Fear and Loathing in AfPak

In this lead story from the online edition of the New York Times on the 26th of September, reporter Carlotta Gall humanizes one of the 16 American and Afghani officials allegedly ambushed and killed in cold blood at the Pakistani outpost of Teri Mangal in 2007, at the end of what they had thought would be a peaceful meeting to resolve a border dispute:

"…a Pakistani soldier opened fire with an automatic rifle, pumping multiple rounds from just 5 or 10 yards away into an American officer, Maj. Larry J. Bauguess Jr., killing him almost instantly. An operations officer with the 82nd Airborne Division from North Carolina, Major Bauguess, 36, was married and the father of two girls, ages 4 and 6."

US Major Larry J. Baugess (source: NYT)

Ms Gall’s story, the publication of which coincided with an increase in the verbal volleys being fired in Pakistan’s direction, blended seamlessly into the narrative currently being fed to the American public by its mainstream media. The narrative can be summarized by this editorial, The Latest Ugly Truth About Pakistan, in the same publication two days before:

"Those who came under fire that day remain bitter about the duplicity of the Pakistanis. Colonel Kuchai remembers the way the senior Pakistani officers left the yard minutes before the shooting without saying goodbye, behavior that he now interprets as a sign that they knew what was coming."

The increased rhetorical aggression is, in its own words, just the latest play in this game:

“The Pentagon hopes public exposure will shame the Pakistanis — who receive billions of dollars in aid — into changing their behavior.”

But realpolitik aside Ms. Gall – who is an award winning, experienced reporter covering Afghanistan and Pakistan - and the New York Times, are right to seek to ‘tell the truth’ and expose this story of ambush, murder and injustice in the AfPak borderlands in 2007. That, along with making a profit, is what serious journalists and serious publications are supposed to do. Here is another example of a similar story about the unjust ambush and murder of 16 men in the AfPak borderlands in 2006.

 The Spin Boldak massacre of 2006 (Photos from Afghan CID via The Atlantic)

This one is the culmination of a two-year investigation by roving reporter Matthieu Aikins. It is the story of smuggler Shin Noorzai and the 15 companions (farmers, traders, and a 16-year-old boy) who were traveling with him in Afghanistan in 2006 when he accepted an invitation from Mohammed Nadeem Lalai, an officer in the Border Police, to stop in Kabul on their way to the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif to celebrate Nauroz. Lalai led them to a house where, during the festivities, the 16 were drugged, bound, gagged, loaded into vehicles with official plates and driven 500 kilometers south to Spin Boldak, by a smuggler/Border Police colonel named Abdul Raziq:

"Raziq and his men loaded their captives into a convoy of Land Cruisers and headed out to a parched, desolate stretch of the Afghan-Pakistani border. About 10 kilometers outside of town, they came to a halt. Shin and the others were hauled out of the trucks and into a dry river gully. There, at close range, Raziq’s forces let loose with automatic weapons, their bullets tearing through the helpless men, smashing their faces apart and soaking their robes with blood. After finishing the job, they unbound the corpses and left them there."

Brig General Abdul Raziq (source: The Atlantic)

If the name Abdul Raziq sounds familiar to anyone who follows developments in Afghanistan, it is because he is now Brigadier General Abdul Raziq of the Border Police, and also acting Police Chief of Kandahar, where he continues to exercise his penchant for torture and killing. The drug trafficker's rapid rise through the ranks is all the more remarkable, Mr Aikins establishes, when you consider how well documented his extracurricular activities have been:

"Though Raziq has risen in large part through his own skills and ambition, he is also, to a considerable degree, a creation of the American military intervention in Afghanistan. (Prior to 2001, he had worked in a shop in Pakistan.) As part of a countrywide initiative, his men have been trained by two controversial private military firms, DynCorp and Xe, formerly known as Blackwater, at a U.S. -funded center in Spin Boldak, where they are also provided with weapons, vehicles, and communications equipment. Their salaries are subsequently paid through the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, a UN-administered international fund, to which the U.S. is the largest contributor. Raziq himself has enjoyed visits in Spin Boldak from such senior U.S. officials as Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus."

In her story, Ms Gall hints at how official inquiries into the 2007 incident seemed opaque and half-hearted:

"General McNeill, who is retired, remembers the episode as the worst moment of his second tour as commander in Afghanistan, not only because he knew Major Bauguess and his family, but also because he never received satisfactory explanations in meetings with his counterpart, the Pakistani vice chief of army staff, Gen. Ahsan Saleem Hyat."

In his, Mr Aikins notes a similar pattern of investigative shortcomings on the other side of the line:

"In public, American officials had until recently been careful to downplay Raziq’s alleged abuses. When I met with the State Department’s Moeling at his Kandahar City office in January, he told me, “I think there is certainly a mythology about Abdul Raziq, where there’s a degree of assumption on some of those things. But I have never seen evidence of private prisons or of extrajudicial killings directly attributable to him."

"Yet, as a 2006 State Department report shows, U.S. officials have for years been aware of credible allegations that Raziq and his men participated in a cold-blooded massacre of civilians, the details of which have, until now, been successfully buried."

Both include the obligatory search for meaning in the tragedy reference. Ms Gall with:

"As for the Afghans, they still want answers. “Why did the Pakistanis do it?” General Same of the Afghan Army said. “They have to answer this question."

Mr Aikins with:

"It was a tribal conflict,” Waheed said, shaking his head, his long fingers trembling as they tapped against his cheek. “Raziq had a problem with Shin, but why did he have to kill all the others?"

To the jaded eye weary of reading endless accounts of the death and destruction wrought by mankind’s continued obsession with playing toy soldiers, the most interesting thing about Ms Gall’s piece was its timing, and this account of one of her previous interactions with Pakistani intelligence. Mr Aikins', on the other hand, kept my attention, partly because of nuggets like the following:

"Toward the end of 2009, senior ISAF officials reportedly thought about pushing for Raziq to be replaced. According to leaked cables, a high-level meeting was convened in Kabul, chaired by Deputy Ambassador Earl Wayne and Major General Michael Flynn, to discuss the problematic behavior of Raziq, among others. “Nobody, including his US military counterparts,” one cable noted, “is under any illusions about his corrupt activities.” Ultimately, however, General McChrystal, who was then the commander of ISAF and U.S. forces, decided that Raziq was too useful to cut loose, according to an article in The Washington Post. (McChrystal, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.) Cables also reveal that an American information-operations team even proposed a plan, “if credible,” for “the longer-term encouragement of stories in the international media on the ‘reform’ of Razziq."

We wait with bated breath for a time when there will be a US policy push for the longer-term encouragement of stories in the international media on the ‘reform’ of Pakistan.


Footnote:

Hunter S. Thompson

These two strikingly similar and yet markedly different stories had me reaching for a passage from the beginning of Hunter S. Thompson’s The Rum Diary, describing the hard-drinking clientele of Al’s Backyard:

"Vagrant journalists are notorious welshers, and to those who travel in that rootless world, a large unpaid bar tab can be a fashionable burden.

There was no shortage of people to drink with in those days. They never lasted very long, but they kept coming. I call them vagrant journalists because no other term would be quite as valid. No two were alike. They were professionally deviant, but they had a few things in common. They depended, mostly from habit, on newspapers and magazines for the bulk of their income; their lives were geared to long chances and sudden movements; and they claimed no allegiance to any flag and valued no currency but luck and good contacts.

Some of them were more journalists than vagrants, and others were more vagrants than journalists – but with a few exceptions they were part-time, freelance, would-be-foreign correspondents who, for one reason or another, lived at several removes from the journalistic establishment. Not the slick strivers and jingo parrots who staffed the mossback papers and news magazines of the Luce empire. Those were a different breed.

…In a sense I was one of them – more competent than some and more stable than others- and in the years that I carried that ragged banner I was seldom unemployed…It was a greedy life and I was good at it. I made some interesting friends, had enough money to get around and learned a lot about the world that I could never have learned in any other way.

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top.

At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles- a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other – that kept me going."

Hunter S. Thompson killed himself in 2005.

Reporting For The Gallery?

Okay, are we missing something here? Are Pakistanis fooling themselves or is it the Americans who are playing to their domestic gallery?

Check out the contrasting tone and content of how the currently on-going US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue meetings in Washington were reported by the American establishmentarian Foreign Policy magazine blog yesterday and Pakistani papers today...

First the FP blog piece:

In surprise appearance, Obama delivers tough love message to visiting Pakistani officials

Posted By Josh Rogin   Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - 4:42 PM

"Dozens of U.S. and Pakistani officials are meeting this week at the State Department in 13 different working groups spanning all elements of the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue, but the real action is in a few, select side meetings, where participants tell The Cable that the Obama team is taking a markedly tougher tone with the Pakistanis than before.

One key meeting Wednesday afternoon was between National Security Advisor in-waiting Tom Donilon and what's known as the "core" group of Pakistani officials: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, and Ambassador Husain Haqqani.

President Barack Obama dropped in on that meeting and stayed for 50 minutes, according to an official who was there, and personally delivered the tough love message that other top administration officials have been communicating since the Pakistani delegation arrived. Obama also expressed support for Pakistan's democracy and announced he would invite Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to the White House in the near future.

Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dropped in unannounced on another meeting between Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and Kayani. She delivered the message that Washington's patience is wearing thin with Pakistan's ongoing reluctance to take a more aggressive stance against militant groups operating from Pakistan over the Afghan border. A similar message was delivered to Kayani in another high-level side meeting Wednesday morning at the Pentagon, hosted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, two senior government sources said.

The message being delivered to Pakistan throughout the week by the Obama team is that its effort to convince Pakistan to more aggressively combat groups like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba will now consist of both carrots and sticks. But this means that the U.S. administration must find a way incentivize both the Pakistani civilian and military leadership, which have differing agendas and capabilities.

"The Obama side is calculating that Pakistan's military can deliver on subjects important to the U.S. but doesn't want to, while the civilian leadership in Pakistan wants to, but isn't able," said one high-level participant who spoke with The Cable in between sessions.

The carrots are clear. A State Department official confirmed to The Cable that the two sides will formally announce on Friday a new $2 billion military aid package for Pakistan, focusing mostly on items that can be used for counterterrorism. Unspecified amounts of new funding for the reconstruction effort related to the Pakistani flood disaster are also on the table. In exchange, the United States not only wants increased Pakistani military operations in North Waziristan and Baluchistan, but also increased operational flexibility for U.S. special forces operating inside Pakistan's borders.

The sticks are less clear. Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad argued in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday that the Obama administration should threaten to take down terrorist havens in Pakistan, without Islamabad's consent if necessary. The Carnegie Endowment's Ashley Tellis wrote that the United States should condition aid to Pakistan on increased cooperation and even consider throwing more support toward India's role in Afghanistan, an idea the Pakistanis despise.

The timing of these op-eds and the change in the Obama administration's tone is not being seen by many as a coincidence.

The Pakistanis believe that their extensive efforts to expand military operations in South Waziristan don't get enough recognition in Washington. They also say privately that whatever incentives the United States is offering are not enough to compensate for the huge political and security risks that would come with a full-on assault on insurgent groups they have tacitly supported for decades.

Hanging over the whole discussion are reports that the United States is supporting and even providing escorts for the reconciliation talks in Kabul between the Afghan government, led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and senior Taliban officials. The New York Times reported Wednesday that these talks were going on without the approval or involvement of the Pakistani government, ostensibly to prevent elements of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from moving to thwart them.

"Pakistan is still resisting [moving on groups in North Waziristan] because it still hasn't fully finished with its ongoing operations [in South Waziristan] and also because it doesn't know what will happen with the talks with the Taliban and would much rather not antagonize the Haqqani network at this juncture," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council.

Nawaz noted that the Strategic Dialogue with Pakistan has now reached the third set of meetings, and that there is more pressure to show concrete results to validate the need for such a high-level format. "I hope there will be some clarity on what the objectives are on both sides and also some clarity on red lines so we don't have to relive this movie again and again," he said.

Nawaz also predicted that another point of contention will permeate the chatter in the hallways between Pakistani and American interlocutors -- Pakistan's desire to have Obama visit sometime soon.

"The big underlying issue that won't be on the agenda but will probably be discussed is President Obama's upcoming visit to India and that he won't be coming to Pakistan," he said. "It will point to the imbalance in the relationship."

In a read out, the White House said that Obama has committed to visit Pakistan some time in 2011.

Qureshi, Holbrooke, and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah will talk about all these issues at a joint Brookings/ Asia Society event Wednesday evening."

Now, take a look at how The News reported it today:

Obama reiterates support to Pak democracy

Updated at: 430 PST,  Thursday, October 21, 2010

Sami Ibraham

"WASHINGTON: President Barack Hussain Obama has said the United States will not compromise on democracy in Pakistan and will continue its all possible assistance. He said this during an unscheduled meeting with the Pakistani delegation here on Tuesday afternoon (Wednesday night Pakistan Standard Time).

The delegation comprised Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani was also present.

President Obama said the US wants stability in Pakistan and will provide all possible assistance to strengthen the Pakistan armed forces. He said Washington would not compromise on democracy in that country and continue friendship with the people of Pakistan. Obama said that during the tenure of President Asif Ali Zardari, relations between the United States and Pakistan saw an improvement.

“I believe Mr Qureshi your efforts are very fruitful,” he told the foreign minister. Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, while talking to reporters after the meeting, said it was a very successful meeting with President Obama and the results will speak for itself. “I believe that it is a step towards a very positive direction,” he added.

Sources told this correspondent that President Obama also praised efforts of Pakistan armed forces in the war against terrorism.

According to official news agency, US Defense leaders met on Wednesday with Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and discussed military-to-military partnership and security assistance as part of the third US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy met with Gen Kayani and members of his staff on Wednesday morning.

Morrell said during the meeting, Gates expressed the department’s appreciation and recognition of the Pakistani military’s contributions and sacrifices in combating terror in Pakistan and conducting counterinsurgency operations there.

Gates said that “we are, of course, committed to the security and development of Afghanistan over the long term, but beyond Afghanistan and the important role Pakistan plays in the ultimate successful outcome in that country, we wish to build a long-term, wide-ranging “relationship” with Pakistan on its own merits,” Morrell said.

The Press Secretary said Gates also apologised for the inadvertent attack on a border guard post that killed three Pakistani soldiers in September.

“He said it was unintentional, and we are working with Pakistan to ensure it never happens again. He expressed his condolences to the families of the fallen soldiers,” Morrell added.

Morrell said the meeting also covered the need to better coordinate operations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “We’ve been doing a much, much better job of that for many, many months now,” he said, but this incident clearly indicates there is more work to be done, and there was a resolve and commitment to do the hard work that it takes to better coordinate our actions on both sides of the border.

The discussion also featured security assistance topics, including Coalition Support Funds, the Pakistani counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund and Foreign Military Sales. On Wednesday, the Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira led the Pakistani team in discussions on public diplomacy and information technology with top US officials at the State Department.

The information minister was assisted Secretary Information Mansur Sohail and Secretary Information Technology Naguibullah Malik. Under Secretary of State Judith Michale was leading the United States.

Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Minister for Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal discussed expanding cooperation in water and agricultural fields on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar are also part of the high-level Pakistani delegation. Pakistan is likely to press its demand for talks on getting civilian nuclear technology from the United States. Afghanistan reconciliation process is also likely to figure in discussions.

The dialogue takes place amid reports that the Obama administration is putting final touches on a security assistance package totaling as much as $2 billion over five years to help Pakistan fight extremists on its border with Afghanistan.

The US media says the aid is expected to be announced later this week and aims to address Pakistan’s insistence it does not have the capability to go after terrorists and needs more support from the United States.

The aid will help the Pakistanis purchase helicopters, weapons systems and equipment to intercept communications. It falls under the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, which provides grants and loans to countries to purchase weapons and defense equipment produced in the United States, say US media reports."

This is what Dawn had to say:

Obama expresses desire to expand strategic relations

By Our Correspondent

Thursday, 21 Oct, 2010

        

"WASHINGTON, Oct 20: US President Barack Obama met the Pakistani delegation at the White House on Wednesday and expressed his desire to expand strategic ties between the two countries.

A senior Obama administration official told Dawn that the Pakistani delegation included Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh, Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar and Ambassador Husain Haqqani.

“President Obama assured the Pakistani delegation that the US was aware of Pakistan’s concerns about recent developments in the Pak-Afghan region and had no desire to harm its interests,” said a senior diplomatic official who did not want to be identified.

“President Obama also said that he has a special interest in Pakistan and wants a stable, democratic and economically strong Pakistan,” the official said.

The one-hour-15-minute meeting focused on all major issues being discussed in the three-day US-Pakistan strategic dialogue which began in Washington on Wednesday.

Earlier, President Obama met his senior advisers for the Pak-Afghan region and discussed with them the strategic dialogue and the situation in Afghanistan.

The meeting followed talks between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban in Kabul. In his monthly war cabinet with top civilian and military advisers, President Obama also received an update on latest operations in his high-stakes troop surge strategy.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Taliban leaders at the “highest level” were involved in the contacts and that they were being offered safe passage by Nato troops from their sanctuaries in Pakistan.

In one case, Taliban leaders crossed the border and boarded a Nato aircraft bound for Kabul, the paper said, though added that most of the discussions had taken place outside the Afghan capital.

The White House has backed Afghan efforts to talk with elements of the Taliban, even as the US military ratchets up the intensity of the surge and insurgent attacks reap a heavy toll among foreign troops.

Those who attended the Af-Pak meeting at the secure White House situation room included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, the incoming US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter and the outgoing National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Incoming National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, National Security Council’s Af-Pak coordinator Douglas Lute, Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen James Cartwright, Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell and Centcom Commander Gen James Mattis also attended the meeting.

US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and Isaf Commander Gen David Petraeus participated by video-conference."

I don't know about anyone else but I have the distinct feeling someone's giving their readers false comfort. I just don't know who.

Rent Boys

It's late. I am tired. So I'm not going to write a proper post. But I still want to put this clip out there, for people to see and hear and to comment on.

The topic of the Riz Khan programme on Al-Jazeera English is Pak-US relations - whether they have reached a breaking point. In particular, listen in to what C. Christine Fair (Georgetown professor and Pakistan analyst) has to say about drones and the Pakistani media beginning around 5:10. She points out that the claims of collateral damage from the drone strikes are usually unsubstantiated (absolutely true, but as much I suppose as American claims of having taken out specific terrorists) and that "the interesting side of Pakistan's new vibrant media is that a lot of it is for rent." (Can just imagine the spluttering by Hamid Mir on Capital Talk soon.)

But would actually encourage you to see the whole programme. Some good stuff from General Talat Masood too. And a pessimistic outlook from Fair towards the end. Thanks to @takhalus for the link.

Going For A Leak

I have such mixed emotions about the WikiLeaks expose of the Afghan War Diaries and so many strands of thought that I want to pursue that this is going to be a difficult post. But I'm going to try and present at least some of them in as coherent a manner as I can. I hope you will bear with me. For my own sake (and probably for readers' sake as well) I will break up the different strands with sub-heads.

Is The WikiLeaks Expose A Good Thing?

Generally, yes. Any puncturing of the facade of unaccountable power is a great thing in my book. But particularly when it involves exposing the reality of a conflict that very few outside the conflict zone have even a basic understanding of, it is invaluable. We are fed so many lies by governments and the hand-in-glove media that narratives that challenge those fabrications and lead to questioning among the public are the only way to challenge that hegemony.

However. There are a couple of things which also bother me about the recent leak of apparently over 92,000 previously secret files. The first is based on taking the leaks at face value. As most of us know by now, the secret documents are mostly raw field intelligence reports, that is they are the reports filed by Western soldiers on the frontline reporting incidents, interactions and intelligence culled from various sources. These were meant to be internal documents for their superior officers. Not only do they reflect the competence and biases of the soldiers writing them up as well as contain cover-ups (after all, soldiers don't want anything bad to reflect on themselves in front of superiors), they have not been verified, double-checked or passed up through a filtration process that assesses their credibility via other sources. So, yes, there is a vicarious thrill to seeing what things are like for soldiers on the frontline or how a military operates in such a situation, and there may be very useful information to be gleaned from them, but in and of themselves, they are not terribly helpful for the average reader to understand what is actually going on. Readers who take these reports at face value - as most readers are tending to do - are likely to mire themselves further in the "fog of war" rather than cut through it, to paraphrase Mahir Ali in Dawn today.

As a parallel, imagine for a moment having access to an investigative reporter's notebook that details every observation, every possible lead, every interview, every hunch, every rumour or remark heard. Many of these leads, hunches and rumours could be simply false and not all observations, interviews and overheard remarks are helpful in clarifying the story. Now imagine having access to the notebooks of thousands of reporters working on the same story and believing everything as true. That is the danger of treating these documents as gospel, just because they were classified as secret and have now been leaked.

Julian Assange: mystery man

The second thing that makes me uneasy is WikiLeaks itself. I know this will probably sound terribly conspiratorial, but I cannot say with 100 percent surety that it is not all part of some grand psy-ops strategy: you know, build up an institution with calculated cred boosters (e.g. the leaked Iraq helicopter footage) and then use it to release info you want to release. It's not like it has never been done before, although of course never on a global level. Okay, I know I'm probably sounding like a nutter now but bear with me. Yes, I've read the wonderful profile of maverick Julian Assange (the driving force behind WikiLeaks) in The New Yorker, but I never quite understood the over-dramatized cloak and dagger stuff. Are we really being asked to believe that a man as publicly recognizable as Assange, who jets from continent to continent, can escape being tracked by international security agencies? Or that WikiLeaks, which claims to run entirely on donations (including credit card donations), does not have a single bank account or money transfer that is trace-able? Really?

Ok, forget my questions about WikiLeaks. Is it really beyond the realm of possibility for WikiLeaks and Assange, no matter how pure of heart they are, to be used by psy-op warriors wanting to put certain things out in the public realm? Are we really being asked to believe that 92,000 plus secret documents can be easily smuggled out of the Pentagon (on a Lady GaGa CD, no less, if some reports are to be believed) without anyone having any inkling? Anything is possible I guess but the probability on the other hand is a different matter.

Forgive me for being a doubting Thomas and slightly cynical. But these are the reasons I would not take the leaks at face value even as I accept the mining of the data for useful information. I hope my doubts about WikiLeaks are misplaced though.



Do We Learn Anything New in the Leaks?

I guess the answer to this depends on how much you know of Afghanistan and how much you have followed the story of the conflict there. For most old hands, there is nothing sensationally new in the documents (at least from what has come to light so far). But you do get a lot of details and a very good idea of the way much of them are covered up. For example, the number of attacks on Coalition Forces (CF) and the far larger number of civilian casualties than have been reported previously. Or the almost comic attempts of American soldiers to win hearts and minds among the local populace. And most of all you understand in the minutae why this conflict will end unsuccessfully for the US.



Is This The Smoking Gun Against Pakistan?

In one word, no. The allegations against Pakistan's military establishment for playing a double game in Afghanistan may well be true (I will come back to this later) but these documents do not prove it. At best they remain allegations. Most of the documents detailing the ISI's backing for the Taliban are, as already pointed out, based on questionable intelligence sources, either Afghan intelligence operatives (who have well known hostility to the ISI) or paid informers (who have a vested interest in selling sensational stories). Some of them are plainly laughable, such as the alleged ISI plan to poison Western forces' beer supplies. According to the intel, the alcohol was going to be purchased from Miranshah in Waziristan - yeah, right! - and Peshawar, mixed with poison and then airdropped and trucked into Afghanistan for Coalition Forces to consume (it would seem from this that the CF are quite keen on the FATAbrau brand and short of their Budweisers).

One of the most respected Afghanistan experts and a former European Union deputy head of mission in Afghanistan, Michael Semple, had this assessment to make about the reports in The Guardian (by far the most level-headed assessment I have read so far in the Western press and certainly worth reading in its entirety):

"Although most of Afghanistan's trade comes through Pakistan and Pakistan was the main place of refuge for Afghan refugees during the 1980s, the most popular way of establishing credentials as an Afghan nationalist has long been to denounce Pakistan as the enemy.

 

Among the 180 reports of ISI interference, most are drawn from informants or briefings from the Afghan intelligence service, who describe in lurid detail direct involvement of ISI officers in trying to wreak havoc inside Afghanistan. The bulk of them can now be dismissed as unreliable either with the benefit of hindsight (they warn of impending disasters which never happened) or on the basis of implausibility (conveying details the source could not have known) and because they fit in with a pattern of disinformation (stories constructed from recurrent themes and familiar characters).

 

One set of informants most likely passed on these reports because they found there was a market for them. More politically motivated informants, such as those Afghan officials who supplied briefings which US personnel later wrote up as intelligence, probably wanted to strengthen US backing by turning the US against Pakistan."

It is important to reiterate that most of these intel reports have not been been verified or confirmed as correct. The one exception to this (as far as I can tell so far) may be a Polish intelligence report about an allegedly ISI-backed impending attack on the Indian consulate in Kabul a week before it happened. That intel was apparently corroborated by US intercepts of communication, which were presented to the Pakistan government by the CIA Deputy Head Stephen Kappes.

Which brings me back to the issue of whether the ISI (or at least elements within it) really is involved in backing the Taliban in Afghanistan. There has been enough chatter around the issue for one to believe that there may be some kernel of truth to the matter. I have no proof and none has been conclusively presented but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to support the thesis - after all, could the insurgency succeed without backing from any quarters in Pakistan? But putting your realpolitik hat on, try and think about it slightly differently. There are two questions:

Q1. Is the ISI's double-game directed against the US or against India, whose influence it is trying to counter in Afghanistan? I am no fan of the ISI and its shenanigans but given the mindset of the Pakistan army and the agency's mandate, would it not be completely understandable for it to work to undermine Indian influence on Pakistan's western flank? And who would be a more logical partner than the opposition to the government that it believes is completely in India's pocket? And it's not as if Indian intelligence agencies do not have their own goals in Afghanistan and have not actively pursued the objective of marginalizing Pakistan's interests in the country. Now, you may argue that the problem is that by using the Taliban to undermine Indian influence, the ISI would necessarily be pitting itself against US interests as well. And you may be right. But I am willing to bet (if this hypothesis is true) that the ISI believes it can limit the fallout - it would probably be as wrong as it has been in the past with such things but it would still believe it.

Q2. In strategic terms, is Pakistan hedging its bets vis a vis the Taliban, so entirely shocking? Given past history of US involvement in the region, given how badly the US war in Afghanistan has gone, given the history of broken promises regarding safeguarding Pakistani interests in the region (vis a vis India) and given the increasing domestic pressure in the US to pull out, is it entirely surprising if Pakistan should? Especially if it feels the US will eventually leave behind a mess like the last time it pulled out? Especially if it fears that once the US forces move out, it will have to confront hostile neighbours on both sides?

Now, I should clarify that I would be the last person you would think of as a Taliban supporter. I am merely attempting to argue within the security state paradigm, the way the military probably is thinking about this. It's not something I like (because of what the Taliban represent and what the other repercussions would be on Pakistan) but given the geostrategic imperatives of the region, it is something I can almost understand.

The biggest irony about the WikiLeaks saga is that while the documents may not have provided any smoking gun of Pakistani backing for the Taliban, the dismay in Western (particularly US) audiences over the failing war effort will almost surely lead to increasing pressure on their governments to pull out forces sooner rather than later...which would help entrench Pakistani military opinion that backing the Taliban is the sensible thing to do, as an insurance policy for the coming mess.

We are screwed either way.



So, Why The Inordinate Focus On Pakistan?

I wanted to end this post with my assessment of the possible game plan around the leaks. Particularly a comparison of how a marginal media player such as The Guardian has presented the findings as opposed to the major media player, The New York Times, since the two vastly different takes tell us a lot about the stakes involved. Plus how the issue has been dealt with by other media players in interested areas such as India. But this post is already too long and I am completely exhausted. So I will defer this portion for another separate post (or perhaps an update on this one) when I am slightly refreshed. Till then.

Weirdo Diplomacy

Five Rupees recently had a post about how Diplomacy Is Weird, basically because diplomatic double-speak is the engine international relations thrives on.

You want really weird diplomacy? How about this from Peter Galbraith, who used to be No. 2 in the UN mission in Kabul and was fired after accusing Afghan President Hamid Karzai of widespread fraud during the last presidential elections:

“I don’t know how to put it diplomatically, so I guess I won’t — Karzai is a weirdo,” Galbraith said.

I may be wrong but I'm fairly sure this is the first time the word 'weirdo' has been used publicly in international strategic analysis.

Hamid Karzai: High Official? (Source: AP)

Galbraith, has earlier accused Karzai of smoking hash, which he feels is why the Afghan president tends to fly off the handle and make erratic statements. To be fair to him (Peter, that is), who wouldn't think that if the man most regard as the West's puppet in Afghanistan, able to survive only because of round-the-clock security provided by American commandos, were to suddenly threaten to join the Taliban?

Great. So now we have to contend with a hostile and high, weirdo puppet! But it does explain why Pakistan always referred to him as the "'tokin' Pakhtun" in the Northern Alliance government.

Sovereign Delay

From a news report about rising tensions and an escalating war of words between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the US government, this has to be the funniest quote in the last week...

"We have partnership, we want to continue this alliance and partnership with the United States and the rest of the world, in the interest of both of us. But this has to be understood by all that Afghanistan is a sovereign country."
           — Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai in a BBC Interview, April 5, 2010

And you thought Rehman Malik et al sounded funny talking about sovereignty.

Here's Mr Sovereign in his Standard Chartered-issued sovereign uniform (note the bank colours) walking the purple carpet with his friend, not master.

Obama's midnight call (source: AFP)

From the looks of President Obama's coat, it seems he had a bit of 'dust-up' with Karzai before the photo-op. Mr Sovereign probably held him face down in the sand until he cried uncle.

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day comes from PMLN MNA from Chakwal and columnist Ayaz Amir in the op-ed pages of The News:

"Punjab is the strategic depth of bigotry and extremism masquerading in the colours of Islam."

Actually, you should probably read the whole piece. Much of it re-encapsulates well-tread ground about the origins of our extremism problem. But the following concluding bit should also perhaps be translated and read out to his party members and leaders who probably find reading anything a bit bothersome (the clarifications in [square brackets] are of course my additions)...

"All the extremist outfits with whose names we are now familiar emerged at that time [under Zia whose protege Amir's leader Nawaz Sharif was]: the jaish this and that, the lashkar so and so. Most of them were Punjab-based and members from all these organisations acquired battle experience in Afghanistan. My friend Colonel Imam of Afghan 'jihad' fame -- and who, like most good people, is from Chakwal -- takes enormous pride in saying that the most fearless fighters of all were from Punjab. And he should know for he was in the thick of it.

When with the departure of the Soviet army and the victory of the Saudi and Charlie Wilson-funded 'mujahideen', the Afghan war wound down, the fighters who had gained battle experience in Afghanistan were shifted to an entirely different front: Kashmir, where in a protracted struggle they managed to tie down half a million Indian troops.

Their godfathers in the security establishment felt elated. Forgetting the role of hard-drinking Charlie Wilson and the Saudis, they wrote a self-glorifying narrative in which it was claimed that not only had the power of faith defeated the Soviets. It had also hastened the end and break-up of the Soviet empire. If a superpower could be thus defeated, zeal and the spirit of 'jihad' could work similar miracles in Kashmir.

This was the mood then pervading the top ranks of the army and the intelligence agencies. So it is scarcely to be wondered at that when after the fall of Kabul to the 'mujahideen', a Pakistani delegation was on its way to the Afghan capital, no sooner had the aircraft carrying it entered Afghan airspace when those on board, including some Americans, were startled by a loud cry: "Allah-o-Akbar". This from the then ISI chief [and a close confidante of then PM Nawaz Sharif who appointed him], the heavily-bearded Lt-Gen Javed Nasir.

Our rendezvous with our present extremist-flowing troubles did not come about from out of the blue. We had ploughed the land and watered it for a long time.

When the Americans attacked Afghanistan post-Sept 11, the theatre of 'jihad' shifted again: back to Afghanistan. The Bush administration of course screwed things up for itself by going on to attack Iraq before finishing the job in Afghanistan, a piece of folly sure to haunt the US for a long time to come. But Afghanistan was bad enough by itself. It reignited the fires of holy war and, given the iron dictates of geography, it was inevitable that Pakistan sooner or later would have its hands burned by another conflict raging in Afghanistan.

Once a change of course in our strategic course was forced upon us by the US -- Musharraf succumbing to American pressure without extracting the kind of bargain that would have better served Pakistan's interests -- logic and necessity demanded a clean break with the playing-with-fire policies of the past. In other words, a clean and definitive break with Zia-minded 'jihad'. But Musharraf played a double game. Even while dancing wildly to America's tune he was never serious, or he lacked the will and capacity, to seriously rethink the past.

But now that under a new sun and a new sky we are finally embarked upon a new course -- which marks a true break with the past -- we have to realise the extent and magnitude of the problem. The terrorism we are now fighting is not a provincial subject. It is not confined to any one province. It is a composite whole, organically tied together, growing not from any isolated virus but from a sickness of the mind and soul which had the whole of Pakistan, or at least its strategic quartermasters, in its grip.

If Pakistan is to become something, realising its dreams and potential, if it has to enter the real world and leave the world of dreams and fantasies behind, then there is no course open to it except to tackle this sickness, no matter what it takes and what sacrifices it entails, without ifs and buts, and without any misconceived appeals to the Taliban."

Amir's reference to General Musharraf reminded me of the time in the year 2000, when soon after taking power and vowing to restore Jinnah's vision, he had been asked a pointed question by a young journalist about the threat of Talibanization of Pakistan at a public gathering. If I recall correctly (I was witness to it), the question had raised the issue of blowback, long before it became fashionable to talk in such terms. I still recall the general's response: he claimed that people often tended to forget that the Taliban were evolving too and cited as an example the fact that when they met for dinner with Pakistani army delegations they would now use (or at least have on the table/ dastarkhwan) cutlery and crockery... whereas earlier they would simply eat with their hands out of a single thaal (dish). I'm not making this up. A few months later, the cutlery and crockery were publicly forgotten.

As for Ayaz Amir, if ever there was a misfit in a political party...

Afghanistan: Back To The Future?

One of the most thoughtful pieces about the recently held London Conference on Afghanistan has come from BBC Urdu's Wusatullah Khan, published on January 31.

Here is a translation of the piece, done by yours truly. Worth reading.

Create A New Problem!

Wusatullah Khan

BBCUrdu.com Islamabad

 

For the last few days, I have been remembering slain Afghan President Najeebullah intensely.

 

In 1989, when the last Soviet troops had crossed the River Amo, to save Afghanistan from further destruction, Najeebullah’s national reconciliation plan was on the table. Under it, the Mujahideen groups had been appealed to think only as Afghans, now that the Red Army that they had been fighting against was gone. Najeebullah’s government said ‘We will not take up arms, you too should lay down your guns. Let us call a Loya Jirga [Grand Meeting], sit across from each other and instead of indulging in a destructive blame game, let us make a government that represents all segments of Afghans. This government can then make a constitution and conduct elections as well.’

 

But Najeebullah’s plan was scornfully rejected by the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Mujahideen groups. Najeebullah was taunted, saying ‘you yourself are a remainder of the Soviet occupation, how can there be any reconciliation with you?’ The result was that the destruction that had occurred in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, much worse was visited upon the country after it, and has continued since.

 

The reconciliation strategy that 60 countries have endorsed as practical at the London Conference is almost a photocopy of Najeebullah’s national reconciliation plan. If there is any difference between the two, it is that 20 years ago the same plan was considered impractical because it was put forward by a Soviet puppet Afghan president. Now the same plan is considered kosher because the US and NATO are behind it. And because Hamid Karzai is touted as an elected leader rather than a Western puppet.

 

Najeebullah was accused of many things. But he was never accused of financial corruption, of encouraging warlordism or of overseeing drug trafficking. Hamid Karzai’s reputation is entirely different and these allegations against him have come – and continue to come – not from his enemies but, in fact, from circles within the US, NATO and the United Nations. According to Transparency International, Afghanistan is the second-most corrupt country in the world. And the level of misgiving is such that even the Afghan parliament itself has twice rejected most of the nominees put forward for the cabinet.

 

In such a scenario, to expect the Hamid Karzai administration to honestly oversee disbursement of the promised US$500 million fund set up to bring the Taliban into the mainstream of Afghan social life, is like putting a cat in charge of protecting milk.

 

Whatever else the London plan may have accomplished, it is certainly reinforcing the perception that within a year or year-and-a-half, Afghanistan will once again be left at its own mercy. But when the US and NATO take their leave, their place will once again be taken by militants backed by Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and India.

 

They say one way of addressing a complicated and complex problem is to create a bigger problem. It looks like this is exactly what is in store for Afghanistan.