Osama’s gone, Pakistan drones on and Afghanistan is the biggest loser

The meeting was fixed last month and would have gone unnoticed outside Af-Pak wonk circles. But then Osama bin Laden was found right under the Pakistani military’s nose and suddenly reporters on the ground were dashing for the post-meeting presser while their bosses were interrupting regular programming to go live to Islamabad.

Last month, we were told that Marc Grossman - the man who replaced the late Richard Holbrooke as US Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan – would be in Islamabad May 3 to attend “the first-ever trilateral meeting” between US, Afghan and Pakistani reps to try to seek a joint resolution to the Afghan conflict.

In other words: snore.

But then barely 24 hours before the three-party talks, bin Laden was gunned down in his luxury Abbottabad lair (or haveli as it’s called in these parts) around the corner from the Pakistan Military Academy, the country’s West Point-meets-Sandhurst.



Suddenly, nobody was in the mood for the old discourse on diplomatic resolutions anymore.

US-Pakistani relations had hit an all-time low. The questions were deadly serious.
Was the Pakistani security- intelligence apparatus incompetent or duplicitous?

We’ve heard the Pakistani security incompetence spiel before. It goes like this: We’re doing our best, thousands of brave Pakistani troops have fallen in the fight against our common enemies, we just don’t know where your most-wanted man-of-the-moment is currently hiding because… you know… we have these tribal border badlands we barely administer …

But as shocked neighbors around the Abbottabad haveli told news teams that their IDs were routinely checked before they could enter the well secured neighborhood, the incompetence argument was starting to look flimsy.

 

Collusion between Pakistan’s famously shadowy spy network and its famously well-endowed extremist networks seemed more likely.

Three questions only

And so, the world’s attention was on Grossman - along with Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Javed Ludin – as they faced the news pack at the Pakistani Foreign Office Tuesday.



Given the time constraints, the three men will take only three questions please, announced the stern lady policing the conference.

First question to the Pakistani journalist at the back of the chandeliered room. It’s a “very specific question” on US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Grossman, the charm-challenged US envoy, replies with Washington’s customary, “I’m not going to discuss drone strikes” line.

Second question, a two-part query from another Pakistani journalist. First part: where’s the proof of bin Laden’s death? Second part: about US drone attacks violating Pakistani territorial integrity...

Drone on, drone strikes.

Grossman, the charm-challenged US envoy, replies with Washington’s customary, “I’m not going to discuss drone strikes” line.

Finally, the third question, by an Al Jazeera English correspondent, was about the trust deficit between the US and Pakistan. But then one opinionated hack somewhere in the room launched into a loud but indecipherable tirade, leaving an embarrassed Bashir to round up the presser with a quotable, but useless, “the issue of Osama bin Laden is history”.   

How to win more US military aid by mobilizing the anti-drone campaign

I can’t calculate how many hours of my life have been spent listening to rants about US drone strikes targeting militants in Pakistan.

Don’t get me wrong, nobody in their right mind wants the nasty package deal of drone strikes that includes a collateral damage of civilian casualties that undermine US legitimacy in the region.

So, when my friends in the human rights community groan about drone strikes, I hear them out because they have a point.

But for the Pakistani press posse to drone on about US drone strikes a day after their military and their government have been exposed for their incompetent, possibly duplicitous role in their anti-extremist fight is particularly rich.

For Pakistani establishment figures to play the old sovereignty and territorial integrity card in a country where prime terrorist territory is barely controlled is a farce.
 


The divide between the anti-terror experts and the human rights community is particularly wide on the business of US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Expert after expert has told me that the strikes in Pakistan’s lawless tribal frontier regions have been effective in crippling militant networks.

Some maintain that behind-the-scenes, the Pakistani authorities are cooperating with the US on drone strikes although they loudly and publicly declare their opposition to it.

I’m not so sure if the Pakistani military establishment is pro-drone strikes and is cooperating with the US on it. Certainly after the bin Laden killing, I find US intelligence more actionable than Pakistani intel.

If, however, the Pakistani military establishment is cooperating behind-the-scenes while publicly decrying drone strikes, that’s just another case of official Pakistani failure to come clean.

But the biggest opposition to US drone strikes in Pakistan comes from the right wing religious parties and these are the ones who invariably do the military’s bidding.

The Pakistani mobilization against drone strikes has all the hallmarks of an organized campaign: exaggerated but widely disseminated civilian death figures, extensive media outreach and wait, here comes the clincher: a sweet military aid deal for the generals.

It’s not something you’re likely to come across too often, so sit up and pay attention.

The Pakistani military establishment has been so effective in drumming up the anti-drone campaign – especially during visits by senior US officials – that the US is contemplating providing the Pakistani military 85 small "Raven" drone aircraft as a palliative for being left out of the aerial loop in the tribal areas.



Yep, it’s the time-tested bedrock of US-Pakistani relations over the past six decades: Pakistan wants, Pakistan whines, the US concedes, the US pays. It goes through fits and starts and often involves a complicated dance, but in the end, as Steve Coll put it, Washington decides that Pakistan is like AIG – too big to fail.
And so US officials cough up another tax dollar gift for an unreliable partner.

Hopelessly failing to buy the love

In recent times, Washington has tried a different tack on an old theme: providing aid – a whopping $7.5 billion over five years – to buttress Pakistan’s civilian government.

That’s around $1.5 billion for 2010 alone and already the news sites are awash with aid-failure stories.

I’ve been on this path so many times before. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, there was much talk of developing the Pakistani education system so that poor families don’t have to pack their boys off to the local madrassas.

I interviewed ADB (Asian Development Bank) officials, World Bank officials – they’ve all been there, done that - and nothing changes.

It’s the sweet optimism of Americans – a naiveté the Pakistani establishment understands all too well – that compels US pundits to say that if we did this better, if we did not repeat past mistakes, we can make a difference this time.

In other words, US experts join Pakistani experts and non-experts in the favorite game on the subcontinent: blaming the US.

So far, the $1.5 billion earmarked for last year – only $179.5 million of which was disbursed due to chronic corruption and bureaucracy – has not done a damn thing to change Pakistani perception of the US.

It’s a long story, I’ve covered it before, I won’t get into now. Except for the latest conspiracy twist in how the bin Laden demise is being viewed in Pakistan.

Apparently many Pakistanis these days believe the whole bin Laden incident was just a ruse to portray the country in a bad light - that the al Qaeda chief was never in that Abbottabad compound in the first place, the operation was dreamed up so “the whole world can now point fingers at Pakistan.”



Seven-and-a-half billion US dollars for this bullshit.

Afghanistan neglected, manipulated in the mix - again

The most telling omission in this tale is the complete sidelining of Afghanistan in the latest fracas.

Tuesday’s news conference was about seeking a trilateral solution to end the Afghan conflict that has been fueled, funded and supported by Pakistan.

But not one question was posed to poor Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Ludin, who stood gamely on the sidelines, watching his country neglected and manipulated – once more – by Pakistani interests.

With bin Laden gone, there’s renewed talk of a US pullout from Afghanistan.
Among other talking points, the trilateral meeting nudged forward a harebrained solution to the Afghan conflict that’s being pushed by the erratic, unstable Afghan President Hamid Karzai, one that also happens to be particularly appealing to Pakistan: Negotiating with the Taliban.

Negotiating with whom? Mullah Omar? Does that mean the ISI will finally ‘fess up to where they’re shielding the Taliban chief?



Who else
? Jalaluddin Haqqani, Islamabad’s favorite militant in Afghanistan? Or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a man so untrustworthy he bumps off friends and foes as the mood takes him? Ol’ Gulbuddin is another Pakistan favorite. Islamabad after all handed him the chunk of the CIA Cold War budget to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Nothing like an old friend on the western front.

And so, while many experts are contemplating a game-changer in US-Pakistani relations after bin Laden’s death, I’m predicting nothing new.

Washington will continue to try to buy the love in a country that has turned US-bashing into a fine art. Pakistan will continue to try to undermine Afghan aspirations to secure a peaceful future for their war-torn country. The US will ultimately abandon Afghanistan because Washington has no will to question the very basis of US-Pakistani relations that were formulated during the Cold War. And everyone will blame the USA for the mess we’re in.

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8 Comments
Looking at the overall geo-strategic picture, Pakistan can only go so far in its pursuit of the conflict in the North West. Like any state, Pakistan’s primary focus is to remain viable. One must take into account the delicate balancing act that the Pakistani political-military leadership must play in order to balance out the threats they face; the internal ethno-demographic tensions and the external threat posed by India. The so-called “war on terror” in the AF-PAK region is directed largely against the Pashtuns, who make up the second largest ethnic grouping. Where other ethnic groups in the South wish to break away from Pakistan, Pashtuns do not and are well represented in the military and bureaucracy. The very people who could provide the best intelligence on al Qaeda, radical Pashtuns, are also the same groups vital for Pakistan’s internal stability. The threat posed by India means that the majority of Pakistan’s forces must be deployed along the border with that country. Pakistan therefore must walk a razor thin line between US demands for assistance in fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban on the one hand and not alienating the Pashtuns nor creating further stress to the already existing internal tensions on the other. Finally one must also recall that during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the US and Pakistan, among others, worked hand-in-hand with these same groups. While the US had the luxury of exiting the theatre, Pakistan did not; it had to create a stable Pro-Pakistan state in Afghanistan to prevent it from either disintegrating into chaos thus exacerbating the refugee problem or becoming an Indian client state, as had happened in Tajikistan. While outright collusion cannot yet be definitively dismissed, an incongruence of US and Pakistani priorities seems to offer a better explanation.
Looking at the overall geo-strategic picture, Pakistan can only go so far in its pursuit of the conflict in the North West. Like any state, Pakistan’s primary focus is to remain viable. One must take into account the delicate balancing act that the Pakistani political-military leadership must play in order to balance out the threats they face; the internal ethno-demographic tensions and the external threat posed by India. The so-called “war on terror” in the AF-PAK region is directed largely against the Pashtuns, who make up the second largest ethnic grouping. Where other ethnic groups in the South wish to break away from Pakistan, Pashtuns do not and are well represented in the military and bureaucracy. The very people who could provide the best intelligence on al Qaeda, radical Pashtuns, are also the same groups vital for Pakistan’s internal stability. The threat posed by India means that the majority of Pakistan’s forces must be deployed along the border with that country. Pakistan therefore must walk a razor thin line between US demands for assistance in fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban on the one hand and not alienating the Pashtuns nor creating further stress to the already existing internal tensions on the other. Finally one must also recall that during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the US and Pakistan, among others, worked hand-in-hand with these same groups. While the US had the luxury of exiting the theatre, Pakistan did not; it had to create a stable Pro-Pakistan state in Afghanistan to prevent it from either disintegrating into chaos thus exacerbating the refugee problem or becoming an Indian client state, as had happened in Tajikistan. While outright collusion cannot yet be definitively dismissed, an incongruence of US and Pakistani priorities seems to offer a better explanation.
Looking at the overall geo-strategic picture, Pakistan can only go so far in its pursuit of the conflict in the North West. Like any state, Pakistan’s primary focus is to remain viable. One must take into account the delicate balancing act that the Pakistani political-military leadership must play in order to balance out the threats they face; the internal ethno-demographic tensions and the external threat posed by India. The so-called “war on terror” in the AF-PAK region is directed largely against the Pashtuns, who make up the second largest ethnic grouping. Where other ethnic groups in the South wish to break away from Pakistan, Pashtuns do not and are well represented in the military and bureaucracy. The very people who could provide the best intelligence on al Qaeda, radical Pashtuns, are also the same groups vital for Pakistan’s internal stability. The threat posed by India means that the majority of Pakistan’s forces must be deployed along the border with that country. Pakistan therefore must walk a razor thin line between US demands for assistance in fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban on the one hand and not alienating the Pashtuns nor creating further stress to the already existing internal tensions on the other. Finally one must also recall that during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the US and Pakistan, among others, worked hand-in-hand with these same groups. While the US had the luxury of exiting the theatre, Pakistan did not; it had to create a stable Pro-Pakistan state in Afghanistan to prevent it from either disintegrating into chaos thus exacerbating the refugee problem or becoming an Indian client state, as had happened in Tajikistan. While outright collusion cannot yet be definitively dismissed, an incongruence of US and Pakistani priorities seems to offer a better explanation.
I just hope that at some point the UK will wake up and smell the coffee....... America trick us (mislead/lie/hide truth) - Packistan pull the wool and get aid - We end up following america into Afganistan - imigration - AV debatical The world must be laughing at us Im going to middle eastern europe without a passport and staying! Maybe the government should be shopping here?
There is injustice in the Middle East. If the Palestinians don't' get those universal human rights like everybody else in the world, there will be more BEN LADENS fighting fore those rights until achieved. No negotiation or bargaining for those rights. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples "including Palestinians" and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction. In short I stress the following rights: Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. "The Palestinians demand equal rights inside and outside Israel". Article 2. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty. "The Palestinians demand equal rights inside Israel". Article 3. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. "The Palestinians need protection from Israeli army, police and from Jewish armed settlers ". Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. "There is more than 40,000 thousands Palestinians (men, women and children) in infamous Israeli prisons". Article 6. Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law. "Palestinians have no protection under Israeli law". Article 7. All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. "Palestinians have no protection under Israeli law". Article 9. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile. "Israeli army, police and government always arrest, detain and exile Palestinians to make room for new Jewish immigrants coming to live in Israel". Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks. "Palestinians have no protection under Israeli law". Article 13. (1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. (2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country. "Palestinian refugees are prevented to go back to live in their birth place and do not have freedom of movement inside Israel". Article 15. (1) Everyone has the right to a nationality. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality. "Palestinians are deprived of their nationality by Israel". Article 17.(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property. "Palestinians are deprived of this right by Israel". Article 22.Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality. "Palestinians are deprived of this right by Israel". Article 25.(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. "Palestinians are deprived of those rights by Israel". Article 30.Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein. "Israel is above the law. Created and supported by USA and Europe". The world is not a safe place if there is injustice. If you are a Christen or a Jew and believe that "God" gave the Holy Land "Palestine" to the Jews and to hell with the Palestinians and other religions. Think again you sound like "a fundamentalist" even worse than the Taliban and Ben Laden. How many wars waged and life lost since the creation of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948. And still no just solution for everyone in the area. And the Holy Land transformed by Jewish and Christen militants to a war zone filled with all kind of weapons including WMD. Is this how the Christen West want the city and country of "God" and peace to be "a killing zone" a country of hate and discrimination?. For those who deny any relation between (Al-Qaida + Ben Laden) struggle and the Palestinian cause think again. Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (1941 – November 24, 1989) was a highly influential Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, who preached in favor of defensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders. He raised funds, recruited, and organized the international Islamic volunteer effort of Afghan Arabs through the 1980s, and emphasised the political ascension of Islamism. He is also known as a teacher and mentor of Osama bin Laden, and persuaded bin Laden to come to Afghanistan and help the jihad.
Pakistan has developed this knack of fooling the US & the west in general in asking for aid for its people and then diverting it to beef up its armed forces & the ISI not to fight the militants that threaten world peace, but try in a futile attempt to keep up with India's large economy & military .. Time for the west to cut this umbilical cord...Let China their number one ally pick up the tab....(not sure even if their interested into entering into this failed experiment called Pakistan)
USA should immediately dump Pakistan and forge pacts with India. If nukes of China did not bring war, nukes of Pakistan cannot. Israel can effectively deal with them. War against terror starts and ends with Pakistan ,the biggest terrorist of them all. We get our monuments of pride bombed, 3000 civilians killed and we fund the very same people who committed the crimes. Those people then use our money, enjoy good life , plan more crimes and abuse usa while committing them
As long as Quran is there , jihad will be there. As long as jihad is there, Osamas will be born and America and free society will be at danger. Pakistan can only side with US if it can go against Quran . This can never happen. This entire policy goes against grain of logic. US should have complete economic and military cooperation with India and dump the biggest terrorist of them all , Pakistan

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