Is Pakistan an asset or a liability in the war on terror?

Is Pakistan an asset or a liability in the war on terror? (NSI News Source Info) WASHINGTON – November 16, 2008: For seven years, the Bush administration has pursued al-Qaida but done almost nothing to hunt down the Afghan Taliban leadership in its sanctuaries in Pakistan, and that's left Mullah Mohammad Omar and his deputies free to direct an escalating war against the U.S.-backed Afghan government. The administration's decision, U.S. and NATO officials said, has allowed the Taliban to regroup, rearm and recruit at bases in southwestern Pakistan. Since the Islamic movement's resurgence began in early 2005, it's killed at least 626 U.S.-led NATO troops, 301 of them Americans, along with thousands of Afghans, and handed President-elect Barack Obama a growing guerrilla war with no end in sight. Violence in Afghanistan is at its highest levels since 2001; the Taliban and other al-Qaida-allied groups control large swaths of the south and east; NATO governments are reluctant to send more troops; and Afghan President Hamid Karzai faces an uncertain future amid fears that elections set for next year may have to be postponed. Still, a U.S. defense official told McClatchy: "We have not seen any pressure on the Pakistanis" to crack down on Omar and his deputies, and close their arms and recruiting networks. Like seven other U.S. and NATO officials who discussed the issue, he requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. "There has never been convergence on a campaign plan against Mullah Omar," said a U.S. military official. The Bush administration, he said, miscalculated by hoping that Omar and his deputies would embrace an Afghan government-run reconciliation effort or "wither away" as their insurgency was destroyed. Many U.S. and NATO officials, in fact, are convinced that while Pakistan is officially a U.S. ally in the war against Islamic extremism, sympathetic Pakistani army and intelligence officers bent on returning a pro-Pakistan Islamic regime to Kabul are protecting and aiding the Taliban leadership, dubbed the Quetta shura, or council, after its sanctuary in the Baluchistan provincial capital of Quetta. Wounded Taliban fighters are treated in Pakistani military hospitals in Baluchistan, and guerrillas who run out of ammunition have been monitored dashing across the frontier to restock at caches on the Pakistani side, the U.S. and NATO officials said. "They have free rein down there," said a senior NATO official. Omar, the one-eyed founder of the Taliban movement that imposed Islamic rule on Afghanistan with Pakistani and al-Qaida support during the 1990s, and bin Laden fled to Pakistan after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Bin Laden and his followers crossed into the Federally Administered Tribal Area, which borders eastern Afghanistan. Omar and his lieutenants crossed into Baluchistan, which abuts the southern Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, the heartland of the Taliban insurrection, U.S. officials said. From Baluchistan, Omar and his council are believed to direct the Taliban's broad military and political strategies and to arrange arms and other supplies for their fighters in southern Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. They preside over military, intelligence, political and religious committees, and also oversee a fund-raising operation in the Pakistani port city of Karachi that raises money across the Muslim world, said a Pentagon adviser on the region, who asked not to be further identified. Baluchistan also is a major corridor through which Afghan opium, which is refined into heroin, is smuggled to the outside world, providing the Taliban with $60 million to $80 million a year. The Bush administration, however, has focused virtually all of its attention, funds and energy on routing al-Qaida in the FATA because it considers bin Laden and his organization the main terrorist threat to the United States and its allies, U.S. officials said. A senior official denied that the administration has ignored the Quetta shura in Baluchistan, saying it's pressed Islamabad to act at every high-level meeting. Pakistan has cooperated in operations that killed three top Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, he added.

Pervez Musharraf

Due to one after the other blunders Musharraf has become a part of the problem. Under the emergency the attacks on the judiciary and the media of the country are the most unbecoming acts of the man who claims to believe in the supremacy of law and freedom of press. If HE continues, terrorism will increase rather than decrease. Therefore it is in everyone's interest to provide the cornered and desperate General a safe passage and let democracy start and take roots in Pakistan.

The latest rumor (5 Nov) from Pakistan is that the president is confined to his residence. If it is true then it means a change. Whether that change is for a worse or a better future for Pakistanis largely depends on the West. However the prevailing reality is that on the streets of Pakistan the situation is deteriorating fast. The scenes of merciless baton attacks on the protesting lawyers, the media and the public are frightening. The attacking police, in uniform and in plain cloths, seem to have no regard for the limb or life of the protesters. These scenes of extreme violence cannot be seen in Pakistan as the dictator has cut the lines of the local media outlets. For expatriates and others, GEO TV channel is the best source of information. You don't have to know Urdu, just watch the footage and see what is meant by merciless baton attacks by the police. On this channel there are occasional periods of brief coverage in English also. Not surprisingly in this case the BBC news bosses have "carefully" censored the particularly vicious scenes of random beatings and baton attacks on the helpless demonstrators by the police. The verbal statements of condemnations of the emergency are coming in thick and fast from the West. But the blatant state violence against pro democracy demonstrators is not mentioned and thus seems to have the approval of the West by default. If honest in its reactions the West should explicitly condemn the use of violence by the state against the demonstrators. Still, this is not enough, as unless the condemnations actually result in the reversal of all the illegal acts of Musharraf, the people of Pakistan will not be impressed by them. The present situation offers an opportunity to the West to establish its non-existent credibility among Pakistanis and it is the need of the hour too. Support for the rule of law, respect for the constitution and democracy now will go a long way to do that. People of Pakistan want democracy to take roots in Pakistan, as worst democracy is better than the best dictatorship. Those who claim that the West has no part in what goes on in the Muslim world should excuse themselves from the debate about the Muslim world. They are like those Muslims who believe that the 9/11, the Madrid Bombings and the 7/11 atrocities had nothing to do with Muslims. The West not only interferes in the affairs of the Muslim world but it also dictates to and in some cases effectively runs some Muslim countries. Further, the trouble with the West regarding the Muslim world is its double standards. It talks of human rights and various freedoms but as far as the Muslim world is concerned it supports those who curtail those very rights and freedoms. It engages the rulers and ignores the people of the Muslim world when it should engage both. The people of Pakistan are very loyal and hospitable people. They are also proud and emotional people. Their western media created image is wrong. Ask those Westerners who have lived in or visited Pakistan and they will speak very highly of the people of Pakistan. It is in the news that as a reaction to the emergency the UK and the US governments may stop the economic aid to Pakistan when the Pentagon has announced that the military aid will not be affected. Is it the right approach to the crises? It looks like a reward to the dictator and tyrant who has fired and arrested eminent judges, who were hearing the petitions on constitutional issues, the lawyers, who were fighting for the independence of the judiciary and for the rule of law, hundreds of politicians of the opposition, human rights workers and their leaders, who are against the imposition of the emergency. The very human rights workers whose role is otherwise always supported by the West. Tens of Judges, retired or sitting, who have refused to take a new oath, have been put in jails or they are under house arrest. In his speech on the 4th the president complained that the judges had ordered the release of "terrorists" but today the very two judges belonging to the two-judges bench that ordered the release have taken the new oath! The list of the categories of the people who have been arrested is long and diverse. Any cuts in the economic aid to Pakistan will hurt the people of Pakistan and will be seen as a punishment for the pro democracy Pakistani public. What message the above-described western approach will give to the people of Pakistan is a question for those who claim to be working to win the hearts and minds of Pakistanis?