A Day in the Life of Pakistan

A suicide bomber killed at least 25 27 people, including two police officers and several children; and injured dozens in Charsadda, Pakistan in the turbulent North West Frontier province, an area where Islamist extremists have been battling government forces for control. It was the latest act in a wave of rampant violence that has steadily worsened since Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated on December 27.

The bomber struck at a rally organized by the secular Awami National Party, which opposes Islamist parties for support among the local ethnic Pashtun population. Abdul Waheed, a 22 year old who survived the attack but was seriously burned, said the bomber blew himself up as a member of the party was leading a recitation of verses from the Quran. ''I only heard the blast and cries and then something hit me and I fell down,'' Waheed told The Associated Press from his hospital bed in Peshawar.

All of Pakistan has been a powderkeg since the assassination of Ms. Bhutto, and nowhere have tensions been higher than in the lawless North West Frontier Province, in the border region with Afghanistan where the remnants of Al Qaeda are thought to ave sought and found safe haven after they were allowed to slip away at Tora Bora. Islamic militants in the region have been somewhat successful in battling government forces and challenging government control.

Because of the worsening violence, parliamentary candidates standing in the February 18 elections have shunned large outdoor rallies, opting to campaign in smaller, more intimate settings held inside the walled compounds of party stalwarts. The television footage of the aftereffects of the blast, the bloodstained clothing, overturned chairs, and the scenes of general chaos that littered the grand meeting hall of a party members sprawling private home drove home the point that even these tightly controlled settings are susceptible to attack by determined terrorists.

In spite of the overt danger, 100,000 members of Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party defiantly gathered in a sports stadium in Thatta as the party resumed its campaigning following the end of the traditional 40 day mourning period following her death. Her widow, Asif Ali Zardari, vowed in an emotional speech to carry forth his murdered wife's mission, and he beseeched the assembled masses to ''give me strength so that we can serve the country.''

''I have the responsibility to save Pakistan,'' Zardari said. ''This is our country and we have to save it.''

A 24 year old laborer who attended the rally said that the reputation of Mr. Zardari was not very good, but that devotion to Benazir compelled many to to attend the rally. ''We will avenge the blood of Benazir. We don't have bombs. We are not terrorists, but we have political power and we will capitalize on this political power to avenge the death of Benazir,'' said another supporter, Haji Jaffar, 75, a retired teacher. The martyring of Ms. Bhutto has strengthened the resolve of her supporters and shored up the strength of her party.

Elsewhere in Pakistan, approximately 1,500 lawyers attempted Saturday to march to the barricaded home of the Chief Justice of the countries Supreme Court, who was suspended from his position last March by Pervez Mushareff last November in an attempt to control the judiciary which opposed his authoritarian rule. As the lawyers attempted to cross the barbed-wire barricade, hundreds of riot police unleashed tear gas and water cannons, topped off with a baton charge. Although there were no reports of serious injury, several lawyers were roughed up. Earlier Saturday, the countries Bar Council announced that the lawyers nationwide will boycott the courts through election day in an attempt to restore the suspended judges.

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Insurgencies are becoming entrenched along Afghan-Pakistan border

Radical Islamic fundamentalist militants are bolstering their numbers and expanding their scope of influence in the forbidding terrain of the lawless tribal areas that flank the border on both sides.

From here, they traffic in disarray, violence and chaos over a vast area of both countries. This is the area that the remnants of al Qaeda fled to when they were allowed to escape at Tora Bora. Here they have found fertile soil and they have set about the business of regrouping, recruiting and resurging. The violence and bloodshed are spreading from the border areas to the Pakistani heartland and threatens to destabilize the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan - governments which have allied themselves with the United States and the western allies in those volatile countries.

From McClatchy:

In Afghanistan, U.S. and NATO forces are facing "a classic growing insurgency," Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday.

But the U.S. military, stretched thin by the war in Iraq, is hard-pressed to send more than the 3,200 additional Marines the Bush administration is dispatching to Afghanistan. The growing insurgency there is fueling rifts within the NATO alliance as Germany and other nations refuse to allow their troops to participate in offensive operations in Afghanistan. The Afghan army is making progress but still cannot operate independently.

"Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan," warned an Atlantic Council of the United States report last week. The report was directed by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, the former top NATO commander. "What is happening in Afghanistan and beyond its borders can have even greater strategic long-term consequences than the struggle in Iraq." (emphasis added)

[Keep Reading]

The Pakistani army is ill-suited to confront a home-grown insurgency in the tribal areas - it is geared toward fighting a conventional land-war against India. To date the Pakistanis have avoided the George Bush modus operandi of "when the only tool you have is a hammer..." and avoided sending forces to battle the insurgency (using them to chase down al Qaeda has been volatile enough). The military leaders are reluctant to turn their guns on the insurgents because they fear that heavy casualties would prompt schisms within the military along ethnic and sectarian lines and that would destroy the Pakistani armed forces.

All the U.S. and the NATO allies can do is train a few Pakistani troops because U.S. military action would spark outrage among the populace, already on the verge of boiling over with anti-U.S. and anti-government fueled outrage.

But it gets better - the threat of terrorists trained and indoctrinated in the tribal areas directed at Afghan, Pakistani and even western targets is greater than it has ever been.

"The Taliban in Afghanistan now control more of the country than at any time since 2001, and their confederates in the tribal areas of Pakistan are expanding their operations almost day by day. While our attention has been diverted by Iraq, we've overlooked a potentially far more serious threat to the security of all Americans," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., told McClatchy.

There's no hard evidence of direct collusion between the Afghan Taliban and a new Pakistani Taliban alliance, both of which are made up mostly of Pashtun tribesmen, who dominate the region of soaring mountains and rugged deserts that span the frontier. Indeed, the Afghan Taliban deny links with the Pakistani insurgents.

But the ties among the Pashtuns are personal, historic, ethnic and ideological, and experts worry that the region faces a growing jihadi movement that's aided by al Qaida with Arab and Central Asian fighters, coordination, money and motivation.

"You see some indication that there is a blurring of the lines and some associations that are not helpful," said a senior U.S. defense official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Husain Haqqani, a political scientist and former aide to the late Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said that the group "have become a seamless whole." The common thread that unites them all is that the groups calling themselves "Taliban" on either side of the border are descended from the Mujahadeen, the Islamic guerrillas that fought the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979-89. Back then, they were the standard-bearers for the west and they battled the Soviets with arms that were supplied by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Britain and flowed through Pakistan.

One point enjoys widespread support: The Bush administration bears much of the blame for the current FUBAR security situation in the least stable nuclear nation on earth.

First, in Bush's idiotic invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan was left to twist in the wind after the focus changed and left that poor, beleaguered nation unsecured after the 2001 invasion. Then the Bush administration turned the screws on Pervez Musharraf to send troops into the tribal areas to hunt down al Qaeda operatives who had escaped there from Tora Bora. The presence of these troops outraged the tribes, and cemented opposition with heavy-handed tactics and high civilian casualties. While this was going on, little heed was paid to the Taliban, and their support among a pissed-off populace took root. Growth in support exploded after Musharraf ordered a strike against The Red Mosque last summer. That raid killed scores of people.

The Taliban Movement of Pakistan, which was only established in December of 2007, has already extended it's reach into all seven tribal agencies, as well as the North West Frontier Province.

Taliban-sponsored violence has shaken the provincial capital Peshawar to it's very foundation. It has killed hundreds of security forces personnel. Ammunition deliveries have been hijacked, major thoroughfares have been seized, and for the first time ever, a major city has been cut off from the rest of the country by militants.

Across the border in Afghanistan, the Taliban has expanded the territory under their control and now moves around freely in spite of heavy combat losses last year with NATO troops. "The number of districts in which the Taliban operate exploded last year," said John McCreary, a former senior intelligence analyst with the Joint Chiefs of Staff who's now with the private contractor dNovus RDI. "This is the first year they have managed to sustain over 100 attacks per month for the whole year since they started to climb back. One hundred attacks per month used to be surge figure. Now it's the new norm."

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Diplomats Expelled from Afghanistan

A diplomatic set-to is brewing in Afghanistan in the wake of a Briton and an Irishman being declared "Persona Non Grata" and ordered to leave the country by Thursday. The men, who work for the European Union and the United Nations stand accused of threatening state security by meeting with Taliban insurgents. Both men have worked in Afghanistan for over a decade, even when the Taliban was in charge in the country. Both are well versed in local languages and customs.

The Afghan government accused the men of meeting with members of the Taliban in the southern province of Helmand, where the Taliban insurgency has a stronghold. Helmand province where the majority of the opium poppies are grown and harvested. "Not only did they hold talks with the Taliban, but also had given them money," the Afghan official said. "It is not clear whether they were supporting the insurgency or not."

It is unclear at present whether the meeting was a personal undertaking, or whether they were acting in an official capacity. Approximately 50 Afghans, some of whom are colleagues of the men, have been detained for questioning and investigations over their links to the matter.

Western diplomats sprang to the defense of the two men, insisting that it was all a misunderstanding, and that they hoped the men would be allowed to return quickly. They insist that the men were likely meeting with tribal leaders, and didn't set out to negotiate with the taliban. The skill set the men possess are vital to the success of the multiple programs and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are struggling to run reconstruction and development projects.

The greatest threat to humanitarian progress in Afghanistan is the strengthening Taliban insurgency, particularly in the southern and eastern portions of the country where the remnants of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network sow distention and stoke the fires of insurgency.

The unnamed Afghan official that spoke to Reuters said that the meeting in question took place in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province. Musa Qala is the region that sparked controversy earlier in the year when British forces withdrew after a deal was brokered with tribal elders to police themselves. That agreement was blasted by the Afghan government after Taliban insurgents promptly took over control of the region and held it until they were driven out two weeks ago by NATO and Afghan forces.

The Afghan government has little popular support in the Taliban strongholds, and insists publicly that it does not negotiate with insurgents, but unofficially it is commonplace for frequent contacts to take place. Likewise, western governments and diplomats hold a similar public line, while privately arguing that dividing the insurgency and splitting the leadership is a legitimate strategy to be pursued.

[That's all, folks...]

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Remember Afghanistan?

Sure you do - the country in which bin Laden and his warren of terrorists found safe haven from which to plot the terror attacks of September 11. Think hard. It'll come back to you.

And when it does, consider that we should be applying the lessons of Vietnam to the situation there. One lesson in specific...As the end drew nigh and helicopters on the roof of the embassy became inevitable, an exchange took place between two battle-hardened Colonels, Harry Summers from the United States Army, and Colonel Tu from North Vietnam. Stinging from the defeat, Summers reportedly said “You never beat us on the battlefield.” To which Tu replied, “That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”

That is the lesson that we should be heeding in Afghanistan.

But instead...

White House assessment of the war in Afghanistan has concluded that wide-ranging strategic goals that the Bush administration set for 2007 have not been met, even as U.S. and NATO forces have scored significant combat successes against resurgent Taliban fighters, according to U.S. officials.

The evaluation this month by the National Security Council followed an in-depth review in late 2006 that laid out a series of projected improvements for this year, including progress in security, governance and the economy. But the latest assessment concluded that only "the kinetic piece" -- individual battles against Taliban fighters -- has shown substantial progress, while improvements in the other areas continue to lag, a senior administration official said.

And while the Taliban gradually takes back territory - they now hold 54% of the land area of the country - The military points to tactical successes while the intelligence branches point to strategic failures; and any chance of realizing United States objectives in that beleaguered nation slip further and further away.

[That's all, folks...]

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Afghanistan: Majority Taliban, and Kabul could fall next year

At least if you go by land area. The Guardian reports the Taliban now control more than half the country at an estimated 54 percent.

The Senlis Council, an independent British think tank, warns the country could be lost entirely, even as the Taliban front line creeps closer and closer to Kabul:

“It is a sad indictment of the current state of Afghanistan that the question now appears to be not if the Taliban will return to Kabul, but when ... and in what form. The oft-stated aim of reaching the city in 2008 appears more viable than ever and it is incumbent upon the international community to implement a new strategic paradigm before time runs out.”

Its 110-page report coincides with an equally severe warning from Oxfam. In a report for the House of Commons International Development Committee the humanitarian and aid agency warns that the security situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating significantly with the country's problems exacerbated by corruption in central and local government.

Senior British and US military commanders privately agree despite their public emphasis on short-term successes against Taliban fighters.

Senlis recommends urgent action, as does Oxfam, but nobody seems to listen or care:

It says that the NATO-led International Security Force of some 40,000 troops should be at least doubled and include forces from Muslim countries as well as Nato states which have refused to send troops to the country.

There is no sign of any move within NATO to send reinforcements to Afghanistan.

While western governments, like the Senlis Council and Oxfam, are increasingly concerned about the lack of effectiveness of President Hamid Karzai's government, there is no agreement about how to solve the problems.

Also interesting to note that “our boy” in Kabul is more and more perceived as less and less effective, kind of like the whole succession of “our boys” in Baghdad.

The domestic political fallout will be huge if the Taliban occupies Kabul in, say, mid-summer 2008, after primaries are over but before the party national conventions. That holds true in spades if Bush’s soul-gazed bosom buddy in Karachi, Pervez Musharraf, continues to dig in his heels about not taking serious action against the Taliban and allies in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands.

Ted Rall was right: If there was a country to invade six yeas ago, it was Pakistan. But, THAT most definitely would have required a military draft.

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Musharraf WAS the Taliban

Or, why we’re fighting the wrong war in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq

The full version of the Ted Rall comment:

The marketing of Musharraf as a bulwark against radical Islam and the Taliban is one of the biggest jokes of the post-9/11 era. He wasn't for the Taliban before he was against them. He was the Taliban.

Rall crossed the border from from China to Pakistan at just the time Musharraf was overthrowing prime minister Nawaz Sharaf. He then invited Taliban fighters from Afghanistan to come into the Kashmir region of Pakistan to up the ante in the fighting against India in the third Kashmir War.

That said, Rall is blunt in that our war in Afghanistan is, in his opinion, even worse than the invasion of Iraq. Why?

This is why:

If U.S. officials had wanted to catch Osama bin Laden, all they had to do was call Musharraf. On 9/11, the Al Qaeda leader was laid up in a Pakistani military hospital in Islamabad. If the dictator refused, invading Pakistan —if you’re into that sort of thing — would certainly have been more justifiable than Afghanistan or Iraq. A Pakistan War could have neutralized the world's most dangerous nuclear threat, established a valuable strategic American foothold between India and China, and — if we worked with the UN — scored us popularity points for restoring democratic rule.

Such a war would have been far more justifiable than Afghanistan or Iraq. No country was more responsible than Pakistan for 9/11. Pakistan hosted Al Qaeda's headquarters in Kashmir. Most of its training camps were in Kashmir and Pakistan's Tribal Areas--not Afghanistan. On July 22, 2004, The Guardian reported that General Mahmoud Ahmed, chief of the ISI under Musharraf, had sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker. The Wall Street Journal confirmed that Pakistani intelligence had financed 9/11, but the 9/11 Commission decided not to investigate our “strategic ally in the war on terrorism.”

Remember in what country Daniel Pearl was killed? Rall is right.

And, though he doesn’t get specifically into it, as long as he kept the border open, we could have sent all the troops we have in Iraq to Afghanistan and still not totally snuffed out Al Qaeda.

Rall’s conclusion?

Musharraf was always a huckster. Anyone who paid attention could see that, but that's the problem: we never do.

Right on.

And, this refreshing angle on this is part of why I like Rall as a columnist.

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Benazir Bhutto returns from exile, Taliban-led assassination attempt kills over 100 supporters

The Aftermath

More than 100 people perished late Thursday as bombs detonated along the parade route as former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto returned to her home city of Karachi after eight years in exile.
Hundreds of thousands of jubilant Pakistanis lined the streets and danced atop cars as her entourage passed.

Then...Chaos erupted.

...After an initial small explosion, a huge blast came just feet from the front of the truck carrying Ms. Bhutto during a procession through Karachi. The blast shattered windows in her vehicle, The A.P. said.

Televised views of the scene showed bodies in the nighttime city streets, crowds running through traffic that is at a standstill and the noises of sirens and people screaming.

Before the explosions, hundreds of thousands of supporters lined the streets, dancing on bus roofs, waving banners and surging forward for a glimpse of their leader as she inched her way through the city atop a bullet-proof truck.

The huge and enthusiastic turnout earlier on Thursday made it an emotional homecoming for Ms. Bhutto, who was twice turned out of office and has lived in self-imposed exile. It was also a vindication for her politically that after leading two short-lived governments and being accused together with her husband of corruption and mismanagement, she could still command fervent support on the streets

The throngs that greeted Ms. Bhutto on Thursday were larger than those that lined the streets in 1986 when she returned from exile the first time, to face politically - and prevail over - Muhammed Zia-al-Huq, the General who had deposed her fathers government and installed martial law for the third time in Pakistan's short history as an independent nation.

That return from exile preceded Ms. Bhutto's historic rise to power. She was the first woman in the Muslim world to be elected Prime Minister and lead a nation.

Before the bombings, Ms. Bhutto looked out on the teeming crowds of mostly working class Pakistanis. Many were unemployed young men, a great many of whom had traveled hundreds of kilometers and camped along the roadside leading to the airport, anxiously awaiting her arrival.

In words that later seemed prescient, she spoke strongly against terrorism and the need to save Pakistan from extremism through democracy. “The time has come for democracy,” she said. “If we want to save Pakistan, we have to have democracy.”

She has been outspoken against militants and Al Qaeda and repeated the same comments as she flew in. “The terrorists are trying to take over my country and we have to stop them,” she said.

The New York Times is now pegging the death toll at 115 and counting, and the Taliban, allied with (the real) al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bombing and assassination attempt against Ms. Bhutto, who is determined to take a hard line against their thuggery and extremism.

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Tony Snow--Are You Kidding Me?

I am sorry. I put up the wrong humorous video. I meant to put up a clip of the unsurpassed comedy of Tony Snow.

Here is today's edition of Tony's routine. He is answering questions about whether putting people in Gitmo without trial and throwing away the key might be considered a handicap in our efforts to encourage democracy world wide.



If you can't understand the tape TPMmuckraker has transcribed Tony's take:

Are you saying that detaining people who are plucked off the battlefields is an assault on democracy? Are you kidding me? You're talking about the people who were responsible for supporting the Taliban, somehow detaining them is an assault on democracy?

Yes Tony, picking people up on suspicion and throwing them in prison for life without trial is a threat to Democracy. It sure makes us look like we don't care at all about the rule of law.

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Surging in the wrong direction

Somehow, the Republicans managed to paint the Democrats as wanting to surrender the "War on Terror" because we see the folly of continued involvement of American forces in Iraq.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and it is time to set the record straight.

The war in Iraq and the War on Terror are far from the same thing. In fact, I would argue that their respective circles barely overlap. Iraq is a sectarian civil war and American forces are caught in the crossfire. The front in the War on Terror is located on the other side of Iran, in Afghanistan.

They keep asking for a Democratic plan. Fine. This Democrat has one. The first thing we do is get our diplomats together with Iranian diplomats and we agree to stop meddling around on their borders if they will stop meddling in Iraq. (And make Juan Cole one of the Diplomats we send.) Acknowledge that the location of American combat forces on two of her borders has something to do with Iran's sudden interest in developing nuclear weapons. Especially when it is established fact that a lot of American commando activity has been going on in Iran below the CNN line. I understand their motivation because I can read a map.

The next thing we do is start pulling brigades back to Kuwait and let them rest up and have some leave. Reduce forces in Iraq by 10,000 a month, and when they are rested, add them to the NATO effort in Afghanistan, where 21,500 additional troops would make a real difference.

I accept that Iraq is a disaster no matter what, and can't be won militarily. It is an apostacy that 3000 Americans have died in an unnecessary war. But I am not willing to lose Afghanistan too.

But that is what is certain to happen if we continue focusing on Iran, and if we lose Afghanistan, then literally, the terrorists win. (That might be the only time those words have been used properly.)

As it stands, all signs point to a Taliban re-emergence in Afghanistan in the spring, and that comes in February in the south.

It is time for us to put Afghanistan at the forefront. I support the justified and justifiable war, but I can't support the vanity war George W. Bush is intent on pursuing to the bitter end in Iraq. It is time we all take a hard look at reality, and not just the parts we want to see, and start making some hard choices. And it is time we started framing the issues.

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