State of Pakistan

From Foreign Policy Magazine

August 24, 2010

• The regional neighbors have no desire to legitimate an enduring U.S. presence in the country  
• Russia, Iran, India, China, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan — share the U.S. goal of preventing the return of a Taliban dictatorship in Kabul 
• The biggest obstacle to the accord is not likely to come from Pakistan, but from a Pentagon mindset

As prospects for an early U.S.-NATO military victory in Afghanistan fade and pressures for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces grow, the debate over U.S. policy in Afghanistan focuses increasingly on one key issue: Is it possible to negotiate terms for disengagement that would not constitute a strategic defeat? Read more »

JULY 20, 2010

By JULIAN E. BARNES

WASHINGTON—U.S. Special Operations Forces have begun venturing out with Pakistani forces on aid projects, deepening the American role in the effort to defeat Islamist militants in Pakistani territory that has been off limits to U.S. ground troops.

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UN rapporteur Philip Alston calls on the U.S. to put the military in charge of the targeted killings program, which is shrouded in secrecy under the CIA and has prompted accountability questions.

By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

June 3, 2010

Reporting from Geneva

The campaign of CIA drone strikes against suspected militants in Pakistan has made the United States “the most prolific user of targeted killings” in the world, said a United Nations official, who urged that responsibility for the program be taken from the spy agency.
Philip Alston, a New York University law professor who serves as the U.N.’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, made the comments Wednesday as he released a report on targeted killings. The report criticizes the U.S. for asserting “an ever-expanding entitlement for itself to target individuals across the globe” in its fight against Al Qaeda and other militant groups. Read more »

The New York Times  

June 13, 2010  

By JAMES RISEN

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

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Is this true or a conspiracy theory invented by the Sunday Times and London School of Economics? If it is a conspiracy theory, it is a matter of perverse pleasure that we Pakistanis alone cannot be blamed. If it is true then both sections of the media, right and liberal, do not come out well for they have missed, deliberately or naively, the central plot. The Sunday Times too has missed it. If this is the policy at the highest level of Pakistani government, it could not have been going on without the tacit if not active support at the highest level of the US government. Do we get it? It is the great game, stupid! 

Click here to read the full report published by London School of Economics

From The Sunday Times,

June 13, 2010
 

by Miles Amoore, Kabul

THE Taliban commander waited at the ramshackle border crossing while Pakistani police wielding assault rifles stopped and searched the line of cars and trucks travelling into Afghanistan.

Some of the trucks carried smuggled goods — DVD players, car stereos, television sets, generators, children’s toys. But the load smuggled by Taliban fighter Qari Rasoul, a thickset Pashtun from Afghanistan’s Wardak province, was altogether more sinister. Read more »

Saturday, Jun. 12, 2010

By Simon Shuster / Moscow

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Pictures from 1960s 

Afghanistan was once a peaceful and liberal country that was destroyed by the Americans who promoted ‘Jihad’ and the Pakistani Generals who supported them by creating ‘Mujahideens’ and later ‘Talibans”

 ”Kabul University students changing classes.”

“Biology class, Kabul University.”

“Hundreds of Afghan youngsters take active part in Scout programs.”

“Mothers and children at a city playground.”

Courtesy: Foreign Policy Magazine

By Yousuf Nazar 

Another big news to hit the European press in the recent days was the sudden resignation of Germany’s president Horst Köhler (a former head of the IMF) over his remarks made during a trip to Afghanistan. 

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From Antiwar.com, San Francisco

May 30, 2010

By Justin Raimondo 

While most Americans were sitting out on their decks barbecuing over the Memorial Day weekend, our leaders were planning to barbecue a few Pakistanis, as the Washington Post reported:

“The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country’s tribal areas, according to senior military officials.”

Hey, wait a minute: I thought Attorney General Eric Holder has supposedly already established that the Pakistani Taliban were directly involved in the Times Square bombing attempt – which, although not successful, did succeed in generating shockwaves from Washington to Islamabad.

Read more »

They are inspiring homegrown terror.

by Newsweek May 30, 2010

How explosives have ignited insurgencies and superpowers

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Intellectuals and respected Afghan professionals are convinced the west is prolonging conflict to maintain influence in the region

Daniella Peled  {Note: This article has special significance given that Daniella is a Jewish journalist and a former editor of the Jewish Chronicle}

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By David Ignatius
Sunday, May 16, 2010

Obama is not seeking a military victory over Taliban

How do wars end in the tribal society of Afghanistan? That’s one of the interesting questions that was highlighted by President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington last week. Read more »

By Peter Zeihan

April 28, 2010

In recent weeks, STRATFOR has explored how the U.S. government has been seeing its interests in the Middle East and South Asia shift. When it comes down to it, the United States is interested in stability at the highest level — a sort of cold equilibrium among the region’s major players that prevents any one of them, or a coalition of them — from overpowering the others and projecting power outward. Read more »

April 12, 2010

As Henry Kissinger once rightly observed, it is often more dangerous being America’s ally than its enemy.  

By Eric Margolis

Read more »

March 24, 2010 

 Chinese President Hu Jintao (L) and Afghan President Hamid Karzai (R) at a welcoming ceremony in Beijing, China, on March 24

Summary

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is on a three-day trip to China, during which he has met with Chinese President Hu Jintao and is scheduled to meet with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. He is expected to seek financial aid and economic deals along with support for his plans to establish a stable government in Kabul after U.S. forces leave. China, meanwhile, has reasons of its own to forge closer ties with Afghanistan. Read more »