Pakistan Buddies

More comes out all the time about the forces we are supporting in the Pakistan border where the Afghanistan occupation is being lost. A book now out points out the pretense of pro-Western action is wearing tissue thin now.

Scott Horton of Harper's has interviewed Ahmed Rashid, whose book "Descent into Chaos" has just come out, on Pakistan and the Taliban:

The CIA, we learned in a report today, has compiled damning evidence of the Pakistani military’s complicity with the Taliban. But this is hardly news. Indeed, one analyst has repeatedly warned that Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf and his intelligence service have been taking America for a ride, pretending to support U.S. counter-terrorism operations while sheltering and supporting the Taliban and numerous other extremist organizations. That analyst is Ahmed Rashid, and he is the most articulate of the observers of the region between the Oxus and the shores of Karachi.
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The NWFP (Pakhtunkhwa) government is in a quandary. It has to call in the army whenever armed lashkars threaten to overrun a district as the police force simply does not have the capacity to fight an ever-expanding insurgency.

After Swat the army has also been deployed in Hangu. In view of the militant sanctuaries situated nearby, the army cannot be withdrawn in the near future. Imagine if the story is repeated in other vulnerable districts. Will the army also have to be deployed in all these other districts? Will such measures not bring the existence of the civilian provincial government into question?

Is it not amazing that in spite of such high stakes the presidency that has a monopoly over governance in Fata seems to show no anxiety over the prevailing situation? It is continuing with the policy of keeping Fata a black hole where terrorist groups from across the globe run their bases.

There seems to be no bottom to the ignorance the U.S. displays in support for military action against our own interests. The cost of using political hacks to run our government is on display in every sector.

Ignorance is not bliss, and it can prove fatal. Some reaction has been forced out of the worst administration ever.

Pakistan says its intelligence agents have been accused by the US of alerting al-Qaeda linked militants before the US launches missile attacks against them.

Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said members of Inter-Services Intelligence were accused of "tipping off" militants before strikes in the tribal areas.
(snip)
The BBC's security correspondent Rob Watson says that relations between the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the ISI appear decidedly strained.

Our correspondent says that the stern message apparently being delivered to Islamabad was that Pakistan has to do more to tackle ties between the ISI and Islamic extremists based in the country's tribal areas.

It's awfully close to the End for the occupied White House. Looks like they may actually try to put a little into that pledge to find Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice. Hopefully, they're not going to use the dismantled Justice Department to accomplish that.