The AfPak Train Wreck

[IndianaGreen]

U.S. troops will soon discover the meaning of the old Pashtun axiom: "Me against my brothers; me and my brothers against our cousins; me, my brothers and my cousins against everyone."

Published on Tuesday, December 8, 2009 by Foreign Policy in Focus

The AfPak Train Wreck

by Conn Hallinan

Partnering with Pakistan

The goal of a U.S. "partnership" with Pakistan is predicated on the assumption that both countries have a common "terrorist" enemy, but that is based on either willful ignorance or stunningly bad intelligence.

It is true that the Pakistan army is currently fighting the Taliban. But there are four Talibans in Pakistan, and their policies toward the Islamabad government range from hostile, to neutral, to friendly.

Pakistan's army has locked horns in South Waziristan with the Mehsud Taliban, the Taliban group that was recently driven out of the Swat Valley and that has launched a bombing campaign throughout the Punjab.

But the wing of the North Waziristan Taliban led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur has no quarrel with Islamabad and has kept clear of the fighting. Another South Waziristan Taliban, based in Wana and led by Mullah Nazir, is not involved in the fighting and considers itself an ally of the Pakistani government.

Washington wants Pakistan to go after the Afghan Taliban, led by Mullah Omar and based in Pakistan. But Omar has refused to lend any support to the Mehsud Taliban. "We are fighting the occupation forces in Afghanistan. We do not have any policy whatsoever to interfere in the matters of any other country," says Taliban spokesperson Qari Yousaf Ahmedi. "U.S. and other forces have attacked our land and our war is only against them. What is happening in Pakistan is none of our business."

The charge that the Taliban would allow al-Qaeda to operate from Afghanistan once again is unsupported by anything the followers of Mullah Omar have said. Gulbuddin Hekmatyer, a former U.S. ally against the Soviets and the current leader of the Taliban-allied Hizb-I-Islam insurgent group, told Al-Jazeera, "The Taliban government came to an end in Afghanistan due to the wrong strategy of al-Qaeda," reflecting the distance Mullah Omar has tried to put between the Afghan Taliban and Osama bin Laden's organization.

The "other" forces Ahmed refers to include members of the Indo-Tibetan Border Patrol, an Indian paramilitary group defending New Delhi's road-building efforts in southern Afghanistan. The Pakistanis, who have fought three wars with India — including the 1999 Kargil incident that came very close to a nuclear exchange — are deeply uneasy about growing Indian involvement in Afghanistan, and consider the Karzai government too close to New Delhi.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/08-1

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. So... we're to take Mullah Omar's word for it?

[IndianaGreen]

2. Did you know there was more than one Taliban?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Yeah, but I think their differences are highly exaggerated

...by those who would have us negotiate with the Taliban.

[IndianaGreen]

4. The Obama Administration and Karzai want to negotiate with Taliban

and Obama has earmarked $1.3 billion to "buy" the loyalty of Taliban. Haven't you been keeping up with the news?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Is this before or after they build that pipeline...

to ship all that moonwater?

[IndianaGreen]

6. Not my fault you don't read the good stuff posted here

Relying on American corporate media for information is a good way to become misinformed.

[zulchzulu]

7. Hah! Look at the Noob scoffing the TAPI pipeline story!

Now that's uninformed.

[zulchzulu]

9. Oh look! An article with the headline "Obama ready to 'work with' Taliban"

Perhaps some people never heard of Google.

US President Barack Obama declared in an interview that the United States was open to reaching out to moderate elements of the
Taliban in Afghanistan and, possibly, Pakistan, in continuation of its policy with Sunni militias in Iraq. He, however, added that the war in Afghanistan was much more complicated and that the US was not winning so far.

In a conversation on board Air Force One on Friday, Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from more hard-core elements of the al-Qaida in Mesopotamia, a strategy that many credit as much as the increase of American forces with turning the war around in the last two years. ''There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region,'' he said.

Obama had said on the campaign trail last year that the possibility of breaking away some elements of the Taliban should be explored, an idea also considered by some military leaders. But now he has started a review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, intended to find a new strategy, and he signalled that reconciliation could emerge as an important initiative, mirroring the strategy used by General David H Petraeus in Iraq.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Obama-ready-to-work-with-Taliban/articleshow/4242149.cms

[zulchzulu]

8. More light reading on the history of Afghanistan

http://www.afghangovernment.com/briefhistory.htm