[Peace-discuss] End the war in Pakistan (more)

[E. Wayne Johnson]

As Ron noted,
Pakistan is increasing its alliance with China
and decreasing its dalliance with Obama.


On 12/19/2010 1:37 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> "This is basically an undeclared war, which is one of the reasons why 
> the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee wants to 
> update the congressional authorization on taking military action ... 
> the U.S.’ top military officer visited Islamabad to warn of America’s 
> 'strategic impatience' with the Pakistanis ... the 'frail and 
> reversible' progress in Afghanistan ... is said to set the stage for 
> starting to draw down NATO combat forces from 2011 to 2014. And that 
> doesn’t mean an end to the war. The summary explicitly points to 
> 'NATO’s enduring commitment beyond 2014' ... But Afghanistan is the 
> sideshow now ... the fight in Afghanistan has become more like the 
> fight in Pakistan, with air strikes tripled ... Special Operations 
> raids are at a new high, surface-to-surface missiles are in use in 
> Kandahar, and Marine tanks are rolling through Helmand."
>
>
> Obama: Never Mind Afghanistan, It’s All About The Drones
> By Spencer Ackerman December 16, 2010 | 9:42 am | Categories: Af/Pak
>
> One year and 30,000 new troops later, Afghanistan is peripheral to the 
> Afghanistan war. According to the Obama administration’s review of its 
> strategy, it’s official: this a U.S. drone war in Pakistan with a big, 
> big U.S. troop component next door.
>
> Sure, the troop surge is working, according to a summary of the 
> long-anticipated review that the administration released today. But 
> that assessment, reminiscent of years of Bush administration 
> statements about Iraq during that war’s darkest days, is conditional 
> and said to be fragile. Taliban “momentum has been arrested in much of 
> the country” and “reversed in some key areas.” The goal for 2010 was 
> to break the Taliban’s momentum.
>
> But in any event, that’s the goal for Afghanistan, which the review 
> doesn’t even address until the end. The aim of the wider campaign, 
> reiterated in the summary, is to crush al-Qaeda across the border in 
> Pakistan’s tribal areas, defined as taking away their bases and the 
> “elimination of the group’s remaining leadership cadre.” In other 
> words: whacking moles, all through massively stepped-up CIA drone 
> strikes, despite years of warnings that they won’t lead to victory. 
> “Significant progress” has been made in killing al-Qaeda leaders, the 
> summary says, but there isn’t any real attempt to connect any of that 
> to what U.S. troops are doing in Afghanistan.
>
> And since the CIA drone program is technically secret, the review’s 
> public summary asserts nebulously that Pakistani forces and some U.S. 
> effort contributed to that progress. What’s that effort actually been? 
> One hundred and ten drone strikes, supported by CIA’s teams of Pashtun 
> spotters recruited in Afghanistan, double the number of strikes in 
> 2009, which was a big increase from 2008. This is basically an 
> undeclared war, which is one of the reasons why the incoming chairman 
> of the House Armed Services Committee wants to update the 
> congressional authorization on taking military action against al-Qaeda.
>
> In the summary, American officials hug Pakistan tightly, giving big 
> praise to the Pakistani military and patting itself on the back for 
> strengthening diplomatic ties to Islamabad. But recent U.S. 
> intelligence reports give dim prospects for Pakistani troops actually 
> eliminating al-Qaeda’s safe havens. Just this morning, Pakistan’s 
> defense minister brushed the U.S. back further on the save-haven 
> question, saying, “We can ‘do more’ only whenever we can. We have to 
> see to our interests first.” That comes the day after the U.S.’ top 
> military officer visited Islamabad to warn of America’s “strategic 
> impatience” with the Pakistanis.
>
> Then there’s another problem. Over the past year, al-Qaeda’s 
> Yemen-based affiliate has attempted repeatedly to strike the U.S., 
> through near-misses at blowing up passenger and cargo aircraft, and to 
> inspire U.S. Muslims to pull off homegrown terrorist attacks. One of 
> the tools of provocation, according to would-be Times Square bomber 
> Faisal Shahzad: The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including 
> the drone strikes. The summary has to concede that killing al-Qaeda in 
> Pakistan “will not completely eliminate the terrorist threat to U.S. 
> interests.”
>
> Obama’s summary doesn’t address how to mitigate the provocative 
> effects of the war. Its assessment of the war in Afghanistan is 
> cautious and vague — although, to be sure, this is just the 
> unclassified version of a longer, secret report, so perhaps there’s 
> more detail in the secret version. But the “frail and reversible” 
> progress in Afghanistan — giving the Taliban a bloody nose in 
> Kandahar, training Afghan soldiers and cops — is said to set the stage 
> for starting to draw down NATO combat forces from 2011 to 2014. And 
> that doesn’t mean an end to the war. The summary explicitly points to 
> “NATO’s enduring commitment beyond 2014.” What effect that will have 
> on future Faisal Shahzads goes unaddressed.
>
> But Afghanistan is the sideshow now. If anything, to show progress in 
> time for the strategy review, the fight in Afghanistan has become more 
> like the fight in Pakistan, with air strikes tripled. What’s more, 
> Special Operations raids are at a new high, surface-to-surface 
> missiles are in use in Kandahar, and Marine tanks are rolling through 
> Helmand. “The emphasis is shifting,” General “Hoss” Cartwright, the 
> vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently remarked, away 
> from counterinsurgency and toward counterterrorism.
>
> It’s ironic. Along with Vice President Biden, Cartwright was skeptical 
> of a troop surge and counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, 
> arguing for a Pakistan-based counterterrorism strategy. Judging from 
> the summary today, they lost the internal debate — and won the argument.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>