Talking to the Taliban

By Rasul Bakhsh Rais

Published: June 26, 2011

The writer is professor of political science at LUMS rasul.rais@tribune.com.pk

When, how and on what terms will the Afghan war end? If we go by the political rhetoric of the warring sides, the Taliban and the United States and its Nato allies, there will be no solution until each side achieves its central objectives. The problem is that both sides in any conflict cannot achieve their objectives until they reach some middle ground by recognising that the other side has some legitimate concerns, interests and can be acknowledged as a party with whom some political business can be done.

The Pakistani Elephant in the Room

What President Obama didn’t say about the other South Asian country where we’re at war

Reuters

In his speech Wednesday night announcing the beginning of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Obama mentioned only three times the country that, in a November 2009 Oval Office meeting, he said was the source of the “cancer” that had spread into the Afghan war: Pakistan. Though the U.S. has spent much of the last year expanding its assault on the Taliban across the border into Pakistan, sending drones and special forces teams against the militants based there (recently, Osama bin Laden, who appeared to be living in relative comfort with support from Pakistani military elements), Obama took a slightly softer tone toward this ostensible U.S. ally.

Calling America’s bluff

By Kurt Jacobsen and Sayeed Hassan Khan

Published in Dawn

HAS Obama unwittingly called his own bluff? The spooky so-called mastermind Osama Bin Laden is rubbed out, courtesy a Hollywood-style hit squad operation. What more is there to say?

Everything, actually. But nervous authorities want to curb jubilation so as not to give the exasperated American public any funny ideas about pulling their stupendously expensive military apparatus out of battered Afghanistan.

Pakistan is Sinking: Time For Tough Love?

Walter Russell Mead

The news from Pakistan remains dire.  The flood waters now sweeping toward the Arabian Gulf have been far more devastating and the destruction more widespread than anyone predicted.  They have cruelly exposed many of Pakistan’s glaring weaknesses: its corrupt feudal elite, its corrupt and ineffective bureaucracy, its lack of infrastructure, its weak civil society, and the presence (unsurprising given the decades long failures of the country’s public and private institutions to do their job) of radical religious extremism and terrorism emerging from the rage and despair of a people betrayed by its leaders.

The long term outlook is not good.  Pakistan has failed yet again to educate a rising generation of children and the population is rising faster than the country can find jobs.  While the IPCC may have overstated the problem of glacier melt, long term trends point to a decline in the flow of the rivers on which Pakistan depends.  The growing power gap between Pakistan and India (the world’s two most hostile nuclear powers) is likely to destabilize the geopolitical environment for some time to come.  The slow but inexorable decay of the Pakistani state, the rise of separatism in some parts of the country, and a depressingly long list of other problems greatly complicate the task of those in Pakistan and abroad who would like to help.

The Identity Conundrum

DynaNama- The Global Kaleidoscope

Who am “I” among the myriad of all of “we” and many of “them”?

The question is not a new one. And it’s definitely not something that has annoyed and perplexed the philosophers, sociologists and psychologists alone. The matter at hand has been lingering on some conscious and most unconscious minds for ages now.

Identity, or perhaps crisis of it, is the indictment of our modern world. I’m not saying it did not exist in preceding generations. Yet, the intensity of the crisis and its implications are alarming as never before.

I came to this somewhat dismal conclusion as I sifted through April’s articles. The identity struggle is everywhere.

This was most evident in James Estrin’s article “Listening to (and saving) the World’s Languages” published in The New York Times on April 28, 2010.

The author asserts the virtual need of language diversity in modern times. Language is perhaps the greatest symbol of consciousness. It represents the world we live in. It is the identity. Yet numerous languages are nearing extinction without anyone realizing it. The reasons for language attrition, according to the author, are plenty; war, ethnic cleansing and compulsory schooling in national tongues to name a few.

Still, should this concern us?…READ MORE

The GlObal KaleidOscOpe…DunyaNama

The world is constantly changing at pace that often leaves us bewildered. There are astonishing breakthroughs in science, new discoveries in technology and innovative advancements in our ways of communication every day.

However, where does Pakistan stand amidst all these new discoveries and developments? Are we following the world as it advances or have we lagged behind?

The purpose of our new weekly section “Global kaleidoscope … DunyaNama” posted on our website is to know and analyse this. We want to bring our readers’ attention to the ways of our global world. Hence, by reflecting on the global discourses propagated in form of news, articles, blogs and researches we will attempt to create a holistic picture of worldly affairs in a given week and the possible implications for our own development.

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8th Feb 2010

In today’s modern times we have a large plethora of information available to us, thanks to the worldwide web. Still, there were some articles that stood out. Some that forced us to think about where we’re headed. We plan to discuss them in our section of “Global kaleidoscope… DunyaNama”

We start by an interesting article that caught our eye. It was John Pilger’s “From Orwell’s World to Obama’s Oceania” posted on the author’s website (www.johnpilger.com). John Pilger is an Australian journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker based in London. He also writes a bi-weekly column in New Statesman, and is well known for his outspoken criticism of foreign policy of western countries and world leaders including American President, Barak Obama.

In this article Pilger describes how the entire political structure of United States of America, rests solely on shaky foundations of self-constructed lies. The war on Terrorism, world peace, Al-Qaeda and global consensus in support of the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are some of the many lies that US government has created in an attempt to create a history to justify its future.

But How does US manage to sustain and justify such big a lie?…Read More at our Website

Dealing with brutal Afghan warlords is a mistake

Nick Grono and Candace Rondeaux in the Boston Globe

Boston Globe

 

AS WASHINGTON rolls out its latest troop surge in Afghanistan, all eyes are on the violent south and east of the country to see whether the additional military muscle will bring stability. But outside observers are looking in the wrong place: They ought to focus on the backroom deals the United States is preparing to make with some notorious warlords, as these will determine the long-term effectiveness of President Obama’s strategy.

While the White House has paid lip service to the importance of good governance in Afghanistan, the reality is that co-opting violent warlords is at the heart of a plan that will likely result in further instability. One of the warlords who may soon star in the new US efforts to rebrand fundamentalists as potential government partners is Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a brutal Afghan insurgent commander responsible for dozens of deadly attacks on coalition troops. As a mujahedeen commander during the civil war in the 1990s, Hekmatyar turned his guns on Kabul, slaughtering many thousands of Afghans, with his militias raping and maiming thousands more.

NATO officer claims US Special Forces have conducted secret raids inside Pakistan’s border regions

A former NATO officer claims US Special Forces have conducted secret raids inside Pakistan’s border regions. The operations were conducted between 2003 and 2008, but only one was ever made public.

According to reports, troops were looking for high value targets among both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The one that became widely known in September 2008 was condemned as a provocation by the Pakistani government.

Ethnic groups from Pakistan’s Balochistan province where most of the raids occurred blame the government in Islamabad for allowing these things to happen, said RT LIVE investigative journalist Webster Tarpley.

Watch the Video:

Obama’s Af-Pak War is Not Just Deadly and Counterproductive: It’s Illegal

By Marjorie Cohn

Some 30 percent of all U.S. deaths in Afghanistan have occurred during Obama’s presidency. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned.

President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war.

In 1945, in the wake of two wars that claimed millions of lives, the nations of the world created the United Nations system to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The UN Charter is based on the principles of international peace and security as well as the protection of human rights. But the United States, one of the founding members of the UN, has often flouted the commands of the charter, which is part of U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

Post-American scenarios in Afghanistan

By Ilhan Niaz

After three decades of turmoil, violence and killings, Afghanistan is still at war. A powerful foreign occupation force continues to hold in place a local collaborationist dispensation with few roots and even less demonstrable competence. Democratic development has replaced despotic Islamic rule which earlier replaced a socialist paradigm as the slop of the day dished out for public consumption.

The Islamic warriors who blunted and frustrated the armies of the ‘Evil Empire’ are now the ‘evil doers’. The other great enemies of the ‘Evil Empire’, namely the United States and its allies, once the benefactors of today’s terrorists have replaced the Soviets as the occupying force.

As guns and drugs boom, the writ of what is generously called the Afghan government is practically non-existent outside Kabul. Warlords, mafias and insurgents control 80 per cent of the territory and feed off the presence of the occupation forces. The reality is that a failing occupation is trying to prop up a failed state.

The Demons that Haunt the Pakistanis

Cross post from New York Times, Published: December 5, 2009

All rights reserved with The New York Times Company

By Sabrina Tavernise

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — These are emotional times in Pakistan, particularly since President Obama told its leaders last week to fight harder against Islamist extremists, and expanded a deeply unpopular covert air strike program in Pakistani territory.

After Mr. Obama’s speech at West Point, newspapers and talk shows here were full of heated commentary that those demands would push Pakistan further toward disaster. “Approval of increasing drone strikes in Pakistan,” blared one headline. “A very difficult time is approaching for Pakistan,” a former foreign secretary intoned on television.

Kerry Luger Bill

Kerry Luger Bill has created a lot of furore in Pakistan. While government is portraying it as an achievement it has many detractors who say we are selling the nation…

At awaam we have decided that you can read the bill for yourself and decide…

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S.1707

Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 (Considered and Passed by Senate)

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S 1707 CPS

111th CONGRESS

1st Session

S. 1707

To authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 to promote an enhanced strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people, and for other purposes.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

September 24, 2009

Mr. KERRY (for himself and Mr. LUGAR ) introduced the following bill; which was read twice, considered, read the third time, and passed

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A BILL

To authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2010 through 2014 to promote an enhanced strategic partnership with Pakistan and its people, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009′.

(b) Table of Contents- The table of contents for this Act is as follows:

Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents.

Sec. 2. Definitions.

Sec. 3. Findings.

Sec. 4. Statement of principles.

TITLE I–DEMOCRATIC, ECONOMIC, AND DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE FOR PAKISTAN

Sec. 101. Authorization of assistance.

Sec. 102. Authorization of appropriations.

Sec. 103. Auditing.

TITLE II–SECURITY ASSISTANCE FOR PAKISTAN

Sec. 201. Purposes of assistance.

Sec. 202. Authorization of assistance.

Sec. 203. Limitations on certain assistance.

Sec. 204. Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.

Sec. 205. Requirements for civilian control of certain assistance.

TITLE III–STRATEGY, ACCOUNTABILITY, MONITORING, AND OTHER PROVISIONS

Sec. 301. Strategy Reports.

Sec. 302. Monitoring Reports.