AfPak: an overview of Pakistan / Afghanistan

[Bob's World]

Sometimes it is indeed difficult to see the forest for the trees. Try to step back from your focus on religion to look at the bigger picture, it might help.

But also don't always try to drag larger discussions back to your focus on religion. My points are not about any one state, and apply as much in Pakistan as they do in the Netherlands or South America, or the U.S.; they are independent of any particular fact pattern and premised in the underlying dynamics at work.

Yes, Pakistan saw Afghanistan as a buffer, or maneuver space that they could use in conflict with India. Yes, the Pakistanis backed the Taliban to keep a friendly government there to allow this. Yes these people are largely Muslim. We inserted ourselves into this dynamic in order to get at AQN, which was totally ancilary to the Pakistan -Afghan/Taliban relationship.

What we did there was unconventional warfare to replace this Pakistani supported government with a US supported government in order to deny the sanctuary that the Taliban were giving AQN. Everything that follows is because this is a very complex situation with a lot of history and we didn't appreciate or understand any of that very well, we just wanted to sting AQ and deny the sanctuary. This lack of understanding /appreciation, coupled with our own narrow objective going in, and ever widening set of objectives of "democratizing" and "nation building" since have gotten us ever deeper into a situation we still don't have our minds around.

But "religious terrorism" is a convenient label that places all blame on Islam, and offers no insights as to how to achieve a broader solution. I am sure the Pope and his Catholic team agonized over "religious terrorism" during the reformation as well, just as we agonized over "communist terrorism" in the 50s and 60s. To focus on the beliefs used to motivate the masses over the underlying causes of conflict is to set a course for failure. Many have taken it in the past because it conveniently absolves one of any responsibiltiy for the conflict.

Follow the Pied Piper theory of idological caused insurgency if you will. But I have no time for such baseless fairy tales. If the city is full of rats, it is because we've left too much garbage laying about. When we clean up our mess, the rats will go away.

[George L. Singleton]

The other new factor is the rise of non-state actors like AQ, that can now wage unconventional warfare to join and enflame disparate local causes like only state actors could previously. They also are able to do this relatively immune from the time tested DIME tools of statecraft to control such actions among fellow states. A dynamic leader with a powerful ideology like Hitler needed to first attain control of a state in order to have significant impact. Today attaining a state creates an Achilles heel and is to be avoided by such. Bin Laden knows this full well and has no desire to soon abandon the "legal sanctuary" of his current status.

My two years in Paksitan in the mid-1960s fits this topic pretty well, as I picked up the additional duty of managing RON of walking wounded from South Vietnam immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin...and I had been "in the area or arena if you like" prior to the Gulf of Tonkin to have a young man's impression of things to come over there.

Bob, when the whole free world's intel system is jointly wrong, not by collusion to decieve but due to wrong info leading to wrong suppositions, referring to Iraq, this does not undo the continuium fact that ever since the first Gulf of Tonkin [which I volunteered back on duty for and ran the entire airlift for the East Coast, based out of Charleston AFB, but covering the coast, up and down, for that war]..the "ideology or theory" of containment, isolation, and sanctions failed miserably and was not working...in fact by Saddam and his grizzly gang, together with various Western business people in Europe...found ways and means to get richer off of the UN and associated organizations well intentioned by embezzeled morally and literally...programs to provide medicine and food for the ordinary Iraqi citizens.

My today, 2009, friends in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and here in the US, I refer here to my Muslim friends, both Shia and Sunnis, who are both over there and have family here..some of whom are in my home town here in sunny Alabama...tell me, not I them...that the radical Islamic terrorists are succeeding in "kidnapping Islam."

They tell me, but I do agree, that the updated concept of the Umah is stateless and being construed by the Taliban and al Qaida to be the "ideological" state of mind desired to seek to take over the minds and religious freedoms of the world, starting with other Muslims, but extending to all others of differeing faiths, or for that matter, even those of no faith.

You emphasis is to seek a mold, updated, that stamps in common outcomes from the past down to today. I disagree, just as I disagree with the two generals featured in another part of SWJ who complain about folks using high faluting words, confusing terminology which they think confuses young officers and NCOs, but as much, my view, seems to confuse them!

Chaos and mayhem have always been what that says, and is a piece of the puzzle in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Whether it is Musharraf, Zardari, or whoever comes next in Pakistan...and a deposed ex-Chief Justice of the Pakistan Supreme Court has no business under their, Pakistani, Constitution which I know a little about...trying to be the top dog and dictator over the non-sectarian PPP elected President of Pakistan.

The Shariff brothers, one of whom was the PM of Paksitan whom Musharraf deposed, are as crooked as it gets and ex-PM Shariff has trucked with the Taliban, and al Qaida, heavily and supported/enabled them both when he was PM, which is part of why Musharraf overthrew him (Shariff).

The Uman as a terrorist adopted and distorted concept is stateless, seeks to draw in or force in, more correctly said, into radical Sunni/Wahabbi driven Islam, the masses of the world, if they but could.

The boogey man? Not yet, but if pacifist ideas took hold here in the West, if we don't keep insisting that Pakistan permanently install peacekeeping forces inside the NWFP and related areas of Pakistan to back up and directly in most cases enforce civil law and order...instead of, my studied opinion, Zardari and/or the flag ranks and ISI sending troops from where they are and were most needed to senseless postings on the Indian border...allegedly over Mumbai terrorism which Pakistan has made clear was instigated, planned, funded, and driven from within Pakistan to inside India... then there is no rational hope.

No, the US cannot police the world, literally, even with our NATO allies. But we can back and support when they can be trusted [and as often as not the ISI and Pak flag rangs are not trustworthy but support radical Islamic terrorists such as the Taliban and even al Qaida) the duly elected non-sectarian government of President Zardari over that of the ex-Chief Justice of the Pakistani Supreme Court, Mr. Justice Chowdry...who would use the court system to run yet another dictatorship of Pakistan...all over again!

It is a mess, but we cannot turn our backs on all this, but we cannot fix it ourselves, either.

So Bob, you have your quasi pacifist influence views and I have my hawkish views, but we both are looking at as you so correctly wrote of...stateless religious terrorism which is bent on worldwide trouble making if we don't keep them pinned in where they are until some sort of resolution in maybe....generations to come...can be realized.

I would never trust these religious terrorist thugs with nukes, and I can tell you it makes my native Pakistani friends, both Shia and Sunnis, loose sleep at night as that prospect grows daily with the chaos inside Pakistan.

So Bob, as during WWII, when actual pacifists refused combat duty but were useful in support non-combat roles, your ideology and ideas have a place in the puzzle, as do mine focused on what I know to be the cold reality of terrorism in the name of Islam. No Bob, all Muslims are not terrorists, but even one such Islamic terrorist is one too many today with nuclear weaponry control and use at stake inside Pakistan...and the possibility of tactical nukes being used elsewhere...fill in the blanks...that makes me loose sleep!

[davidbfpo]

David Kilcullen has written a review in The Spectator: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magaz...urzon-do.thtml

I particularly like the description of the current Pakistani operation: 'a patchwork steamroller'.

The last paragraph will be familiar to SWC: For Britons and Americans watching the hard-fought progress of our Coalition troops in Helmand, the harsh reality is that Nato could do everything right in Afghanistan and still lose the broader regional campaign against terrorism if Pakistan fails to contain its internal militants. (My emphasis) This makes the fight in Pakistan, and finding means to help Pakistanis help themselves, the most important battle in the world.

davidbfpo

[Valin]

David Kilcullen has written a review in The Spectator: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magaz...urzon-do.thtml

I particularly like the description of the current Pakistani operation: 'a patchwork steamroller'.

The last paragraph will be familiar to SWC: For Britons and Americans watching the hard-fought progress of our Coalition troops in Helmand, the harsh reality is that Nato could do everything right in Afghanistan and still lose the broader regional campaign against terrorism if Pakistan fails to contain its internal militants. (My emphasis) This makes the fight in Pakistan, and finding means to help Pakistanis help themselves, the most important battle in the world.

davidbfpo

Exactly! The Afghan campaign and Pakistan/FATA campaign are linked.

Question: Would letting the Pashtuns have a Pashtunistan solve this problem?
I can understand why Islamabad and Kabul might have a problem with this (Talk about your understatement ), but it might be a solution, at least as far as stabilizing the region goes.

[davidbfpo]

Valin,

This topic has featured in SWJ before and I am aware that some in the USA (inside the Beltway) see a united Pashtunistan state as a solution. Personally I think it is a pipedream and does not help now. Would such a state be stable and resist the Jihad? Today, very unlikely.

Previous threads: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=pashtunistan , slightly more cultural: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=pashtunistan and older: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=pashtunistan

davidbfpo

[Valin]

Valin,

This topic has featured in SWJ before and I am aware that some in the USA (inside the Beltway) see a united Pashtunistan state as a solution. Personally I think it is a pipedream and does not help now. Would such a state be stable and resist the Jihad? Today, very unlikely.

Previous threads: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=pashtunistan , slightly more cultural: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=pashtunistan and older: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=pashtunistan

davidbfpo

Thanks. Just throwing out simple ideas
Simple ideas are my speciality

[tequila]

Pashtunistan is like Kurdistan (an artificial political construction unacceptable to every country with which it would share a border), but without the established Kurdish political infrastructure.

Whose pipe dream would it even be? Can anyone name a major Pashtun political figure, or even two, who can genuinely mobilize a broad consensus of the Pashtun population on either side of the border?

[omarali50]

These predictions are cynical and pessimistic and off the top of my head and I HOPE that some of them turn out to be wrong; Maybe they will (in some infinitesimally small way) even contribute to making themselves wrong....
1. Everyone and his dog knows that the Karzai regime is dysfuntional and is becoming a millstone around the neck of the US effort, but nobody will be able to do anything about it. The US is in the strange position of having occupied Afghanistan without having occupied it and is not acting, and cannot act, as the occupying power. Obama and Biden are not going to be able to get Karzai "fixed" (he could stay on as president, but that whole setup still needs to be fixed) and without someone at the top knowing what they are trying to fix and why they are fixing it and how to do it without becoming publicly or habitually nasty, this is not going to get fixed. Bottom line: the US has taken up a job it is institutionaly incapable of doing (manipulating a foreign country into a desired place without wrecking it, and getting your way while genuinely helping THOSE people...that is just too much of a "finesse" requirement).
2. That woman who is viceroy in Pakistan looks smart and hard and maybe up to the job, but if the US is pulling out of Afghanistan, there is no way in hell they can get a good result in Pakistan. The Pakistani army will continue to lose men in a confused fight with the "bad taliban" while continuing to ignore the "good taliban". If they could think that far ahead, they would know that "defeating" the US in Afghanistan will ruin their own future (well, it wont ruin all of them, some will retire to ranches in the US before the #### well and truly hits the fan)..OK, some of them actually know that by now, but they are scared, confused and trained to think like anti-Indian automatons (remember, they went to NDC and I have never met a Pakistani officer whose thinking had not been completely warped by his time at NDC). They will jump up and declare victory and appoint Hakeemullah Mehsud the governor of Waziristan the moment the US leaves. The irony is, Hakeemullah will then have some of them shot just for fun and "on principle". They will then fight Indian and Iranian proxies in Afghanistan down to the last Afghan and all the mayhem will probably end when India and Pakistan finally blow each other up. This being kalyug and the downward spiral and all that...
3. The US army has never really had a good start in any war (except Inchon? but then the advance on Seoul was hardly the stuff of legend). But they eventually figure it out (OK, except Vietnam). Its not the armed forces that are going to lose this war (or whatever its officially called). Its an institutional and cultural failure at the level of the political leadership and (even more so, in my humble opinion) the strategic "thinkers" and the punditocracy. Or maybe its just rampant corruption (as in people looking out for their own or their friend's pocketbook). I know some people here think its just a culture past its peak, but I dont buy that. There is no general theory of the rise and fall of "cultures". The only rule is "whatever works" and all the patterns are there all the time. Sometimes things turn around and sometimes they dont. What kind of idea are you? (gratuitous "satanic verses" quote: http://evildrclam.blogspot.com/2006/...c-verses.html) also check out the Housman poem I found there when I went looking for the satanic verses quote.(http://evildrclam.blogspot.com/)
comments?

[slapout9]

Its not the armed forces that are going to lose this war (or whatever its officially called). Its an institutional and cultural failure at the level of the political leadership and (even more so, in my humble opinion) the strategic "thinkers" and the punditocracy.

Exactly! Well said.

[S-2]

(Moderator's Note another thread 'Nearly half of Afghan Taliban leadership arrested in Pakistan', which was started 25/2/10 merged into this and re-named as 'Rounding Up').


Well, I've checked this very large board the best I can and found no mention of this incredible news that the Afghan taliban's operational #2, Abdul Ghani Baradar was capture a few days ago in Karachi. NYT held off the story until today-

Secret Joint Raid Captures Taliban's Top Commander-NYT Mazzetti Feb. 16, 2010

Baradar was profiled last summer in this excellent NEWSWEEK article.

This is MASSIVE news. That he was captured in Karachi wasn't particularly surprising. There've been rumors of the Afghan taliban leadership relocating quietly for some time. Too, Hakimullah Mehsud of the TTP supposedly expired in Multan on his way for treatment in Karachi. Karachi is increasingly playing a prominent role in the GWOT. That an Afghan Taliban commander was captured in Pakistan at all IS surprising in light of eight plus years of sanctuary. The implications of a sea-change in Pakistani perspectives is profound.

Thanks.

[Firn]

I guess that Karachi beats an Afghan/Beluchistani cave/village. Anyway an excellent catch.

Hopefully they can tap rapidly into the wider network.


Firn

[Woland]

This is a big, big catch. In terms of the Afghan Taleban, it's the biggest yet.

Berader was always viewed as a more 'moderate' element within the Taleban's senior echelons though and rumours would frequently abound about the potential for him to reconcile. He is from the same Popalzai tribe as President Karazi and they were rumoured to be in occasional direct contact.

I think the Talieban in southern Afghanistan is too diffuse for the effects of this to be felt at the tactical level, but Berader has had kind of status, plus the reutation of Mullah Omar's right hand man, hich means more senior commanders will be feeling the pinch. That the arrest took place in Karachi is highly significant; some individuals had begun to favour it over Quetta once the Pakistani authorities begun to make arrest in the latter.

If this strategic boost can be matched by success in Marjah, just perhaps the worm may be about to think about turning.

[davidbfpo]

The BBC report:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8517375.stm

The Daily Telegraph:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Pakistan.html

Interesting quote within:

Former Pakistan intelligence chief Hamid Gul, today told The Daily Telegraph Mullah Baradar’s arrest was evidence that Islamabad has been sincere in its dealings with the Uninted States. “Mullah Baradar is member of the Taliban Shura and an important member of it. There haven’t been joint operations between Pakistan and the United States, but perhaps this is new ground,” he said.

Interesting contrast to other items on another thread:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=2313

[S-2]

He is, politely, the MAN-

"It is key that he controls the Taliban's treasury—hundreds of millions of dollars in -narcotics protection money, ransom payments, highway tolls, and 'charitable donations,' largely from the Gulf. 'He commands all military, political, religious, and financial power,' says Mullah Shah Wali Akhund, a guerrilla subcommander from Helmand province who met Baradar this March in Quetta for the fourth time." Newsweek

Fought with Omar in the Afghan-Soviet war. Retired with him to Oruzgan. Drove ol' Omar to Pakistan on a motorcycle. Married sisters together. Connected beyond our wildest dreams and, unlike Dadullah, alive.

[tequila]

Namely of the Quetta Shura Taliban:

From Anand Gopal in the CSM:

Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement.

In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Western and Pakistani media had previously reported the arrest of three of the 15, but this is the first confirmation of the wider scale of the Pakistan crackdown on the Taliban leadership, something the US has sought.

News of the sweep emerged over the past week, with reports that Pakistani authorities had netted Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the movement’s second in command, as well as Maulavi Abdul Kabir, a prominent commander in charge of insurgent operations in eastern Afghanistan, and Mullah Muhammad Younis.

Pakistan has also captured several other Afghan members of the leadership council, called the Quetta Shura, two officials with the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, and a United Nations official in Kabul told the Monitor.

These include: Mullah Abdul Qayoum Zakir, who oversees the movement’s military affairs, Mullah Muhammad Hassan, Mullah Ahmed Jan Akhunzada, and Mullah Abdul Raouf.

At least two Taliban shadow provincial governors, who are part of the movement’s parallel government in Afghanistan, have also been captured.

A Taliban spokesman denied the arrests, saying that they were meant to hide the difficulties that United States and NATO forces were having in Afghanistan.

Remarkable if it pans out.

[Firn]

It does indeed sound great.


Firn

[Fuchs]

They seem to fail permanently to catch Omar and OBL.
One possible explanation is the avoidance of martyrs, another is that these heads have much better security, which almost inevitably means that they're in poor communication with others and thus not leading that much.

[JM2008]

I don't think it was a matter of security... the ISI has long been able to roll these guys up if they wanted, eh hum, needed to. But why now... what makes now so much different than anytime previous? What could these 7 have done that led the ISI to need to remove them? After all it is widely believed that the Quetta shura is empowered by the ISI to maintain influence and some level of control in Afghanistan. What are the thoughts that these 7 began talks of reconciliation? A reconciled shura that deals directly with the Karzai gov't and the coalition means significantly lower ISI influence and control.

Just curious what the rest of you think of this theory.
-James

[marct]

From CBC.ca

Pakistan's recent arrests of top Taliban leaders have halted the United Nation's secret talks with the insurgency, the former UN envoy to Afghanistan says. Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat who just stepped down from the UN post in the Afghan capital of Kabul, told the BBC that discussions with senior Taliban members began a year ago and included face-to-face conversations outside Afghanistan.

More...

It does make you wonder if the arrests weren't an inside-job purge by radicals inside the Quetta Shura...

[lars]

I was wondering if you could maybe interpret the Kai Eide statements as an indirect criticism of US and UK strategy for talks with Taliban.

He is a former top Norwegian diplomat and the Norwegians have been critical towards the "buying off" the low and mid-level Taliban forces and instead advocated talks with Taliban decision makers (i.e. the Quetta Shura).

As I've understood, Pakistan has advocated the buying them off strategy.

So maybe by blaming Pakistan, mr. Eide is indirectly critizising the UK and US strategy for Afghanistan?