Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency 'supports' Taliban: UK University

[SMC]

Why Waldman must be sued​

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Mosharraf Zaidi

The buzz being generated by an LSE discussion paper is truly electric. The paper itself is rather unremarkable, alleging long-alleged, long-acknowledged, and long-standing links between Pakistani intelligence and the Kandahari Taliban (those Taliban associated with Mullah Omar and the original extremist political movement that rose in the Afghanistan of the 1990s). What is remarkable however is the vigor and confidence with which the author uses already established theories and facts to libel the president of Pakistan.

Matt Waldman, the Carr Center fellow who wrote the report claims to have interviewed 54 different people, out of which at least nine are Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan, ten are former Taliban government officials, twenty-two are Afghan "elders", and thirteen are foreign diplomats, analysts and experts. In a report that is essentially about Pakistan, Waldman must be the world's unluckiest researcher, having been unable to interview a single one of Pakistan's more than 180 million people. Waldman is at least honest about this, claiming no conversations with Pakistani officials, military officers, or indeed, any ISI agents. Not having spoken to an ISI agent is an aspect of the report that stands out. Because, if there is one thing Waldman's research really tries to prove, it is that the easiest thing to find in Afghanistan, other than finely-cut heroin, are ISI agents.

Remarkably, not a single one of the 54 honest and endearing protagonists in Matt Waldman's story wanted to be cited by name, or go on the record. In the footnote detailing who the nine Taliban field commanders are, he offers no details, stating that "Due to safety concerns each commander insisted on anonymity". This is terribly confusing. Waldman's Taliban commanders don't seem to have any particular safety concerns when blowing up and killing Gen Stanley McChrystal's JSOC boys while they are on patrol in Helmand. But an LSE report with their names in it scares the jihad right out of them?

Of course, Waldman is not the first to ravage Pakistan's policy of supporting religiously-motivated armed groups that support Pakistan's foreign policy objectives through terrorism. Pakistanis and foreigners have both advocated for years about the inherent risks of a strategy that creates monsters than have no pause, or stand-by button. Most of us have based our critique of this approach of using proxy warriors, whether Kashmiri, or Afghan, or Pakistani, on the very real damage they do to Pakistan itself, to the moral case they claim to espouse, to the establishment of a fledgling democracy, and to the prospects for prosperity and peace across the entire region. Matt Waldman tries with his paper to join a long and distinguished list of critics of Pakistani proxy warfare, not with substantial critique, but with rehashed polemics about the inherent evil of Pakistan's flawed national security paradigm.

Waldman is also not the first to draw conclusions from circumstantial facts. Since at least late 2007, Pakistani hypernationalists have been propagating the ideas that the TTP is an externally-funded terrorist coalition. Where else could the TTP possibly get its money, these war-loving, hypernationalists often ask? Waldman does one better. He collates press reports and analysis about the different sources of the Afghan Taliban's income (none of which mention Pakistan, or the ISI) and then asks the same question that Pakistani hypernationalists ask. "How could all this happen without 'external' support?" Of course it can't, according to Waldman's Zaid Hamid-esque logic. Waldman's answer to everything is the ISI.

This too, of course, is hardly novel. Until 2007, even President Karzai spared no occasion to depict Afghanistan as a victim of the ISI. Who can forget Karzai's dramatic performance from December 2006, when Karzai made a famous tearful appeal for an end to Pakistan's "murder of Afghan children"? Though Karzai seems to have found something agreeable about President Zardari and the post-2008 election Pakistan, other frontline Northern Alliance bosses continue to blame Pakistan for everything. Corruption, the drug-trade, Al Qaeda and the Taliban. All come from Pakistan. And everything from Pakistan, of course, is produced in a laboratory by the ISI.

Essentially, Waldman's report restates old allegations and sexes them up. It is really old wine, in a shiny new bottle. There is however one quite spectacularly novel thing about this report. It is a libelous and malicious attack on Pakistani democracy, beginning right at the top, with the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari.

Waldman doesn't libel President Zardari accidentally. By including his wild allegation of Zardari's meetings with Taliban jailbirds in his abstract, he loudly proclaims that slurring Zardari, and by extension the Pakistani people, is part of the objective of the report. He states that, "President Zardari and a senior ISI official visited some 50 high-ranking Talibs who were held in a prison in a secret location in Pakistan". He then describes how Zardari assured the arrested Taliban of his support, and their subsequent release in keeping with those assurances. The report's allegations about President Zardari's meetings with the Taliban leaders are derived from a single, unnamed, low- to mid-level Taliban field commander operating in Afghanistan. Any person with a pulse will be able to discern how ridiculous and malicious this allegation is. Yet by the time folks have a chance to consider its qualifications the damage will have been done.

What makes Waldman's attack on Zardari particularly toxic is that it serves no purpose other than to paint the last decent thing about Pakistan in Westerners' eyes--Pakistani democracy--with the same colour as everything else here has been painted. That is immeasurably lethal, and its collateral damage is not just political, but economic too. Denials of the report's claims from Farahnaz Ispahani, Farhatullah Babar and Gen Athar Abbas don't go nearly far enough in countering Waldman's defamatory work.

Pakistan's national security paradigm deserves to be discussed, dissected, and deconstructed by Pakistanis and friends of Pakistan that wish this country a more secure future. This country has been an insecure, fidgety, spasmodic, neurotic, and obsessive-compulsive neighbour. Pakistan's military needs to be held to account for the money it spends, and the decisions it takes, by Pakistan's elected representatives. Pakistan's intelligence agencies have spent far too much blood and treasure trying to manipulate the hearts and minds of people, in Pakistan, and abroad into wars that are unwinnable, unloseable, and unendable. They should be reigned in and become more focused on protecting the life and property of Pakistanis.

When informed commentators, whether they are Pakistani, or not, write about Pakistan's problems, good sense must prevail. Freedom of speech does not only apply to journalism, but to academic discourse too. Pakistanis should embrace the critical lens that is being placed on their country. Clearly, we have failed ourselves. It cannot hurt to have some help in understanding the mess we've created. Honest critical analysis of Pakistan should be welcomed.

The difference between critical analysis and malicious slander however is quite stark. By deliberately targeting President Asif Ali Zardari, Matt Waldman has not simply bad-mouthed Mr Zardari. What Waldman has done is much worse. He has slandered the symbol of the Pakistani federation. One can't be anything but certain that President Zardari has never visited Taliban leaders in jail. If that is a certainty, then so must be a lawsuit. Accusing the Pakistani president of meeting with international outlaws, to offer them his support is outrageous, and is designed to injure Pakistan. It must be resisted with the full power of Pakistan's substantial legal human resources in courts of law in the United Kingdom. There is a big difference between accusing clandestine services of behaving badly and accusing the president of a country of aiding and abetting international outlaws. Without legal liability to deter it, this blurring of lines will become epidemic. Matt Waldman needs to be sued for libeling the President of Pakistan.



The writer advises governments, donors and NGOs on public policy. Mosharraf Zaidi

Why Waldman must be sued

In the first paragraph he is talking about "long acknowledged" and "long-standing" links. What is he trying to get at with that?

 

[mughaljee]

I heard a program, they are talking,
After the withdrawal of USA from Afghanistan in next June July, (Surely failure) then the will put all the blame on Pakistan and ISI of their failure.
&
then internationally they will pressurized us behind the scene the help will be Indians , because they are preparing to give them a key role in Afghanistan after USA.

 

[fatman17]

In the first paragraph he is talking about "long acknowledged" and "long-standing" links. What is he trying to get at with that?

dont go out-of-context!

"alleging long-alleged,"

 

[fatman17]

Dangerous words

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The publication of a report by the London School of Economics has created something of a stir. The report states in unequivocal terms that the Pakistan Army, security services and senior politicians up to and including the president are supportive of the Afghan Taliban and are engaged in an elaborate double-cross with the world at large. On the one hand terror is being fought while on the other the very terrorists that are being fought are being covertly offered every facility. The report argues that support is being given to the Afghan Taliban and the Quetta Shura as a part of the policy of establishing strategic depth in Afghanistan, and as a buffer to Indian designs in that country. A close reading of the report tells us that it is based on un-attributable sources and that, by the author's own admission, the independent verification of his assertions is either absent or impossible.(QED) The report and its contents have been rightly and robustly condemned and repudiated by our own government and military spokespersons, but it is in the public domain and will be seized upon quickly by those who seek sticks to beat us with. There will be those for whom this is the smoking gun they have long sought, for others merely confirmation of what they had believed all along and still others who will see it as yet another 'conspiracy' to defame us.

It would be unwise of us to take the report at face value and without question, because it raises as many questions as it fails to answer definitively. It would also be unwise to reject the report out of hand if only because there is a nagging consistency in the way these and similar allegations keep floating to the surface. It may not be that there is the kind of duplicity at every level that the report suggests, but it may not be unrealistic either to believe that there are elements supportive of the Taliban in Afghanistan – for whatever reason. The LSE report appears to be the sum of all fears, and its words potentially dangerous for us if taken at face value. So we would urge caution on those who might read it and to remember – 'all that glisters is not gold'.

 

[TaimiKhan]

Maybe He did not use his real name.. or may be he did not flash his resume*.. or he gained their confidence by providing them with 'humanatarian aid'(*Viagra and cialis)
-----------
*Matt Waldman is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University, and is the former Head of Policy and advocacy for Oxfam International in Afghanistan. Previously he worked as a foreign affairs and defence adviser in the UK and European Parliaments, and as deputy director of overseas operations of a UK children's charity, which included work in Eastern Europe and Africa. Prior to this he practised as a lawyer with an international law firm, based in London, involving overseas work in Europe and Russia. He holds a masters degree in human rights from London School of Economics

***

I believe the Taliban can very well distinguish between a foreigner and a local. Farangi is what we say on this side of the earth if you remember and in old days, even though the British uniforms used to be nearly same, but a farangi would be distinguishable from far away.

Taliban may not have known his name, but they would have recognized that he is a farangi and his accent is of US or British.

Not hard to recognize one.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

EDITORIAL: ISI charged

As the stipulated date for phased exit of US forces from Afghanistan draws closer, there is a corresponding increase in the frenzy of all players to secure their respective turf in post-withdrawal Afghanistan. It is in this context that the recent publication of a controversial report by the London School of Economics, which accuses the Pakistani military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting the Afghan Taliban, should be viewed. Purportedly, the report is based on interviews with nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan between February and last month. However, some of the contents and conclusions of this report are so implausible that they appeared to be grounded in hearsay. For instance, the report suggests that ISI not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but is officially represented on the Quetta Shura, giving it significant influence over operations. Pakistan’s dual policy toward the Taliban and al Qaeda is not a revelation, but to claim that the ISI is represented in the Quetta Shura as participant or observer sounds absurd. Despite the purported support to the Afghan Taliban by the ISI, one can only speculate as to the extent of the closeness of certain elements within the ISI to the Quetta Shura.

Another bizarre allegation is with regard to President Asif Ali Zardari. The report claims that the president had visited along with an ISI official 50 captive Taliban leaders and assured them of support and eventual release. Given the extensive security detail such a visit would require, it would have been virtually impossible to keep it secret. The military has been known to manage certain aspects of Pakistan’s foreign policy independently of the civilian government. Therefore, even if it sees eye to eye with the PPP government on the issue of the war on terror, it is hard to believe its premier intelligence agency would present President Zardari to the Afghan Taliban prisoners. Not surprisingly, there has been a prompt denial from both the presidency and Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

The entire report is geared towards creating an impression that the ISI is directly involved in Afghanistan on an astounding scale under the auspices of the civilian government. “Without a change in Pakistani behaviour it will be difficult, if not impossible, for international forces and the Afghan government to make progress against the insurgency,” it concludes. There may be some element of truth in these allegations. As we have argued time and again, Pakistan should abandon its dual policy inherited from the previous government. But the release of this report at this time suggests something else. Endgame is approaching in Afghanistan and every actor, including Pakistan, is trying to position itself to get maximum advantage. The release of this study seems to be part of that game. There have been reports of the Karzai government directly negotiating with the Taliban leadership through the US and Saudi Arabia, bypassing Pakistan. If this is true, the ISI must be currently trying to manoeuvre for maximum leverage. For its own part, the US is also trying to put pressure on Pakistan to abandon support for the Afghan Taliban. However spectacular the contents of the report may appear, they are intended to shock the world about Pakistan’s duplicity. For its part, Pakistan should make every effort to support a stable Afghanistan, instead of getting mired in another murky game of power and influence. *

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

=============

The report has pretty much drawn universal condemnation in Pakistan, from both the liberal and conservative spectrum.

 

[rohailmalhi]

U know now a days world is in state called ISI-phobia

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Expert on Afghanistan questions anti-Pakistan blusters

WASHINGTON, June 15 (APP): A prominent expert on Afghanistan has questioned a Harvard researcher’s suggestion that Pakistan covertly supports Afghan Taliban, arguing that “blusters” cited in the recent report are too sweeping and superficial to be credible. Journalist and author Imtiaz Gul, who is in the United States or the launch of his book “The Most Dangerous Place - Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier,” said allegations made in the report run counter o the current context, when the country and its security forces are facing worst wave of retaliatory militant violence.
“I don’t believe in this report personally --- I don’t think (President) Zardari is the person who will be talking to Afghan prisoners,” the seasoned journalist told National Public Radio, when asked to comment on claims in Matt Waldman’s report published by London School of Economics.
Gul, who has widely reported on events in the region over the last two decades, also doubted the authenticity of Afghan militants’ statements on which the report has largely been premised.
“There is a lot of loose talk going on --- people tend to bluster,” he pointed out.
In answer to a question about the role of Pakistani intelligence, he said “I think the ISI is doing the same job as MI-6 or the CIA.”
The writer said in the past, Pakistan and international backers of the Mujahideen maintained links with militants during the fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
“Whether, as of today, they (Pakistani intelligence) are doing it anymore, I am really not sure (beacause) if they were doing this that means the ISI is going against its own interest,” he stated, referring to the fact that militants have been targetting the intelligence organization.
Gul, who now heads a think tank in Islamabad, informed the audience that as many as three ISI regional headquarters have been attacked by militants in the last six months in retaliation against Pakistan’s anti-militancy operations, and that hunreds of Pakistan security personnel have been killed.
On the state of Pakistan-US relations, Gul felt the “counterinsurgency cooperation has never been more effective” between the two countries.
He said both the Pakistani army and Pentagon leaders are satisfied with the level of mutual cooperation and “believe they are on the right track.”

Associated Press Of Pakistan ( Pakistan's Premier NEWS Agency ) - Expert on Afghanistan questions anti-Pakistan blusters

 

[mehru]

I never knew that our President is so brave. I always thought that he is too scared to leave his home but he looks like a very brave person. He went all the way to meet taliban. Courageous act i must say.
Even if ISI agents are meeting taliban commanders then why they included Zardari in these meetings. Army's dislike for Zardari is no secret.
And if ISI was involved with taliban then why the hell taliban is attacking intelligence and military installations and why they butchered many ISI agents in this WOT?
PS. I really didn't expect this joke from London school of economics.

 

[mehru]

U know now a days world is in state called ISI-phobia

Yup a very dangerous disease. First it was a epidemic in our neighbour and now it has become pandemic.

 

[rohailmalhi]

Yup a very dangerous disease. First it was a epidemic in our neighbour and now it has become pandemic.

They are trying their level best not to show there fear about this phobia to the world.

 

[manojb]

Yup a very dangerous disease. First it was a epidemic in our neighbour and now it has become pandemic.

And vaccine is getting ready for the same

Back to topic. Here is my question to all. *In the event nato withdraws from kabul will pak/isi help afgan govt to repel taliban attack?

 

[whydowelove]

WASHINGTON: The Afghan Taliban is denying a report that it receives funding, training and protection from Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, a US monitoring group said Tuesday.

A message viewed by the US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors communications linked to international terrorism, said the Afghan Taliban described the reported link this week as “void of all truth, false and untrue propaganda.”

The comment came in reaction to a report for the London School of Economics (LSE) based on interviews with nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan between February and May of this year.

That report claimed the relationship between the ISI and the militants goes far beyond current estimates and that the Pakistani intelligence agency “orchestrates, sustains and strongly influences the movement.”

But the Afghan Taliban, according to SITE, said that “no sound mind” would accept that Pakistan, which supports the United States, would back the jihad against the US presence in Afghanistan.

The message from the self-proclaimed Shura leadership in Afghanistan also alleged the report was concocted by the London School of Economics to “protect” American and British interests in the country. — AFP


DAWN.COM | World | Afghan Taliban denies link to Pakistan?s ISI: report

 

[fatman17]

Expert questions anti-Pakistan blusters

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

By our correspondent

WASHINGTON: A prominent journalist and expert on Afghanistan, Imtiaz Gul, has questioned a Harvard researcher’s suggestion that Pakistan covertly supports the Afghan Taliban, saying the “blusters” cited in the recent report are too sweeping and superficial to be credible.

Imtiaz Gul is visiting the US these days for launching of his book “The Most Dangerous Place — Pakistan’s Lawless Frontier.”“I don’t think (President) Zardari is the person who will be talking to the Afghan prisoners,” he told the National Public Radio when asked to comment on claims in Matt Waldman’s report published by the London School of Economics.

Gul, who has widely reported on events in the region over the past two decades, also doubted the authenticity of the Afghan militants’ statements on which the report has largely been based.

“There is a lot of loose talk going on — people tend to bluster,” he pointed out. Answering a question about the role of the Pakistani intelligence, he said: “I think the ISI is doing the same job as the MI-6 or the CIA.” The writer said that in the past, Pakistan and the international backers of Mujahideen had links to militants during the fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

“Whether, as of today, they (Pakistani intelligence) are doing it anymore, I am really not sure (because) if they were doing this that means the ISI is going against its own interest,” he said while referring to the fact that the militants have been targetting the intelligence organisation.

Gul said three ISI regional headquarters had been attacked by the militants in the past six months in retaliation for Pakistan’s anti-militancy operations and hundreds of Pakistan security personnel had been killed.

On the state of the Pakistan-US relations, Gul felt the “counterinsurgency cooperation has never been more effective” between the two countries. He said both the Pakistan Army and the Pentagon leaders were satisfied with the level of mutual cooperation and “believe they are on the right track.”

 

[Marxist]

Why Pakistan must change its priorities



A report this week from the London School of Economics suggests that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) not only funds Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, but is officially represented on the militant movement's leadership council. Many within the Pakistani military remain convinced that supporting Islamist groups helps to expand and secure the country's regional interests. The extremist groups Pakistan once nurtured for its security, however, may ultimately prove to be the instruments of its demise.

The LSE report, based on interviews with Taliban commanders, former senior Taliban ministers, and western and Afghan security officials, confirms what has long been an open secret. After the 11 September terror attacks, then president Pervez Musharraf and his military corps commanders decided to ally openly with the Bush administration in the "war on terror" and preserve their proxy assets as a hedge against Indian influence.

That policy was vividly illustrated last February, when the ISI seized Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the Afghan Taliban's top field commanders and the second in command behind the group's founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar. The ISI also captured two of the Taliban's shadow governors who operated parallel governments in two Afghan provinces. In a limited tactical sense, the abductions were a success – US leaders pointed to a clear sign of progress in the nearly decade-long campaign and commanders in the field will gain valuable human intelligence to capture more insurgents.

The arrests, however, dealt neither a major blow to the Afghan Taliban network, nor represented a "new level of co-operation" between American and Pakistani forces in rooting out extremism. Furthermore, Pakistan refused to extradite the apprehended Taliban to Washington. And according to former UN envoy Kai Eide, at the time of his arrest, Mullah Baradar was in communication with the Afghan government, a sign that Pakistan may have sought to thwart substantive peace talks.

The Baradar episode reflects the piecemeal co-operation Islamabad has provided in the post-9/11 era to the US. A substantive commitment to US goals will require Pakistan to undertake a significant shift in its strategic priorities – which will be difficult.

Since the country's inception in 1947, the Pakistani military (not the Pakistani people) has apparently believed that its country's very existence depends on supporting violent, extremist groups, not strictly for ideological reasons, but as a means to expand and secure its regional interests. Aside from sponsoring Kashmiri insurrection groups since 1989, the Pakistani military infiltrated Pashtun guerrillas into Indian-held Kashmir in 1947, triggering the first Indo-Pakistan war. The Pakistani military once again attempted to annex Indian-held Kashmir in 1965, setting off the second Indo-Pakistan war. And the military infiltrated regular troops into Kargil in 1999, generating an international crisis in a now nuclear-armed subcontinent.

Since 9/11, the Pakistani government has claimed that its military is too ill-equipped and poorly-trained to effectively combat its internal guerrilla insurgency. That may be true, but it's also clear that the militancy plaguing the region is a byproduct of the Pakistani military's self-defeating strategic ambitions. Getting Pakistan to modify its policies will be difficult, since many of the extremists it currently assists have been nurtured by the military for more than 30 years.

Today, Pakistan's frontier region along the Afghan border stands fully Talibanised. In strategically located areas of the north, the military continually cedes the state's sovereignty to militants imposing their apocryphal interpretation of sharia law. These events must be understood as the latest in a long list of damaging strategic blunders sponsored by the Pakistani military.

In recent months, highly co-ordinated suicide bombings and explosions have rocked the city of Lahore, in the heart of Punjab province. Such bold attacks, some against the homes of Pakistani air force captains and police officials, represent the extent to which militants have turned against the state. The costs of such calamitous policies are self-evident, as the insurgency Pakistan spawned has morphed into a monster that it is unable to control.

In this respect, US officials and commentators have focused too heavily on how the clash of competing strategic interests between Islamabad and Washington impacts US interests in Afghanistan. But in order to convince Pakistan to end its long-standing assistance to militants, US leaders must underscore to their Pakistani counterparts that unless they radically alter their policies, their country will continue to be slammed by a heavy dose of cosmic blowback as the militants they support turn against the state.

Why Pakistan must change its priorities | Malou Innocent | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk