roadrunner
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Afghanistan tougher than Iraq: Holbrooke: Pakistan needs aid, sympathy
- Thread starter batmannow
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- Corruption and injustice is there in many parts of the world. An AK-47 and a RPG doesn't solve it though
Every one in favour of development but question at which cost ,on basis of IMF and World Bank loan or US aid ,OECF ,IBRD etc.
From last 30 years same practice is continued but we are moving back word in 1985 we have 7 USB loan in 1999 it exceeded to 40USB ,what is net result,
Whole nation is under IMF and World loans, we dont make pakistan for IMF and World Bank to dictate their terms and condition.
That was the reason even having nuke Musharaf failed to withstand pressure of US .
We need to get ride of this bigest lanat(curse) , by not taking more loan to pay back our bad debts.
Practically Pakistan is failed state ,that is reason insurgency can not be controlled but furthur increases because now every body has in depth knowledge what is going on in Top level.
Injustic breeds terrorism and extremism
- I don't think that's true.
batmannow
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Holbrooke visit & kashmir issue!
The News.com
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is a man whose appointment has brought unease within certain quarters in the country. The diplomat is seen as something of a hardliner with little sympathy for Pakistan. In Islamabad, the fact that Kashmir has been removed by Washington from the list of issues on Mr Holbrooke's agenda as he makes his first visit to Pakistan will not have gone down well. It had been expected that the issue of that disputed territory would be brought up strongly by the Pakistan leadership, particularly since the US envoy will be making a trip to New Delhi immediately after completing talks in Pakistan and will discuss the aftermath of Mumbai with Indian leaders. While links between human rights abuses in Kashmir and terrorist attacks in India are still likely to come up when Mr Holbrooke meets the Pakistan president, the prime minister the foreign minister and the COAS, the categorical clarification by the US State Department ahead of the trip that Kashmir does not form a part of his mandate means the ambassador is likely to make an attempt to keep discussion focussed around the Pak-Afghan issue and terrorism in the region.
Holbrooke has described his visit as one aimed at exploring the existing situation and orienting himself with the perspectives and issues that arise from it. Since it comes ahead of an expected Obama administration re-think on the region and a possible policy adjustment, the visit is obviously an important one. The question that arises is what the available options are. Pakistan's leaders are likely to seek an end to drone attacks. In all honesty, it seems unlikely that the US will heed this call given recent comments from Washington about the bombings hitting key targets. Islamabad must also admit there is some truth in this assertion. Islamabad is also likely to call for a resurrection of the Kerry-Lugar-Biden bill offering large-scale economic assistance to Pakistan rather than extending military aid. This is one of the few options available to Washington. Its only other practical choice, given that militancy has continued to expand in Pakistan, is to push ahead with Bush-era policies, aimed at calling for all players to either side with the militants or take a definite stance against them and advocating a military operation against them. The difficulties with such an approach are today visible in Swat.
Islamabad must then focus on the economic aid plan. Of the current options available, this would best suit its interests. It must also, putting doubts aside, focus on building a relationship with Mr Holbrooke and his team. The US sees regional cooperation, between Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, as crucial to peace in the region. Pakistan must ensure it is not left stranded somewhere on the sidelines as this partnership is put in place.
The News.com
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, is a man whose appointment has brought unease within certain quarters in the country. The diplomat is seen as something of a hardliner with little sympathy for Pakistan. In Islamabad, the fact that Kashmir has been removed by Washington from the list of issues on Mr Holbrooke's agenda as he makes his first visit to Pakistan will not have gone down well. It had been expected that the issue of that disputed territory would be brought up strongly by the Pakistan leadership, particularly since the US envoy will be making a trip to New Delhi immediately after completing talks in Pakistan and will discuss the aftermath of Mumbai with Indian leaders. While links between human rights abuses in Kashmir and terrorist attacks in India are still likely to come up when Mr Holbrooke meets the Pakistan president, the prime minister the foreign minister and the COAS, the categorical clarification by the US State Department ahead of the trip that Kashmir does not form a part of his mandate means the ambassador is likely to make an attempt to keep discussion focussed around the Pak-Afghan issue and terrorism in the region.
Holbrooke has described his visit as one aimed at exploring the existing situation and orienting himself with the perspectives and issues that arise from it. Since it comes ahead of an expected Obama administration re-think on the region and a possible policy adjustment, the visit is obviously an important one. The question that arises is what the available options are. Pakistan's leaders are likely to seek an end to drone attacks. In all honesty, it seems unlikely that the US will heed this call given recent comments from Washington about the bombings hitting key targets. Islamabad must also admit there is some truth in this assertion. Islamabad is also likely to call for a resurrection of the Kerry-Lugar-Biden bill offering large-scale economic assistance to Pakistan rather than extending military aid. This is one of the few options available to Washington. Its only other practical choice, given that militancy has continued to expand in Pakistan, is to push ahead with Bush-era policies, aimed at calling for all players to either side with the militants or take a definite stance against them and advocating a military operation against them. The difficulties with such an approach are today visible in Swat.
Islamabad must then focus on the economic aid plan. Of the current options available, this would best suit its interests. It must also, putting doubts aside, focus on building a relationship with Mr Holbrooke and his team. The US sees regional cooperation, between Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, as crucial to peace in the region. Pakistan must ensure it is not left stranded somewhere on the sidelines as this partnership is put in place.
batmannow
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Waiting for Richard Holbrooke/ Richard Holbrooke vist to india!
M.K. Bhadrakumar
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009
The Hindu.com/ePaper
Like in Samuel Beckett’s famous play, southwest Asians have been waiting by the wayside for Richard Holbrooke, United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unlike Godot who never showed up, Mr. Holbrooke arrived in Islamabad on Monday. He will travel onward to Afghanistan, and wind his way back to Washington via New Delhi.
The U.S. State Department’s acting spokesman Robert Wood described Mr. Holbrooke’s tour as an “orientation trip” in which “he is not going to lecture”. He explained that New Delhi figures in the itinerary as “India’s an important country in the region and has interests in Afghanistan, and he [Mr. Holbrooke] wants to hear from the Indian government in terms of how we can all better contribute to peace and stability in Afghanistan”. Mr. Wood did not use buzzwords like “grand bargain”, and when asked whether Mr. Holbrooke was “planning on bringing up” Kashmir issue, he sidestepped saying, “Kashmir was never part of his portfolio.”
From our perspective, a useful opportunity is at hand to put forth our assessments and suggestions regarding Afghanistan. To be sure, any meaningful role that India can play in the period ahead will depend on how creative our suggestions and opinions are for stabilising the Afghan situation. We need to bear in mind that in the ultimate analysis, compared to Pakistan, our ability to influence the ground situation in the Hindu Kush has always been limited, no matter the texture of India-Afghanistan relations at a bilateral level. Equally, Mr. Holbrooke is on a mission to probe how to work with Pakistan. The U.S. Vice-President, Joseph Biden, underscored this in Munich on Saturday in a major speech saying, “no strategy for Afghanistan, in my humble opinion, can succeed without Pakistan.” As a seasoned diplomat, therefore, Mr. Holbrooke’s first instinct will be to look to find common interests with Islamabad to work with.
First and foremost, there are expectations within the Pakistani establishment that Mr. Holbrooke can be persuaded to see that his mandate is “circumscribed” and that he should widen the scope of his mission by “engaging Pakistan-India relations via Afghanistan,” to quote an influential Pakistani commentator. This expectation is predicated on the reasoning that Afghanistan has become the “new arena for the old subcontinental rivalry to be played out.” Of course, this is a fanciful expectation based on adversarial mindset. But all the same, we need to factor it.
Two, Mr. Holbrooke may not get into the nut-and-bolt issues but, arguably, some pressing specifics cannot brook delay such as the efficacy of securing the NATO’s supply routes via Khyber. According to Russian intelligence estimates, roughly half of the NATO supplies transiting Pakistan gets pilfered by motley groups of the Taliban, black marketeers or plain thieves. The western alliance is conscious of the need to pare down the heavy dependence on the Pakistani transit route, which presently ferries upto a staggering 80 per cent of the supplies for Afghanistan. In a major policy shift that would have Washington’s concurrence, the NATO has indicated it is open to using alternate supply routes via Iran.
In practical terms, the NATO is keen to use the road link that India constructed recently that connects Afghanistan with the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Makran Coast. India at one time had a $150 million project for the construction of two container piers at Chabahar. We were also into railways projects in this region. Specifically, if there is anyway that India can strengthen the NATO’s logistic capabilities, this is the time to make suggestions. Recently, for example, the U.S. signed an agreement to procure a “significant part” of the NATO supplies for Afghanistan from Kazakhstan.
Working with Iran over Afghanistan has always worked to India’s advantage politically, as there is no clash of interests. In the present context, it will also have the collateral gain of elevating the bilateral ties with Iran from their present trough, which is only desirable given the expected Washington-Tehran engagement and the realignment in the Persian Gulf that is sure to follow. Three, we should not fail to engage Mr. Holbrooke as regards the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan. Indeed, the U.S. administration is still working on its Afghan strategy and a full picture may emerge only by the time the NATO holds its 60th anniversary summit on April 3-4. But from available details, the primacy of the military hammer may prevail.
We should point out to Mr. Holbrooke that while military operations are unavoidable in the short run, the overall strategy will remain incomplete unless a parallel track of inter-Afghan dialogue commences. The Bonn conference of 2001 was a flawed enterprise of peacemaking that summarily distributed the war booty among victors and ignored the vanquished. But peace is indivisible and a course correction is needed — the sooner the better. Specifically, we need to ponder what we can do to help kickstart a political process, assuming, of course, we nurtured links with diverse Afghan groups through the past 7-year period.
Four, we would agree with the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner when he said following talks in Washington with the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on February 5, “I think that the key word about Afghanistan is what I call ‘Afghanisation.’ That means we must give the people in Afghanistan control of their own destiny…we need to make it known to Afghan people that they are in control of their own progress and their own future…” All the same, Mr. Kouchner, who is an “Afghan veteran” having served as a doctor with the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s added, “Afghanisation is not an easy task.” Part of the current tension between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. relates to the issue of ‘Afghanisation.’ We should offer to assist in the ‘Afghanisation’ process in ways that will serve the overall objectives of stabilisation of Afghanistan.
Five, of course, the schism between Mr. Karzai and the U.S. administration is widening and its denouement remains unclear. Mr. Karzai has been a friend of India. We should caution the U.S. about the perils of forcing “regime change” in Kabul. Again, there are all sorts of ideas floating around suggesting that Afghanistan has become a dysfunctional state and, therefore, should switch to a decentralised form of government that relies on local leaderships. Clearly, this is not the time for experimentation through trial and error. The prudent course is to create a level playing field in the forthcoming presidential election on August 20 and leave matters to take shape in a quintessential Afghan way. Whoever emerges through a native Afghan process of consensus building should be the fittest to lead that fragmented country, and the international community should learn to work with him.
Six, Mr. Holbrooke’s “Afpak” mandate — as Washington insiders call it — provides us the backdrop to exchange views on the regional strategy, which focuses on Pakistan. Pakistan’s projection of power into Afghanistan through the past decades has stemmed from the unresolved nationality question involving the Pashtun tribes straddling the Durand Line. That remains the core issue. Pakistan’s half-hearted participation in undertaking military operations in the tribal areas, desertion by the demoralised troops and their unwillingness to fight against their own people, etc. must be seen in perspective. From all accounts, the Pakistani politicians do not see eye to eye while military operations are radicalising the local population, snapping the tribal system, and marginalising the civil administration in ways that are not conducive to peace and stability. No doubt, the melancholy truth is that all centres of power in Pakistan must commit unambiguously to the fight against terrorism militarily and politically.
Finally, there are signs that the U.S. is inclined to redefine success in the region, shifting away from the breath-taking transformative goals of the past towards something “achievable.” Taking advantage of this, conceivably, Pakistani establishment would underscore to Mr. Holbrooke that a distinguishing line be drawn between what is vital and what is desirable, that is, to “separate” the Al-Qaeda from the Taliban, engage the latter in a reconciliation process by presenting them with an offer on power-sharing they cannot refuse.
While with Asia Society, Mr. Holbrooke and a small group, which included General James L. Jones (who has since taken over as national security advisor in the White House), apparently conducted a study recommending that the U.S. declare an end to the “war on terror” and negotiate with Taliban leaders who are willing to separate from Al-Qaeda. Surely, this approach has implications for international security. We should flag the supreme importance of forging a regional consensus regarding such parameters of peacemaking.
Which brings us to the geopolitics of Afghan war. India cannot remain indifferent towards the negative fallouts of the U.S’s “containment” strategy towards Russia and Iran for regional stability. Mr. Holbrooke’s postmodern diplomacy should be receptive to our suggestions for evolving an Afghan strategy that genuinely broadens regional participation and becomes an underpinning of enduring peace.
(The writer is a former ambassador and Indian Foreign Service officer.)
M.K. Bhadrakumar
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2009
The Hindu.com/ePaper
Like in Samuel Beckett’s famous play, southwest Asians have been waiting by the wayside for Richard Holbrooke, United States Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unlike Godot who never showed up, Mr. Holbrooke arrived in Islamabad on Monday. He will travel onward to Afghanistan, and wind his way back to Washington via New Delhi.
The U.S. State Department’s acting spokesman Robert Wood described Mr. Holbrooke’s tour as an “orientation trip” in which “he is not going to lecture”. He explained that New Delhi figures in the itinerary as “India’s an important country in the region and has interests in Afghanistan, and he [Mr. Holbrooke] wants to hear from the Indian government in terms of how we can all better contribute to peace and stability in Afghanistan”. Mr. Wood did not use buzzwords like “grand bargain”, and when asked whether Mr. Holbrooke was “planning on bringing up” Kashmir issue, he sidestepped saying, “Kashmir was never part of his portfolio.”
From our perspective, a useful opportunity is at hand to put forth our assessments and suggestions regarding Afghanistan. To be sure, any meaningful role that India can play in the period ahead will depend on how creative our suggestions and opinions are for stabilising the Afghan situation. We need to bear in mind that in the ultimate analysis, compared to Pakistan, our ability to influence the ground situation in the Hindu Kush has always been limited, no matter the texture of India-Afghanistan relations at a bilateral level. Equally, Mr. Holbrooke is on a mission to probe how to work with Pakistan. The U.S. Vice-President, Joseph Biden, underscored this in Munich on Saturday in a major speech saying, “no strategy for Afghanistan, in my humble opinion, can succeed without Pakistan.” As a seasoned diplomat, therefore, Mr. Holbrooke’s first instinct will be to look to find common interests with Islamabad to work with.
First and foremost, there are expectations within the Pakistani establishment that Mr. Holbrooke can be persuaded to see that his mandate is “circumscribed” and that he should widen the scope of his mission by “engaging Pakistan-India relations via Afghanistan,” to quote an influential Pakistani commentator. This expectation is predicated on the reasoning that Afghanistan has become the “new arena for the old subcontinental rivalry to be played out.” Of course, this is a fanciful expectation based on adversarial mindset. But all the same, we need to factor it.
Two, Mr. Holbrooke may not get into the nut-and-bolt issues but, arguably, some pressing specifics cannot brook delay such as the efficacy of securing the NATO’s supply routes via Khyber. According to Russian intelligence estimates, roughly half of the NATO supplies transiting Pakistan gets pilfered by motley groups of the Taliban, black marketeers or plain thieves. The western alliance is conscious of the need to pare down the heavy dependence on the Pakistani transit route, which presently ferries upto a staggering 80 per cent of the supplies for Afghanistan. In a major policy shift that would have Washington’s concurrence, the NATO has indicated it is open to using alternate supply routes via Iran.
In practical terms, the NATO is keen to use the road link that India constructed recently that connects Afghanistan with the Iranian port of Chabahar on the Makran Coast. India at one time had a $150 million project for the construction of two container piers at Chabahar. We were also into railways projects in this region. Specifically, if there is anyway that India can strengthen the NATO’s logistic capabilities, this is the time to make suggestions. Recently, for example, the U.S. signed an agreement to procure a “significant part” of the NATO supplies for Afghanistan from Kazakhstan.
Working with Iran over Afghanistan has always worked to India’s advantage politically, as there is no clash of interests. In the present context, it will also have the collateral gain of elevating the bilateral ties with Iran from their present trough, which is only desirable given the expected Washington-Tehran engagement and the realignment in the Persian Gulf that is sure to follow. Three, we should not fail to engage Mr. Holbrooke as regards the U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan. Indeed, the U.S. administration is still working on its Afghan strategy and a full picture may emerge only by the time the NATO holds its 60th anniversary summit on April 3-4. But from available details, the primacy of the military hammer may prevail.
We should point out to Mr. Holbrooke that while military operations are unavoidable in the short run, the overall strategy will remain incomplete unless a parallel track of inter-Afghan dialogue commences. The Bonn conference of 2001 was a flawed enterprise of peacemaking that summarily distributed the war booty among victors and ignored the vanquished. But peace is indivisible and a course correction is needed — the sooner the better. Specifically, we need to ponder what we can do to help kickstart a political process, assuming, of course, we nurtured links with diverse Afghan groups through the past 7-year period.
Four, we would agree with the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner when he said following talks in Washington with the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on February 5, “I think that the key word about Afghanistan is what I call ‘Afghanisation.’ That means we must give the people in Afghanistan control of their own destiny…we need to make it known to Afghan people that they are in control of their own progress and their own future…” All the same, Mr. Kouchner, who is an “Afghan veteran” having served as a doctor with the Afghan Mujahideen in the 1980s added, “Afghanisation is not an easy task.” Part of the current tension between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. relates to the issue of ‘Afghanisation.’ We should offer to assist in the ‘Afghanisation’ process in ways that will serve the overall objectives of stabilisation of Afghanistan.
Five, of course, the schism between Mr. Karzai and the U.S. administration is widening and its denouement remains unclear. Mr. Karzai has been a friend of India. We should caution the U.S. about the perils of forcing “regime change” in Kabul. Again, there are all sorts of ideas floating around suggesting that Afghanistan has become a dysfunctional state and, therefore, should switch to a decentralised form of government that relies on local leaderships. Clearly, this is not the time for experimentation through trial and error. The prudent course is to create a level playing field in the forthcoming presidential election on August 20 and leave matters to take shape in a quintessential Afghan way. Whoever emerges through a native Afghan process of consensus building should be the fittest to lead that fragmented country, and the international community should learn to work with him.
Six, Mr. Holbrooke’s “Afpak” mandate — as Washington insiders call it — provides us the backdrop to exchange views on the regional strategy, which focuses on Pakistan. Pakistan’s projection of power into Afghanistan through the past decades has stemmed from the unresolved nationality question involving the Pashtun tribes straddling the Durand Line. That remains the core issue. Pakistan’s half-hearted participation in undertaking military operations in the tribal areas, desertion by the demoralised troops and their unwillingness to fight against their own people, etc. must be seen in perspective. From all accounts, the Pakistani politicians do not see eye to eye while military operations are radicalising the local population, snapping the tribal system, and marginalising the civil administration in ways that are not conducive to peace and stability. No doubt, the melancholy truth is that all centres of power in Pakistan must commit unambiguously to the fight against terrorism militarily and politically.
Finally, there are signs that the U.S. is inclined to redefine success in the region, shifting away from the breath-taking transformative goals of the past towards something “achievable.” Taking advantage of this, conceivably, Pakistani establishment would underscore to Mr. Holbrooke that a distinguishing line be drawn between what is vital and what is desirable, that is, to “separate” the Al-Qaeda from the Taliban, engage the latter in a reconciliation process by presenting them with an offer on power-sharing they cannot refuse.
While with Asia Society, Mr. Holbrooke and a small group, which included General James L. Jones (who has since taken over as national security advisor in the White House), apparently conducted a study recommending that the U.S. declare an end to the “war on terror” and negotiate with Taliban leaders who are willing to separate from Al-Qaeda. Surely, this approach has implications for international security. We should flag the supreme importance of forging a regional consensus regarding such parameters of peacemaking.
Which brings us to the geopolitics of Afghan war. India cannot remain indifferent towards the negative fallouts of the U.S’s “containment” strategy towards Russia and Iran for regional stability. Mr. Holbrooke’s postmodern diplomacy should be receptive to our suggestions for evolving an Afghan strategy that genuinely broadens regional participation and becomes an underpinning of enduring peace.
(The writer is a former ambassador and Indian Foreign Service officer.)
batmannow
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February 12, 2009 Thursday Safar 16, 1430
Holbrooke flies over tribal areas, Swat
DAWNNEWS.COM
By Zulfiqar Ali
PESHAWAR: US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke made an extensive aerial visit of the tribal region and Swat on Wednesday.
In Peshawar, according to security officials, Mr Holbrooke met NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani, Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti and Corps Commander Lt-Gen Masood Aslam.
They said the diplomat flew over South and North Waziristan and other parts of the tribal area and Swat. A security official said he was briefed on the existing security situation and what needed to be done.
AFP adds: Mr Holbrooke travelled to Mohmand tribal region by helicopter, where senior military officials briefed him about ongoing military operations in the area, a military official said.
During his meeting with the governor, the US diplomat discussed cooperation between Pakistan and the United States in the war on terror, an official said.
Mr Ghani also briefed Mr Holbrooke about the ongoing military operation and development projects that the government has launched in the tribal region.
The US envoy later flew to Lahore, where he was expected to meet Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif and business leaders.
Holbrooke flies over tribal areas, Swat
DAWNNEWS.COM
By Zulfiqar Ali
PESHAWAR: US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke made an extensive aerial visit of the tribal region and Swat on Wednesday.
In Peshawar, according to security officials, Mr Holbrooke met NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani, Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti and Corps Commander Lt-Gen Masood Aslam.
They said the diplomat flew over South and North Waziristan and other parts of the tribal area and Swat. A security official said he was briefed on the existing security situation and what needed to be done.
AFP adds: Mr Holbrooke travelled to Mohmand tribal region by helicopter, where senior military officials briefed him about ongoing military operations in the area, a military official said.
During his meeting with the governor, the US diplomat discussed cooperation between Pakistan and the United States in the war on terror, an official said.
Mr Ghani also briefed Mr Holbrooke about the ongoing military operation and development projects that the government has launched in the tribal region.
The US envoy later flew to Lahore, where he was expected to meet Pakistan Muslim League-N chief Nawaz Sharif and business leaders.
Solomon2
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I suppose the people of Tokelau must be a lot brighter and better informed!
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