The Irresistible Illusion
By Rory Stewart - LRB
We are accustomed to seeing Afghans through bars, or smeared windows, or the sight of a rifle: turbaned men carrying rockets, praying in unison, or lying in pools of blood; boys squabbling in an empty swimming-pool; women in burn wards, or begging in burqas. Kabul is a South Asian city of millions. Bollywood music blares out in its crowded spice markets and flower gardens, but it seems that images conveying colour and humour are reserved for Rajasthan.
....When we are not presented with a dystopian vision, we are encouraged to be implausibly optimistic. ‘There can be only one winner: democracy and a strong Afghan state,’ Gordon Brown predicted in his most recent speech on the subject. Obama and Brown rely on a hypnotising policy language which can – and perhaps will – be applied as easily to Somalia or Yemen as Afghanistan. It misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion.
In the fog, remember: victory is impossible in Afghanistan
By Matthew Parris - The Times
It’s easy to be blinded by the valiant effort, as well as the acronyms and euphemisms. But the harsh truth does not change.
....But my argument is that news like this is a distraction from the underlying story. The battle will ebb and flow. But victory is impossible.
....Acronyms are not the only refuge. Others lullaby their brains to sleep swathed in the acrylic blankets of a new language now suffocating the ministries, missions and shirt-sleeved development-wallahs in shiny white Toyota 4x4s: a hideous hybrid of NGO-speak, Whitehall-chic, political pap and military jargon . . .
“Across the piece”, “agent for change”, “alternative livelihoods”, “asymmetric means of operation”, “capability milestones”, “civilian surge”, “conditionality”, “demand- reduction”, “drivers of radicalisation”, “fixed-wing assets”, “fledgeling capabilities”, “injectors of risk”, “kinetic situation”, “licit livelihoods”, “light footprint”, “lily pads”, “messaging campaign”, “partnering- and-mentoring”, “capacity-building”, “strategic review”, “reconciliation and reintegration”, “rolling out a top-down approach”, “shake — clear — hold — build”, “upskilling”.
Can the Right War Be Won? Defining American Interests in Afghanistan
By Steven Simon - Foreign Affairs
The Obama administration recently completed its 60-day review of U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the president, "The core goal of the U.S. must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." The United States will pursue this goal, he explained, by carrying out five tasks: disrupting terrorist networks that are capable of launching international attacks; "promoting a more capable, accountable, and effective government in Afghanistan"; building up Afghan security forces that are "increasingly self reliant"; nudging Pakistan toward greater civilian control and "a stable constitutional government"; and getting the international community to help achieve these objectives under UN auspices. The premise of the strategy is that the turbulence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, if untamed, will lead to a nuclear 9/11.
Afghanistan's war on books - The Afghan government's destruction of tens of thousands of books is another sign that the country's culture is under threat
By Reza Mohammadi - The Guardian
The Afghan government last week threw tens of thousands of books into the Helmand river, in the south of the country. This peculiar story of animosity towards books has a history in Afghanistan as well as in its neighbouring countries.
....Now, seven years after the fall of the Taliban, when numerous democratic countries are present in Afghanistan supporting freedom, including freedom of speech, and the government is run by technocrats rather than theocrats, the ministry of culture has made Helmand river's water turn black after throwing tens of thousands books into it.
These books include history and philosophy as well as works of literature and poetry and a sacred Shia book called Nahjulbalagha. They were published abroad by one of the few Afghan publishers, Ebrahim Shariati. This destruction has happened while the government allows books on exorcism, magic and fortune-telling to be made available to the people.
CHANGING WORLDVIEW IN A CHANGING WORLD
not really a blog...just some links to articles, books, reviews, blogs, sites
not really a blog...just some links to articles, books, reviews, blogs, sites
04 July, 2009
Afghanistan - Helmand, Strategy, Moderate Taliban
U.S. Faces Resentment in Afghan Region
By Carlotta Gall - NYT
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.
Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban’s influence is so pervasive here.
US Marines to 'drink lots of tea'
By Ali Gharib - Asia Times Online
WASHINGTON - After months of planning and putting pieces in order, aspects of the new United States strategy in Afghanistan are beginning to be concretely implemented - including a surge of troops and attempts to curtail the poppy trade that allegedly funds insurgents.
But some aspects of the new strategy are lagging behind, and questions linger about the feasibility of winning by concentrating new US forces in Afghanistan's south and east, where the Taliban has largely established full control.
Key in Afghanistan: Economy, Not Military
By Bob Woodward - WP
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan -- National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict.
The message seems designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, though the administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future. Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, "My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops."
"This will not be won by the military alone," Jones said in an interview during his trip. "We tried that for six years." He also said: "The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed."
Taliban leaders report progress in secret talks with the US and Afghanistan
Moderate Taliban make headway in negotiations with militants.
By C.M. Sennott - GlobalPost
KABUL — Moderate leaders of the Taliban say they have quietly and steadily made progress in third-party talks between the active Taliban insurgency and representatives of the Afghan and U.S. governments.
Two Taliban leaders — who held high-ranking positions in the now-deposed Taliban government and who are directly involved in the talks — say they’ve recently established a framework of an agreement through the shuttle negotiations. They say the process has included contact with the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
By Carlotta Gall - NYT
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan — The mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan, presenting incoming American forces with an even harder job than expected in reversing military losses to the Taliban and winning over the population.
Villagers in some districts have taken up arms against foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger after losing relatives in airstrikes, several community representatives interviewed said. Others have been moved to join the insurgents out of poverty or simply because the Taliban’s influence is so pervasive here.
US Marines to 'drink lots of tea'
By Ali Gharib - Asia Times Online
WASHINGTON - After months of planning and putting pieces in order, aspects of the new United States strategy in Afghanistan are beginning to be concretely implemented - including a surge of troops and attempts to curtail the poppy trade that allegedly funds insurgents.
But some aspects of the new strategy are lagging behind, and questions linger about the feasibility of winning by concentrating new US forces in Afghanistan's south and east, where the Taliban has largely established full control.
Key in Afghanistan: Economy, Not Military
By Bob Woodward - WP
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan -- National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict.
The message seems designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, though the administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future. Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, "My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops."
"This will not be won by the military alone," Jones said in an interview during his trip. "We tried that for six years." He also said: "The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed."
Taliban leaders report progress in secret talks with the US and Afghanistan
Moderate Taliban make headway in negotiations with militants.
By C.M. Sennott - GlobalPost
KABUL — Moderate leaders of the Taliban say they have quietly and steadily made progress in third-party talks between the active Taliban insurgency and representatives of the Afghan and U.S. governments.
Two Taliban leaders — who held high-ranking positions in the now-deposed Taliban government and who are directly involved in the talks — say they’ve recently established a framework of an agreement through the shuttle negotiations. They say the process has included contact with the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Pakistan - Pashtun, Taliban
Why the Pak Army is struggling against the Taliban
By B Raman - Rediff
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan headed by Baitullah Mehsud and its various constituent units in different sub-tribal areas headed by local sub-tribal chiefs have proved themselves to be more than a match for the Pakistan Army as it struggles to cope with a spreading arc of Taliban presence and operations right across the Pashtun tribal belt and with its undamaged ability to hit beyond the frontlines in cities and cantonments located in non-tribal areas whenever it wants.
Widespread Pashtun anger against the US and the Pakistani military continues to be the main motivating force of the TTP. There are no signs -- at least not yet -- that feelings of Pashtun nationalism influence the TTP's operations. The TTP sees itself more as a Pashtun self-defence movement to protect the Pashtuns against attempts to change their way of life by the Pakistani authorities allegedly at the instance of the US.
....The US policy towards the Pashtuns, which tends to be influenced by Pakistani experts such as Ahmed Rashid, who seek more the applause of American audiences than of the Pashtun populace, has not had the benefit of the intellectual inputs of the sons of the Pashtun soil, who understand the feelings of their fellow Pashtuns better than experts like Rashid, who look at the Pashtun problem more from the geo-strategic aspect than from the angle of Pashtun self-respect.
Pakistan focuses on Islamic extremism
By Ahmed Rashid - LAT
Writing From Mardan, Pakistan -- Has the Pakistani government, after years of vacillation, finally gotten serious about eliminating the Taliban threat? Maybe.
For the first time since 9/11, Pakistan's army has begun a decisive military offensive to drive the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups out of South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal agencies that border Afghanistan.
This offensive follows a successful eight-week campaign to drive the Pakistani Taliban from the Swat Valley, where the army claims to have killed 1,500 militants and lost 134 officers and soldiers.
But it remains to be seen whether the government will be able to overturn the army's longtime support for the Taliban.
By B Raman - Rediff
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan headed by Baitullah Mehsud and its various constituent units in different sub-tribal areas headed by local sub-tribal chiefs have proved themselves to be more than a match for the Pakistan Army as it struggles to cope with a spreading arc of Taliban presence and operations right across the Pashtun tribal belt and with its undamaged ability to hit beyond the frontlines in cities and cantonments located in non-tribal areas whenever it wants.
Widespread Pashtun anger against the US and the Pakistani military continues to be the main motivating force of the TTP. There are no signs -- at least not yet -- that feelings of Pashtun nationalism influence the TTP's operations. The TTP sees itself more as a Pashtun self-defence movement to protect the Pashtuns against attempts to change their way of life by the Pakistani authorities allegedly at the instance of the US.
....The US policy towards the Pashtuns, which tends to be influenced by Pakistani experts such as Ahmed Rashid, who seek more the applause of American audiences than of the Pashtun populace, has not had the benefit of the intellectual inputs of the sons of the Pashtun soil, who understand the feelings of their fellow Pashtuns better than experts like Rashid, who look at the Pashtun problem more from the geo-strategic aspect than from the angle of Pashtun self-respect.
Pakistan focuses on Islamic extremism
By Ahmed Rashid - LAT
Writing From Mardan, Pakistan -- Has the Pakistani government, after years of vacillation, finally gotten serious about eliminating the Taliban threat? Maybe.
For the first time since 9/11, Pakistan's army has begun a decisive military offensive to drive the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups out of South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal agencies that border Afghanistan.
This offensive follows a successful eight-week campaign to drive the Pakistani Taliban from the Swat Valley, where the army claims to have killed 1,500 militants and lost 134 officers and soldiers.
But it remains to be seen whether the government will be able to overturn the army's longtime support for the Taliban.
South Asia - Failed States and Climate Change
The 2009 Failed States Index
By Foreign Policy
It is a sobering time for the world’s most fragile countries—virulent economic crisis, countless natural disasters, and government collapse. This year, we delve deeper than ever into just what went wrong—and who is to blame.
Yemen may not yet be front-page news, but it’s being watched intently these days in capitals worldwide. A perfect storm of state failure is now brewing there: disappearing oil and water reserves; a mob of migrants, some allegedly with al Qaeda ties, flooding in from Somalia, the failed state next door; and a weak government increasingly unable to keep things running. Many worry Yemen is the next Afghanistan: a global problem wrapped in a failed state.
It’s not just Yemen. The financial crisis was a near-death experience for insurgency-plagued Pakistan, which remains on imf life support. Cameroon has been rocked by economic contagion, which sparked riots, violence, and instability. Other countries dependent on the import and export of commodities—from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea to Bangladesh—had a similarly rough go of it last year, suffering what economist Homi Kharas calls a “whiplash effect” as prices spiked sharply and then plummeted. All indications are that 2009 will bring little to no reprieve.
The Last Straw - If you think these failed states look bad now, wait until the climate changes
By Stephan Faris - Foreign Policy
Hopelessly overcrowded, crippled by poverty, teeming with Islamist militancy, careless with its nukes—it sometimes seems as if Pakistan can’t get any more terrifying. But forget about the Taliban: The country's troubles today pale compared with what it might face 25 years from now. When it comes to the stability of one of the world's most volatile regions, it's the fate of the Himalayan glaciers that should be keeping us awake at night.
In the mountainous area of Kashmir along and around Pakistan's contested border with India lies what might become the epicenter of the problem. Since the separation of the two countries 62 years ago, the argument over whether Kashmir belongs to Muslim Pakistan or secular India has never ceased. Since 1998, when both countries tested nuclear weapons, the conflict has taken on the added risk of escalating into cataclysm. Another increasingly important factor will soon heighten the tension: Ninety percent of Pakistan's agricultural irrigation depends on rivers that originate in Kashmir. "This water issue between India and Pakistan is the key," Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, a parliamentarian from Kashmir, told me. "Much more than any other political or religious concern."
By Foreign Policy
It is a sobering time for the world’s most fragile countries—virulent economic crisis, countless natural disasters, and government collapse. This year, we delve deeper than ever into just what went wrong—and who is to blame.
Yemen may not yet be front-page news, but it’s being watched intently these days in capitals worldwide. A perfect storm of state failure is now brewing there: disappearing oil and water reserves; a mob of migrants, some allegedly with al Qaeda ties, flooding in from Somalia, the failed state next door; and a weak government increasingly unable to keep things running. Many worry Yemen is the next Afghanistan: a global problem wrapped in a failed state.
It’s not just Yemen. The financial crisis was a near-death experience for insurgency-plagued Pakistan, which remains on imf life support. Cameroon has been rocked by economic contagion, which sparked riots, violence, and instability. Other countries dependent on the import and export of commodities—from Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea to Bangladesh—had a similarly rough go of it last year, suffering what economist Homi Kharas calls a “whiplash effect” as prices spiked sharply and then plummeted. All indications are that 2009 will bring little to no reprieve.
The Last Straw - If you think these failed states look bad now, wait until the climate changes
By Stephan Faris - Foreign Policy
Hopelessly overcrowded, crippled by poverty, teeming with Islamist militancy, careless with its nukes—it sometimes seems as if Pakistan can’t get any more terrifying. But forget about the Taliban: The country's troubles today pale compared with what it might face 25 years from now. When it comes to the stability of one of the world's most volatile regions, it's the fate of the Himalayan glaciers that should be keeping us awake at night.
In the mountainous area of Kashmir along and around Pakistan's contested border with India lies what might become the epicenter of the problem. Since the separation of the two countries 62 years ago, the argument over whether Kashmir belongs to Muslim Pakistan or secular India has never ceased. Since 1998, when both countries tested nuclear weapons, the conflict has taken on the added risk of escalating into cataclysm. Another increasingly important factor will soon heighten the tension: Ninety percent of Pakistan's agricultural irrigation depends on rivers that originate in Kashmir. "This water issue between India and Pakistan is the key," Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, a parliamentarian from Kashmir, told me. "Much more than any other political or religious concern."
Foreign Policy - China, India, US
The End of the Affair? - Washington's Cooling Passion for New Delhi
By Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur - Foreign Affairs
One of the signature features, and generally acknowledged successes, of the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy was the close relationship forged between the United States and India. For decades, due to Cold War politics and mutual antagonism over India's quest for nuclear weapons, the U.S.-Indian relationship had languished. The Bush administration, however, identified India as a potential strategic partner early on and chose to build on the goodwill the Clinton administration had garnered with New Delhi in its closing days.
Think Again: Asia's Rise
By Minxin Pei - Foreign Policy
Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.
"Power Is Shifting from West to East."
Not really. Dine on a steady diet of books like The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East or When China Rules the World, and it's easy to think that the future belongs to Asia. As one prominent herald of the region's rise put it, "We are entering a new era of world history: the end of Western domination and the arrival of the Asian century."
Sustained, rapid economic growth since World War ii has undeniably boosted the region's economic output and military capabilities. But it's a gross exaggeration to say that Asia will emerge as the world's predominant power player. At most, Asia's rise will lead to the arrival of a multi-polar world, not another unipolar one.
The China-India Border Brawl
By Jeff M. Smith - WSJ
The peaceful, side-by-side rise of China and India has been taken for granted in many quarters. But tensions between the two giants are mounting, and Washington would do well to take note. On June 8, New Delhi announced it would deploy two additional army divisions and two air force squadrons near its border with China. Beijing responded furiously to the Indian announcement, hardening its claim to some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory that China disputes.
To understand what the tussle is about, consider recent history: The defining moment in the Sino-Indian relationship is a short but traumatic war fought over the Sino-Indian border in 1962. The details of that conflict are in dispute, but the outcome is not: After a sweeping advance into Indian territory, China gained control over a chunk of contested Tibetan plateau in India's northwest but recalled its advancing army in India's northeast, leaving to New Delhi what is now the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Relations have been characterized by mistrust ever since, but neither nation has shown any inclination to return to armed conflict.
Currency, culture, Confucius: China's writ will run across the world
By Martin Jacques - The Times
The rise of the East will change more than just economics. It will shake up the whole way that we think and live our lives.
The world is being remade but the West is only very slowly waking up to this new reality. In 2027 Goldman Sachs estimates that the size of the Chinese economy will overtake America's and by 2050 will be twice as big.
But we still think of the rise of the developing countries and the relative decline of the developed nations in almost exclusively economic terms. China's rise is seen as having momentous economic implications but being of little political and cultural consequence. This is a profound mistake.
Dancing with the dragon
By Brahma Chellaney - Japan Times
Nearly six months after U.S. President Barack Obama entered the White House, it is apparent that America's Asia policy is no longer guided by an overarching geopolitical framework as it had been under President George W. Bush. Indeed, Washington's Asia policy today appears fragmented. The Obama administration has developed a policy approach toward each major Asian subregion and issue, but still has no strategy on how to build enduring power equilibrium in Asia — the pivot of global geopolitical change.
China, India and Japan, Asia's three main powers, constitute a unique strategic triangle. The Obama administration has declared that America's "most important bilateral relationship in the world" is with China, going to the extent of demoting human rights to put the accent on security, financial, trade and environmental issues with Beijing.
China's New (and Welcome) Foreign Policy
By Wen Liao - RealClearWorld
For two decades, Chinese diplomacy has been guided by the concept of the country's "peaceful rise". Today, however, China needs a new strategic doctrine, because the most remarkable aspect of Sri Lanka's recent victory over the Tamil Tigers is not its overwhelming nature, but the fact that China provided President Mahinda Rajapakse with both the military supplies and diplomatic cover he needed to prosecute the war.
Without that Chinese backing, Rajapakse's government would have had neither the wherewithal nor the will to ignore world opinion in its offensive against the Tigers. So, not only has China become central to every aspect of the global financial and economic system, it has now demonstrated its strategic effectiveness in a region traditionally outside its orbit. On Sri Lanka's beachfront battlefields, China's "peaceful rise" was completed.
By Sumit Ganguly and S. Paul Kapur - Foreign Affairs
One of the signature features, and generally acknowledged successes, of the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy was the close relationship forged between the United States and India. For decades, due to Cold War politics and mutual antagonism over India's quest for nuclear weapons, the U.S.-Indian relationship had languished. The Bush administration, however, identified India as a potential strategic partner early on and chose to build on the goodwill the Clinton administration had garnered with New Delhi in its closing days.
Think Again: Asia's Rise
By Minxin Pei - Foreign Policy
Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.
"Power Is Shifting from West to East."
Not really. Dine on a steady diet of books like The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East or When China Rules the World, and it's easy to think that the future belongs to Asia. As one prominent herald of the region's rise put it, "We are entering a new era of world history: the end of Western domination and the arrival of the Asian century."
Sustained, rapid economic growth since World War ii has undeniably boosted the region's economic output and military capabilities. But it's a gross exaggeration to say that Asia will emerge as the world's predominant power player. At most, Asia's rise will lead to the arrival of a multi-polar world, not another unipolar one.
The China-India Border Brawl
By Jeff M. Smith - WSJ
The peaceful, side-by-side rise of China and India has been taken for granted in many quarters. But tensions between the two giants are mounting, and Washington would do well to take note. On June 8, New Delhi announced it would deploy two additional army divisions and two air force squadrons near its border with China. Beijing responded furiously to the Indian announcement, hardening its claim to some 90,000 square kilometers of Indian territory that China disputes.
To understand what the tussle is about, consider recent history: The defining moment in the Sino-Indian relationship is a short but traumatic war fought over the Sino-Indian border in 1962. The details of that conflict are in dispute, but the outcome is not: After a sweeping advance into Indian territory, China gained control over a chunk of contested Tibetan plateau in India's northwest but recalled its advancing army in India's northeast, leaving to New Delhi what is now the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. Relations have been characterized by mistrust ever since, but neither nation has shown any inclination to return to armed conflict.
Currency, culture, Confucius: China's writ will run across the world
By Martin Jacques - The Times
The rise of the East will change more than just economics. It will shake up the whole way that we think and live our lives.
The world is being remade but the West is only very slowly waking up to this new reality. In 2027 Goldman Sachs estimates that the size of the Chinese economy will overtake America's and by 2050 will be twice as big.
But we still think of the rise of the developing countries and the relative decline of the developed nations in almost exclusively economic terms. China's rise is seen as having momentous economic implications but being of little political and cultural consequence. This is a profound mistake.
Dancing with the dragon
By Brahma Chellaney - Japan Times
Nearly six months after U.S. President Barack Obama entered the White House, it is apparent that America's Asia policy is no longer guided by an overarching geopolitical framework as it had been under President George W. Bush. Indeed, Washington's Asia policy today appears fragmented. The Obama administration has developed a policy approach toward each major Asian subregion and issue, but still has no strategy on how to build enduring power equilibrium in Asia — the pivot of global geopolitical change.
China, India and Japan, Asia's three main powers, constitute a unique strategic triangle. The Obama administration has declared that America's "most important bilateral relationship in the world" is with China, going to the extent of demoting human rights to put the accent on security, financial, trade and environmental issues with Beijing.
China's New (and Welcome) Foreign Policy
By Wen Liao - RealClearWorld
For two decades, Chinese diplomacy has been guided by the concept of the country's "peaceful rise". Today, however, China needs a new strategic doctrine, because the most remarkable aspect of Sri Lanka's recent victory over the Tamil Tigers is not its overwhelming nature, but the fact that China provided President Mahinda Rajapakse with both the military supplies and diplomatic cover he needed to prosecute the war.
Without that Chinese backing, Rajapakse's government would have had neither the wherewithal nor the will to ignore world opinion in its offensive against the Tigers. So, not only has China become central to every aspect of the global financial and economic system, it has now demonstrated its strategic effectiveness in a region traditionally outside its orbit. On Sri Lanka's beachfront battlefields, China's "peaceful rise" was completed.
Pakistan - Qari Zainuddin, Baitullah Mehsud
Pakistan plays dangerous double game
By Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich - The Independent
The assassin struck shortly after morning prayers, storming into a room at the compound where Qari Zainuddin was staying and opening up with a volley of fire. The militant leader was rushed to a nearby hospital but declared dead. Meanwhile, the gunman - apparently dispatched by Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud - escaped in a waiting car.
The following day, in a cemetery of Muslim and Christian graves encircled by fields of maize, the 26-year-old, who in recent months had pitched himself against Mr Mehsud, was buried.
Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud finds allies — and enemies out for revenge
By Jeremy Page - The Times
Baitullah Mehsud is a former bodybuilder in his late thirties who declared himself leader of Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan — an alliance of a dozen militant groups — in 2007. Mehsud, below left, is blamed for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, in December that year, but denies any role in her death. He has a $5 million (£3 million) US bounty on his head.
Pakistan tries to turn tribesmen against Taleban leader with trade blockade
By Jeremy Page and Rehmat Mehsud
Pakistan has imposed an economic blockade on the mountain stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, in an effort to turn his tribesmen against him and encourage civilians to flee before a planned ground offensive, according to local officials.
Authorities are also arresting dozens of Mehsud tribesmen and shutting down the businesses of others on the fringes of South Waziristan — thought to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden — under a draconian “collective responsibility” law which was introduced in the British colonial era.
Pakistan Taliban leader faces threat from fellow tribesman
By Saeed Shah - McClatchy
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A new Islamic militia leader has emerged in Pakistan to openly challenge al Qaida-affiliated warlord Baitullah Mehsud for the first time from within his own tribe, marking the start of a bloody confrontation in the wild Waziristan region that could have profound consequences for both Pakistan and the West.
In his first interview with a Western news organization, Qari Zainuddin told McClatchy this week that he'd wipe out Mehsud and rescue Pakistan from a reign of terror that has pushed the nuclear-armed U.S. ally toward collapse.
By Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich - The Independent
The assassin struck shortly after morning prayers, storming into a room at the compound where Qari Zainuddin was staying and opening up with a volley of fire. The militant leader was rushed to a nearby hospital but declared dead. Meanwhile, the gunman - apparently dispatched by Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud - escaped in a waiting car.
The following day, in a cemetery of Muslim and Christian graves encircled by fields of maize, the 26-year-old, who in recent months had pitched himself against Mr Mehsud, was buried.
Taleban leader Baitullah Mehsud finds allies — and enemies out for revenge
By Jeremy Page - The Times
Baitullah Mehsud is a former bodybuilder in his late thirties who declared himself leader of Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan — an alliance of a dozen militant groups — in 2007. Mehsud, below left, is blamed for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, in December that year, but denies any role in her death. He has a $5 million (£3 million) US bounty on his head.
Pakistan tries to turn tribesmen against Taleban leader with trade blockade
By Jeremy Page and Rehmat Mehsud
Pakistan has imposed an economic blockade on the mountain stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, in an effort to turn his tribesmen against him and encourage civilians to flee before a planned ground offensive, according to local officials.
Authorities are also arresting dozens of Mehsud tribesmen and shutting down the businesses of others on the fringes of South Waziristan — thought to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden — under a draconian “collective responsibility” law which was introduced in the British colonial era.
Pakistan Taliban leader faces threat from fellow tribesman
By Saeed Shah - McClatchy
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — A new Islamic militia leader has emerged in Pakistan to openly challenge al Qaida-affiliated warlord Baitullah Mehsud for the first time from within his own tribe, marking the start of a bloody confrontation in the wild Waziristan region that could have profound consequences for both Pakistan and the West.
In his first interview with a Western news organization, Qari Zainuddin told McClatchy this week that he'd wipe out Mehsud and rescue Pakistan from a reign of terror that has pushed the nuclear-armed U.S. ally toward collapse.
Pakistan - miscellaneous
Pakistan's Next Fight? Don't Go There
By Nicholas Schmidle - WP
Two years ago, my wife and I vacationed in Pakistan's Swat Valley. We spent an afternoon sightseeing in the hills, visiting stupas in the dense pine forests and carvings of the Buddha etched into sheer granite cliffs, remnants of the Buddhist civilization that had thrived in the valley for centuries. Later, we played badminton back at our hotel.
In those days, guest rooms were full, and policemen patrolled the streets. When I asked the hotel's night manager about Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban commander whose headquarters were just a few miles away, he put a finger to his lips and shook his head, reflecting the national response to the Swat Taliban: Ignore them, and they'll go away.
The other Islamist threat in Pakistan
By Selig S. Harrison - Boston Globe
The danger of an Islamist takeover of Pakistan is real. But it does not come from the Taliban guerrillas now battling the Pakistan Army in the Swat borderlands. It comes from a proliferating network of heavily armed Islamist militias in the Punjab heartland and major cities directed by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a close ally of Al Qaeda, which staged the terrorist attack last November in Mumbai, India.
Pakistan’s failure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba militias and the recent release of two of its leaders jailed after the Mumbai attack led to an angry exchange on Monday at a meeting in Russia between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistan’s ‘Invisible Refugees’ Burden Cities
By Sabrina Tavernise - NYT
MARDAN, Pakistan — The Khan family made it through Taliban rule, a military offensive and the three-day journey to this crowded city.
Seventy-five members of the extended Khan family have been sharing three rooms and one bathroom in Mardan. The man lying on the floor was recovering from a recent stomach operation.
But after more than a month of living together — 75 people, three rooms, one bathroom — they might not survive one another.
“This is a test for us,” said Akhtar Jan, a mother of four who is part of the extended family. “If we don’t smile, we would be dead from crying.”
Pakistan is experiencing its worst refugee crisis since partition from India in 1947, and while the world may be familiar with the tent camps that have rolled out like carpets since its operation against the Taliban started in April, the overwhelming majority of the nearly three million people who have fled live unseen in houses and schools, according to aid agencies.
The Frontier Against Terrorism
By Asif Ali Zardari - WP
After the debacle of Vietnam, the United States could pack up and leave with minimal consequences for its genuine national interests; similarly, for the British in the subcontinent and the French in Algeria. But the West, indeed the entire civilized world, does not have that luxury in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the Taliban and al-Qaeda are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents.
In Pakistan today, democracy must succeed. The forces of extremism must be vanquished. Failure is not an option; not for us, not for the world.
By Nicholas Schmidle - WP
Two years ago, my wife and I vacationed in Pakistan's Swat Valley. We spent an afternoon sightseeing in the hills, visiting stupas in the dense pine forests and carvings of the Buddha etched into sheer granite cliffs, remnants of the Buddhist civilization that had thrived in the valley for centuries. Later, we played badminton back at our hotel.
In those days, guest rooms were full, and policemen patrolled the streets. When I asked the hotel's night manager about Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban commander whose headquarters were just a few miles away, he put a finger to his lips and shook his head, reflecting the national response to the Swat Taliban: Ignore them, and they'll go away.
The other Islamist threat in Pakistan
By Selig S. Harrison - Boston Globe
The danger of an Islamist takeover of Pakistan is real. But it does not come from the Taliban guerrillas now battling the Pakistan Army in the Swat borderlands. It comes from a proliferating network of heavily armed Islamist militias in the Punjab heartland and major cities directed by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a close ally of Al Qaeda, which staged the terrorist attack last November in Mumbai, India.
Pakistan’s failure to crack down on Lashkar-e-Taiba militias and the recent release of two of its leaders jailed after the Mumbai attack led to an angry exchange on Monday at a meeting in Russia between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari.
Pakistan’s ‘Invisible Refugees’ Burden Cities
By Sabrina Tavernise - NYT
MARDAN, Pakistan — The Khan family made it through Taliban rule, a military offensive and the three-day journey to this crowded city.
Seventy-five members of the extended Khan family have been sharing three rooms and one bathroom in Mardan. The man lying on the floor was recovering from a recent stomach operation.
But after more than a month of living together — 75 people, three rooms, one bathroom — they might not survive one another.
“This is a test for us,” said Akhtar Jan, a mother of four who is part of the extended family. “If we don’t smile, we would be dead from crying.”
Pakistan is experiencing its worst refugee crisis since partition from India in 1947, and while the world may be familiar with the tent camps that have rolled out like carpets since its operation against the Taliban started in April, the overwhelming majority of the nearly three million people who have fled live unseen in houses and schools, according to aid agencies.
The Frontier Against Terrorism
By Asif Ali Zardari - WP
After the debacle of Vietnam, the United States could pack up and leave with minimal consequences for its genuine national interests; similarly, for the British in the subcontinent and the French in Algeria. But the West, indeed the entire civilized world, does not have that luxury in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If the Taliban and al-Qaeda are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents.
In Pakistan today, democracy must succeed. The forces of extremism must be vanquished. Failure is not an option; not for us, not for the world.
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