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‘Army’s withdrawal from politics is strategic’
By Anwar Iqbal
WASHINGTON, July 22: The Pakistan Army’s withdrawal from politics is strategic and not tactical and it will not return to politics unless there’s a crisis in the country, scholars said at a seminar in Washington.
“The army realises that the last years have hurt the institution badly,” said Shuja Nawaz, the author of a recent book on the Pakistan Army. “They are out and they want to stay out.”
The discussion on US-Pakistan military ties was held against the backdrop of the recent increase in attacks on US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The speakers also noted that Pakistan grappled with its own burgeoning Taliban insurgency in the tribal borderlands.
Such developments, they noted, had created new challenges for US-Pakistan military ties.
They said that more aggressive coalition counter-insurgency tactics in eastern Afghanistan were bringing US troops closer to the border with Pakistan and the situation required ever closer communication and joint efforts to strengthen counter-terrorism cooperation.
The organisers, the Heritage Foundation, pointed out that the US frustration with an entrenched terrorist safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas and lack of faith in the efficacy of Pakistani negotiations to deal with the problem “also are creating misunderstanding and crossed wires.”
In this charged atmosphere, what are the future prospects for addressing terrorism challenges on a joint basis? Should the US shift its strategy vis-à-vis Pakistan? What can be expected from Pakistan in the near and long-term? How can both sides build trust in each other and strengthen the chances of overall success against the terrorist scourge in South Asia? These were some of the questions the speakers addressed in their presentations.
David Smith, a senior director for Pakistan at the Office of the US Undersecretary of Defence, highlighted a change in Islamabad, saying that the Pakistani policy makers now realise the need to coordinate their defence needs with economic developments and are willing to spend more on social projects.
He disagreed with the suggestion that the Afghans were getting tired of the US military presence in their country. “I have not seen any indication that the tolerance for US presence is decreasing,” he said.
Mr Smith also disagreed with another suggestion that the weapons given to Pakistan for fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda will be used against India. The US military assistance to Pakistan cannot bring any significant changes to the conventional balance of power in South Asia, he said. “Besides, the 2006 joint statement also talked about meeting Pakistan’s genuine defence needs,” he added.
The US official rejected the suggestion that Pakistan was protecting the Taliban so that it can use them to fight its war in Kashmir.
“Whatever utility anyone thought they had is false,” he said. “They are a threat to the Pakistani army, they are a threat to the Pakistani government and they are a threat to the Pakistani nation.”
Mr Smith insisted that the militants had established a safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas and were using it to attack US and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
“We will not rest until that goal (of destroying the militant groups) is achieved,” he declared.
Mr Nawaz, who is the younger brother of Gen Asif Nawaz Janjua, the 10th army chief, emphasised the need for the United States to expand its ties with Pakistan and reach out to democratic forces.
“The United States should move away from the what-you-have-done-lately- for-us approach,” he said. “If the Americans insist on dealing with the military alone and on ignoring the politicians, it will hurt US interests in Pakistan.”
Mr Nawaz noted that the new army chief, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, has categorically assured Pakistan’s new rulers that they army has no plan to return to politics. “Now it is up to the politicians to ensure that the country is not plunged into yet another crisis because if there is a crisis, the army may come back,” he warned.
Mr Nawaz advised the new government to “take difficult but useful decisions, so that the army learns to respect you.”
‘Army’s withdrawal from politics is strategic’ -DAWN - National; July 23, 2008
"We have been told in very clear terms that the Bush administration wanted the political government to take charge of all national policies, take decisions and organise itself without fear or what others may be thinking or saying and Washington will back them," a senior diplomat in Washington said on Wednesday.
The timeframe to test out the new leadership in Pakistan and to give them political space is broadly being mentioned as six months to one year in which the Americans will patiently try to work with the civilian government, modifying their habit of issuing orders to military rulers who in turn would issue orders and get things done.
But the administration would emphasise that decisions regarding the war on terror should be taken keeping the interests of Pakistan's allies, their views and goals in view and every party must be consulted and taken into confidence on these decisions.
While top US military, intelligence and government leaders are repeatedly making their positions clear, including their annoyance at failure of Pakistan to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Fata, and press for more military action, there is a sort of resigned acceptance that if a dialogue with the militants can produce positive results, the new government should be provided the space to try this option.
"Washington is telling us clearly that they are not interested in Pakistan's domestic affairs but there is a growing expectancy that the new government should exercise its authority over major domestic issues, including the economy and domestic terrorism," Pakistani sources here say.
US overcomes Musharraf phobia to support new set-up
I think Pakistan should take the matter in hand more seriously.
If more troops from the US arrive and if there is more kills by the terrorists, then the US may hae to take matters in its own hands to appease their domestic audience and that would not be conducive for Pakistan or Pakistani politics.
Musharraf is having the last laugh!
Another War: Is the US Preparing To Attack Pakistan?
Thursday July 17, 2008
Eric Margolis
The U.S. military has grown used to attacking small, weak nations like Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Pakistan, with 163 million people, and an inadequately equipped but very tough 550,000-man army, will offer no easy victories. Those Bush Administration officials who foolishly advocate attacking Pakistan are playing with fire. Pakistan’s army officers who refuse to be bought may resist a U.S. attack on their homeland. The war will revive the old plan of chopping off Pakistan’s tribal region to merge it with Afghanistan.
The Bush Administration may be preparing to lash out at old ally Pakistan, which Washington now blames for its humiliating failures to crush al-Qaeda, capture its elusive leaders, or defeat Taliban resistance forces in Afghanistan.
One is immediately reminded of the Vietnam War when the Pentagon, unable to defeat North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces, urged invasion of Cambodia.
Sources in Washington say the Pentagon is drawing up plans to attack Pakistan’s "autonomous" tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Limited "hot pursuit" ground incursions by U.S. forces based in Afghanistan, intensive air attacks, and special-forces raids into Pakistan’s autonomous tribal region are being evaluated.
This weekend, the U.S. national intelligence chief and other intelligence spokesmen confirmed that strikes against "terrorist targets" in Pakistan’s tribal belt are increasingly possible. These warnings were designed to both further pressure Pakistan’s beleaguered strongman, President Pervez Musharraf, into sending more troops to the tribal areas to fight his own people, and to prepare U.S. public opinion for a possible widening of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan.
Pakistan’s 27, 200 sq km tribal belt, officially known as the Federal Autonomous Tribal Area, or FATA, is home to 3.3 million Pashtun tribesmen. It has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda, Taliban, other Afghan resistance groups, and a hotbed of anti-American activity, thanks mostly to the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan which drove many militants across the border into Pakistan. Osama bin Laden is very likely sheltered in this region, as U.S. intelligence claims. [Editor’s Note: Likely, but as much likely to be anywhere else too.]
I spent a remarkable time in this wild, medieval region during the 1980’s and 90’s, traveling alone where even Pakistani government officials dared not go, visiting the tribes of Waziristan, Orakzai, Khyber, Chitral, and Kurram, and meeting their chiefs, called "maliks."
These tribal belts are always referred to as "lawless." Pashtun tribesmen could shoot you if they didn’t like your looks. Rudyard Kipling warned British Imperial soldiers over a century ago, when fighting cruel, ferocious Pashtun warriors of the Afridi clan, if they fell wounded, "save your last bullet for yourself."
But there is law: the traditional Pashtun tribal code, Pashtunwali, that strictly governs behavior and personal honor. Protecting guests was sacred. I was captivated by this majestic mountain region and wrote of it extensively in my book, "War at the Top of the World."
Pakistan’s Pashtun number 28–30 million, plus an additional 2.5 million refugees from Afghanistan. Pashtuns, one of the British Indian Army’s famed "martial races," occupy many senior positions in Pakistan’s military, intelligence service and bureaucracy, and naturally have much sympathy for their embattled tribal cousins in Afghanistan. The 15 million Pashtun of Afghanistan form that nation’s largest ethnic group and just under half the population.
The tribal agency’s Pashtun joined newly-created Pakistan in 1947 under express constitutional guarantee of total autonomy and a ban on Pakistani troops ever entering there.
But under intense U.S. pressure, President Pervez Musharraf violated Pakistan’s constitution by sending 80,000 federal troops to fight the region’s tribes, killing 3,000 of them. In best British imperial tradition, Washington pays Musharraf $100 million monthly to rent his sepoys (native soldiers) to fight Pashtun tribesmen. As a result, Pakistan is fast edging towards civil war.
The anti-Communist Taliban movement is part of the Pashtun people. Taliban fighters move across the artificial Pakistan-Afghanistan border, to borrow Maoism, like fish through the sea. Osama bin Laden is a hero in the region, and likely shelters there.
The U.S. just increased its reward for bin Laden to $50 million and plans to shower $750 million on the tribal region in an effort to buy loyalty. Bush/Cheney & Co. do not understand that while they can rent President Musharraf’s government in Islamabad, many Pashtun value personal honor far more than money, and cannot be bought. That is likely why bin Laden has not yet been betrayed.
Any U.S. attack on Pakistan would be a catastrophic mistake. First, air and ground assaults will succeed only in widening the anti-U.S. war and merging it with Afghanistan’s resistance to western occupation. U.S. forces are already too over-stretched to get involved in yet another little war.
Second, Pakistan’s army officers who refuse to be bought may resist a U.S. attack on their homeland, and overthrow the man who allowed it, Gen. Musharraf. A U.S. attack would sharply raise the threat of anti-U.S. extremists seizing control of strategic Pakistan and marginalize those seeking return to democratic government.
Third, a U.S. attack on the tribal areas could re-ignite the old irredentist movement to reunite Pashtun parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan into an independent state, "Pashtunistan." That could begin unraveling Pakistan, leaving its nuclear arsenal up for grabs, and India tempted to intervene.
The U.S. military has grown used to attacking small, weak nations like Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Pakistan, with 163 million people, and a poorly equipped but very tough 550,000-man army, will offer no easy victories. Those Bush Administration officials who foolishly advocate attacking Pakistan are playing with fire.
Pakistan News Service - PakTribune
Does US consider Pakistan a friend at all? Atleast i don't think so. US is bent on to destabilize Pakistan first covertly and now openly. So while we have a talban threat going on inside, we have another one rising on the border. That is why i mentioned in my previous post, that at this stage we need to set our priorities straight and be clear about, "who are we up against" The US or the tailban or perhaps both.
What would happen to US if she attacks Pakistan? We being a front line ally in WoT prevented repetition of atleast two major attacks a la 9/11 on US soil by providing intelligence.
Who's going to protect America and her citizens if she loses a friend like Pakistan?
Originally Posted by Neo View Post
What would happen to US if she attacks Pakistan? We being a front line ally in WoT prevented repetition of atleast two major attacks a la 9/11 on US soil by providing intelligence.
Who's going to protect America and her citizens if she loses a friend like Pakistan?
I read that earlier and Gilanis statement is spot on.
If the forces of ISAF can't defeat the taliban why expect us too.