The American War on Wana

The American War on Wana

By: Peter Chamberlin
We are fighting a war that is like no other.  The illusion is made as real; the real is made as dust.  Nothing is as it seems in this war, even though this is the era of instant news.  This alteration of our very understanding of reality has been necessary for us to pursue a war policy of pure evil, even though we have paraded ourselves before the world as warriors in defense of truth and light.  The human race is begging for an end to the path of destruction that trusted American leaders have steered the world onto., longing to turn onto a permanent path of Light.  It is high time the United States either showed the world the way into the Light, or got out of the way of those who can.
Our new president has made a great show of being the man with the hope of “change” in his hand, but in the cold light of day he is readying massive doses of change for the worse.  The world was begging for American leadership to undo what the last “mis-leader” has done, but the economic powers that rule America have produced another charlatan bearing nothing more than a nice smile, to bind us to the path of escalation that leads to the Empire’s goal of permanent war.
A great sickness of mind has inflicted the people of this Nation, filling our thoughts with bloodlust and heroic visions of victory over savage hordes who are bent on our destruction.   The “al Qaida” and Taliban who have been cast as classic movie villains who prefer a world ruled by death and despair, answer to strange gods and display bizarre customs.  American soldiers were cast in the hero’s role, standing tall in their glorious image of the lone eagle warriors holding-back the swelling tides of Asia and Africa, defending our lovingly constructed towers of glory that surely elevate us that much closer to our Creator even as they set us above our fellow man.  This is the Hollywood image of America that has been carefully constructed by our leaders and powerhouses of influence, the “Zion” of Matrix fame.   “Zion” America, the hero nation of warriors, defending precious civilization, under siege by armies of darkness and inhumanity.
The “war on terror” is much like a movie, in that it was definitely developed according to some sort of script, enormous investments were made in its production, while it waited many years in development.  The first step in understanding is realizing that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were not the opening act, neither was the first Trade Center bombing in 1993.
The second step in understanding the “war on terror” is accepting the fact that nothing is as it seems; there are no “good guys,” but there are plenty of bad guys, and an unlimited supply of innocents.  The United States and its allies cannot wear the white hats in this bad “spaghetti western,” the second act of which is being stage-managed now in Western Pakistan, that is, unless there is no morality.  Unless the foundation of the entire American legal system is suddenly without merit, the United States also be seen as some of the worst bad guys in this violent international travesty of justice.
We have forced our war that we wage in the name of vengeance, out of our sense of righteous indignation, for an attack that killed thousands of innocent civilians, blamed on an ill-defined enemy, offering no evidence of their guilt, killing over one million innocent civilians and turning five times that amount into refugees in the process.
Now, our new president, the one elected on a promise to “change” (one of those changes being the salvation of the first war in Afghanistan, by winding-down the second war in Iraq), is the latest facilitator of the Empire’s plans, a marionette, dancing to the “New World Order blues,” as he “song and dances” us around these first two wars and into a third unwinnable war in Pakistan.  The third step in understanding the truth about the terror war is to realize that the American government has not been trying to end these two wars, it has been using every means at its disposal to prolong the first two wars while it frantically sought a way to start a third.  America is not really losing either war, but it has never had any intentions of winning them either.
Obama continues the presidential tradition of deceiving the world about American intentions, present facts  backwards—preserving capitalism will not salvage the war effort, but  military action is planned, to acquire the means to avert any economic emergency, the resources of the underdeveloped region .  Pakistan is the keystone in an American strategic move that stretches in an arc across the entire Middle East and southern central Asia.  If Pakistan is not totally under American control then the plan cannot work.  The existence of this plan accounts for the brazenness shown in American actions taken in Pakistan that are in direct contravention of the expressed will of the Pakistani people and their leaders, actions clearly intended to undermine Army and governmental authority.
The Obama Administration is expanding the war on the strength of this statement:

“to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”

Every action that our government takes in Pakistan and Afghanistan, under the pretense of eliminating “al Qaida” is a fraud.  Whatever is left of bin Laden’s organization (he never called it “al Qaida,” it was the “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders”), most of the terrorist acts that have been blamed on the legendary group were either the work of other terrorists [like Khalid Sheikh Mohamed and Ramsey Yousef], CIA/Special Forces operations or attacks by mercenary proxies hired by the CIA network).   The Arabic expression,‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’, meaning “the database,” is the source of the term ascribed to the legendary terrorist outfit.

The term “al Qaida” was never used before the “war of terror” was dreamed-up in the sick minds of the neocon spooks who ran the Bush/Cheney political team in the 2000 campaign.   The only proof given to the contrary came from an Israeli source, claiming to be copied text from an American embassy press release.  World renowned expert on bin Laden , Yossef Bodansky never used the term “al Qaida” even once in his opus volume of research entitled, “Bin Laden: the Man Who Declared War on America,” published in 1999.   Bodansky was Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of Representatives from 1988 to 2004, so if there was an “al Qaida” terrorist organization before 1999 he would have known about it.

The concept of the “global war on terror” has served as an excuse for turning reality on its head and the implementation of the full war agenda of the radical American right wing.   Bin Laden’s organization, “World Islamic Front for Jihad” is a spent force.  The promise to chase a generic tag that is made to fit any enemy is a ruse intended to gain the consent of the American people for creating a state of permanent war.

In a war based entirely on manufactured delusions, the allied nations took a small expeditionary force of mercenaries and the amplifying device of the corporate media and created the illusion of “al Qaida.”  The Muslim and Arab militants used in the attacks blamed on them throughout the world were military/intelligence agency assets, “patsies” to take the fall for a series of attacks upon American interests.  The corporate masters of America ordered their secret “al Qaida” army, compromised mostly of retired military and intelligence officers, to initiate a series of well-timed and expertly advertised attacks.  This successful application of the “strategy of tension” had the desired effect of deceiving the democratic masses into giving the government permission to start world war III.

This secret network of rogue “retired” intelligence agents and military officers has been a key element of American covert policies since Vietnam and has become an active tool of every American president since it was organized into a private secret army under Ronald Reagan.  They probably killed Kennedy and numerous other key American and allied world leaders.  Their secret machinations were brought to light by the missteps of rogue official Oliver North, revealing for the first time the depths of their plans in the “Rex 84” program of civilian internment camps, intended to accommodate the human bi-products of future plans for martial law.

In their most blatant attack upon Americans on September 11, they (“al Qaida”) used their Saudi patsies to launch the biggest psychological warfare operation of all time, which was ultimately intended to bring-about an American dictatorship that would extend all the way to Central and Southern Asia.  They needed the help of their Saudi collaborators, as well as that of the Pakistanis, to create the illusion of a terrorist menace growing out of the Middle East that would open the door for unbridled American aggression and the plans for permanent limited world war.

The Saudis offered-up their limitless supply of Wahabbi jihadis to serve as cannon-fodder in America’s terror war, Pakistan had the network of jihadi training camps built for them by the Americans, using mostly Saudi money, and the thousands of veteran militants trained in those camps, represented by the Taliban and the Kashmiri groups.  Wherever the Saudi militants were used in the Middle East to create the impression of “al Qaida,” their actions were usually traced back to the Taliban and their friends  usually with information supplied by CIA or Mossad, in order to legitimize the sweep of American/NATO troops out of Afghanistan, through Pakistan, into Central Asia.

The great production, a.k.a. “the war on terror,” is the largest, most ambitious construction project in history, the construction of the world’s biggest inter-continental oil and gas pipeline system, with the lion’s share of it working its way towards the ports of Israel.  Israel has a huge stake in seeing this project succeed, that’s why they are in charge of overseeing so much of the preliminary demolition of the houses and towns occupied by the current “useless eaters,” who stand in the way of the latest scheme for certain individuals to reap ultimate profits.  Another player who has a major stake in seeing the project succeed is Iran.  They are planned to be a major provider and transit route.  Between Israel and Iran, they carry-out the majority of the ongoing demolition projects in the Middle East, from Lebanon to Gaza, from Gaza to Egypt, from Egypt to Somalia, from everywhere to Iraq, from Iraq to Pakistan, from Pakistan to Uzbekistan and Western China.  For Western powers the Iran/Israeli conflict is stage-managed to magnify popular tension, even though most Zionist leaders are dead serious about eliminating Iran.

Iran runs the public terror operations (in a covert manner), while Mossad has the franchise for the covert ops that are coordinated with other intelligence agencies.  Wherever you find an active “al Qaida” cell you are witnessing the handiwork of Israel’s finest dirty fighters.  All known “al Qaida” or “al Q linked” networks uncovered invariably lead back to Mossad, or the Saudis, Brits, or Americans.  In Pakistan, Mossad’s influence is manifested through shared missions with India’s RAW spy agency, mostly in the form of terror attacks blamed on the Pakistani Taliban.  Israeli arms sales throughout this troubled region add fuel to the fire and ensure that Iran’s arms sales are matched, in order to produce long bloody stalemates between targeted groups.  While Iran’s sales and training programs have created Hezbollah’s formidable force and empowered Hamas, Israel’s arms sales have gone to clients who were either schooled to serve as an imaginary enemy, or to those seeking to defend themselves from the cardboard armies.

The war in AfPak is based on multiple deceptions by numerous interested parties.   The US brashly demands that Pakistan give-up its deceptions concerning the Taliban, in order to defend the central US deception, that “al Qaida” is a potent international organization of terrorists, that is locked in a war to the death with the US military.
CIA forces are pounding Pakistani targets almost on a daily basis, saying that it is time to come clean about ISI support for Taliban militants, trying by every available means to persuade the government to come around to our point of view.  Our point of view is a fairy tale, concocted for maximum propaganda effect—Pakistan is a “state sponsor of terrorism,” while the United States is coming-off  practically blameless for having had thousands of “Islamic” militants trained in radical Saudi-supplied madrassas and CIA-supplied paramilitary camps.  So far, the CIA has managed to pull-off a world-class propaganda coup by making Pakistan the scapegoat for problems it has created.
The CIA has controlled the direction of this covert operation from the beginning, just as it has been in command of the successful intelligence operation that created the greater war and the events of 911.  The CIA, on orders from Bush Sr., did not abandon Afghanistan., to the sole discretion of the Pakistanis, as contended by many researchers.  The proof of this is found in the revelations made by several notable researchers (here, here, and here), that the Taliban won the Afghan civil war because of  the sudden serendipitous “discovery” of “800 truckloads worth of arms and ammunition in a cave near Spinbaldak, information that could only have been obtained with the use of powerful spy satellites.
In “Operation Enduring Turmoil,” CIA planners were limited at first to leading a mercenary army in Afghanistan of Northern Alliance proxy forces.  Since then, besides administering the massive “cluster-f**k” known as the Afghan war, it has been busy using some of the Northern Alliance’s most ruthless men, along with a sizeable force of Uzbeks to destabilize Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas and North West Frontier Provinces.
Confusion in the war zone and the lid that has been clamped on news coming-out of the area has made it possible to introduce all sorts of sundry militant outfits into the area under the one all-inclusive rubric of “Taliban,” just as conditions have allowed for the branding of multiple unaffiliated groups under the chosen talisman of evil, “al Qaida.”
At the end of the Afghan invasion, after the bulk of the Taliban and bin Laden’s forces were reduced and contained to Eastern Afghanistan, the CIA took steps to prevent the elimination of entire group, specifically holding-back Northern Alliance forces and American bombers until the trapped fighters could escape to Pakistan, by both land and air (the “Kunduz airlift” involved CIA intervention on behalf of ISI, to relocate Taliban and Army advisors who were under heavy seige).  They relocated to the area around Chitral in the north of Pakistan and returned to Wana in droves.  These were the radicals and foreign “al Qaida” that have since then proceeded to create a reign of terror in Pakistan, as they began to force their radical Wahabbi “jihadi” religious practices on the locals, many of whom are illiterate, with no base of formal knowledge with which to combat their poisonous interpretations of Islam.
The radicals who were bombing, kidnapping and be-heading local tribal leaders by the hundreds were mostly Uzbeks from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) who had come from Afghanistan.  They were the “al Qaida” killers who were being reported on the American “nightly news.”  Sightings of “al Qaida” in FATA or Swat invariably refer to this group, or other Uzbeks who came in a second wave, with Northern Alliance Afghans, as they accompanied Guantanamo alumnus Abdullah Mehsud.
The Uzbeks and Afghans who accompanied Abdullah Mehsud into Pakistan began a series of  terror attacks against Pakistanis, claiming to be fighting for Mullah Omar.  Mehsud’s fighters brought heat from the Army down upon the region, ignited intra-tribal warfare with forces led by Maulvi Nazir, and eventually aligned themselves with Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah, providing a base in the north for Shariah-enforcing attacks.  These are the “Taliban” forces who wage war on local Shiites and government forces, blowing-up girls schools, CD shops, etc.

The Mehsud/Uzbek operation was a CIA operation that was kept completely separate and secret from Pakistan’s ISI, since the Army was the intended target of the group.  The joint American/Afghan/Indian operation, to create chaos in Pakistan’s tribal region by the infusion of  “fake Taliban” into Pakistan, has been made possible because of Karzai’s spy agency (NDS)  director, thirty-six-year-old Amrullah Saleh, who once  boasted:
“Insurgency is like grass. Two ways to destroy it: You cut the upper part, and after four months, you have it back. You poison the soil where that grass is, then you eliminate it forever.”
The fake “Taliban” has very effectively poisoned the soil of northern and western Pakistan.  The war that Pakistan has been forced to fight against them is a “detoxification” operation, to destroy the noxious weeds that have been transplanted into the fertile soil of the Frontier Region.
Their attacks, coupled with the constant haranguing and threats coming from Bush and Cheney, have compelled the Army to fight a series of mini-wars against the fake Taliban, or “al Qaida,” who had taken advantage of Muslim customs to gain shelter among the local Pashtun population from the storm blowing-away across the Durand Line.  Each time the Army ended the mini-war by signing treaties with militant leaders like Mullah Dadullah or Baitullah Mehsud, a new series of attacks would erupt elsewhere.  The collateral damage inflicted upon the local tribes in these attacks and the Army’s counter-attacks then, as now, was massive.  This suffering and violence breathed new life into the local Taliban movement, motivating thousands to take-up arms against the Americans and the Pakistani government.
Into this confusing, boiling cauldron of inter-tribal and inter-agency warfare the British and American forces introduced another wild card, the “Taliban split,” orchestrated around the killing on May 13 of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah.   British and Afghan agencies used his brother Mansoor to introduce the idea of “reconciliation” and double-cross into the minds of both the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban. British assets associated with Mansoor began to perpetuate mistrust and suspicion of Afghan double-agents, especially those who had been associated with Abdullah Mehsud and his Uzbeks.
Out of this British/American operation emerged an organization that was called “Taliban,” but what came forth was not Taliban, but “anti-Taliban,” the “Tehreek e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).”
December 14, 2007, the formation of the Taliban Movement of Pakistan (TTP).
On December 27 Benazir Bhutto was killed.
Dec. 29, 2007, Taleban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed read to AFP over the telephone a statement issued by Omar that said Mullah Mansoor Dadullah was sacked
The Sararogha Fort raid occurred on 15-16 January 2008.

The commander of the Pakistani Special Forces (SSG) who led the operation which retook the fortress from the militants led by Baitullah Mehdud, Gen. Alavi, was brutally gunned-down after approaching a British reporter with a story about other Pakistani generals who were dealing with local militants, instead of seriously eliminating them, as claimed.  Two lower-ranking officers, turned “Islamists” have since been charged in his killing, which produced other news reports linking the two with a Taliban assassination ring based in Waziristan and having had contacts with local foe of Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Nazir.  The two officers were believed to be associated with Sheikh Omar, the killer of Daniel Pearl, whose phone records show that he had placed calls to Gen. Alavi’s phone from his jail cell.
Sararogha-video of Sara Rogha Fort

wana map
Waziri tribal leader Mullah Nazir is the most dangerous man in all of Pakistan, threatening to blow the lid off America’s secret plans for Pakistan.  He alone holds the keys to war and peace in S. Waziristan.  Nazir represents America’s ultimate failure in Pakistan so far, even though he had formerly been a shining example of “reconciliation” and cooperation with Pakistan Army initiatives.  Thanks to the campaign of repeated assassination attempts by terminator drones which have stalked him over the past year, he has moved himself firmly into the camp of Baitullah Mehsud, even though they have been bitter rivals until now.
Maulvi Nazir had led his Waziri tribe to form a Lashkar (militia) group which expelled the trouble-making Uzbeks and all foreign “al Qaida” from around the town of Wana, after they had killed over three hundred tribal elders (maliks).  The campaign of tribal defense which he initiated has worked wherever it has been applied, perhaps explaining why he has been the constant target of both “al Qaida” and US guns since then.  His reward for having championed the cause of self-defense against American plans for domination has been given in the form of Hellfire missiles delivered by Predator drones over the past year.
After a full year of this, on February 14, 2009 Obama attacked Baitullah Mehsud’s forces in the village of Shrawangai Nazarkhel.  This change in strategy came just two days after the targeting situation in Pakistan was openly discussed on an Internet podcast.  This particular airstrike caused the reunification of the two marked leaders and the splitting-off of another fairly powerful ally of Maulvi Nazir in his struggle against Mehsud and the violent Uzbeks, the inheritor of  Abdullah Mehsud’s Pakistani soldiers, Zainuddin Shimankhel.  Since February, Shimankhel and tribal leader Turkistan Bittani have openly waged war against Mehsud, in S. Waziristan.
Thus the latest deception campaign of  the new American administration, focused on driving the two feuding militants back together to create a common enemy instead of taking advantage of the natural split that was there, made possible by one Predator attack.
A recent series of news reports and interviews with militant leaders in early April confirmed Pakistani/American collaboration in these targeted killings of Taliban leaders.
In mid-March, the American military in Afghanistan flew a demonstration mission of a Predator drone along a stretch of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to show the kind of imagery and communications information the Predator could provide. The Americans transmitted the information to a border coordination center near the Khyber Pass operated by American, Pakistani and Afghan personnel, and the information was sent through Pakistani security databases.
The test run went well enough that Pakistan subsequently requested a small number of additional Predator reconnaissance flights to support their operations in the border tribal areas.
But American officials said the requests for additional surveillance missions ended suddenly in early April.”
On one of those flights took place on Mar.13, when an unmanned US drone killed at least 12 people in Kurram district, associates of Mehsud’s brother.  On 25 March 2009 seven were killed in the Makin area, Mehsud’s home town.
After these attacks, the collaboration suddenly ended in early April, after Taliban leader Maulvi Nazir gave an interview with As-Sahab on April 7, and the appearance of this article on April 10, which highlighted Nazeer’s charges that Pakistani Army sources had planted the homing devices on local militant leaders, which the Predator flights zeroed in on.  On April 14, this article in the Lebanese Daily Star revealed that Amb. Holbrooke and Adm. Mullen had secretly met with Taliban leaders, one of them probably infamous Afghan leader and former sweetheart of the CIA, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Today, the CIA is continuing to push the Pakistani government to the wall today with its provocative Predator and counter-insurgency attacks that drive the tribal militants to wage war in the Frontier Region, in order to force the ISI to change its ways.  The ploy, that the US is waging war to eradicate its successful CIA operation to create a phantom militant army, a.k.a. “al Qaida” (which is allegedly giving orders to the Pakistani Taliban), is being used as a cover to force the ISI to reveal its own successful militant project, the “Taliban.”  Regardless of American wishes to the contrary, Pakistan still has the option of negotiations with its own Taliban in Waziristan, even though has to wage war to eliminate the American “Taliban” from NWFP.
Pakistan has to choose to accept America’s point of view, that all Taliban are and were a project of the ISI, if it wants to obtain the windfall represented by the PEACE treaty.  Pakistan has to agree to seriously fight total civil war against the Taliban, from Kashmir to Balochistan, if it is to receive the funds that the American warlords are dangling before them.  Pakistan’s problems with militancy now all arose because of past mini-wars launched against their own people at Bush’s insistence.  Obama is intent on taking it a step further than even Bush and Cheney dared to dream.
Pakistan has to seriously fight a war against the Taliban, pretending that they are fighting an imaginary “al Qaida” hierarchy which survived the Afghan war by fleeing to FATA and NWFP.   Pakistan has to decimate its population with war and refugee problems, under American direction, in the pretense of fighting a military “force” that consists of no more than a token  remnant; it is not any kind of “force” at all.
If the news leaking out is true, that the Pakistani Army is planning an offensive against Baitullah Mehsud in S. Waziristan next month, and it is not just more American propaganda, like the “failed state” “Taliban takeover” hysteria, then we will be witnessing a remarkable event in the history of dumb mistakes.  If the Army folds under the pressure and opens a real civil war throughout the entire Frontier Region, then it will be sealing Pakistan’s fate to be dismembered and dominated.  This is insane.
It has become apparent that regardless of what the Pakistani Army does, a major war escalation has been scheduled by the American military, beginning in June.  The planned “surge” of possibly 24,000 troops, is just the start.  The present commander of US forces in Afghanistan is being replaced with a specialist in counter-insurgency strategy, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Reports on the Pentagon website InsideDefense.com,, reveal that a major “irregular warfare” air capability will be called on in June:
“AIR FORCE PREPPING FOR MAJOR IRREGULAR WARFARE DECISIONS IN JUNE.”
The new “Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund” has been created, with $400 million for Pakistan’s counter-insurgency needs for their escalation.
Pakistan’s leaders continue to go through this painfully slow dance to the death with their American employers, disrupting life in the tribal regions, pretending to be locked in to a battle to the death with a few thousand militants, while they prepare an all too real escalation of Obama/Bush’s war, all for the sake of maintaining the greater illusion of fighting “al Qaida.”  Pakistan’s leaders are playing a very deadly game here with Obama, betting the survival of their precious nation that the United States warlords will blink first.
In order to gain access to the promised PEACE funds, Pakistan is ready to jump through any hoop.  “PEACE”  is a restraining pay-off, designed by full-time “friend of Israel” US Congressman, Howard Berman.  His bill binds Pakistan to cut its own throat, by opening a full-scale civil war in its western regions, while simultaneously surrendering to India’s good intentions in the east, in exchange for billions.  Israeli watchdog Berman is once again carrying water for the Zionist state, by enforcing the nuts and bolts of the public relations “course change” spelled-out recently by radical new spokesman Avigdor Lieberman.  Lieberman’s opinion, that “Pakistan is the greatest threat to the world,” is way out of character for Israel.  Israel’s American allies in Congress are effectively taking the focused public eye away from Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the next anti-Islamic invasion of Iran.   Berman’s PEACE bill is just like the “Iran war resolution” he co-authorized with fellow-traveller Rep. Ackermen.  Like that bill which was nearly rammed through the last congress, it seeks to create a set of conditions in the Middle East region that will facilitate the commitment of US forces to new military actions against a major military power.  Israel is desperately trying to rehabilitate its public image, which lay in ruins after attempting to exterminate a sizeable portion of the Palestinian population of Gaza.

Intensive US actions will begin in Pakistan next month, one way or another.  Even if, by some miracle, Pakistan stood-up for its citizens and refused the PEACE pay-off, American military actions will be triggered when the Pakistani Army either fails to ignite civil war in S. Waziristan or fails to convince US leaders that they are sincerely locked in a land struggle to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban.  The generals will not be able to fool American satellites without totally destroying the area under surveillance.  Is this the process that is underway now in Buner and Swat, the leveling of the communities for the sake of the show?

The Pakistani Army leaders refuse to take the proper stand that would instantly correct the international opinion of the people and its leaders—tell the truth about the Taliban and “al Qaida.”  Anything less than openly, in the press, revealing the complete dirty truth about the “epicenter of terror” created in your Frontier Region will NOT stay the executioner’s hand.    Tell the world that “al Qaida” is an intelligence operation of the US government, which Pakistan’s secret service participated in.  The Taliban is the product of a successful intelligence operation, while “al Q” is the operation.  The CIA’s “mujahedeen” program created a lot of militant jihadis, among them, the Taliban, at least some of them.  The camps and the radical madrassas were the mujahedeen program, the Taliban were some of the militants who graduated  from  that program in the late eighties and early nineties.

American military and civilian leaders should know the facts about “al Qaida” and the Taliban better than anyone else, but Gen. Petraeus, the highest military officer in the Nation, seems to be the head disinformer of the American and Pakistani people.  Calling Pakistan the “nerve center” of al Qaeda’s global operations and “the headquarters of the al Qaeda senior leadership,” Petraeus built the case to the American people and their Congress for decimating the Pakistani population with war and refugeeism, using maximum possible force (overkill), for the sake of  pursuing no more than a handful of foreign terrorists who could otherwise be captured by less destructive means.  Petraeus couldn’t have risen to his high rank without knowing the truth about this vaporous enemy that Washington has chosen to stand-up for the sake of an arranged “fight.”  He knows that there has never been an “al Qaida,” and that Osama bin Laden is long since dead.
In the following quote from the general, if you substituted the word CIA or agency for al Qaida, you would have an accurate statement on Pakistan’s terrorist problem:
‘There’s no question that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership has been there and has been in operation for years,’ said the general when asked if he knew where they were hiding. ‘We had to contend with its reach as it sought to facilitate the flow of foreign fighters, resources, explosives, leaders and expertise into Iraq, as you’ll recall, through Syria.
‘We see tentacles of Al Qaeda that connect to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen, the elements Al-Shabab in Somalia, elements in north central Africa, and that strive to reach all the way, of course, into Europe and into the United States.”
The “Islamist” jihadis who are spread throughout the named countries all have one thing in common, they are all driving their particular conflict country in America’s direction.  They are steering their country’s fate on a course intended to provoke and justify American intervention and validate the concept that “Islamists” are murderous, radical cut-throats.  They are all in energy producing states, or key countries on pipeline pathways.
In order for the great fiction known as the “war on terror” to continue, everyone has to agree to pretend that people like Gen. Petraeus and Barack Obama are telling the truth when they talk about the “great global threat,” that we like to call “al Qaida.”  All of America’s leaders, just like all of Pakistan’s leaders know that there is no “al Qaida,” except in the minds of the great war planners and psy-operators.

There is an international network of spies and mercenary agents, but it is an arm of the CIA and Western intelligence agencies.  This nameless network, dubbed “al Qaida” by Cheney and Bush, has operated out of western Pakistan for thirty years, where the CIA planted it.  Created by Reagan and Bush’s father, the militant network is 100% “made in America.”  Clinton used it as his secret army.  Bush pretended that it was an Islamic organization, headed by a radical Saudi militant, Osama bin Laden.  Bin Laden headed a second rate Arab terrorist outfit that was primarily concerned with removing the Americans from Islamic “holy lands” and freeing Palestine.  The commander of one of the assassination units, Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has been nominated to be the new commanding general in Afghanistan.
The official history of “al Qaida” is told in the stories of one or two actual terrorists, Ramsey Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, whose terror attacks are attributed to “al Qaida,” even though, they were not members of “al Qaida” at the time of their attacks (and there was no organization by that name in existence until 1999-2000).  Since their capture and the elimination of bin Laden’s actual outfit (Islamic Front for Jihad Against Crusaders and Jews”) in the mountains of Tora Bora, other shadowy groups, such as Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

Obama and Petraeus, like the unfortunate Zardari and Kayani, are fully prepared to take military actions which will bring an end to both nations, as the New World Order of permanent limited war they help to usher in erases both nations.  Perhaps there will be some homogenized version of Pakistan or America left after the conflagration lit by the suicidal nations subsides.
peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

Pakistani family makes room for 93 relatives in Swat refugee crisis

Residents flee a military offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley: Pakistani family makes room for 93 relatives in Swat refugee crisis

Residents flee a military offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley Photo: REUTERS

Dr Mohammad Ayaz and his huge extended family were respectable professionals back in Swat but they were forced to flee with hundreds of thousands of others when the Pakistan army operation began earlier this month against the Taliban who had taken over the area. On Sunday the Pakistani interior ministry claimed that over 1,000 militants had been killed in the offensive so far.

Over 1 million from Swat and two adjoining districts, Dir and Buner, also subject to anti-Taliban operations, have run from their homes to become “internally displaced people”. But over 90 per cent of them are staying with friends, family and in some cases strangers, not in the camps that have hurriedly sprouted to accommodate them.

“We are all poor now,” said Dr Ayaz, surrounded by dozens of children of his siblings and cousins. “We are human beings, not animals. Give us back our self-respect, we are Pashtuns, we are Muslims, we cannot shed our self-respect.”

The 93 family members are packed into five rooms, spread between two modest houses that belong to cousins in Malakand Top, a village just south of Swat. They said that have received no aid. Those living outside of camps have been largely ignored by aid agencies, the government and the media. But the plight of Dr Ayaz, whose family used in live in seven houses within a single compound in Saidu Sharif, Swat, is not unusual.

Huge families are now dependent on the charity of friends and family, who are often poor themselves. Aid workers warn that the situation is unsustainable and many of these refugees could be driven into the camps, as their hosts would not be able to cope with the financial burden for months on end. Across the North West Frontier Province, families are squeezing into one room, in order to cater for the deluge of desperate relatives who have descended on them.

In Jalala village, outside Mardan, the nearest major city to Swat, Alamgir Khan has come with 25 family members. They are being put up by an uncle in four rooms. He said that he had also been forced to borrow around R45,000 (£400), a considerable sum in Pakistan, from his uncle, to buy bedding, clothes and eating utensils.

“We came with nothing,” said Mr Khan, 26. “They (our hosts) will get fed up with us eventually. Then I don’t know what we’ll do but I have faith in God that something will turn up for us.”

The Pashtun people of Swat and the NWFP province, the same ethnic group that dominates Afghanistan, have proud traditions of hospitality. Without their generosity, the refugee influx from Swat would have been overwhelming. Aid agencies and the government are now trying to figure out a system to help those – the vast majority – who are being accommodated by friends and family.

There are distribution points where registered refugees who are not in camps can pick up non-food items, though most don’t seem to know about this service.

Ariane Rummery, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which is at the forefront of the aid effort, said: “We recognise that we’re certainly not reaching everyone.”

Karzai’s brother threatened McClatchy writer reporting Afghan drug story

Karzai’s brother threatened McClatchy writer reporting Afghan drug story

I managed to record just one full sentence: “Get the (expletive) out before I kick your (expletive).”

By Tom Lasseter

Ahmad Wali Karzai
The Times, November 24, 2007: “President Karzai’s half-brother Wali, head of Kandahar’s provincial council, continues to be accused by senior government sources, as well as foreign analysts and officials, as having a key role in orchestrating the movement of heroin from Kandahar eastward through Helmand and out across the Iranian border.”

The Globe and Mail, May.3, 2008: The man considered by many observers to be the most powerful and feared figure in the Afghan south is not the Kandahar governor but rather Ahmed Wali Karzai, appointed by his brother, President Hamid Karzai, to represent Kandahar province in Kabul. A government document leaked to ABC News two years ago accused him of being the central figure in the region’s vast opium-export market, which produces the majority of the world’s opium and heroin.

New York Times, October 5, 2008: Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to current and former officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The ride to Kandahar airport was tense. The Afghan president’s brother had just yelled a litany of obscenities and said he was about to beat me.

Ahmed Wali Karzai is feared by many in southern Afghanistan, and being threatened by him, in his home, isn’t something to be taken lightly.

In a place like Kandahar, I try to take precautions — letting my beard grow and wearing the traditional Afghan outfit of baggy pants and a long tunic — but at the end of the day, there’s no protection when the most powerful official in the region orders you to leave.

So after a quick consultation with locals, I decided to do just that.

I was in my third week of tracking down former Afghan officials and asking them about drugs and corruption. Several had mentioned Karzai, President Hamid Karzai’s brother and the head of Kandahar’s provincial council.

After talking with poppy farmers, a drug dealer and former officials in Kandahar, it was time to see Ahmed Wali Karzai.

Sitting in his home, Karzai said up front that he had nothing to do with drugs. The political enemies of his brother, the president, were spreading rumors: “I am just the victim of their politics, that’s all,” he said.

I flipped from one page to the next of my notebook, and started with specifics.

Dad Mohammed Khan, a former national intelligence directorate chief of Helmand province, told me that Karzai had sent an intermediary to force him to release a Taliban commander who’d been arrested in a major drug-trafficking area. Khan was killed by a roadside bomb after our interview.

“He died, so I don’t know if he told you that,” Karzai said, looking unhappy with the question.

He added: “He’s dead, so let’s leave it there.”

I moved on to a second former security official from the region — I had jotted a long list of names — who’d also made allegations about Karzai.

Karzai said that the official “is alive, I can find him and talk to him.” He called for one of his men to bring a cell phone.

He began to glare at me and questioned whether I was really a reporter.

“It seems like someone sent you to write these things,” he said, scowling.

Karzai glared some more.

“You should leave right now,” he said.

I stuck my hand out to shake his; if I learned anything from three years of reporting in Iraq and then trips to Afghanistan during the past couple of years, it’s that when things turn bad, you should cling to any remaining shred of hospitality.

Karzai grabbed my hand and used it to give me a bit of a push into the next room. He followed me, and his voice rose until it was a scream of curse words and threats.

I managed to record just one full sentence: “Get the (expletive) out before I kick your (expletive).”

I won’t describe the rest, because it involves the Afghans I was working with, none of whom wants to risk revenge in a country where feuds often end in blood.

Once I was at the airport, there were still several hours until the flight and I had only fuzzy ideas of what to do if the plane to Kabul were canceled, a common occurrence.

I was with my Afghan colleague, and neither of us talked much. It’s a routine that we’ve worked out, the silence in which we collect ourselves and let the fear settle.

After several hours of delay — there was speculation about whether there was no fuel, or a government minister was running late — the plane finally took off.

I looked out the window, and there was Kandahar below. A few minutes later, I looked again, and it was gone, leaving only the darkness of the Afghan night. The trip back to Kabul was a quiet one.

Karzai’s Brother Survives as Convoy Is Ambushed

[Another hit on Karzai's brother, blamed on Taliban, or was it drug dealers this time?]

Karzai’s Brother Survives as Convoy Is Ambushed

Published: May 18, 2009

KABUL, Afghanistan — Ahmed Wali Karzai, a younger brother of President Hamid Karzai, said he survived an ambush Monday morning while he was traveling from the eastern city of Jalalabad to the capital.

“I was driving in a convoy this morning to Kabul and when we reached Sorobi we faced an ambush,” Mr. Karzai said in a telephone interview, adding that attackers used rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

“I was leading the convoy but all of the bullets hit the second vehicle that my bodyguards were driving” he said.

“One of my bodyguards was wounded and later he died.”

He blamed the Taliban for the attack.

Ahmad Wali Karzai is a prominent political figure in the southern region of the country and leads the provincial council of Kandahar Province. Mr. Karzai has been the subject of controversy in some Western media over allegations that he was involved in smuggling narcotics, which he strongly denies.

On April 1, five suicide bombers stormed the Kandahar provincial council offices and at least 13 people, including two provincial officials, were killed. Mr. Karzai was not in his office at the time.

War Provocations and Counter-attacks, Does Army Want War in Wana?

[More fallout from American Predator attacks, driving some militant groups together and others apart, the drone attacks have upped the chaos factor in FATA.  The CIA killers are crafty devils, using the sometimes visible drones and the shadowy spies who key in the targeting, the spy-masters have successfully ignited a low-level fight between Mehsud and his foes forced other adversaries to unite in common purpose.  If the claims made in this report and a multitude of similar claims are proven to be true, that Army troops started this fight by killing locals in a "false flag" operation intended to be blamed on the militants, then the Pak Army has merely been deflecting blame for these attacks onto the Americans, in order to gain public support for a major war in S. Waziristan.  This would mean that the Pakistan/American split over the terror war has been another case of play-acting, intended to deceive the Pakistani and American people into allowing the militarists to have their way with less public outrage.]

Peace deal at risk after 21 die in army attack

Tom Hussain

ISLAMABAD // A three-year-old peace deal between the Pakistani military and rebel commanders in South Waziristan tribal agency is on the verge of collapse, following the deaths of 21 people in an army operation on Sunday, tribal elders say.

The operation in Spin village, 35km east of the agency’s administrative headquarters in Wana, follows months of intermittent violence between security forces and commanders loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s Taliban overlord and a key al Qa’eda ally.

A Wana-based official of the army’s military intelligence directorate said the firing on a 20-vehicle convoy driving past Spin on its way to a paramilitary fort in the neighbouring village of Tanai provoked the operation.

“The convoy was returning from a mission to establish new military posts when it came under rocket attack, fired by militants inside the government high school, killing the captain in command,” he said.

However, village elders said the army operation was unprovoked, and the only people in the school were four teachers and the school guard. “I was sitting on a hillock overlooking the village when the army attacked. They entered the school firing, dragged out the teachers, stripped them and executed them,” said Malik Rehmatullah, a villager and Wazir tribe elder.

He said two technicians of an adjacent government veterinary clinic and two labourers in the mosque were killed in a similar fashion.

Mr Rehmatullah said he saw troops storm the homes of residents, including Ghazi Khan and Haji Khanaan, killing three family members and wounding four others.

Mr Rehmatullah said troops photographed the corpses of those killed and arrested four others, including Kamal, a 12-year-old grandson of Mr Khanaan. The bodies of the detainees were returned to the village on Monday morning, prompting Mr Khanaan’s daughter-in-law to commit suicide, residents said.

Villagers said security forces had been prevented from taking four wounded survivors to the government hospital in Wana and had to travel to the military hospital in Zhob about 175km away.

“We demand the government launches an immediate investigation to determine whether the dead are militants or citizens. If they prove the involvement of a single militant, we will end our protest, because they are at war. But if it does not, and they cannot, we will take our fight for justice to the courts, international human rights organisations and the United Nations,” said Gulab Wazir, a former area councillor.

Tensions have risen since February when Mr Mehsud and Haji Nazeer, a rival commander in South Waziristan, ended their feud on the intervention of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Afghanistan Taliban chief.

Since then, fighters loyal to Mr Nazeer have launched nocturnal rocket attacks on the Javed Sultan military base in Wana, sparking retaliatory fire. The militants have said the attacks are in retaliation for American drone-launched missile attacks, at least one of which came close to killing Mr Nazeer in April.

The tensions sparked negotiations by political intermediaries, led by Maulana Abdul Haq, an Islamist member of parliament, leading to an agreement in early May in which both sides reiterated commitments under the original 2006 deal. However, the army has since reinforced its units in South Waziristan, sending a 100-vehicle convoy to the military base in Wana.

The 2006 deal, underwritten by Jalaluddin Haqqani, the military chief of the Afghanistan Taliban, allowed for 80,000 troops in areas bordering Afghanistan in return for unspecified concessions to local militants, then led by Abdullah Mehsud, a bitter rival of Baitullah.

Abdullah was killed soon after by security forces in Zhob and his command assumed by Baitullah.

Militants still loyal to Abdullah, who had taken refuge with Haji Nazeer until the reconciliation between Taliban factions in February, have since joined forces with the Bhitani tribe, which is embroiled in a blood feud with Baitullah.

Though vastly outnumbered, they have taken control of areas around Tank and Jandola, setting up check posts along the main road into Wana and attacking Baitullah loyalists.

Baitullah’s ability to respond to the new threat has been compromised by the redeployment of the majority of his estimated 10,000 to 15,000 fighters into Afghanistan to counter the ongoing build-up of US forces.

Residents said the alliance was the most serious challenge mounted to Baitullah’s writ in South Waziristan. “Abdullah’s people want Baitullah dead and, I believe, they’ll eventually kill him. There is no obvious successor, so his organisation would fall apart as soon as that happens,” said a local businessman.

thussain@thenational.ae

Intrigue abounds in this Mideast tale of a terror plot

Intrigue abounds in this Mideast tale of a terror plot

   An Egyptian man who wanted to be identified only as Abu Ihab stands outside a home in the El Arish, Sinai, where his son, Ihab, was arrested as part of an alleged Hezbollah-led cell suspected of running guns to Gaza militants and plotting attacks on targets in Egypt. Abu Ihab denied the charges in and said that his son is a political pawn in a regional battle for power.
An Egyptian man who wanted to be identified only as Abu Ihab stands outside a home in the El Arish, Sinai, where his son, Ihab, was arrested as part of an alleged Hezbollah-led cell suspected of running guns to Gaza militants and plotting attacks on targets in Egypt. Abu Ihab denied the charges in and said that his son is a political pawn in a regional battle for power.

Dion Nissenbaum / Dion Nissenbaum / MCT

McClatchy Newspapers

EL ARISH, Egypt — When Egyptian police pounded on the door before dawn and took her husband Nimr away, Sahar Zibawi had no idea that her partner was about to become a pivotal player in a convoluted political plot involving gun running to Gaza, a notorious African smuggling route once used by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, an Iranian-backed Hezbollah cell and an attempt by Egypt’s aging president to reclaim his waning regional influence.

“We’ve been put in a whirlwind and we don’t know why,” Zibawi said nervously while she met surreptitiously with a McClatchy reporter in this Mediterranean coast town that’s a gateway for smuggling to Palestinian-controlled Gaza.

Nimr Zibawi, a Sinai construction worker, is one of more than 40 suspects accused of joining a Hezbollah cell that Egyptian authorities claim was plotting to destabilize President Hosni Mubarak by attacking ships in the Suez Canal and hitting tourist-dependent Red Sea resorts.

After weeks of intense questioning that their attorneys said included daily beatings and torture, Nimr Zibawi and at least one other suspect recently made videotaped confessions in which they admitted to helping smuggle weapons to Gaza militants, but not to plotting attacks inside Egypt.

“If they helped the Palestinian resistance, maybe it’s true, but not in the way our government claims,” said Malek Adly, an attorney with the Cairo-based Hisham Mubarak Legal Rights Center, which is representing Zibawi and eight others. “Nothing they did was intended to harm Egypt.”

In some ways, Mubarak’s reaction has been more important to Middle East politics than the allegations themselves: “Beware the wrath of Egypt.”

The 81-year-old Mubarak is looking to reclaim his role as a regional power broker at an auspicious time: President Barack Obama has chosen Egypt as the setting for his highly anticipated June 4 address to the Arab and Muslim world.

Obama is looking to transform America’s image in the Middle East — and Mubarak could play a critical role in helping the new president succeed.

Israel and the U.S. have tried to enlist pro-Western, Sunni Muslim nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan in a regional coalition to counter Shiite Iran and Hezbollah.

Until now, many Sunni Arab leaders have been reluctant to get into a public diplomatic feud with Iran. That may be changing.

“The situation has become incredibly complex because it’s not just an Egypt issue, it’s about where the Middle East heading next after being completely destabilized by the Bush administration,” said Issandr el Amrani, a Cairo-based analyst for the International Crisis Group.

“Iran represents the revival of the rejectionist camp, which stands against everything Egypt has built over the last 30 years,” el Amrani said. “There are concerns in the regime and the wider establishment in Egypt that doesn’t want to see the country go back to its anti-Western positions.”

The Sinai desert has become a remote battleground in this regional ideological feud.

The weapons route to Gaza is thought to run along a legendary African smuggling route that French poet Arthur Rimbaud used in the late 1800s.

Israel reportedly bombed arms convoys on the route in Sudan during the winter Gaza offensive. That put more pressure on Egypt to take stronger steps to disrupt an arms route Israeli intelligence warned was being used to smuggle increasingly sophisticated rockets into Gaza.

If the Sinai suspects were accused merely of smuggling guns for Palestinian militants, this case might not be as significant.

Egyptian police, however, said that the men were involved in plans to destabilize Mubarak by plotting attacks on popular Sinai tourist resorts, scouting out ships in the Suez Canal, and, in a pointed jab at Iran and Hezbollah, accused them of spreading Shia Islam.

“This is a case about trying to tarnish Hezbollah’s image in Egypt,” Adly said. “There has been a shift in politics between Hezbollah and Egypt.”

Tensions between Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Mubarak have been building since Nasrallah publicly urged Egyptians to rise up in December and challenge their president for refusing to fully open his border with Gaza and allow Palestinians to escape Israel’s three-week military offensive.

“Nasrallah’s behavior since December 27 has been really out of bounds and doesn’t happenvery often in Middle East politics,” el Amrani said. “It’s really unprecedented and hasn’t been seen in decades of inter-Arab relations.”Israeli papers reported that their government had provided Egypt with critical intelligence about Nasrallah’s agents in the Sinai that led to the first arrests in December. That Egyptian sweep began three weeks before Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza.

Sahar Zibawi was rebuffed for months when she tried to find out where her husband was and what he was accused of doing. Then, four months after Nimr was arrested, Egypt announced on April 8 that it had broken up the Hezbollah cell, including the Egyptian-born construction worker with Palestinian roots.

Zibawi said she was stunned by the news and her fears compounded.

Late last month, Egyptian intelligence returned to El Arish with Nimr Zibawi for a surprising visit. Wearing normal clothes and cologne, he was ushered into the house to spend time with his wife as the birth of couple’s third child neared.

“He told me: ‘I’m Egyptian before I’m Palestinian. Don’t believe anything you hear,” Sahar Zibawi said.

Security then led Nimr into a room where he confessed to being part of a Gaza-Sinai gun smuggling group, but not to plotting against Egypt, according to his attorney, Hosam Hadad, who witnessed the confession.

In an unusual address after the arrests were announced in April, Nasrallah admitted that one of the men picked up by Egyptian police, a Lebanese man identified as Sami Shehab, was helping to smuggle weapons to Palestinian militants in Gaza. However, he rejected any allegations that Hezbollah planned to challenge Mubarak.

Egyptian papers responded by lampooning Nasrallah as a “monkey Sheik” and suggesting the he be tried for war crimes. Egypt summoned Iranian officials to protest that nation’s reaction to the case. And Mubarak obliquely warned Iran and Hezbollah to back off.

In the Sinai, relatives of the men at the center of this case nervously gathered in a nondescript house to meet a McClatchy reporter.

With young men keeping watch on the door for Egyptian security, the wives, mothers, fathers and brothers of several of the suspects said their relatives had become political pawns.

“Our sons have been hijacked by politics,” said the father of one of the suspects who gave his name only as Abu Ihab. “We’re just asking the hijackers to give us back or kids and stop making stuff up.”

“I just want to know the end,” said the mother of one of the men who gave her name as Umm Nasser. “Are we going to see them again, or are they gone forever?”

Can Washington Allow Afghan Taliban Back, Minus Al Qaeda?

Can Washington Allow Afghan Taliban Back,

Minus Al Qaeda?

To be certain, America is confused, baffled and may be even disoriented. Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has reportedly opened up his channels with Gulbadin Hekmatyar. Remember, in 2002, CIA-controlled MQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile on Gulbuddin’s vehicle but missed. Then on February 19, 2003, US Department of Treasury designated Gulbuddin a ‘global terrorist’. And now, the special representative is negotiating with a ‘global terrorist’.

By Dr. Farrukh Saleem
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The News International.

WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—General David Howell Petraeus, the 10th Commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), has negotiated, bargained and networked with Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. General Petraeus, in his desperate search for an alternative supply route, went as far as Latvia. The top graduate of the US Army Command and General Staff College — class of 1983 — and the winner of the General George C Marshall Award hasn’t met with much success lately.


Yes, there have been minor — strategically inconsequential — delights. General Petraeus did manage a deal with
Kazakhstan for oil and another one with Latvia for 100 containers a day on a 4,000 km journey to the Kandahar Air Base. On May 11, President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan announced that his country has begun “shipping non-military supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan through its airport in the city of Navoi.” Yes, there have also been major — strategically consequential — disappointments. Kyrgyzstan took a hefty $2 billion from Russia and in return put General Petraeus on notice to vacate the Manas Air Base (Uzbekistan had told the US to vacate the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base some four years ago).

What is General Petraeus now left with? Four things: one, Pakistan‘s National Highway N-5. From Karachi, Hyderabad, Moro and Khairpur a total of 671 km all of which is safe from outside attacks. N-5 then enters Multan on to Sahiwal, Lahore, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Jhelum and Rawalpindi, a total of 1,021 km all of which is safe. N-5 then crosses the Indus River into Nowshera, Peshawar and then Torkham, a total of 127 km almost all of which is extremely vulnerable. Two, Pakistan‘s Indus Highway or N-55. From Karachi to Peshawar via Kotri, Dadu, Shikarpur, Kashmor, Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Kohat and into Peshawar. Three, Pakistan‘s RCD Highway or N-25. From Karachi to Chaman via Hub, Bela, Khuzdar, Quetta to Chamman and then into Kandahar; a total of 813 km almost all of it is secure except for when it crosses the border into Afghanistan (there has been a recent connection to Gwadar). Four, Pakistani refineries producing most of the jet fuel for NATO forces.

What is America doing in Afghanistan? Operation Enduring Freedom was launched on October 7, 2001. The stated casus belli, or reasons for war, were: one, to remove the Taliban regime from power (because the Taliban had provided a safe sanctuary to Al Qaeda). Two, to capture Osama bin Laden. Three, to destroy Al Qaeda. Where does America stand now? The Taliban regime is no more but Osama continues to be on the loose and Al Qaeda is still ticking and kicking.

To be certain, America is confused, baffled and may be even disoriented. Richard Holbrooke, special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has reportedly opened up his channels with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Remember, in 2002, CIA-controlled MQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile on Gulbuddin’s vehicle but missed. Then on February 19, 2003, US Department of Treasury designated Gulbuddin a ‘global terrorist’. And now, the special representative is negotiating with a ‘global terrorist’.

Is
America really puzzled? Over the past year, there have been a handful of reviews of America‘s Afghan policy — one after another. On June 3, 2008, the Department of Defence ordered General David McKiernan to take over the command of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). On May 11, McKiernan having served for less than a year was asked by Defence Secretary Robert Gates to resign.

General Petraeus, beaming from his success in Iraq, is adamant on replicating his Iraq experience. President Obama, on the other hand, does not want to make Afghanistan as the centerpiece of his presidency. There is evidence that Obama and Robert Gates are both at odds with Petraeus. Where does America go from here? Would America let the Taliban back to power in exchange for throwing Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan? Where would America go from here?

PS: The president of Pakistan was at Elysee Palace. The president of Pakistan should have been in Takht Bhai at the Jalala Camp. The president of Pakistan was at Number 10 Downing Street inside the residence of the First Lord of the Treasury. The president of Pakistan should have been in Sheikh Yasin Town inside the Sheikh Yasin Camp. The president of Pakistan is all over but not where he should be. The president of Pakistan is where he is not needed and not where he is really needed.

This article was published by The News International. The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS). Email: farrukh15AThotmail.com