The US & others working with Pakistan

[omarali50]

LOL. I wonder if Mr Kugelman has been picked up by paknationalist psyops yet? His work will be much cited in the days to come. If national security types get credit for citations, this will transform his ratings completely.
I do realize that he means well, but I am not sure what the meaning is supposed to be? what is the lesson here?

Not that it matters. We are about to win a strategic victory (probably with US support as Kerry and company arrange an honorable exit). But as I asked in 2011, what then? What if we win?

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...if-we-win.html

[ganulv]

LOL. I wonder if Mr Kugelman has been picked up by paknationalist psyops yet? His work will be much cited in the days to come.

And? If not his, someone else’s.

I do realize that he means well, but I am not sure what the meaning is supposed to be? what is the lesson here?

One lesson would be to keep things in perspective. Don’t sacrifice big picture, long term success at the altar of the crisis of the moment. Anyone who thinks endangering the closing round of decades of work towards eradication of polio from our planet was worth the risk if it meant getting a DNA sample from OBL (talk about risk aversion; were there not multiple lines of evidence that lead the U.S. Intelligence Community to that compound? why the need to nail it down that tightly?) is ignorant or a moron. But this is a nurse’s son speaking here.

[omarali50]

On polio I absolutely agree that the CIA should not have added fuel to the anti-polio vax fire, but I would point out that the ban against polio vaccination has been there since 2007, well before poor Dr Afridi and his team of health visitors tried to get DNA. The campaign against polio vaccine started even before the 2007 ban on vaccination in Waziristan. You can read more about the Polio Jihad here: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksd...lio-jihad.html

I am curious, what do you think was the big picture that was missed in Pakistan?

Again, I would add that I dont think the US did a good job. Far from it. I now think the US was not culturally or institutionally capable of obtaining a really good outcome in the region and would have done much better to stay out. Long distance punishment of hostile governments, support to their enemies and carrots to buy them out would have been cheaper and at least as effective, probably far more so. But the US public wanted a war after 9-11 so there was a war. By now the blood lust has settled, so the whole exercise is looking pointless.
But I dont think the mistakes were the ones Kugelman thinks were mistakes. (To be fair, I am not sure what he thinks. I dont think he has spelled out his "lessons learned" in that article).

[davidbfpo]

As the USA reduces its presence in Afghanistan The Long War Journal's blog has this intriguing story, which starts with:

The US military turned over Latif Mehsud, formerly a senior commander in the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, to the Pakistani government within the past week. Latif was snatched by US forces from Afghan intelligence officials in the Afghan province of Logar in October 2013.

Link: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat...#ixzz3LLYN0Fxk

Just whether as a 'bad' Pakistani Taliban leader he remains in custody is a moot point.

[davidbfpo]

The following BBC News report acted as a catalyst to post Christine Fair's WoTR piece. Working with Pakistan has hardly gone away!

The BBC headline 'Mumbai attack suspect Lakhvi released on bail in Pakistan', this man has been in custody since 7 December 2008, days after the Mumbai attack:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32250763

His detention was reportedly symbolic rather than actual; with LET visitors, internet access and the like. As we know, especially for India, symbols are important.

Christine Fair has a very clear stance on Pakistan, which is critical and the WoTR piece is an effective update:http://warontherocks.com/2015/04/gro.../?singlepage=1

Her aim is:

The United States needs a more realistic policy towards Pakistan. In this essay, I argue why these decades-long policies have long failed and I put forward several propositions that should inform a new policy towards a state that is the problem from hell.

She ends:

In the end, such a realistic policy towards Pakistan may not result in a Pakistan that behaves better in the policy-relevant future. However such a policy will at least spare the American public the continued indignity of subsidizing Pakistan’s most dangerous policies, several of which account for thousands of dead Americans and many more injured in the Afghan war.

[Ray]

His detention was reportedly symbolic rather than actual; with LET visitors, internet access and the like. As we know, especially for India, symbols are important.

David,

Symbols are not important in India.

The dispensation of law as per the criminal code, rules and procedure are.

In India is you are in prison, then you do not get the privileges of the open society at large.

Lakhvi has all facilities of open society available to him while in Jail and he also fathered a child in Jail.

I wonder if that is symbols or miscarriage of justice.

Which country allows a terrorist organiser such facilities?

I am sure none in the West.

The Prosecution, it is said, did not present the case well leaving loopholes that the Pakistani Judges exploited to free this man.

[blueblood]

ISLAMABAD:
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day visit to Pakistan has been replete with flowery rhetoric extolling mutual love between both countries, but the name chosen for a new joint think tank has left some social media users in titters.

Dedicated to research on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $46 billion dollar plan linking China’s restive west to the Arabian Sea, the newly inaugurated Research and Development International (RANDI) organisation has been widely pilloried because its acronym sounds like “whore” in Urdu and Hindi.


http://tribune.com.pk/story/873511/t...di-think-tank/

People are having too much fun at twitter and other fora because of RANDI. Some are assuming that the name is deliberately chosen by the Chinese. Earlier Shireen Mazari, a "security expert" created a think tank called
P.I.S.S(Pakistan Institute of Strategic Studies).