Has Pak. been sidelined by the Indo-Afgh. Strategic Agreement?

[Vinod2070]

There are Afghans that are graveyards?

OK, let me be specific.

The phrase has been used for Afghan lands across the Khyber.

I personally find it pathetic. It is more Afghans who have been to the graveyard because of the "great game". The rest could always choose to retreat when things got a bit uncomfortable.

 

[Awesome]

OK, let me be specific.

The phrase has been used for Afghan lands across the Khyber.

I personally find it pathetic. It is more Afghans who have been to the graveyard because of the "great game". The rest could always choose to retreat when things got a bit uncomfortable.

I still don't understand it.

Basic point is people are doubting we have power of Afghanistan, since they have buried superpowers. Only difference is the single biggest group in Afghanistan will still stand in our support not against us simply because unlike the others we are not going to go after occupying them.

For a long period of time, people peddled the nonsense that the Taliban are Pakistanis, some idiots in the Capitol Hill still believe the Haqqanis are Pakistanis too. The biggest most strongest group in Afghanistan are not our enemies. So what makes you think when we say we'll not stand for an Indian offensive from Afghanistan what makes you think save the governmental stooges, everyone else in Afghanistan won't let us?

 

[Vinod2070]

I still don't understand it.

Basic point is people are doubting we have power of Afghanistan, since they have buried superpowers. Only difference is the single biggest group in Afghanistan will still stand in our support not against us simply because unlike the others we are not going to go after occupying them.

Which is that group?

Pakistani Pushtuns? Afghan Pushtuns? Both?

Are you really so sure?

In fact, you have successfully managed to antagonize all factions in Afghanistan. That includes all non Pushtuns, Pushtuns who hate Taliban and those who support Taliban.

Strategic depth has failed you. Time to let go of a failed policy before it consumes you.

For a long period of time, people peddled the nonsense that the Taliban are Pakistanis, some idiots in the Capitol Hill still believe the Haqqanis are Pakistanis too. The biggest most strongest group in Afghanistan are not our enemies. So what makes you think when we say we'll not stand for an Indian offensive from Afghanistan what makes you think save the governmental stooges, everyone else in Afghanistan won't let us?

They are not? Just check with Afghan Pushtuns.

I thought they are the ones that don't recognize the Durand line and are out to "liberate" your Pushtuns?

 

[EjazR]

Transcript of the Lecture by H.E Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan At the Observer Research Foundation

Transcript of the Lecture by H.E Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan At the Observer Research Foundation - Office of the President

an excerpt

In the past 10 years I have been witness to efforts by India and Pakistan, one that began by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the other that began by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mr Gilani. I appreciate both the efforts. As I talk to them Nawaz Sharif, Mr Vajpayee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Mr Gilani, are as much desirous of peace as anyone of us in this room and beyond. I hope the polity as a whole can get together and go beyond the established tendencies, and Afghanistan will spend no stone unturned, Afghanistan will not fall short of any measure that brings that. So, Afghanistan’s grapes can reach you not on a plane, on an IL-76 or something like but in a truck from Kabul to Delhi, as delicious and fresh as they are in Kabul or in Kandahar or in Jalalabad. So, we can have eventually the vision of Dr Manmohan Singh where we can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore, dinner in Kabul and perhaps the next breakfast in Tehran. This is the vision that I have and this is surely the vision of the millions and millions of inhabitants that this region have. I will continue to work in tremendous and honesty with our brothers in Pakistan.

The signing of the strategic partnership yesterday with India I must emphasise and reemphasise is not directed against any country, is not directed against any other entity. This is for Afghanistan to benefit from the strength of India. India fortunately has the strength to help us. This is for Afghanistan to use the possibilities that India has and offers to make our life better, to educate our children, to train our police, to train our army, to train our physicians, to train our lab technicians. The strategic partnership that we have is to support Afghanistan develop. I am sure this partnership will benefit us. My plea today is that we grow beyond the environment of lack of trust, if not hatred.

For me, the vision for the future is what this region has. Ladies and gentlemen, if you look closer this region is in terms of its people more assembled, more united, more culturally together than any other region. Do you have in Russia, a great German poet? No. Do, we have in Italy, a great French poet? No. But we have in India, Bedil, a great Persian poet, but we have in Pakistan Iqbal a great Persian and Urdu poet. Do you have anywhere in the world where in a distance of thousands of kilometres someone like Tagore writing about the life of a merchant in the other country of that region? No. But Tagore has written Kabuliwalah. Do you have in any other part of the world a singer like Lata Mangeshkarji who would listen to Mehdi Hassan or Mehdi Hassan who would listen to Bhimsen Joshi, or Kushal Khan Khattak who would speak of the beauty of India. Our Ghalib would be read by all of us, from the shores of the Arabian sea to the other end of this continent. Ask any Afghan, they will tell you about Shah Rukh Khan, ask any Afghan they will talk about Shammi Kapoorji, the late Shammi Kapoor. Ask any Pakistani, they would love the Indian songs. Ask any Indian, they would love Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. This is the foundation that we have and this is the foundation upon which I hope with tremendous aspirations that we can build towards a future where we can be not only peaceful but very prosperous countries, prosperous people, where I can as a retired citizen of Afghanistan also be a retired citizen of South Asia. That is my dream.

Thank you very much.

 

[monitor]

“Pakistan is a twin brother, India is a great friend. The agreement that we signed yesterday with our friend will not affect our brother,” Karzai told an audience in New Delhi.

He realized without Pakistan no agreement can bring peace in Afghanistan .

 

[pakdefender]

once the cover of NATO/US forces is gone , india will get out of afghanistan double time and this agreement will go down the toilet

 

[lem34]

Cant believe that this silly thread is still going. puppet regime and i repeat puppet regime likes india doesnt make an iota of difference to pakistan or ground realities

 

[karan.1970]

Cant believe that this silly thread is still going. puppet regime and i repeat puppet regime likes india doesnt make an iota of difference to pakistan or ground realities

Who would you rather have liking you?? Puppet regime or terrorists ???

 

[53fd]

Who would you rather have liking you?? Puppet regime or terrorists ???

They're not mutually exclusive.

Never terrorists, or extremists. The will of the people. Pakistanis brought Zardari to power, so it was neither in Pakistan's case.

 

[monitor]

Karzai‘s great gamble
on October 10, 2011 by

By Tanvir Ahmad Khan

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has an unenviable task. The land he rules, with an uncertain hand, has been ravaged by three decades of conflict. Billions of dollars have flowed in, largely outside official Afghan channels, to create a war economy that leaves the ordinary Afghan out in the cold even as the number of indigenous millionaires multiplies. The 150,000-strong foreign forces, are by now so harassed by the resistance groups that they have pulled out of the larger task of national reconstruction and restricted themselves to raising an army beyond Afghanistan’s financial means for a long time to come.

The agreement on strategic partnership that Karzai signed with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on October 4, invokes the Treaty of Friendship that Kabul entered into with New Delhi more than 61 years ago. India was then a poor country and, in actual practice, used the ingress provided by that treaty mostly to fan the anti-Pakistan Pashtunistan movement. By the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union had arrived with projects to train and equip a considerably expanded Afghan military, an event that inexorably led to the ‘Saur Revolution’ and the 30 year conflict. India played the second fiddle at the time, just as it has tried in the last few years to piggy-back on the Americans, to position itself as a major actor in shaping Afghanistan’s future.

India has today, the economic resources to provide tangible assistance for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan’s shattered infrastructure, education and health. That this assistance is not entirely altruistic and has an underlying dimension of strategic planning could be seen in projects like the Delaram road, the preoccupation with Northern provinces and the proliferation of offices that camouflage a growing intelligence capability. India has now unabashedly used economic cooperation as the thin end of the wedge to get involved with the Afghan security forces. This problematic development has followed the ‘operationalising’ of an Indian airbase in Tajikistan.

The rationale for greater bilateral and multilateral economic cooperation set out in the new Strategic Pact reflects progressive thinking. Pakistan’s own trade with Afghanistan has a much larger turn over than what gets recorded at Torkham and Chaman, because of scores of other inlets/outlets used for the flow of goods. Given this advantage, Pakistan should not fear Indian competition. The Pact’s hope for Afghanistan to ‘emerge as a trade, transportation and energy hub connecting Central and South Asia’ depends considerably on Pakistan being an essential part of that visionary highway of the commerce of nations. India’s plunge into the conflicted security situation in Afghanistan is, however, not only unconscionable but militates against this envisioned economic architecture. New Delhi does not want the winding down of the western military effort against the Taliban. This factor alone will make the Indian security intervention highly controversial.

What are its aspects that Pakistan should fear? First and foremost, India is weighing in to support security plans that strengthen the grip of the erstwhile ‘Northern Alliance’ on the Afghan National Army, paramilitary forces and intelligence outfits. This will exacerbate the north-south tensions, prolong the conflict, and act as a factor of instability on both sides of the Durand line. Secondly, it is most unlikely that the hugely funded Indian intelligence services desist from using the enhanced Indian presence in Afghanistan to Pakistan’s detriment. This will inevitably become an irritant in Islamabad’s bilateral relations, both, with Kabul and New Delhi.

As his options in his own country diminish, President Karzai seems to be inclined to gamble. Reacting to the tragic assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, he publicly despaired of further contacts with the Taliban. On the eve of his visit to New Delhi, his office issued reckless anti-Pakistan statements. In New Delhi, he tried to limit damage by describing Pakistan as a brother. Karzai’s ambassador in Islamabad visited the Pakistan foreign Office as well as General Kayani. This is rather disingenuous. Pakistan’s best option is to candidly share with President Karzai its own forthright assessment of the perils inherent in opening its security structures to yet another power in quest of a well defined zone of influence. It should be accompanied by readiness to participate in any viable project of multilateral economic cooperation as a trade off with dangerous militaristic plans.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2011.

 

[Cheetah786]

Operation Enduring Freedom – the dreadfully misnamed ten-year US occupation of Afghanistan – has turned into Operation Enduring Misery.



The renowned military strategist, Maj. Gen. J.F.C Fuller, defined war’s true objective as achieving desired political results, not killing enemies.

But this is just what the US has been doing in Afghanistan. After ten years of war costing at least $450 billion, 1,600 dead and 15,000 seriously wounded soldiers, the US has achieved none of its strategic or political goals.

Each US soldier in Afghanistan costs $1 million per annum. CIA employs 80,000 mercenaries there, cost unknown. The US spends a staggering $20.2 billion alone annually air conditioning troop quarters in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The most damning assessment comes from the US-installed Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai: America’s war has been “ineffective, apart from causing civilian casualties.”

Washington’s goal was a favorable political settlement producing a pacified Afghan state run by a regime totally responsive to US political, economic and strategic interests; a native sepoy army led by white officers; and US bases that threaten Iran, watch China, and control the energy-rich Caspian Basin.

All the claims made about fighting “terrorism and al-Qaida,” liberating Afghan women and bringing democracy are pro-war window dressing. CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 25-50 al-Qaida members in Afghanistan. Why are there 150,000 US and NATO troops there?

Washington’s real objective was clearly defined in 2007 by US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher: to “stabilize Afghanistan so it can become a conduit and hub between South and Central Asia – so energy can flow south.”

The Turkmenistan-Afghan-Pakistan TAPI gas pipeline that the US has sought since 1998 is finally nearing completion. But whether it can operate in the face of sabotage remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Washington has been unable to create a stable government in Kabul. The primary reason: ethnic politics. Over half the population is Pashtun (or Pathan), from whose ranks come Taliban. Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities fiercely oppose the Pashtun. All three collaborated with the Soviet occupation from 1979-1989; today they collaborate with the US and NATO occupation.

Most of the Afghan army and police, on which the US spends $6 billion annually, are Tajiks and Uzbek, many members of the old Afghan Communist Party. To Pashtun, they are bitter enemies. In Afghanistan, the US has built its political house on ethnic quicksands.

Worse, US-run Afghanistan now produces 93% of the world’s most dangerous narcotic, heroin. Under Taliban, drug production virtually ended, according to the UN. Today, the Afghan drug business is booming. The US tries to blame Taliban; but the real culprits are high government officials in Kabul and US-backed warlords.

A senior UN drug official recently asserted that Afghan heroin killed 10,000 people in NATO countries last year. And this does not include Russia, a primary destination for Afghan heroin.

So the United States is now the proud owner of the world’s leading narco-state and deeply involved with the Afghan Tajik drug mafia.

The US is bleeding billions in Afghanistan. Forty-four cents of every dollar spent by Washington is borrowed from China and Japan. While the US has wasted $1.283 trillion on the so-called “war on terror,” China has been busy buying up resources and making new friends and markets. The ghost of Osama bin Laden must be smiling.

The US can’t afford this endless war against the fierce Pashtun people, renowned for making Afghanistan “the Graveyard of Empires.” But the imperial establishment in Washington wants to hold on to strategic Afghanistan, particularly the ex-Soviet air bases at Bagram and Kandahar. The US is building its biggest embassy in the world in Kabul, an $800 million fortress with 1,000 personnel, protected by a small army of mercenary gunmen. So much for withdrawal plans.

The stumbling, confused US war in Afghanistan has now lasted longer than the two world wars. The former US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McCrystal, just said Washington’s view of that nation is “frighteningly simplistic.” That’s an understatement.

Facing the possibility of stalemate or even defeat in Afghanistan, Washington is trying to push India deeper into the conflict. This desperate ploy, and nurturing ethnic conflict, will ensure another decade of misery for Afghanistan.



Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2011

So simply Put it Indians will supply soldiers under the command of white officers to try to control Afghanistan as the body bags will fly to India and not USA Americans can declare situation under control or the war has been won Indians will protect TAPI and other American assets in Afghanistan one question who will be paying the bill Uncle or INDIA.

So uncle not only build India against china but seems like they will be using them against others at the same time nice.

 

[Ahmad]

I still don't understand it.

Basic point is people are doubting we have power of Afghanistan, since they have buried superpowers. Only difference is the single biggest group in Afghanistan will still stand in our support not against us simply because unlike the others we are not going to go after occupying them.

For a long period of time, people peddled the nonsense that the Taliban are Pakistanis, some idiots in the Capitol Hill still believe the Haqqanis are Pakistanis too. The biggest most strongest group in Afghanistan are not our enemies. So what makes you think when we say we'll not stand for an Indian offensive from Afghanistan what makes you think save the governmental stooges, everyone else in Afghanistan won't let us?

Tell me who did not recognize your independence? Who is still claiming on parts of your country?

 

[Abhishek_]

PK cannot be sidelined. AF & PK need to reconcile their differences lest other players continue trying to drive a wedge between them.
If there is a wound, flies will come to breed. It is up to the two countries to heal the wounds asap.

 

[Ahmad]

Over half the population is Pashtun (or Pathan), from whose ranks come Taliban. Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara minorities fiercely oppose the Pashtun. All three collaborated with the Soviet occupation from 1979-1989; today they collaborate with the US and NATO occupation.Most of the Afghan army and police, on which the US spends $6 billion annually, are Tajiks and Uzbek, many members of the old Afghan Communist Party. To Pashtun, they are bitter enemies. In Afghanistan, the US has built its political house on ethnic quicksands.

Worse, US-run Afghanistan now produces 93% of the world’s most dangerous narcotic, heroin. Under Taliban, drug production virtually ended, according to the UN. Today, the Afghan drug business is booming. The US tries to blame Taliban; but the real culprits are high government officials in Kabul and US-backed warlords.


So the United States is now the proud owner of the world’s leading narco-state and deeply involved with the Afghan Tajik drug mafia.


The US can’t afford this endless war against the fierce Pashtun people, renowned for making Afghanistan “the Graveyard of Empires.” But the imperial establishment in Washington wants to hold on to strategic Afghanistan,
Facing the possibility of stalemate or even defeat in Afghanistan, Washington is trying to push India deeper into the conflict. This desperate ploy, and nurturing ethnic conflict, will ensure another decade of misery for Afghanistan.



Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2011

So simply Put it Indians will supply soldiers under the command of white officers to try to control Afghanistan as the body bags will fly to India and not USA Americans can declare situation under control or the war has been won Indians will protect TAPI and other American assets in Afghanistan one question who will be paying the bill Uncle or INDIA.

So uncle not only build India against china but seems like they will be using them against others at the same time nice.

what a rubbish.

 

[PakShah]

what a rubbish.

Your opinion is rubbish. You can't back your statements with proof. Cheetah backed his statements with proof. Lets say for the sake of argument that Pathans are not more than 50% but are 42% of the population of Afghanistan, Pathans are the most united, largest group, strongest, and occupy most of Afghanistan. The Taliban are Pathan and they control 73% of Afghanistan. How much do the Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmen control?
Even the Hazaras have their difference with the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmen, as Hazaras are Shias.

The fact that Taliban control 73% of Afghanistan is common knowledge and the fact that Taliban are mainly Pathan is also common knowledge.

See look where the Pathans are. The occupy most of Afghanistan.

Now for the topic:

lol, nobody is taking Karzai seriously. The Americans know they are losing in Afghanistan.
Karzai is just the major of Kabul.

Reality check: The Taliban controls 73% of Afghanistan.