TROOPS ON TV: IS FOX NEWS WORKING FOR ISRAEL AGAINST AMERICA?

FOX/MURDOCH/ISRAELI POLICY TO KEEP US IN AFGHANISTAN

NOT VERY “PRO AMERICAN”

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Fox News is using retired military officers surrounded by uniformed active duty troops in an attempt to derail debate on disengagement in Afghanistan. After 8 years, the US is heading the same way Russia did, the more troops we send, the more die. Absolutely nothing has been accomplished in 8 years in Afghanistan other than to start a major war in Pakistan too. I understand Fox News. They are controlled by the powerful Israeli spokeman, Rupert Murdoch. Israel wants this war to go on forever. Though Murdoch now is an American citizen, it doesn’t seem to have “taken.”

What is good for Israel isn’t always good for the US. Active duty military who try to make their own foreign policy are not just total morons but are in violation of a number of laws. They are technically at war with the United States of America. If it is necessary for veterans to take up weapons to fight against members of our military who are part of an insurrection run by a foreign power, tell me where to sign up.

To the former officers, always quick to take a payoff from a defense contractor or the Bush Pentagon as a “pundit,” reading from whatever script Karl Rove has written for the day, you dishonor yourselves, your oath and the United States. The oath I remember was:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

To many officers, the oath was to a political party, defense contractor or the last person to buy lunch. America had enough of your military leadership. Why do you think we are losing the war in the first place? YOU! Total lack of ability, leadership and talent is why we are losing the war. Officers sold their honor for photo opportunities with Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush, followed “party line” and led us into hopeless war while lying to our government and the people.

When it was time to stand up to the government, you were silent, a pack of “perfumed Pentagon Princes,” putting career over honor. Now we see folks who failed and retired asking for more troops. Who dragged you off the golf course? Where did the call come from? We want to know? Who are your new masters? Do you even know, yourselves? Even a whore knows who is buying the drinks.

I will be displeased with President Obama until he makes sure Secretary Gates hunts every one of you down, retirees need to be investigated for disloyalty to our troops and those on active duty need to be flushed out and replaced with war fighters, not country club clowns.

It is one thing allowing the military to make decisions in a democracy. We call that dictatorship. It is quite something else when a news network, one whose loyalty is primarily to an ally, Israel, who is, on occasion, not our best friend. Decision making in Israel over the past couple of years has not always been perfect. This may be the understatement of all time.

I have some experience at war, having fought in Vietnam. Without the thousands of foreign workers and mercenaries we now use, actual combat troops holding the I Corps, the most active area during the war, were few in number, at times less than 10,000. We were outnumbered and suffered casualty rates many many times that of the current conflict.

Never once did we run to the TV stations and demand reinforcements. We didn’t even have hot food. We remembered the troops landing on D Day or Marines on Iwo Jima. We would have felt ashamed. The troops on D Day thought about Americans fighting at Belleau Wood. Can we add to the list, San Juan Hill, Gettysburg, Valley Forge? It’s about honor. It’s a “warrior” thing.

Now we have troops on TV. Today it is reinforcements and control of the American government. What will it be tomorrow? Collective bargaining? Mutiny?

Why don’t we do this. Lets figure out why you are there. Were you sent to Afghanistan to fight 2 dozen terrorists 8 years ago, terrorists who may have died of old age by now? This is not the same war, not a war we signed up for and not one we may be willing to see our kids die in.

We are no longer going to be driven from war to war by newspaper stories or be manipulated by terrorists. The enemies of the United States are smiling. When they see you, troops pushing for a wider war, pushing to end intelligent debate, troops defying their democratic government, they know they are winning. You are telling them so.

There is no more proof America is being destroyed than your words.

Clinton minces no words with Pakistan

Agence France-Presse

ISLAMABAD – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton minced no words during a maiden diplomatic tour to Pakistan, admonishing its silence on Al-Qaeda but winning plaudits for trying to bridge the trust deficit.

The 62-year-old politician-turned diplomat, who was born the same year that Pakistan was created, was at pains to use a whirlwind of meetings to broaden US engagement and overcome gulfs of misunderstanding.

She wore a headscarf swathing her blonde hair and chest to visit a shrine and mosque and chat with Muslim clerics. She spoke fondly of past visits with her daughter and husband. She pledged millions for energy and education and to tackle poverty.

She acknowledged past mistakes — criticism of George W. Bush went down particularly well — and called for a “new page” in relations with an ally on which the United States depends to fight Al-Qaeda and in Afghanistan.

In a country quick to anger over perceived indignities and admonishments, Clinton’s determination to meet “real” Pakistanis and counter suspicions over a massive 7.5 billion-dollar aid package struck a chord with many.

“She came with a charm offensive… She left with a message of goodwill,” said Ishtiaq Ahmed, head of international relations at Islamabad’s prestigious Quaid-e-Azam University.

“Her visit was to cultivate and reshape public opinion in Pakistan. There was a communication gap. She realised this and took credible initiatives.”

Clinton’s message was that Barack Obama administration stands shoulder to shoulder with Pakistan in its fight against Islamist militancy and wants a long-term relationship, moving beyond the mistakes of the past.

Interestingly the local media — generally critical of the United States and a key target for Clinton’s public diplomacy — indulged in quiet praise.

“Unlike her tough-talking and deliberately abrasive predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, Ms Clinton went out of her way to be charming, open and to talk to a wide range of people,” wrote English-language daily The News.

But on one point, Clinton was tough — Al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal belt, where Pakistani troops are fighting the Taliban but the government denies Osama bin Laden and his top cohorts are hiding out.

“Al-Qaeda has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002,” Clinton told Pakistani newspaper editors.

“I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to,” she added.

Washington has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda and US officials have blamed Pakistan for not doing more to crush the breeding grounds of Islamist militancy in its wild tribal belt.

Pakistan says there is no evidence bin Laden is alive and has protested against US missile attacks against militants on its soil.

“She gave a message that it is naive to say they (the government) don’t know about an Al-Qaeda presence in Pakistan,” said local analyst Mutahir Sheikh.

“The goodwill she has developed will remain until the interests converge but it can divert tomorrow,” he told AFP.

After eight years in the Senate and years campaigning with Bill Clinton, Hillary is often considered more of a politician than a natural-born diplomat.

“Somebody, somewhere in Pakistan must know where these people are,” Clinton reiterated for a second day.

There was no public reaction from the government, which has an uneasy relationship with the powerful military and depends on US assistance.

Hasan Askari, one of Pakistan’s most prominent political analysts, said Clinton did well “to leave a good impact and reduce negative sentiments in public” but he sounded a note of caution.

“Differences will continue on the presence of Al-Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. This has been the US position. Pakistan does not accept it,” he said.

Clinton denied in an interview with CBS television that she had been accusing Pakistan of harbouring Al-Qaeda.

“What I was conveying is really part of the message of my trip,” she said.

“I knew when I was coming here that there was a trust deficit… Trust has to go both ways. So I’m not drawing any conclusions but I am asking the questions that are on Americans’ minds as well,” she said.

Destabilizing Baluchistan, Fracturing Pakistan –Part II

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Spawn of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI): the Taliban, Sipah-e-Sahaba, and Jundallah

So what is Jundallah? ABC News (“The Secret War Against Iran,” April 3, 2007), based on reports from Pakistani intelligence sources in 2007, identified Jundallah as clearly being Pakistani in origin and American-supported. Iranian officials have also said the group is alien to Iran. In 2007, at the same time information began to emerge that the White House was supporting terrorist organizations and activities against Iran. The Telegraph (“Bush sanctions ‘black ops’ against Iran,” May 7, 2007), amongst numerous other sources, also reported that the U.S. government was funding Jundallah as part of a regime change agenda against Iran, because a war with Iran was not possible at the time. These operations are part of what can be called a “soft war.”

To hide and whitewash Jundallah’s Pakistani origin and its creation as an organization clearly for the purpose of destabilizing the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan, the objectives of Jundallah were finessed to fit an Iranian format. The U.S. and Britain, with Pakistan as their surrogate, also began to realize that the separatist causes and organizations they had been assembling and supporting to destabilize and balkanize Iran were garnishing little support inside Iran or internationally. In an attempt to connect its operations with the broader demands for reform in Iran, Jundallah’s aims started being presented as part of a battle for Baluchi civil rights instead of its previous pretext of fighting Shiite Muslims in a hardcore sectarian war. The organization also changed its name to the People’s Resistance Movement of Iran to distance itself from a separatist identity that the Baluchi in Iran did not support.

There is something fundamentally contradictory between Jundallah’s claims of fighting for Baluchi civil rights and its systematic attacks on civilian targets, which included ethnic Baluch, and public places. A look at Jundallah’s leader also presents contradictions. Abdul-Malak Rigi is a former Taliban fighter and a smuggler involved in the international narcotics drug ring that is active on the borders of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Rigi a narcotics trafficker with a criminal record has been presented as a political activist in places like the U.S., Britain, and Saudi Arabia. This is highly improbable. Little analysis is made on these linkages.

Jundallah not only has Taliban fighters in its ranks, but also members of Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba. Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba or Sipah-e-Sahaba is a former and small political party in Pakistan that was involved in attacks against Pakistani Shiite Muslims and Christians, but with the main objective of eliminating Shiites. The group shares a lot of ground with the Taliban of pre-2001 Afghanistan in regards to its use of violence, its world-view, and its intolerance against Shiite Muslims, Christians, and Jews. The transfer of Sipah-e-Sahaba fighters into the ranks of Jundallah to attack Iran is not implausible. In fact, the Pakistani government has also admitted that Lashkar-e-Jhangavi, a so-called splinter group that broke from Sipah-e-Sahaba, is part of Jundallah and Jundallah’s attacks on Iran.

Jundallah is a modified face of Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Taliban. The group would not be able to attack the Iranian police, the Iranian border guard, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard without help from the state apparatus of Pakistan or the collusion of the occupying powers in Afghanistan. This is one of the reasons that Jundallah fighters have escaped so easily into Pakistan from the Iranian border without problems with Pakistani security forces and border guards. It must also be mentioned that there are several American bases in Pakistani Baluchistan in close proximity to Iran that Jundallah could be using for support in its cross-border raids of Iran.

The truth behind so-called Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan is mostly linked to a nexus of destabilization, war, and the narcotics trade. The original Taliban (which does not include many of the different groups fighting NATO in Afghanistan), Jundallah, and Sipah-e-Sahaba are all the spawn of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) in one way or another. All three originate in Pakistan and all of them have the hallmarks of entities created by the ISI. All three are also tied in one form or another to the international narcotics trade of opiates, such as opium and heroin. Narcotics have been involved through drug money with the funding of these organizations, as well as the Pakistani military and the personal wealth of many Pakistani leaders.

The Talibanization of Pakistan, however, is exceptional in regards to being a direct spawn of Pakistani intelligence operations. The new Taliban in Afghanistan and the Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan or the Pakistani Taliban are not like the old pre-2001 Taliban. The motivations and origins for the latter two groups are different. Most the new Taliban in Afghanistan do not share the same ideology as the old Taliban and are fighting against what they see as a foreign invasion of Afghanistan. In regards to the Taliban in Pakistan, in a sense they are the blowback of Pakistani meddling in Afghanistan and a result of the American-led NATO war in Afghanistan. Demands for a united Pashto state are also at play in the formation of the Pakistani Taliban.

Tehran has accused Islamabad several times of supporting Jundallah and operations against Iran. The Iranian government has also demanded that the Pakistani government hand over Rigi for the murder of Iranian citizens and officials, including high ranking Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders. Islamabad denies working with Jundallah. Pakistan has supported Jundallah, but the extent to which it has is not clear. In fairness it must be said that the widespread corruption in the ranks of Pakistan’s security, intelligence, and military forces is another factor at play. Pakistan itself is a victim of the collaboration of its leaders and officials with America and its allies. It can be said that Pakistan is not a state with a military, but a military with a state. A vast mosaic of the Pakistani military and officialdom act on their own and are involved in the international drug industry. These individuals and groups can easily act by themselves and even against Pakistani national interests. It is the U.S. and Britain, however, which have used the corrupt officialdom and state apparatus of Pakistan as an incubator for their geo-political objectives in Eurasia.

The original Taliban and organizations like Jundallah ultimately serve the interests of America and its allies in Eurasia. Pakistan has merely acted as an agent for the interests of America and its allies. This is one of the reasons that the U.S. State Department has never put Islamabad on its list of states sponsoring terrorism even though India and other states have provided strong cases.

Eurasian Geo-Strategy: Why Destabilize Eastern Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan?

A strong, stable, and powerful Pakistan, especially one that would be independent, is not looked at in good terms by the Pentagon and NATO for many reasons. Within an Orwellian framework, Pakistan and NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan are deliberately being destabilized while there is talk about stabilizing them. Many Pakistani elites are party to this agenda.

Both Afghanistan and Pakistan act as a land bridge between Iran on one side and China and India on another. If Pakistan and Afghanistan were to fall under the orbit of Russia, China, and Iran as the Pentagon and NATO (the Periphery) fear then Central Asia would virtually be encircled and closed off to America and its allies. In addition to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Republic of Azerbaijan would complete the encirclement of Central Asia and its energy resources. This last point involving Baku, however, depends on the status of the Caspian Sea, which is why Russia and Iran want the Caspian Sea to be closed off and have liberum vetoes over any development in its waters. It is, therefore, through Afghanistan and Pakistan that the U.S. and its allies have a land bridge into Central Asia and the centre of the Eurasian landmass.

The destabilization project in Afghanistan and Pakistan is aimed at specific areas in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, such as political and national unity. Ethnic divisions are being magnified in both. The answers to this come down to the struggle over Eurasia and the encirclement of Russia, China, and Iran. In this context, not only is the securing of energy resources in Central Asia tied to the industrial and economic needs of America and its partners, but also as a means to keep these resources out of the hands of China, Russia, and Iran for use, distribution, or transit. This is why an energy corridor from Turkmenistan to the shores of the Indian Ocean, going through Afghanistan and Pakistan has been an objective of the Pentagon and NATO linked to the issue of energy security.

In regards to strategic energy routes, the Pentagon and NATO see the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) Friendship Pipeline as a threat or rival energy corridor. There is a strong possibility that China could be included in the pipeline or that the pipeline could be just an Iran-Pakistan-China pipeline that would bypass India. This is a threat to American ambitions to contain China y way of controlling its energy supplies. It is also seen as a threat by the Pentagon and NATO because the ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia could supply gas to China via Iran and this pipeline. Turkmenistan already has gas pipelines going into Iran. In summary, putting a halt on the IPI Friendship Pipeline is not as important as controlling the energy route and keeping China out of the picture.

Pakistan, as noted, is filled with corrupt leaders. These leaders can easily be bought or switch sides. The fears of the Pentagon and NATO that Islamabad could become a full Chinese client state are driving the project to balkanize Pakistan. The same is true in regards to Afghanistan where NATO and the Pentagon fear that Iran and China could control Afghanistan through spheres of influence that would see a western zone controlled by Tehran and an eastern zone controlled by Beijing. Maps of Pakistan and Afghanistan falling within the geo-political orbit of China have even been produced. Balkanizing these areas makes it much harder for the area to fall under Chinese and Iranian control. Why is this important? The answer goes back to the issue of Pakistan and Afghanistan as land bridges between China and Iran. In a balkanized scenario, where Pakistan and Afghanistan have been divided, there would be less of a likelihood that a geo-strategically significant land bridge would manifest between Iran and China. This would further obstruct Eurasian solidarity and cohesion, which is a major aim of the Pentagon and NATO. Out of its own geo-strategic fears India has also made common cause with the U.S. and NATO in this project to prevent the tightening of the embrace and alliance between Beijing and Tehran.

The balkanization of this area would also make it more probable that the energy routes would be controlled by America and its allies via the new and smaller states that may ask for the protection of America and NATO like some of the states of the former Yugoslavia. The balkanization of Pakistan and Afghanistan also would help destabilize the easternmost Iranian provinces, including Sistan-Baluchistan. An independent Pakistani Baluchistan could also be at odds with Tehran over territorial claims to the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan. In addition, an important question is would an independent Baluchistan serve or work against Chinese naval interests in Gwadar. The military infrastructure of the area is already under the control of the American military.

Baluchistan is not only geo-strategically important in regards to Eurasian energy linkages, but is also rich in mineral deposits and energy reserves. In most cases these minerals and energy reserves are all untouched. It would be far easier to procure the mineral and energy resourses of this area from a relatively more lightly populated Baluchistan republic.

Note: The above map shows the the different pipeline routes going through Afghanistan and Pakistan, which could easily include China. The above map was produced by the U.S. government and the following map is a cross-section of an after and before cut-out of the map of the New Middle East presented by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters.

The Return of the Realists in U.S. Foreign Policy: Obama White House involved in Baluchistan?

With the replacement of George W. Bush Jr. with Barack H. Obama Jr. it can heuristically be said that the realists of U.S. foreign policy came back into power, whereas the neo-conservatives or neo-cons were in power in the Bush Jr. Administration. In reality both were involved to different degrees. Conceptually, realists do not believe that there are morals in international relations, just interests. Amongst the realist camp are Henry A. Kissinger and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski.

American foreign policy realists are not different in their foreign policy objectives, just different in their methodologies. The use of military force for them is just as important as the neo-cons. The realists are known for negotiating with their geo-political rivals, but covertly work to destabilize rivals. The history of Afghanistan and Brzezinski’s involvement there against the Soviet Union during the Cold War is just one example.

So is the Obama Administration involved in the attacks on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard conference in Sistan-Baluchistan? One of the main forces behind the foreign policy of President Obama is Brzezinski, a realist and someone who has talked about Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan all becoming destabilized, including in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 2007. The concept of a geo-political “black hole” is also his. Also, the Iranian government has categorically stated that the U.S. and Britain where the forces behind the October 18, 2009 attacks on a dialogue amongst Sistan-Baluchistan’s Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim leaders sponsored by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Most likely the answer is yes. While the U.S. government is also negotiating with Tehran, America has not ended its covert meddling and destabilization operations against Iran. Barack Obama is continuing the last American administration’s proxy war on Iran from the Iranian border with Iraq to Sistan-Baluchistan.

Note: The above map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).

Although the map does not officially reflect Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO’s Defense College for senior military officers. This map, as well as other similar maps, have most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning circles.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is a writer specializing in Middle Eastern and Central Asian affairs, based in Ottawa. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Destabilizing Baluchistan, Fracturing Pakistan — Part I

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

The Triangle of Jundallah, the Taliban, and Sipah-e-Sahaba

“Managed Chaos” is the proper term to describe the tensions in NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan and the border zones of Pakistan. Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are now being described by the Pentagon and NATO as the same front in the very same war, are tied to the Iranian border province of Sistan and Baluchistan or Sistan-Baluchistan. It is with the tenure of George W. Bush Jr. and his administration that Sistan-Baluchistan, with emphases on “Baluchistan” begun getting international attention through the ignition of a series of attacks inside the Iranian border with Pakistan by a group originally calling itself the “Army of God” or Jundallah in Arabic.

One must first take a closer look at Sistan-Baluchistan and the issues being depicted as the source of antagonism there before discussing Jundallah, the nature of its attacks, its source of support, and if the Pakistani government and the Obama Administration have been involved with Jundallah’s attacks. So, with a purposeful focus on Baluchistan, what is Sistan-Baluchistan and where is it? The Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan, which is located in southeastern Iran, is in fact the blending of two different bodies, one is Sistan and the other is Baluchistan. Both were separate historical entities and Iranian provinces until they were amalgamated into one in 1959 under the reign of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the last shah or monarch of Iran.

Sistan according to some local traditions is the legendary home of the Iranian epic hero Rustam. Sistan is also where Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who is an Iranian, originates from. In ethnic terms the people of Sistan are mostly Persians and Sistani. Sistani is a label that can be used to identify anyone from Sistan, but it also has two other meanings. Sistani in ethnographic terms is used to refer to a sub-population of the Baluch or Baluchi, which are a distinct Iranic ethno-linguistic group. The relationship between the Sistani and the Baluchi almost correlates with the affinities between the Flemish and the Dutch or of those between the Pathans (Pashto of Pakistan) and the Pashto in Afghanistan. What sets the Sistani apart and is a cause for their distinction is geography and, more importantly, the fact that they speak a localized dialect of the Persian language called Sistani.

Moving on, Baluchistan is the other part of the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchistan. Baluchistan, however, is not limited to Iran and is also a larger region that encompasses southern Afghanistan and a large slice of Pakistani territory. Sistan can also be included or excluded from this broader region of Baluchistan. The coastal region of Makran, which runs through both Iran and Pakistan, is also a sub-region of Baluchistan. Makran is of great geo-strategic importance and is home to the Pakistani port of Gwadar that both the U.S. and China are deeply interested in as an energy terminal and a naval base.

The province of Baluchistan in Pakistan is where the overwhelming majority of the Baluchi live. Pakistani Baluchistan was once mostly populated by Baluch and other relatively indigenous people before British control and later waves of immigration that caused demographic changes. Starting in 1947 the mass immigration of new ethnic groups leaving India for Pakistan because they were Muslims and the conflict in Afghanistan, starting with the 1979 Soviet invasion, also changed Pakistani Baluchistan’s ethnic composition. The Baluchi themselves, however, did not always live in Baluchistan. The Baluchi moved eastward to most of present-day Baluchistan from the Iranian province of Kerman or Kermania (Germania) during the period of Seljuk rule in Iran. The ancestors of the Baluchi also themselves had migrated to Kerman in earlier times.

Is Jundallah fighting for Baluch and Sunni Muslim rights against Persians and Shiite Muslims?

The genesis being presented about the Jundallah attacks in Baluchistan is offered as one that is dual-natured. Firstly the Jundallah attacks are being portrayed as being sparked on the basis of sectarianism and secondly on the basis of ethnicity. In this sense the intermittent attacks and explosions in Baluchistan are presented in the framework of a conflict between a confessional minority versus a confessional majority in Iran and to a lesser extent as an ethnic minority versus an ethnic majority.

One is almost tempted to state that the conflict between Tehran and Jundallah has been portrayed by Jundallah as one between Persians and Baluchi, which to some extent was originally how it was portrayed. In many places the media has framed it as such, along with the sectarian dimension of Sunnis versus Shiites. This is grossly inaccurate. Jundallah’s later attacks were portrayed differently by the group itself, but it should be noted that the statements of Jundallah on its fight have changed too. Jundallah’s attacks became mostly framed as being predominantly against the Iranian central government. The group even changed its name to the “People’s Resistance Movement of Iran” to make it appear as an internal Iranian struggle against the government in Tehran.

As an important side note: albeit Persian is the official language of Iran, Persians are merely a plurality in Iran and it is fundamentally wrong to describe the Iranian attribute as Persian. Iran is not a Persian country as so many authors, journalists, and sadly scholars wrongly state; Iran is an Iranian country and the Persian identity, like Azerbaijani (Azeri/Azari) or Baluchi, is a subsidiary to this Iranian identity as an Iranologist would be able to explain. All Persians are Iranian, but all Iranians are not Persians.

Who are the Baluch?

Simply asked, what are the Baluch? Are they Iranian or not? Do the Baluchi as a whole have aspirations to create “Free Baluchistan” or their own state? Do the Baluchi want independence from Iran as is being reported in the U.S., France, Britain, Germany, Saudi Arabia, and several other countries? Once this is answered then Jundallah can be addressed.

Nomenclature is important in regards to understanding not only Baluchistan, but all Eurasia from Lagos to Vladivostok. In categorizing the ethno-linguistic cluster of peoples in the Iranian Plateau, which extends from Iran to Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan, one must grasp the understanding that the term Iranian is charged with multiple meanings. Iranian is a national, a linguistic, and an ethnic tag. These matrices can become very confusing when looking at questions concerning this area from an outside view, but yet are essential to understanding the nature of the subject.

Already as it is, ethnicity is a highly confusing topic with both subjective and objective elements. Imagine the confusion that would arise if the term “German” was being used, as it once frequently was, not only to identify German nationality and to designate German ethnicity (which is used to describe a whole people ranging from Germany to Austria and Switzerland), but to identify members of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Germanic includes English, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch, amongst other languages. Great confusion would arise from calling these other peoples German on top of their other labels. In regards to Iranian, this is the case. This is also compounded by the careless substitution of Iranian as a designation for Persian or vice-versa, which is similar to the misuse of the terms English and British.

To prevent confusion the term Iranic will be used in preference to the term Iranian in regards to ethno-linguistic designation(s) to help identify the additional attributes of either ethnicity, language, or both. Without turning this discourse into a treatise on language, one may also ask are ethnicity and language linked? Yes and no. Speaking English does not necessarily make one an Anglo-Saxon, just as speaking Spanish or Russian does not make one a member of those ethnic groups either. Ethnicity, however, historically does have a direct correlation with the origins of languages.

Moving forward, the Baluch originate from the area around the Caspian Sea in the Caucasus. Speaking strictly in ethnic terms, the Baluch are an Iranian or Iranic people. They are Iranian or Iranic, regardless of if they live in Iranian Baluchistan or Pakistani Baluchistan or in Afghanistan. Despite their more commonly darker phenotype (appearance) the Baluchi are of the same stock(s) as the Persians and Kurds. They also speak their own language, Baluchi. Baluchi is a Northwestern Iranic language, which is a sub-division of a broader linguistic grouping called Western Iranic. Northwestern Iranic includes Kurdish, the language of the Kurds, and Talysh, a language mostly spoken in the Iranian province of Gilan and in the Republic of Azerbaijan. In turn Western Iranic is part of the larger Iranic branch (or sub-branch, if you consider it one with Indo-Aryan or Indic) of the Indo-European language family, which includes the Slavic, Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Albanian, and Greek languages.

Persian, the official language of Iran, and Tajik are examples of Southwestern Iranic languages, which also belong to the larger Western Iranic group like both Baluchi and Kurdish. In regards to the Western Iranic languages they evolved from the three main Iranian groups of antiquity that moved into the Iranian Plateau from Europe and/or Central Asia. The Northwestern Iranic group developed from the dialects of the Parthians (who lived in Parthia, which excluding Hyrcania was roughly corresponding to the province of Khorasan) and the Medes (who lived in Media, which roughly covered northwestern Iran and parts of Iraqi Kurdistan), while the Southwestern Iranic group developed from the dialect of the ancient Persians (who lived in Persia/Persis or roughly the modern-day province of Pars/Fars in southwestern Iran). Pashto and Ossetian are respective modern examples of the Eastern Iranic group that also included Scythian, which was once spoken from the Ukraine and Russia to what is now Chinese Turkistan.

Like all other people, the Baluchi are also a mixture of new waves and different stocks of people, including the original Dravidian people who thousands of years ago lived in the Iranian Plateau before they were pushed southward or assimilated by the ancient Iranians as they migrated into Anatolia and the Iranian Plateau during a major period of Indo-European migration. The Brahui in Pakistan, which are closely tied to the Baluchi and very often mistaken for Baluchi, are a surviving remnant of this older Dravidian stock. Arabs and other Semitic peoples, as well as various groups from the littoral of the Indian Ocean, have also mixed with the Baluchi gene pool over time, especially in Makran.

Most the Baluch are also Muslims of the Sunni confession. The confessional difference between the Baluchi and the majority of Iranians has not always existed. It began under the Safavid Dynasty of Iran. During the Safavid period, when most other Iranians became Shiite Muslims, the Baluchi like many of the Kurds maintained their Sunnism. Some of the reasons for this had to do with clan autonomy from the central government and with the fact that these groups were on the frontiers of the Safavid Empire where defensive cooperation with their chieftains was important for the Safavid monarchs and thus they were relatively left undisturbed in regards to their confessions.

Difference of confession between the majority of the Baluch and the Iranian state have not been a major problem for the Baluchi. Nor have the Baluchi been barred from practicing their interpretation of Islam in Iran. In general Baluchi complaints resemble the complaints of Shiites or other ethnic groups, including Persians, against the Iranian government. Moreover, regardless of their ethnicity or their views on Islam, the main localized complaint of the residents of Sistan-Baluchistan has been underdevelopment in their province’s rural areas. In contrast to the pictures being linked to Jundallah, Sistan-Baluchistan has enjoyed peace and stability, except for the narcotic smuggling that has involved transient elements from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Baluchi Independence: Iran’s Problem or Pakistan’s Problem?

Aside from the opium wars between Iranian security forces and a multi-national narcotic smuggling network assisted by vast sections of the security and state apparatus of Pakistan, the greatest source of antagonism in the region of Baluchistan has been specific to the Pakistani side. Although the Baluchi are not a confessional minority in the mostly Sunni Muslim country of Pakistan, the Baluchi have been marginalization in Pakistan. This, however, should not be overstated either, but has resulted in a real and widely supported nationalist and secessionist movement in Pakistani Baluchistan. The Baluchistan Nationalist Party was formed on this basis and has made demands ranging from full independence from Pakistan to more local autonomy.

Baluchi separatism is not a factor in Iran, but it is a real force in Pakistan. The Baluchistan People’s Front, which from Britain claims to represent the Baluchi in Iran also has no real popular base and is propped up by British and American support, whereas the Baluchistan Nationalist Party has a popular base of support in Pakistan. The Baluch feel they were forced to join Pakistan under pressure, especially in the case of the of the Khanate of Kalat (Qalat). Starting in 1948, Pakistan has seen five rounds of ethnic-based fighting in Baluchistan. Since the creation of Pakistan, the independence movement in Pakistani Baluchistan has gone so far as to openly wage war against the Pakistani government and military. This war between Baluchi fighters and the Pakistani military has been neglected by the same journalists and mainstream media outlets that report on Jundallah synonymously with the allegations of the systematic mistreatment of the Baluch in Iran. In this context, Jundallah’s fighters are mostly imported from Pakistan and the problems of the Baluchi with the Pakistani government have deliberately been imported to Iran.

Misleading the World on Baluchistan

Returning to the question; do the Baluchi as a whole have aspirations to create “Free Baluchistan” or their own state? The answer has been given as no in regards to Iran, but a mixed yes when it comes to Baluchi feelings in Pakistan. Nevertheless, these differences amongst the Baluchi in Iran and Pakistan are generalized as one. This generalization is given so as to vindicate Jundallah as a home-grown Iranian movement that germinated out of the conditions on the ground in Iranian Baluchistan without the involvement of any external powers.

World view is categorically being misled on the Jundallah attacks in Baluchistan. The application of Cartesian Doubt is really needed when a discourse on Baluchistan is presented. Ethnic, religious, and sectarian differences do exist in Iranian Baluchistan as they do everywhere else without exception, but they are not major cleavages or forces of tension in multi-ethnic Iran. Any Iranologist or individual that knows Iran first hand will give this assessment. Tension does exist in Sistan-Baluchistan, but to an equal or far lesser extent than the tensions between the French and the Flemish in Belgium or the Québécois and English-Canadians in Canada.

In the onslaught of the media coverage of the series of attacks in Sistan-Baluchistan against Iranian security targets many journalists have presented the conflict as being one between Shiite Muslims and Sunni Muslims and one for Baluchi rights. For example, in the process Le Figaro, an influential French newspaper, has described the situation as one where a Sunni minority is fighting for their rights in the most generic and non-context specific terms. Not only are these reports being made in Lebanon by individuals with little expertise or knowledge about Iran, but misleadingly the small force that is Jundallah and the Baluchi peoples are systematically being equated as one entity. The heavy influence of the same rhetorical tactics used in favour of the March 14 Alliance in Lebanon and used to describe the so-called Shiite-Sunni tensions (which are really political tensions between the Future Movement and Hezbollah) in Lebanon are evident in the reports that are presented by Le Figaro without any real understanding for Baluchistan.

In Saudi Arabia, where sectarian hate has been heavily enforced by the Saudi media, the attacks in Baluchistan are being presented as Sunni Muslims fighting Shiite repression. Another example of misinformation comes from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The BBC has steadily moved to a position where it has described the attacks in Baluchistan as attacks that have been perpetrated by an ethnic militia fighting for minority rights. Furthermore, while the BBC has generally designated other groups using the same tactics as terrorist organizations it has not done so for Jundallah.

Are the narratives behind the attacks in Baluchistan factual, even in the most subjective of terms? No, nothing can be further from the reality of the situation. It is somewhat of a giveaway that none of these reports even dare to venture into the theme of popular support for the Jundallah attacks by the people of Baluchistan. No exhaustive presentation of the Baluch has even been made. None of these reports even mention that many of the people and targets attacked have included Sunni Muslims. Nor is anything mentioned about the evidence Iran has provided to the United Nations, starting in 2007, validating Tehran’s claims of American and British involvement.

Former CIA Intelligence Officer in charge of Blackwater Xe in Peshawar

More evidence of how former President Musharraf and the present Zardari-Malik-Haqqani clique allowed the Americans to quietly turn Pakistan into another Iraq.

Written by Faisal Muqadam

PESHAWAR, Pakistan–Fomer CIA Intelligence Officer Steven Cash is in charge of Blackwater operations in Peshawar. The Blackwater supervisory team in Peshawar includes James Bill William, Copper, Steven Cash, Roderick Christopher and Alisha Cambel. They have hired several Pakistani government officials and retired army personnel at remunerations as high as $2,000 per day.

Various journalists have been approached and offered bribes by these officials to implement the PSYOPs in newspapers and electronic media in Pakistan. They are pushing journalists to publish news stories of Talibans, as the Psychological Operations group of US Army has planned.

They are paying as high as $1000 per published news story to journalists. Meetings are held in various houses rented in University Town, Peshawar and residents have reported activities with tinted glasses jeeps during late night hours.

Steven Cash is a former senior U.S. government official. Mr. Cash served as an Intelligence Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, first as an Assistant General Counsel, and then with the Directorate of Operations.

He also served as Chief Counsel to Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, and as Minority Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security. From 2001 to 2003 he was a Professional Staff Member and Counsel for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Published by Daily.pk

Karkare Rewarded For Honesty

By ALI SUKHANVER

After the Mumbai Blasts, the whole life in India began to revolve around this horrible incident. One can find the after shocks of this quake even after so many months. Certainly it was the worst episode in the Indian history of terrorism. The democratic people of India were of the opinion that the matter would be investigated thoroughly and the culprits would be penalized. In the beginning there was noticed a great hustle and bustle with reference to the investigations but then at once it all stopped after coming to a dead end. The statement of the Indian naval chief, questioning the expertise of the Indian marines put a full stop to the story. He had very boldly stated that the terrorists involved in the Mumbai Blasts could not have entered the Indian soil if the Indian marines were vigilant and alert. His statement was inwardly pointing towards the well wishers of the terrorists who were there to help out the terrorists in the garb of mariners. After this statement the government of India turned all its cannons towards Pakistan blaming that the terrorists belonged to Pakistan. The Pakistan government bore this blame with patience and provided all possible help and support to the Indian government regarding the investigations. Luckily it was found that the terrorists involved in this heinous activity were purely non-state actors and they had nothing to do with Pakistan. The honourable courts of Pakistan also did their best to see the matter in depth and found the alleged ones totally innocent. But all these sincere efforts by Pakistan could not satisfy the Indian government and it tried to copy the style and manner of the US government by saying again and again , Do More , Do More , We are not Satisfied.’

The Mumbai Blasts have been a favourite topic of discussions and analysis throughout the world since after their occurrence. Most of the analysts smell the Hindutva Philosophy behind these blasts. Hindutva is a term coined by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in his 1923 pamphlet entitled, ‘Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?’ This philosophy urges the Hindus to get united for crushing the Non-Hindus and the Hindus mean those who are Hindu by belief not by land. It is the Hindutva philosophy which gave birth to the organizations such as the RSS, Bharatiya Janata Party, Bajrang Dal, and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.

This ideology has existed since the early 20th century, but came to prominence in Indian politics in the late 1980s, when two events attracted a large number of mainstream Hindus to the movement , according to a world renowned encyclopedia. The first of these events was the Rajiv Gandhi government’s use of its large Parliamentary Majority to overturn a Supreme Court verdict granting alimony to an old woman that had angered many Muslims. The second was the dispute over the 16th century Mughal Babri Mosque in Ayodhya � built by Babur after his first major victory in India. The Supreme Court of India refused to take up the case in the early 1990s, leading to a huge outcry. Tempers soon flared, and a huge number of nationalist Hindus from all parts of India razed the mosque in late 1992, causing nationwide communal riots. The razing of the mosque and subsequent conflict arguably lifted the BJP and Hindutva to international prominence. Today this Hindutva Philosophy is nurturing so many Hindu extremist organizations which are always busy in conspiring against the Muslims whether they are in India or outside India. To achieve their heinous desires these organizations don’t spare even the innocent Hindus who have nothing to do with extremism. The killing of the former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare during the Mumbai blasts episode is also one of such activities of the Hindu extremists. Recently a new book came to surface with the title,’ Who Killed Karkare?’ The writer S.M.Mushrif, a former IG Police of Maharashtra has pointed out the presence of a nationwide network of Hindutva terror which has its roots spread up to Nepal and Israel is out to destroy India and to remold it into same kind of Afghanistan under the Taliban. The writer has reconstructed a fearsome picture out of former Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare’s chargesheet against alleged Hindutva terrorists like Lt. Col. Purohit, Sadhvi Pragyasingh Thakur and others. The chargesheet pointed towards an astonishing nationwide conspiracy with international support to destabilize the constitutional order of the secular democratic Indian state and replace it by a Hindutva state run according to a new Constitution. The conspirators were planning for a massive bloodshed, using bomb attacks on religious places to trigger an anti-Muslim holocaust.

According to the reports, Hemant Karkare, the former ATS chief, was one of the few honest and diligent officers .He was well aware of the forces which were eager to destabilize India. He did a lot of research in this context and exposed a number of retired and serving army and intelligence officers involved in the conspiracy against the democratic secular India. He succeeded in tracing a plan which indicated the possible assassination of 70 Indians who were creating hurdles in the projection of Hindutva philosophy. Most of these 70 targets were the Indians of high profile and in case of their assassination; so many Muslims could have been framed. If Karkare had not exposed the heinous designs of these Hindutva Plans, there would have been an endless blood-shed in India taking lives of thousands of Muslims and surely hundreds of Hindus because without killing of Hindus , the picture would not seem real. Moreover it is a part of the Hindutva philosophy to kill even the Hindus if it is in the greater interest of Hinduism. The unlucky Hemant Karkare is also one of the escape goats in this context

The affairs of the country in India are run by a particular group of extremist Hindus. These extremists are all time supporting and financing the culprit organizations which support the Hindutva philosophy. They are always trying to shelter the Hindutva terrorists. The horrible Samjhota Express incident provides a very strong proof in this regard. On the Basis of the reports provided by the Indian IB The government of India started blaming the Pakistan ISI for carrying out these blasts ; but at a later stage Hemant Karkare disclosed the reality that Lt.Col.Prohat of the Indian army was the person who provided the RDX used in the blasts. Col.Prohat had accepted the allegation during the investigations. The IB was not happy over Karkare’s honest investigations so he was removed from the scene. Very soon after his killing, K.P.Raghuvanshi, a police officer with extremely low credibility in the Muslims was brought to the scene to replace Karkare.This K.P.Raghuvanshi has a bad repute for letting off known Hindutva terrorists and framing Muslim youth even in bomb attack cases on mosques. But we cannot condemn the IB or the Hindutva terrorists for awarding the death penalty to Hemant Karkare because all is fair in love and war.

Author is Pakistan based bilingual analyst on national and international strategic and defense affairs. Email: alisukhanver@hotmail.com

The American Way of Abandonment

by Pat Buchanan

When America is about to throw an ally to the wolves, we follow an established ritual. We discover that the man we supported was never really morally fit to be a friend or partner of the United States.

When Chiang Kai-shek, who fought the Japanese for four years before Pearl Harbor, began losing to Mao’s Communists, we did not blame ourselves for being a faithless ally, we blamed him. He was incompetent; he was corrupt.

We did not lose China. He did.

When Buddhist monks began immolating themselves in South Vietnam, the cry went up: President Diem, once hailed as the “George Washington of his country,” was a dictator, a Catholic autocrat in a Buddhist nation, who had lost touch with his people.

And so, word went out from the White House to the generals. Get rid of Diem, and you get his power and U.S. support. Three weeks before JFK was assassinated, Diem and his brother met the same fate.

When the establishment wished to be rid of a war into which it had plunged this country, suddenly it was “the corrupt and dictatorial Thieu-Ky regime” in Saigon that was simply not worth defending.

Lon Nol, our man in Phnom Penh, got the same treatment.

“In this world it is often dangerous to be an enemy of the United States, but to be a friend is fatal,” said Henry Kissinger.

The army of South Vietnam and the Saigon government, the boat people of the South China Sea and the million victims of Pol Pot’s genocide can testify to that before the judgment seat of history

Thus the daily attacks on Afghan President Hamid Karzai — who sat beside Laura Bush as guest of honor at the 2002 State of the Union and got a standing ovation — as the corrupt ruler of a corrupt regime, whose brother, a narcotics trafficker, has been on the CIA’s payroll, seems a signal that the ritual is about to begin. The Karzai brothers should probably read up on the fate of the Diem brothers.

Yet never has an ally been more egregiously insulted in wartime than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s insulting of the Pakistanis on her “fence-mending” trip last week. In a meeting with editors, Hillary was asked why the United States was focusing its Predator strikes in the war on terror so heavily upon Pakistan.

Said Hillary, “Al-Qaida has had safe haven in Pakistan since 2002. … I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn’t get them if they really wanted to.”

This is charging the Pakistani government, army and intelligence services with cowardice or collusion with bin Laden and al-Qaida in the war on terror. That it was made within hours of the bloodiest in a long series of terror attacks that have killed hundreds of Pakistanis only magnifies the insult.

So, too, does the fact that the Pakistani army, after cleansing the Swat Valley of the Taliban, is now fighting in South Waziristan in the most critical battle of the war.

But, if this is what the Obama administration and the Congress believe, why are they sending $7.5 billion in new aid to such a regime?

Moreover, the charge is, on its face, demonstrably false.

If Pakistan’s intelligence services, army and government all knew the exact location of bin Laden, we would know it. For we have people inside sympathetic to us, just as some are sympathetic to al-Qaida.

And if people inside discovered the exact location of bin Laden or al-Qaida, they would leak it to us, if only because the money on the table for such intelligence is irresistible.

Is Secretary Clinton suggesting there are people throughout the Pakistani government who have information that could make them rich for life, but refuse to reveal it out of purest loyalty to a gang of terrorists who are massacring their countrymen as well as Americans?

That there are warlords who are war criminals, allied with the Afghan regime and us, that drug-traffickers are abetted by high officials, that Karzai stole the election, no one denies.

That the Pakistani intelligence services are shot through with elements loyal to a Taliban they helped bring to power in Kabul, that there are Pakistani army officers who believe they should be defending their country against India, not fighting America’s war in Waziristan, is also undeniable.

But what does it avail us to insult these people who have cast their lot with us, many of whom will, with famines and friends, pay a far more terrible price than we if we lose these wars.

And if we are going to abandon these people, as we have so many others in the past, let us at least tell them, and ourselves, the truth. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We don’t have the stomach for a long war. We’re sorry we got you into this. Your big mistake was in trusting us. You folks should have known better.

Beating the Odds: Distributing Books in Pakistan

By Syed Zahid Abbas and Alma Freeman

Late last month, suicide attacks hit Pakistan’s International Islamic University in relatively peaceful Islamabad, killing at least six people – another violent event that continues to pull the capital further into the fray. In even less secure areas, such as Pakistan’s Swat Valley in the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, such targeted violence is well known – militants in mid-January imposed a ban on girls’ schools, claiming that they do not abide by the teachings of Islam. Since then, hundreds of boys’ and girls’ schools have been systematically shuttered or burned down and girls threatened with acid or death for violating the ban and bravely attending school anyway.

This situation, coupled with rising violence as the Pakistani government increases efforts against militant forces, has caused growing security challenges to Books for Asia’s operations in Pakistan. When the program first started back in the 1950s, security posed little risk and books were delivered on the backs of camels across rugged terrain. Now, the danger involved in traveling with a truckload of books to institutions in remote destinations is by far the program’s greatest concern.

Determined not to neglect any part of the country, the Books for Asia program takes books from Islamabad to a central location in far-flung provinces such as Peshawar or Quetta. The idea is to invite institutions in the area to travel short distances to pick out books from the location themselves. These “Book Fairs” help overcome security challenges by providing a centralized, secure location that allows books to reach people in more remote or insecure areas. The fairs are wildly successful and have allowed the program to distribute nearly 40,000 books so far through this model. Currently, more than 40 percent of all books donated in Pakistan go to institutions in the North-West Frontier and Balochistan Provinces.

Representatives from different institutions select books at a Books for Asia Book Fair.

Another Day, Another Challenge

In a warehouse in San Leandro, California, just south of Oakland, stacks of boxes filled with books, shrink-wrapped and methodically tagged by destination – Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan – are balanced atop rows of wooden forklift pallets. It’s hard to imagine that these sparkling new books donated by major publishers – from learning ABCs to Botany 101 – can ever make the arduous journeys that lie ahead. The books are loaded onto container ships at Oakland’s port, from where they travel days, weeks, even months, to their respective destinations: primary schools and universities, libraries, and resource centers across Asia.

Despite often treacherous voyages and head-spinning transportation logistics, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program has been distributing books like these throughout Asia since 1954. Which, despite the challenges, is how more than 3 million books have reached the hands of people in Pakistan, including in some of the country’s most conflict-riddled and remote areas.

Fighting Illiteracy, One Page at a Time

Pakistan’s literacy rate, at around 50 percent, remains an acute development challenge, while the pre-existing gap between girls and boys has only worsened with the recent targeting of girls’ schools. The situation is worse along the Afghan border of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the literacy rate for girls hovers in the single digits, compared to 30 percent for boys.

The battle against illiteracy is partly due to a lack of educational institutions. However, many factors contribute to the problem, including poverty, a lack of skilled teachers, reluctance to send girls to school, fear of attending school due to security concerns, as well as insufficient commitment from the government. These challenges are more severe for children internally displaced by conflict. The past year has seen approximately 2 million people displaced from northwest Pakistan, and now more than 100,000 from South Waziristan. Hundreds of thousands have returned home to northwest Pakistan, but displacement continues, as does violence. Education has been disrupted considerably. Hundreds of thousands of children have been left with no access to schools, and tens of thousands of four- to six-year-olds live in camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP).

Due to increased conflict in certain areas of Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of children have been displaced, such as these above, and are living temporarily in IDP camps.

Despite these dismal circumstances, it could be said that a silver lining is emerging for some displaced children whose schools were destroyed or who were banned from attending school in their hometown. The Pakistani government and international NGOs are now working together to build tent schools in the camps, providing a semblance of education in a relatively secure environment. In partnership with the Government of Pakistan through the National Commission for Human Development, the Ministry of Women Development, and Islamic Relief, and with local civil society groups, Books for Asia has begun donating books to IDP camps. Plans are in place to donate more books when the new container of books arrives in the coming months from the warehouse in San Leandro.

Since the IDP schools reach children, especially girls, who might otherwise not receive an education, parents living in the camps often express pleasure at the exposure to education, however limited. They also show great interest in continuing their children’s education upon return to their homes. However, challenges remain. These schools need basic supplies and equipment such as desks and chairs. With winter approaching, sitting on the bare floor will no longer be a viable option. The camps are overcrowded and demand for books is very high. Finding funds to pay delivery freight charges for the books is another reality, since host institutions normally pay freight fees and the IDP schools are in no position to take on such a cost.

Reviving the Books for Asia’s “Box Libraries Initiative” could be part of the solution. Running from 1986 to 1990, the initiative provided local-language children’s books as well as new Books for Asia-donated English-language books. These were packaged in large metal boxes for distribution to community schools and resource centers that lacked the sufficient infrastructure to support full shipments of English-language books.

English language education is mandatory in much of Pakistan. Many girls and boys, generally segregated until university, attend English-language track schools that begin English curriculum at age six, or attend regular government schools taught in the local language but which require students to take and pass English-language courses. But in the case of the IDP camps, where education for children has been disrupted, providing such tools as box libraries with local-language books alongside English books could complement the curriculum and better prepare students when – and wherever – they return home.

Syed Zahid Abbas (zabbas@asiafound.org) is the Manager of the Foundation’s Books for Asia Program in Pakistan, and Alma Freeman (afreeman@asiafound.org) works in The Asia Foundation’s Communications office. Read more about The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia Program in Pakistan.

Pull the plug on the Afghan surge

By Charles Kupchan and Steven Simon

Although the aborted electoral run-off in Afghanistan has further weakened the country’s already troubled government, the Obama administration has little choice but to work with President Hamid Karzai. Indeed, the electoral mess paradoxically makes it easier for President Obama to decide on America’s next steps in the war. The turmoil in Kabul should convince the White House that General Stanley McChrystal’s plan to pursue counterinsurgency in the countryside is a bridge too far.

The US commander in Afghanistan would have coalition forces adopt a “population-centric” strategy in which they address “the needs and grievances of the people in their local environment”. In Iraq, a similar strategy did succeed in undercutting the Sunni insurgency. But Iraq’s central government was in the midst of stabilising and increasing its effectiveness, enabling it to rebuild the institutional infrastructure of a functioning state. With an Afghan government of questionable legitimacy and limited efficacy in control of only 30 per cent of the country – and much of the rest under the sway of local warlords – surging thousands of fresh troops into lawless rural areas is a recipe for chasing after unattainable ends with insufficient means.

Instead, Mr Obama should decisively scale back the mission in Afghanistan. He should do so by focusing coalition operations on consolidating control in strategically important locations as well as more stable areas in the centre and north of the country. From these secure and defensible zones, the coalition would focus on three tasks.

First, it would build up the political and economic infrastructure of a rump Afghanistan, with the aim of establishing the robust institutions and markets essential to a functioning state. This effort is a critical priority: without a viable Afghan government, even successful efforts at counterinsurgency would be little more than an expensive palliative. Second, the coalition would carry out counterterrorism operations throughout those parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan where coalition forces would not regularly be deployed, seizing opportunities to strike at militant Taliban and al-Qaeda targets. Third, it would ramp up training of the Afghan army and police, building an indigenous force that would eventually undertake the countrywide counterinsurgency mission that Gen McChrystal now envisages for coalition forces – but without the nationalist backlash inevitably invited by foreign troops.

This three-pronged strategy has marked advantages over more ambitious as well as less demanding alternatives. Rather than spreading itself too thin, the coalition would focus its effort where it is most needed: on creating a capable and legitimate Afghan state that can gradually assume responsibility for governance and security throughout the country. It would also contain the scope of the US and European commitment without risking a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan – a major downside of rapid withdrawal or an exclusive focus on counterterrorism.

At the same time, the US would maintain access to bases needed to carry out counterterrorism operations and collect intelligence in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Coalition forces rather than the Taliban would be adopting hit-and-run tactics, striking against militant cells that would be likely to seek to reconstitute themselves in areas from which coalition forces had retrenched. By taking the initiative on the battlefield, US and Nato troops would keep the Taliban and al-Qaeda on the defensive and deny them the ability to construct training camps and operational bases of the sort that existed prior to the US invasion in 2001.

This revamped strategy would also yield benefits in Pakistan. Coalition operations in Afghanistan have pushed the region’s most dangerous and hardened fighters into Pakistan, contributing to increasing levels of insurgent violence and destabilising the nuclear-armed country. These militants are also largely outside the reach of coalition forces; Islamabad does not permit foreign troops to operate in Pakistan, leaving the US to rely on missile strikes from drones operating only in border areas.

Should coalition forces redeploy primarily to core regions in Afghanistan, some of the militants who fled to Pakistan would be likely to return, if only to escape Pakistan’s ongoing offensive in Waziristan. If they did, the threat to Pakistan would diminish and coalition forces could pursue the militants in Afghanistan without the restrictions they face in Pakistan.

The US cannot afford to let Afghanistan again fall under the sway of parties with terrorist designs against the west. Neither can it afford, however, to put additional resources behind a strategy that risks drawing Nato into an ever-deepening quagmire. By pursuing a strategy that combines counterterrorism with a focus on building a functioning Afghan state and army, the US may well succeed in keeping its means and ends in balance. Only then will Mr Obama be able to sustain the steady US commitment needed finally to bring peace to Afghanistan.

Charles Kupchan is professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Steven Simon is adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

Our Man in Kabul

What Hamid karzai’s Rise to Power Means For How He Will Govern Now

James Dobbins

Summary

With the cancellation of Afghanistan’s runoff election, Washington is left with Hamid Karzai as its partner in Kabul. How did Karzai come to power in the first place, and what might that say about his ability to rule?

Abdullah Abdullah was the first Afghan to suggest Hamid Karzai should become president of Afghanistan. It was one day in mid-November 2001, and we were in the cockpit of a CIA transport plane heading from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to Afghanistan’s Bagram airfield — just liberated by Northern Alliance fighters — where Abdullah and I were to meet with the rest of the Northern Alliance leadership.

Although Abdullah cautioned that his view was not shared by all his comrades in the alliance, it did have the support of the three most powerful: Muhammad Qasim Fahim, the minister of defense, Younis Qanooni, the minister of the interior, and Abdullah himself, then the alliance’s foreign minister. All three were protégés of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the revered and influential military leader of the Northern Alliance who had been assassinated by al Qaeda operatives on the eve of 9/11.

Abdullah explained that he and his colleagues recognized that the other elements of the Afghan opposition could never unite around a non-Pashtun leader or one identified with the Northern Alliance. Karzai, in contrast, had good connections across the non-Taliban spectrum and a better prospect of forming and holding a broad coalition.

Over the next several weeks, diplomats from India, Iran, Russia, and several European governments echoed Abdullah’s suggestion as they gathered in Bonn, Germany, for a United Nations conference that would establish the new Afghan government. Such consensus seemed remarkable at the time, though I later learned that Abdullah had planted the seed during his earlier travels to these countries.

As Karzai consolidated his power, he reduced his dependence on those who had brought him to power.

As the senior U.S. representative to the conference, I found myself in an unlikely alliance with representatives from Iran, Russia, and India, all of us seeking to persuade disparate groups to agree on an interim constitution and a provisional leadership. Four anti-Taliban Afghan factions were represented in Bonn: in addition to the Northern Alliance, which by late November had secured control of every major city in the country except Kandahar, there was a group loosely aligned with Iran, another based in Pakistan, and a large number of supporters of Mohammad Zahir Shah, the 87-year-old former king of Afghanistan who had been living for several decades in exile in Rome.

There were two main obstacles: first, the rest of the Northern Alliance leadership, including Burhanuddin Rabbani, the alliance’s president, had been driven out of Kabul by the Taliban in 1996 and were reluctant to surrender the positions, ministries, and in Rabbani’s case, the palace, which they had just reoccupied after five years in the hills. And second, at the other end of the spectrum, the large royalist faction favored the restoration of Zahir or a member of his family — or at least a more senior courtier than Karzai.

Karzai was a member of the royalist faction but was still in Afghanistan, where he was leading a Pashtun militia in an ultimately successful effort to capture Kandahar, the country’s last Taliban stronghold. Eventually, all four Afghan factions coalesced around the idea of Karzai leading the next Afghan government.

The selection of Karzai is often attributed to the United States. But, in fact, Washington provided me no guidance on the subject, and I had never met Karzai. It was clear to me, however, that he had much broader international and Afghan support than any other candidate and was the only person on whom this gathering was likely to agree.

Qanooni headed the Northern Alliance delegation. Abdullah remained back in Kabul, where he worked to secure agreement from Rabbani and his colleagues in the Northern Alliance to cede their positions to the new regime being set up in Bonn. Russia, Iran, and India — all longstanding supporters of the Northern Alliance — lent their weight to Abdullah’s ultimately successful effort.

Not surprisingly, Abdullah, Fahim, and Qanooni retained their positions in the new government. But once Karzai took office, he began to come under pressure from his Pashtun constituency to diminish a perceived ethnic Tajik stranglehold on the government’s power ministries. Pakistan — a historical patron of the Taliban — was similarly unhappy, as these three figures were close to India, Iran, and Russia, all of which had supported the alliance’s long insurrection against the Taliban.

As Karzai consolidated his power — first as the interim president chosen by the loya jirga in 2002, and then after being popularly elected to the presidency in 2004 — he reduced his dependence on those who had brought him to power. Karzai first let go of Qanooni, who, in 2002, was demoted to minister of education and then left government to run against Karzai in the 2004 presidential election. Qanooni is now chairman of the lower house of parliament. Fahim served as Karzai’s vice president and defense minister but was disappointed not to be chosen as Karzai’s running mate in 2004. He lost his ministry shortly after Karzai’s victory. Then, in 2006, Karzai unceremoniously dropped Abdullah from the cabinet. (Abdullah learned of his replacement during an official visit to Washington.)

Earlier this year, shaken by mounting criticism from the new Obama administration and preparing to face Abdullah in his campaign for another presidential term, Karzai sought to repair his links with Afghanistan’s large Tajik constituency. He rehabilitated Fahim by selecting him as his running mate.

In the first round of the recent election, Abdullah received more than 30 percent of the vote — almost twice what Qanooni, the runner-up in 2004, had received. But Abdullah chose not to contest the second round, most likely because he recognized the difficulty in closing Karzai’s substantial lead of 17 percentage points, even after nearly a third of Karzai’s original vote count had been disallowed for fraud.

Now that Karzai has been declared the election’s winner, the breach with Abdullah — the man most responsible for his original rise to power — could have very dangerous consequences. The last thing Karzai, NATO, and the United States can afford is the emergence of a renewed northern alliance of disaffected Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras. Together, these ethnic blocs represent at least half the Afghan population.

The last thing Karzai, NATO, and the United States can afford is the emergence of a renewed northern alliance.

Karzai has brought at least two of the former northern warlords to his side — Fahim and Abdul Rashid Dostum — but the strength and geographic distribution of Abdullah’s first round vote suggests that he, not Karzai and Fahim, received the majority of the country’s northern vote. The United States and the rest of the international community will consequently be pressing Karzai in the coming weeks either to bring Abdullah into government or at least provide him a respectable role among the leadership of a loyal opposition. This means affording him and his supporters some share in the spoils of government. Patronage is important to the functioning of political systems — including those in the United States — but is particularly so in impoverished states such as Afghanistan, where there are few other opportunities for advancement.

JAMES DOBBINS is Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation and the author of After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan. He was the Bush administration’s first envoy to Afghanistan.