghanista/
  • Dhaka Diary: RAW 2008: An Instrument of Indian Imperialism by Isha Khan Dhaka Bangladesh
  • BOOK REVIEW: The India Doctrine by Munshi
  • Dhaka Dairy: RAW vs ISI by Prem Raj
  • Insidious plan for Pakistan? Is US a Trojan horse in Afghanistan?
  • Sino-India relationship and Pakistan
  • US “Charge of the Light Brigade” into Pakistan-hides US failures
  • STRATEGIC DEPTH VS STRATEGIC CLOUT

  • India vs. Pakistan–Gwador vs. Chabahar.
  • and he huffed and he puffed
  • Karzai Threatens to Send Afghan Troops Into Pakistan
  • Failure and defeat in Afghanistan. Payback for Pakistan.
  • Afghanistan fubar: A crumbling alliance? 
  • Pakistan’s National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) submits proof of Indian RAW involvement in terror bombing in Pakistan. Blunt message to New Delhi to stop!
  • India intelligence: “‘the aim of RAW is to keep internal disturbances flaring up and the ISI preoccupied so that Pakistan can lend no worthwhile resistance to Indian designs in the region.”
  • India a secret player in Afghanistan: Bases—Lashkargarh, Qushila Jadid,Khahak,Hassan Killies
  • The last “Mayor of Kabul”. Mr. Karzai.“You can call me a US puppet
  • Spy vs. Spy in Kabul, London, Delhi, Islamabad and Swat: Taliban prepare for Kabul
  • India vs. Pakistan–Gwador vs. Chabahar. 
  • CIA Connection….Benazir assassination was pre-planned. The Zia model with a twist… 
  • AFGHAN HISTORY

  • Defeat in Afghanistan: UK “White Man’s burden” fails again
  • British “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.
  • Those that the gods will destroy they first make mad…
  • Kabul ventriloquist’s bravado-Puppet Karzai’s bluster
  • ‘I Wish I Had the Taliban as My Soldiers’ Hamid Karzai
  • Karzai vs. Pakistan: After the battle is won and lost!
  • The last mayor of Kabul’s failures spell the end of Afghanistan. How long can the inept Karzai blame others for his corrupt Narco Warlordism?
  • Britain’s unnecessary wars in 1879-1939-2001
  • AFGHAN PEACE AND WAR

    AFGHANISTAN’S HAMID KARZAI

    Impact of Pashtuns Spring attack on Kabul: Will Karzai survive?. Begining of the end?

    AFGHANISTAN AND CHINA

    China rail integrates Afghanistan, Tajikistan, & Pakistan

    AFGHANISTAN AND ENERGY

    Pipelinestan: All energy routes lead through Islamabad

    AFGHANISTAN AND USA NATO ISAF

    AFGHANISTAN & USA

    AFGHANISTAN HISTORY

    Noticias de Rupia | Nouvelles de Roupie | Rupiennachrichten | новости рупии | 卢比新闻 | Roepienieuws | Rupi Nyheter | ルピーニュース | Notizie di Rupia | PAKISTAN LEDGER | پاکستاني کھاتا | Defensebriefs Translate to: Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape Bookmark and Share Add to TechnoratiRSS feed: | RUPEE NEWS |  Moin Ansari | معین آنصآرّی | اخبار روپیہ | 

    AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN

    Enough is enough: Karzai silly threats are “Declaration of war”. Must be responded to

    AFGHANISTAN ARTICLES CONTINUED

    ISAF controls smaller and smaller areas

     

    “The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help finish the job, and continue operations against the remnants of al Qaeda. The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants. There is no longer any place in the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven.” John McCain

    “War does not determine who is right — only who is left.” Bertrand Russell

    Defeated & dejected in a Helmund dust stormFailure and defeat in Afghanistan has reslted in payback and blowback against Pakistan

    Afghan forces defeat the retreating British ArmyAfghan defeat: Whose Spring offensive?

    Afghans and Pakistanis defeated the Alexander, Mongols, British, and the RussianDefeat in Afghanistan\Afghan defeat: Blaming the other ally. UK Afghan defeats at Maiwand, Gandamak: Lessons learend for NATO and ISAFThe problem with the allies’ thinking about Afghanistan is that it’s all tactics and no strategy,” A senior British general.Failure and defeat in Afghanistan has reslted in payback and blowback against Pakistan.The ISAF defeat is reminscent of the Peloponeisian wars Python swallows alligator and explodes. Iraq and Afghanistan

    The defeat and dejection in AfghanistanPakistani cheese for Western wine. Countering the “Do More” mantra. Selling Pakistan too cheap. Tit for Tat dimplomacy. Countering requests with formal invoices and charging market prices for service.

    Rudyard Kiplings What Man\'s burden

    Nato, Pakistan and Afghanistan are as divided as the Taliban, says Robert Fox. It’s time to talk
    After nearly a month of intense fighting against the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan, involving a surge of 3,000 US Marines, the Americans are changing the guard. Their top US commander General Dan ‘Bomber’ McNeill is to hand over the command to General David McKiernan. It will mean a change of style, and perhaps a change in tactics, but don’t expect the fierce fighting across Helmand and Kandahar to die down any time soon.

    Area under NATO-ISAF is shrinking

    The blowback from the US airstrikes: Consequences of US airstrikes by Rahimullah Yusufzai.For all of this month, troops of the British 16 Air Assault Brigade and the US 24 Marine Expeditionary Unit, supported by Dutch and Canadian forces, have been battling to carve out a safe area round Garmsir in Helmand province.

    APPENDIX A

    Digging around on the internet, you can find a different view. Back in April Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online, wrote that the Taliban were taking their inspiration from the Vietminh who chased the French out of what was known as Indochina in the 1950s.  He wrote that they were inspired by the Vietnamese commander General Vo Nguyen Giap, who successfully employed guerrilla tactics against the French before crushing them in the battle of Dien Bien Phu  in 1954.

    Taking up the theme, the website openDemocracy  followed up by saying that the west tends to assume that it alone is watching the lessons of Vietnam. ”It is as if “only” the United States (and by extension western forces or combatants in general) have the capacity or the interest to draw lessons from the past,” it said. It called the reference to the Taliban looking for  inspiration in Vietnam ”startling and ominous”.

    “In the early 1950s, the Vietminh – faced with an imbalance between their own forces and conventional French military power – concentrated on attacking isolated garrisons in the northern part of Vietnam well away from the main colonial centres of control…  This strategy, combined with attacks on French supply-lines, gradually wore down the French military and political leadership’s resolve. Now, it seems, the Taliban aim to do the same against an equivalently “asymmetrical” enemy: Nato, and the International Security Assistance Force forces in Afghanistan.”

    So do we go with McCain, who has his own experience of Vietnam? Or the historical parallels with France, which like the United States today in Afghanistan and Iraq, was struggling to cope with guerrilla warfare, did not know how to win over the hearts and minds of the local population, and faced economic crisis at home and a general public which was tired of war in faraway places?

    U.S. Marine holding position as Taliban fighters open fire/Goran TomasevicI thought it would be interesting to ask one of the retired Reuters correspondents who had covered Vietnam whether it was legitimate to compare it to Afghanistan and got the following reply from Bernard Edinger, a French reporter who was sent in from Paris before the fall of Saigon in 1975 and also covered Kabul when the Russians first went in with ground troops in 1979:

    “Yes, America’s opponents all dream of seeing the US helicopter its people out of Kabul the same humiliating way they flew out of Saigon. I stood on a rooftop opposite the embassy and watched the last choppers go as thousands of local Vietnamese clamouring to be evacuated were abandoned. As you know, the Communists did not win the war, the Americans lost it – at home. The press and much of the public had turned against the war to the point that the politicians just no longer thought it was worth fighting,” he wrote.

    “Obviously domestic opposition to US involvement in Afghanistan is far less than that over Vietnam because the horror of the Taliban regime is already known and the Western public has seen the execution by rifle fire of kneeling women in midfield at half-time at Kabul soccer matches , the condemned men hanging from the goalposts etc … Also, opposition to Vietnam was led by students who had the threat of army service before them if the war lasted whereas the US only commits pro soldiers to the war today.”

    “An outright Taliban victory over the US is out of the question … But in asymmetric warfare, ‘the strong lose if they don’t win and the weak win if they survive.’ I’m quoting others. The Pathans outlasted Kipling’s British Indian army (and even slit the throat of the British ambassador in his residence) and the Soviet Army. All they have to do is hang in there.”
      http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2008/05/18/who-will-be-left-standing-when-the-afghan-war-ends/#comment-597

    Da Dili takht herauma cheh rayad krhm, Zma da khkule Pukhtunkhwa da ghre saroona. “I forget the throne of Delhi when I recall, The mountain peaks of my beautiful Pukhtunkhwa.” Ahma Shah Abdali

    The Pakistani province of NWFP, popularly known as Sarhad is now being renamed to Paskhtunkhwa based on Ahmad Shah Abdali’s words. Khushal Khan Khattak was one of the greatest poets of Pakistan and of Pakhtunkhwa.

    Pashtuns comprise over 15.42% of Pakistan’s population or 25.6 million people.[2] In Afghanistan, they make up an estimated 39%[19] to 42% of the population or 12.4 to 13.3 million people. The exact numbers remain uncertain, particularly in Afghanistan, and are affected by approximately 3 million Afghan refugees that remain in Pakistan, of which 81.5% or 2.49 million are ethnic Pashtuns.[3] An unknown number of refugees continue to reside in Iran.[20] A cumulative population assessment suggests a total of around 42 million across the region Source Wikipedia

    According to many historians including Humayun Gauhar and Aslam Khattak (” A Pathan Odessy) a confederation almost happened with Afghanitan in 1956.

    The missed opportunity came in 1956-57  when Aslam Khattak was first our First Secretary and then Ambassador in Kabul. By then we had a full-blown ‘Afghan Problem’. Prime Minister Suharawardhy called a meeting in which Army Chief General Ayub Khan “dismissed our neighboring country in proper Sandhurst style. ‘Afghan problem?’ he said gruffly. ‘What is the Afghan problem? A little strategic bombing and an armoured thrust would settle it once and for all!.’” It was then that Pakistan, with Aslam Khattak in ‘Track Two’ mode, so to speak, started the proposal for a Pakistan-Afghan confederation. He wanted to get Prime Minister Sardar Daud on his side because “Daud honestly believed that the Pathans were oppressed in Pakistan. He considered it a duty to help his brethren. He may also have been suspicious about the ‘A’, for Afghan (Afghanica) province in Pakistan. Did it mean we wanted to take over his country? At the same time, we thought that Daud was in league with India and bent upon dividing our country with Delhi. As was often the case in such circumstance, both sides were wrong.” Daud was King Zahir Shah’s first cousin and married to the King’s sister. It was he who eventually deposed Zahir Shah. Khattak went to see Daud and told him that he wanted “to remove the misunderstanding between our countries…”

    Next, Khattak separately met the “royal uncles”, Shah Wali and Shah Mahmood, and took them into confidence. “I told him that Pakistan and Afghanistan would have to form a confederation if they were to survive threats from the USSR and India.” After considerable humming and hawing both agreed to take the idea further. “Now I was ready to try my hand with Sardar Daud, whom I thought would be my most difficult hurdle.” After Daud had made his complaints and Khattak had clarified them, including the letter ‘A’ in the name ‘Pakistan’, they decided that there should be an exchange of visits between King Zahir Shah and President Iskander Mirza. Actually both President Mirza and Prime Minister Suhrawardy went to Kabul together, which is highly unusual. While King and President were involved in ceremony, the two Prime Ministers started talking. After they left, Khattak continued the dialogue with Daud, who “suggested that we include some friendly missions in our discussions, such as Turkey and the USA. Sardar Daud said that the Americans should foot the bill of our mutual development projects when we confederated. Both sides would maintain internal autonomy, he proposed, but they would form a Central Government for defence, foreign policy, foreign trade and communications. The Prime Ministers would rotate.”

    If you are surprised at how far the dialogue went, there was more. Feroz Khan Noon had replaced Suhrawardy as Prime Minister. Khattak raised the question of head of state of the confederation with him. “In his grand way [Noon] said we should have no difficulty accepting King Zahir Shah as the constitutional head of state. ‘After all, for some time after independence we had a Christian queen. Now we would have a Muslim man’. President Mirza concurred in this.” When Khattak next met Daud, he said that “…a confederation was the correct step to realise our common destiny. I noted that Pakistan was a democratic country and asked what would be the position of the King. He promptly replied, ‘We shall be a republic if Pakistan so desires.’” So here was Pakistan ready to accept the constitutional monarchy of Zahir Shah in the new Pak-Afghan confederation and there was Afghanistan prepared to become a republic.

     

    As to the USA, Aslam Khattak says, “The Americans agreed to help in a big way. They were prepared to enlarge Karachi harbour and to develop another port. They agreed to provide fifty locomotives and five hundred wagons and to extend the Chaman railway to Kandahar and the Torkham rail line to Jalalabad. Sardar Daud wanted them to extend the Jalalabad railhead to Kabul and to commit to connect Kandahar and Kabul by rail.” They had actually got into post-confederation details.


    Then came mistakes. Daud came to Pakistan and while inspecting a shipyard in Karachi a bullet ricocheted off a ship and hit Aslam Khattak instead. Undaunted, they decided to bring Ghaffar Khan into the equation. He was released from prison and sent to Kabul, where he agreed to help in removing Pakistan-Afghan differences provided President Mirza agreed to hold a referendum on the One Unit. Mirza agreed. The American Ambassador in Karachi assured Ghaffar Khan through the American Ambassador in Kabul that the referendum would be held. But it wasn’t. “I have never known,” says Aslam Khattak, “exactly why he did not go ahead and do the job that he said he would. He may have got word from some important Pathans in Pakistan that, if the Afghans stopped speaking about the Pushtuns, the Punjabis would literally turn them into camp followers and second-class citizens. At any rate a great chance to change the face of history was missed.” Indeed. Let’s leave it at that. So much water has flown since then.

    But consider. If the confederation had happened, it would have automatically meant the end of the Parity Principle and One Unit because the anti-democratic 1956 Constitution would have had to be changed. There would have been no Ayub Khan regime and East Pakistan may still have been with us. The Soviets would not have such a large country. No Soviet occupation means no Jihad. No Jihad means no Mujahideen. The Americans could not have created Osama bin Laden. No Osama means no 9/11. Source Humayun Gauhar  hgauhar@nation.com.pk

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    While the presidential debates focused on the arcane notion of hot to get OBL, the US military were busy reading the works of of Ahmed Rashid the brother of a former Pakistani military Chief of Staff and think tanks. Its as if the candidates too busy with their campaign had missed the two major earthquakes, the economic mess, and defeat in Afghanistan. We can’t defeat the Taliban: British Army Chief in Afghanistan. . The country has now accepted to the new reality in West Asia. the issue was not OBL, but how quickly to get out of Afghanistan. Talibal is Indefatigable: UK Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith

    Apparently the British who had led the charge of Lightbrigade were not in an economic condition to spend $500 per year on Iraq. . British tried to take up White Man’s burden in Afghanistan. It suffered badly in Kabul and could not hold it. NATO Lessons: 1880 UK defeat at Maiwand-Afghanistan. Today ISAF is making the same mistakes as the British did more than a century ago. Is NATO committing suicide in Afghanistan? The UK refused to transfer the troops to Afghanistan and many of the Europeans in Afghanistan either refused to take an active role in the war or simply wanted to bring their boys home.

    All this makes India nervous, very nervous!

    Obama challenge: A vision for peace? Strike Grand Bargains?. After a seris of assessments and proclamations by the head of NATO, ISAF, the UK forces General Petraeus has started his revaluation of the Afghan war. Indian foreign policy Titanic hits several icebergs. His conclusions are bound to make the Indians nervous. This is amply reflected by the series of news articles appearing in the usually triumphalist Indian media that caters to a tine minority of the Indians-the English speaking elite.

    India has spent more than a Billion Dollars in Afghanistan supporting up an unpopular war and propping up its Afghan policy on a puppet and reviled president, often mocked as “the mayor of Kabul” whose writ does not exist beyond the Kabul palace. Karzai vs. Pakistan: After the battle is won and lost!

    Karzai the biggest drug baron in Afghanistan. The Indians supported a very unpopular Afghan president who is about to lose his grip on power and will probably have to seek asylum in New Delhi. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan run by Taliban Huge Migraine for India .Surely Mr. Karzai will not be able to return to his old asylum home in Quetta. People hate Karzai support Taliban: Afghan Senator Ahmadzai

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