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Thread: AfPak: an overview of Pakistan / Afghanistan

  1. #81
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Posts moved here

    MarcT & Lars,

    I have moved your four posts in the thread 'Arrests end UN talk with Taliban' to this thread, which has the entire episode and some earlier commentary. You know it makes sense!
    davidbfpo

  2. #82
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Eide talks in Norway

    This is the original BBC-TV interview clip: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8577402.stm

    Mr Eide confirmed publicly for the first time that he had secret talks and a series of other contacts over the past year with senior members of the Taliban...Mr Eide spoke to Lyse Doucet at his home in Oslo.
    A lot more detail here:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8575623.stm
    davidbfpo

  3. #83
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    Default Pakistan rounds up the Quetta Taliban

    Copied to here from SWJ blog.

    Pakistan deliberately scuttled Afghan peace talks

    Entry Excerpt:

    That is the conclusion of an article by Dexter Filkins in today’s New York Times.

    According to the story, late last year the Afghan government and top Afghan Taliban leaders had met in Dubai and perhaps elsewhere, to establish conditions for formal peace negotiations. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the second-ranking Taliban leader, was involved in these talks. But in February, Pakistan’s security services apprehended Baradar in Karachi and then picked up another 22 Afghan Taliban leaders inside Pakistan. Many of these leaders were subsequently released while Baradar is still “relaxing” at an ISI safe house.

    Pakistani officials told Filkins that they picked up Baradar and the other Afghan Taliban leaders in order to break up their negotiations with the Afghan government:

    “We picked up Baradar and the others because they were trying to make a deal without us,” said a Pakistani security official, who, like numerous people interviewed about the operation, spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of relations between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States. “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians.”
    Commentary

    This article is an embarrassment to U.S. officials. U.S. policymakers have always acknowledged Pakistan’s central role in any settlement of the Afghan war. But it does not look good for U.S. officials when the Pakistani government breaks up peace talks between Afghans, while Pakistan receives billions in U.S. assistance and the Taliban kill several U.S. soldiers every day in Afghanistan.

    Second is Pakistan’s increasingly brazen declaration of its duplicity. Statements such as, “We protect the Taliban. They are dependent on us. We are not going to allow them to make a deal with Karzai and the Indians” would seem to leave little doubt that the Pakistani government keeps the Afghan Taliban a functional military force. Such statements make it difficult for U.S. officials to explain why it is so important for the U.S. to accelerate its war effort in Afghanistan and simultaneously keep Pakistan an "ally."

    Finally we should wonder why these Pakistani officials revealed this story and these statements to Filkins. Pakistani officials have no doubt already privately made it clear to Afghan Taliban leaders, Afghan government leaders, and U.S. officials that Pakistan will allow no settlement process to occur without Pakistan's participation and approval. Why then did they think it necessary to repeat this message publicly in the New York Times, embarrassing Obama administration officials as they did so?

    Perhaps these Pakistani officials want everyone to understand that they will control the end game in Afghanistan. By undermining the U.S. war effort, they are arranging to get their wish.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 08-24-2010 at 08:14 AM. Reason: Moved here and slightly edited.

  4. #84
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Baradar in Kabul?

    Hat tip to Circling the Lion's Den for this stranger than fiction report, but then it is 'The Great Game':
    Many Pakistani newspapers are reporting that Mullah Abdul Ghani Barodar, deputy commander of the Afghan Taliban, has been freed in recent days so that he can play a role in peace negotiations. Is he the senior Taliban figure that NATO admits it has allowed to travel to Kabul for peace discussions? US Commander General David Petraeus admitted in London this week: "There have been several very senior Taliban leaders who have reached out to the Afghan government at the highest levels, and also in some cases have reached out to other countries involved in Afghanistan".
    He added: "These discussions can only be characterized as preliminary in nature. They certainly would not rise to the level of being called negotiations".

    While the Taliban's official spokesman has denied that peace talks are taking place, saying that such stories are designed to sap the morale of Taliban fighters, it looks increasingly as if talks-about-talks are occurring.
    Link:http://circlingthelionsden.blogspot....e-efforts.html and this is the linked Pakistani news report: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default...10-2010_pg7_21
    davidbfpo

  5. #85
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Talking to the Taliban and kinetic action too

    A mix of 'spin", "smoke" and comment this week on the talks in Kabul, where even Baradar is present, on some form of "liberty" from his Pakistani captors or hosts.

    Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ret-talks.html

    Andrew Exum's commentary, aptly titled Smoke and mirrors in Kabul:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...kabul?page=0,0

    Which makes some interesting comments on the current campaign around Kandahar:
    However, very little of what is taking place in southern Afghanistan can be known with any certainty. Journalists have been denied access to ongoing military operations and, though it is believed that the U.S. military and its allies have indeed been degrading the Taliban and its ability to reconstitute its organization once the fighting season resumes in the spring, questions remain: Did the U.S. military wait until too late in the fighting season to inflict serious damage on the Taliban before its fighters withdrew for the winter? Is the current drop in insurgent attacks any different from the normal seasonal drop in attacks that precedes the onset of winter? Is the degradation of the Taliban's organization forcing it to the negotiation table? And has the Taliban realized that the United States is not, in fact, leaving in July 2011?
    And ends with:
    It is still unclear whether the United States and its allies have managed to capture momentum in Afghanistan. In Washington, however, this narrative already appears to have won the day.
    Zenpundit asks in response:
    ...why the United States is not negotiating directly with Pakistan/ISI instead of wasting valuable time kabuki-ing around with plausibly deniable and expendable members of proxy groups over which Pakistan holds a demonstrated veto?

    Pakistan is our real adversary in Afghanistan and the party with the power to actually make agreements that stick.
    This could be another thread, but I suspect SWJ readers look at this and the 'Working with Pakistan' thread.
    davidbfpo

  6. #86
    Council Member Bob's World's Avatar
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    Default

    Insurgencies are indeed resolved in the capitals rather than won on the ground.

    The old adage of "we must establish security first" only applies to those tactical efforts on the ground. All those efforts on the ground, the security and the development and governance efforts that follow, are supporting efforts to the larger resolution.

    In the old days, when the mission was to secure the place of illegitimate governments so that they could continue to support the national interests of the intervening powers the mission was different. Suppression was indeed enough then, it was the mission. Suppress the people and secure the illegitimate government.

    Today that mission has flipped. We in fact have no critical national interests in Afghanistan that require us to establish or secure such an illegitimate caretaker government as we have created in the Karzai regime per the old model. Today the U.S. interest being pursued in Afghanistan and Pakistan both is the security of America. America is best secured when we support the people of Afghanistan in their pursuit of good governance.

    Other states have other interests that they too must secure. Our NATO allies have different interests than the US does. Pakistan has different interests than the US does. All of Afghanistan's neighbors have different interests than the US, many of those neighbors cling to the cusp of devolving into full-blown insurgency within their own borders as well, and the prevention of this is the primary interest they seek to service in Afghanistan.

    When all of the governments and politicians from these various stakeholders come together to balance and negotiate their shared, neutral and conflicting interests we move forward. When the US assumes our interests are what drives solutions we do not.

    When we turn our main effort to put pressure on the Karzai government to either include all of their populace in governance and opportunity, and not just those of the Northern Alliance, we move forward.

    Intel driven strategy does not help, as it focuses on threat suppression, and that is the old model. The thinking behind the Small Wars Manual was sound when it was written, but it was already beginning to turn. The last 100+ years have been dominated by popular efforts to throw off illegitimate governments, and the efforts of the foreign supporters of those governments to prevent that from happening.

    The thinking behind the Small Wars Manual has been fully obsolete for at least 20 years, probably 50. We can't look at the issues with the Pak government and the Taliban, and the Karzai government and the Taliban and see it clearly when we use that old lens.
    Last edited by Bob's World; 10-24-2010 at 12:49 PM.
    Robert C. Jones
    Intellectus Supra Scientia
    (Understanding is more important than Knowledge)

    "The modern COIN mindset is when one arrogantly goes to some foreign land and attempts to make those who live there a lesser version of one's self. The FID mindset is when one humbly goes to some foreign land and seeks first to understand, and then to help in some small way for those who live there to be the best version of their own self." Colonel Robert C. Jones, US Army Special Forces (Retired)

  7. #87
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default SWJ Blog too

    Has picked up the Exum and others comments:http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/201...rors-in-kabul/

    With Robert Jones and Gian Gentile making comments on the Blog.
    davidbfpo

  8. #88
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default In Afghanistan, the jihadists talking peace aren’t the ones making war

    A rather telling article in The Daily Telegraph, two selected parts:
    The bottom lines are these: Pakistan has gained greater leverage in Kabul, Mr Karzai has drifted ever-further away from his anti-Taliban allies, and the Taliban is no closer to making peace.
    Ends with:
    Dialogue succeeds when insurgents realise there the costs of fighting exceed any possible dividend. The Taliban are some distance from that awakening.
    Link:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/pr...es-making-war/

    Cites another comment:http://aan-afghanistan.com/index.asp?id=1286 which is far more detailed.
    davidbfpo

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