by Eric Martin
This is so strange. It's almost as if Pakistan puts Pakistan's interests ahead of ours. Don't they know who we are?
Despite growing U.S. military losses in Afghanistan, Pakistan still refuses to target the extremist groups on its soil that are the biggest threat to the American-led mission there, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan told McClatchy.
Eight years after Washington and Islamabad agreed to fight the Taliban and al Qaida, Pakistan has "different priorities" from the U.S., Anne Patterson said in a recent interview. Pakistan is "certainly reluctant to take action" against the leadership of the Afghan insurgency. [...]
Experts on the Afghanistan war think that military progress and political stability won't be possible there unless the government roots out the havens the insurgents have established in western Pakistan. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based research center, concluded in its annual review this week that "Pakistan remained the biggest source of instability for Afghanistan."
Pakistani officials, however, say that their country's priority should be to tackle Islamic militants who threaten Pakistan. They charge that the U.S. is blind to Pakistan's concerns over traditional foe India as it presses Pakistan to redeploy forces from its eastern border with India to the western border with Afghanistan.
The disagreement between Washington and Islamabad was illustrated starkly this week when former President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged in a television interview that he'd diverted American military equipment that was meant to fight the Taliban in western Pakistan for use against India. "One doesn't care who one crosses," Musharraf told Pakistan's Express News.
In testimony Tuesday before Congress, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, said: "The Pakistani military ... consider their principal threat — their existential threat — to be Indian, not these extremists."
The U.S. has lavished praise on the Pakistani army for the offensive it launched in April against Taliban militants in Pakistan. The operation marked the first serious sign of determination to deal with armed extremists, but it hasn't extended to groups in Pakistan that fight exclusively in Afghanistan. Mullen said that Pakistan's recent anti-terrorism actions "had a big impact" although "it hasn't been perfect."
While Pakistan and the U.S. agree on targeting al Qaida and, more recently, the Taliban Movement of Pakistan ("Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan"), they strongly disagree over action against Afghan insurgents operating from Pakistani territory. [...]
Until 2001, Pakistan openly supported the Taliban in Afghanistan, which in turn hosted al Qaida's leadership. Pakistan officially abandoned the Taliban, under enormous American pressure, after the 9-11 attacks. However, many Western military officers think that the Pakistani military, which remains in charge of Afghanistan policy, continues to view Mullah Omar and Haqqani as "assets," an insurance policy it might have to rely on if the U.S. pulls out of Afghanistan and the Taliban return to power. Haqqani has been close to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence military spy agency since the 1980s.
Pakistan also has grievances against the U.S. Last year, Washington signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with India, but not with Pakistan. India also has played a significant role in Afghanistan — with an aid program worth more than $1 billion, including road-building and education assistance — which has raised suspicions in Pakistan.
"We consider India as a threat to our security; the Americans don't," said a senior official in the Pakistani administration, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. [emphasis added]
The disparate treatment of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban elements reminded me of a portion of an Arnaud de Borchgrave piece from earlier this week:
The AFPAK front also showed signs of division between the two wings of the Taliban. The Afghan Taliban organization declined a request for help from Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat Valley by apparently reminding their Pakistani brothers of their policy of non-interference in Pakistan's internal affairs. The Afghan Taliban is under the overall command of Mullah Omar, the one-eyed underground leader who has not been seen since Sept. 11 but who maintains contact with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
The Pakistani Taliban was not defeated in the Swat Valley, as previously claimed. And the Pakistani army is reluctant to take on the Taliban in their tribal areas until the rest of the country is under control.
While some war proponents such as Stephen Biddle argue that the Afghan Taliban would turn on Pakistan if and when the US leaves, that is highly unlikely considering the Afghan Taliban is kept alive, funded and armed by key elements of the Pakistani security establishment. They won't bite the hand that feeds them. As de Borchgrave points out, they are careful to maintain their good relations.
Also contrary to some reporting on the conflict, there are real distinctions between the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban factions. They are under different leadership, and they have different goals (each is primarily focused on its own territory, and not the other's). Heck, there are even significant differences between the various factions lumped under the "Taliban" umbrella term.
Alliances? I don't think I suggested that. Accommodations? Not much interested in those either. However, I am very much interested in removing US soldiers from Afghanistan where we happen to be killing hundreds of those same little girls that I supposedly don't care about because of a deep seated misogyny.
(PS: Apologies if that is our serial spoofer and not the real Bitch PHD, as it just doesn't sound like you)
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 18, 2009 at 05:14 PM
Adding: We CURRENTLY have alliances and accommodations with retrograde tribal forces that condemn little girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan to a hellish, third-class existence.
They're called key factions of the Afghan government.
So what does that say about you?
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 18, 2009 at 05:15 PM
Also, you know many Afghan women strongly resent the fact that we are justifying war on their behalf when war is making their lives miserable, and the factions that we are supporting are every bit as bad as the Taliban toward women.
See, ie, here
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 18, 2009 at 05:18 PM
That sounds like a spoofer. The first comment could have been an intemperate reaction to your supposed indifference, but the 5:23 comment seems like pure BS--it sort of blew the cover.
Posted by: A pseudonym | September 18, 2009 at 05:33 PM
Yeah, it is a spoofer. I checked the URL. I'm deleting both.
BPHD can email if it's really her, but the URL is not like any other of her comments.
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 18, 2009 at 05:36 PM
Eric, it's the spoofer again. It's already fncked up von's Wyden post with tiny-urled goat pr0n and open-tag vandalism.
Posted by: matttbastard | September 18, 2009 at 05:38 PM
Oops -- I see you caught it already.
Posted by: matttbastard | September 18, 2009 at 05:39 PM
Thanks Matt.
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 18, 2009 at 05:41 PM
eric, one of the reasons Im glued to your posts is you recognize the female angle to all this.
You get it, sir, & your damned rare.
cant let that go unmentioned.....
Posted by: mutt | September 18, 2009 at 06:11 PM
This is the reason why I hate that "AfPak" label - it implies that the problem is merged, and that the key players see it that way. They don't, to put it bluntly; the Pakistanis see part of the Taliban as assets and the other part as a nuisance to be diverted away from the Punjab (and generally see the Americans as stirring up crap), the Afghanis see the Pakistanis as meddlers who support the Taliban (hence why Karzai has cozied up to India since the Taliban were driven out), and so forth.
Posted by: Brett | September 19, 2009 at 04:09 AM
One wrinkle: it's not clear to me that concentrating on India is, in fact, in Pakistan's interests, as opposed to the interests of its military, who need the Indian Threat to justify Pakistani military spending. Not that that affects the main point of the post, though.
Posted by: hilzoy | September 19, 2009 at 12:29 PM
Oh, I agree completely hilzoy. As I've written in previous posts, the monomaniacal focus on India has warped Pakistani society (hyper militarization, weak civilian institutions, etc).
But those are the perceived interests of Paksitan, or at least that part of Pakistani society. As I think you agree.
Posted by: Eric Martin | September 21, 2009 at 03:59 PM
Since this is the last Afghanistan thread here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ann-jones/meet-the-afghan-army-is-i_b_292864.html
"Meet the Afghan Army: Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?"
Worth reading.
The logic of introducing more guns and ammo to a country in the midst of warfare is not entirely clear to me. If there was some prospect of one side obtaining a monopoly on violence, it might be worth it. But it sounds so disorganized that what's actually happening is that all sides are being trained and armed by the US.
Posted by: Jacob Davies | September 21, 2009 at 05:04 PM