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29 October, 2010
28 October, 2010
07 February, 2010
The Bani Israel of the Hindu Kush and Malihabad
There has recently been renewed interest in the theory that the Pathan Afridi tribe might be descendants of the lost Jewish tribe of Ephraim. The following is a chronological review of the story's latest development.Gene travel: To Malihabad via Israel?
By Ashish Tripathi - The Times of India - Nov 5, 2009
Shahnaz Ali, a senior research fellow at the National Institute of Immuno-Hematology, Mumbai, has been awarded a scholarship by the government of Israel for the academic year 2009-2010, to study the DNA of Afridi Pathans of Malihabad in Lucknow to confirm whether they are of Israelite origin or not.
Shahnaz Ali had collected blood samples of the Afridi Pathans of Malihabad in October 2008, when she was associated with the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Kolkata. Now, with the scholarship in hand, she will conduct the analysis of the DNA at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. The study will be done under the supervision of scientist, Professor Karl Skorecki.
The theory of the Israelite origin of Afridi Pathans was brought into focus by Indo-Judaic studies scholar, Navras Jaat Aafreedi. He did his doctoral and post-doctoral research at the universities of Lucknow and Tel Aviv respectively. Shahnaz's genetic research would examine Navras's theory that Afridi Pathans are descendants of the lost Israelite tribe of Ephraim, which was exiled in 721 BC.
This article was posted by Dr. Navras Jaat Aafreedi on his blog Navras on Nov 4, 2009. It seems that Atish Tripathi's article was never published by The Times of India. The Israeli media then picked up the story on Jan 9, 2010.
Are Taliban descendants of Israelites?
By Amir Mizroch - The Jerusalem Post - Jan 9, 2010
This intriguing question has been asked by a variety of scholars, theologians, anthropologists and pundits over the years, but has remained somewhere between the realms of amateur speculation and serious academic research.
But now, for the first time, the government has shown official interest, with the Foreign Ministry providing a scholarship to an Indian scientist to come to the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and determine whether or not the tribe that provides the hard core of today's Taliban has a blood link to any of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and specifically to the tribe of Efraim.
Shahnaz Ali, a senior research fellow at the National Institute of Immunohaematology, Mumbai, has joined the Technion to study the blood samples that she collected from Afridi Pathans in Malihabad, in the Lucknow district, Uttar Pradesh state, India, to check their putative Israelite origin.
Lucknow Pathans have Jewish roots?
By Sachin Parashar - The Times of India - Jan 11, 2010
Despite their animosity, do Jews and the Pathans in India come from the same ancestral stock — the biblical lost tribes of Israel? A subject of speculation among academicians in the past, the Israeli government has now asked an Indian geneticist, Shahnaz Ali, to study the link between the Afridi Pathans based in the Lucknow region and certain tribes of Israel who migrated from their native place to all over Asia a few thousand years ago.
Ali, who has been granted a scholarship by Israel’s foreign ministry to work on the project, is genetically analysing blood samples of the Afridi Pathans of Malihabad near Lucknow which she collected earlier to confirm their Israeli origin. Ali is based in Haifa where she is working in collaboration with the prestigious Technion — Israel Institute of Technology.
‘‘Shahnaz’s research would be important if it does establish the genetic link between Pathans and Jews, as it could be seen as a scientific validation of a traditional belief about the Israelite origin of Pathans and can have interesting ramifications for Muslim-Jew relations in particular and the world at large,’’ Dr Navras Aafreedi, a researcher in Indo-Judaic studies and one of the first proponents of the common-origin theory in India, told TOI.
Taliban may be descended from Jews
By Dean Nelson - Daily Telegraph - Jan 11, 2010
The ethnic group at the heart of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan may be descended from their Jewish enemy, according to researchers in India.
Experts at Mumbai's National Institute of Immunohaematology believe Pashtuns could be one of the ten "Lost Tribes of Israel".
The Israeli government is funding a genetic study to establish if there is any proof of the link.
An Indian geneticist has taken blood samples from the Pashtun Afridi tribe in Lucknow, Northern India, to Israel where she will spend the next 12 months comparing DNA with samples with those of Israeli Jews.
The samples were taken in Lucknow's Malihabad area because it was regarded as the only place safe enough to conduct such a controversial project for Muslims.
Shanaz Ali a senior research fellow, will lead the study at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Tel Aviv.
There are an estimated 40 million Pashtuns around the world including more than 14 million in Afghanistan and 28 million in Pakistan, mainly in the North West Frontier Province and Tribal areas but also with a strong presence in Karachi.
Many have grown up with stories of their people being "Children of Israel". According to legend, they are descended from the Ephraim tribe which was driven out of Israel by the Assyrian invasion in around 700BC.
Israelis and Taliban Separated at Birth? Israel Finances Study About Pashtun Bloodlines
By Simon McGregor-Wood - ABC News - Jan 12, 2010
Don't tell the Taliban, but their ancestors may be Jewish. Israel's foreign ministry is funding research into whether members of the ethnic tribe from which the Taliban draws its manpower have Jewish ancestors.
Pashtuns are the largest ethnic community in Afghanistan. It is widely believed they are an offshoot of the Pathans whose members are scattered across northern India and Pakistan. Both are today exclusively Muslim. Neither has any sympathy for modern Israel.
Scientists are now trying to determine whether the Pathans themselves are directly descended from the tribe of Ephraim which was exiled from the land of Israel by the invading Assyrians in 721 B.C. Pathan folklore and culture are filled with references to an Israelite past.
Et si les talibans étaient juifs?
By Marie-France Calle - Namaste! Salam! - Jan 13, 2010
Les talibans sont peut-être juifs... Du moins d'origine juive. C'est - en raccourci - ce que tente de vérifier le gouvernement d'Israël. Le ministère israélien des Affaires étrangères a décidé de financer des recherches visant à établir pour de bon si oui ou non, les Pachtouns (ethnie dont sont issus les talibans) descendent bien de l'une des dix tribus perdues d'Israël. Et c'est en Inde que s'effectueront ces recherches. Pour une raison évidente : elles sont impossibles à mener en Afghanistan et au Pakistan.
On le sait depuis longtemps, les Pachtouns - ou Pathans - qui peuplent essentiellement le Sud et le Sud-est de l'Afghanistan et l'Ouest et le Nord-ouest du Pakistan seraient des descendants de l'une des tribus perdues d'Israël. Similitudes dans les rites, les vêtements, les traditions familiales, culinaires... tout porte à croire que les Pachtouns ont des ancêtres juifs. Ce que l'on sait moins, c'est qu'il existe en Inde plusieurs communautés pachtounes. Une aubaine pour les scientifiques qui tentent d'établir la véracité de l'origine israélite des Pachtouns. Ils peuvent travailler tranquillement au nord de l'Inde, à Lucknow, la capitale de l'Uttar Pradesh.
''Malihabad, un district de Lucknow, est le seul territoire pachtoun, ou pathan, sûr et facilement accessible à tous ceux qu'intéressent la probable origine israélite des Pathans. Il n'est certainement pas possible de récolter des échantillons ADN en Afghanistan ou dans les Zones tribales de la Province du Nord-ouest frontalière de l'Afghanistan (NWFP), où vivent la plupart des Pachtouns'', note à juste titre Navras Jaat Aafreedi, professeur à l'Université de Lucknow.
Could the Taliban be genetically linked to the Jews?
By Haaretz Service - Jan 14, 2010
Israel has asked an Indian geneticist to study the link between the Indian Pathans tribe and certain tribes of Israel, the Times of India reported this week.
Geneticist Shahnaz Ali has been asked to study the link between the Afridi Pathans, based in the Lucknow region of India, and certain tribes of Israel who migrated across Asia thousands of years ago.
Ali is based in Haifa where she is working in collaboration with Israel's prestigious university the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.
Some experts attribute Israel's decision to fund the research to a theory supported by many that Afghanistan's Pashtun fighters, the community from which the Taliban draw their strength, are descendants of Afridi Pathans.
This is not the first time speculations of a deep rooted connection between the two seemingly unrelated people have been raised, yet this is the first time Israel's Foreign Ministry has offered to fund the research. Ali has been genetically analyzing blood samples of the Afridi Pathans of Malihabad which she collected earlier to confirm their Jewish origin.
Pashtun clue to lost tribes of Israel
By Rory McCarthy - The Guardian - Jan 17, 2010
Genetic study sets out to uncover if there is a 2,700-year-old link to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Israel is to fund a rare genetic study to determine whether there is a link between the lost tribes of Israel and the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.
Historical and anecdotal evidence strongly suggests a connection, but definitive scientific proof has never been found. Some leading Israeli anthropologists believe that, of all the many groups in the world who claim a connection to the 10 lost tribes, the Pashtuns, or Pathans, have the most compelling case. Paradoxically it is from the Pashtuns that the ultra-conservative Islamic Taliban movement in Afghanistan emerged. Pashtuns themselves sometimes talk of their Israelite connection, but show few signs of sympathy with, or any wish to migrate to, the modern Israeli state.
Now an Indian researcher has collected blood samples from members of the Afridi tribe of Pashtuns who today live in Malihabad, near Lucknow, in northern India. Shahnaz Ali, from the National Institute of Immunohaematology in Mumbai, is to spend several months studying her findings at Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa. A previous genetic study in the same area did not provide proof one way or the other.
Background articles from Wikipedia
Ten Lost Tribes
History of the Jews in Afghanistan
Theory of Pashtun descent from Israelites
and one from the Jewish Virtual Library
The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Afghanistan - by Alden Oreck
Neither the theory of the Pathans' Jewish origins nor the story about the Malihabad Pathans is new to the Indian media.
Malihabad’s Israeli connection
By The Times of India - Nov 13, 2002
Here’s a juicy bit of information for all those who thought Malihabad is only famous for its delicious mangoes. Dr Tudor Parfitt, a professor of Jewish Studies at the London University has taken up research on the resident Afridis in Malihabad in order to confirm their claims of Jewish descent through DNA tests.
Barely 25 kms from Lucknow, Malihabad enjoys a distinguished place on the national map for its delicious mangoes, but it is the presence of Afridi Pathans that grants an aura of mystery to it. It is said that the Afridis trace their descent to a lost Israelite tribe of Ephraim, forced into exile and oblivion in 722 BC by the Assyrians. Amishav (a Jerusalem based organisation, solely dedicated to the task of finding the lost tribes of Israel) wants the Afridis to migrate to Israel. Another Israeli organisation-‘Beit Zur’ too has welcomed them. Parfitt aims to fully confirm any doubts on the matter.
A lost tribes enthusiast as he was, Yitzhak Ben Zvi (Israel’s 2nd president and a prominent historian) interviewed Afghan-Jewish immigrants in Israel and drew information about a number of Jewish customs practised by the Pathans, and found many similarities between the Pathan code of honour-Pathanwali/ Pakhtunwali/Pashtunwali and the Jewish law-Mishna.
Afridi is a tribe that emigrated to the hill country from the eastern spurs of the Safad Koh (Afghanistan) to the borders of the Peshawar district inPakistan. A sprinkling of them settled in India in Malihabad and Qaimganj in 1761 when they came with Ahmad Shah Abdali to fight the Marathas at Panipat. The origin of the Afridi is uncertain, but they themselves believe to be one of the lost tribes of Israel and call themselves “Ben-i-Israel”.
Is it the Lost Tribe of Israel?
By Farzand Ahmed - India Today - Nov 6, 2006
Malihabad, the small orchard town on the outskirts of Lucknow, will appeal to your senses straightway. While it is renowned for the sweet and fragrant Dussheri mango, the place has given birth to some of the finest Urdu and Persian poetry. And its claim to fame does not end there. The dusty town now stands home to something which can be traced back to biblical times. Among the inhabitants of Malihabad are a clan of tall, fair, well-built people who call themselves Afridi Pathans—warrior and poets. In fact, a huge arch at the entry to the town is dedicated to Bab-e-Goya, a famous warrior and poet. Growing evidence, however, suggests that their ancestry is not Muslim but Israelite and they are not originally from the Afghanistan-Pakistan area but are, in fact, one of the ‘lost tribes’ of Israel. In Malihabad, in the heart of Uttar Pradesh, they certainly stand out with their unique physical features.
Now a study by one of their own tribe, Navras Jaat Afridi, and published recently in the form of an e-book titled The Indian Jewry & The Self-professed ‘Lost Tribes of Israel in India’ traces their lineage to one of the ‘lost tribes’ of Israel. Says Navras, “The main purpose of the research (for a doctorate from Lucknow University) was to trace the Afridi Pathans’ ancestry.” To make his study credible, he got help from an international research team which included Professor Tudor Parfitt, director of the Centre of Jewish Studies, London University and Dr Yulia Egorova, a linguist and historian from Russia. The team visited Malihabad and collected dna samples from 50 paternally unrelated Afridi males to confirm their Israelite descent. The reserachers looked at Israel’s connections with Pathans in the Frontier areas of Pakistan and their links with Afridi Pathans in Uttar Pradesh’s Malihabad and Qaimganj (Farrukhabad) as well as with Pathans in Aligarh, Sambhal and Barabanki besides tribes in Kashmir, Manipur and Guntur of Andhra Pradesh.
When a Pathan called a Jew
By Agniva Banerjee - The Times of India - May 20, 2007
About an hour's drive from Lucknow is Malihabad, an affluent farming settlement of ancient Muslim households and sprawling mango orchards where there is a calm reassurance that life is leisure. Here, in a palace called Bada Mahal, the same place where the character played by Shashi Kapoor tried to win over a lovely Englishwoman played by Nafisa Ali in Junoon, another Pathan is going through a conflict of emotions. This time, it's not a matter of the heart.
Sitting cross-legged on a charpoy under the grand canopy of Bada Mahal, Qavi Kamaal Khan, the 92-year-old patriarch of the house, ruminates over the identity of his Afridi tribesmen, originally warriors from Afghanistan who over the last millennium settled in a dozen locations in UP and the rest of India. Liberal by political temperament but pious by Islamic persuasion, Khan is bracing himself to face the result of his 28-year-old nephew's research into the clan's ancestry.
The nephew, Navras Jaat Aafreedi, is part of an international project to trace the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. It takes some courage to tell a Muslim warrior community that it was once Jewish. Aafreedi took the chance, inspired by ancient literary references and common Semitic customs that link the Afridis to one of the Lost Tribes. To prove the premise conclusively, DNA samples of Afridi men were collected at Malihabad five years ago. Kamaal Khan knows that the result of the DNA analysis may be out any time. He doesn't want to live to hear that he is descended from a Jew.
Looking for lost tribes of Israel in Malihabad
By Ashish Tripathi - The Times of India - Nov 12, 2007
It was not just the delightful dussehri mangoes which made Eyal Beeri come all the way from Jerusalem to Malihabad, a township 25 kilometres from Lucknow. A librarian and student adviser in the Lander Institute of Jerusalem, the historian is the latest one to arrive in search of the lost tribes of Israel, which have brought many scholars from world over to India since ages. But Beeri’s visit is significant as he is the first Jew and Israeli to visit the Pathan settlement of Malihabad.
History has it that the 10 Israelite tribes of the northern Kingdom of Israel were exiled by the Assyrians invaders in 721 BC. The tribes eventually went into oblivion with the passage of time. Since then efforts are being made to track them down. It is also believed that some of the descendants of the tribes settled in India. Afridi Pathans of Malihabad are said to be one of them. Prof Tudor Parfitt and Dr Yulia Egorova of London University had visited Malihabad in 2002 to take DNA samples of the Afridi Pathans to ascertain whether they had an Israeli lineage or not.
In league with the famous losttribes-explorers like Benjamin of Tudela and Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail, Beeri arrived in India on September 16. During his three weeks expedition, he first visited Pathan settlements in Rajasthan. His second stop was Malihabad before leaving for Qayamganj in Farrukhabad. The purpose of his visit is to study the age-old customs and traditions of Pathans and find if they have any resemblance to the Israeli traditions. His objective was to educate the Pathans about Israel and to help them form relationship with the Jewish community the world over.
A Biblical Connection
By The Times of India - Mar 11, 2008
Known for its delightful mangoes, Malihabad, situated 25 km from the state capital, is all set to become a part of the Jewish tourist circuit in the country.
The tehsil houses 650 Afridi Pathans believed to be decedents of one of the ten lost Biblical Israelite tribes. The fact has prompted two leading Israeli travel companies to market Malihabad as a tourist destination for Jewish community world over with the theme "The Lost Tribe Challenge".
As a first step in this direction, Mosh Savir of Shai Bar Ilan Geographical Tours and Dudu Landau of Eretz Ahavati Nature Tours recently toured Malihabad along with Indian tour operator Col SP Ahuja to conduct a ground survey for facilitating the first "theme tour", expected in November 2008.
The tours will showcase the lifestyle of Afridi Pathans and include dialogue between the natives and the visitors in addition to sightseeing, lectures and exposure to local handicraft such as Chikan and Zardozi. Malihabad is also the birth place of famous Urdu poet Josh Malihabadi, who was also an Afridi Pathan. Another illustrious Afridi Pathan from Malihabad is Ghaus Mohammed Khan, first Indian to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals in 1939.
The tour will also include Qayamganj in Farrukhbad district of UP. Qayamaganj has produced famous Afridi Pathan like Zakir Husain, India's third President. While Afridi Pathans are Muslims, some of their old customs have slight resemblance with Israeli traditions.
Israeli and Jewish media have also previously picked up the story.
Our Brethren the Taliban?
By Shalva Weil - The Jerusalem Report - Oct 22, 2001
IN 1935, GABRIEL BARUKHOFF, a Bukharan Jewish barber, was traveling to Kabul when he came upon an encampment of nomadic Afghan Pathan tribesmen who claimed that they were descendants of the Children of Israel. In the early 50s he told Israel's second president, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, who was researching his book "The Exiled and the Redeemed," that these fierce tribesmen wore an embroidered Hanukkah lamp on their backs. He had heard that they had mezuzot on their doorposts, wrapped themselves in tallitot (prayer shawls), and lit candles on Friday night. When Barukhoff cut their hair, they insisted on keeping their pe'ot (sidecurls).
Pathan legend has it that King Saul fathered a son by the name of Jeremiah, whose birth is not recorded in Jewish texts. Jeremiah fathered a royal prince called Afghana, whose descendants fled to Jat in Afghanistan. In 662 CE the descendants of Afghana were converted to Islam at the explicit request of Mohammed. The mission was accomplished by his emissary Khalid ibn al-Walid, who returned to his master in Arabia with "proof" of his activities - 76 converts and seven leaders of the "Children of Israel," including a descendant of Afghana named Kish. Kish later changed his name to Ibn Rashid, and was entrusted by Mohammed with the task of spreading the Islamic word. Many of today's Taliban claim descent from Ibn Rashid. Sitting in an orchard in Kashmir at the foot of the snow-topped Himalayas, Muhammad Wali, a Pathan from the Yusuf-Zai ("Children of Joseph") tribe, repeated this story to me. When I asked him who Yusuf was, he readily answered: "Ibn Yaacob" ("Son of Jacob").
Is One of the Lost Tribes the Taliban?
By Ilene R. Prusher - Moment Magazine - April 2007
It was Seder night in Kabul......
......A few days before the Seder, I found myself in an unexpected conversation with Mashal. He and I were on one of our long car trips through the ragged slate-gray Afghan hinterlands, scouting stories about Al Qaeda’s evasion of U.S. forces and local warlords who were besting America’s plans for the region. Somewhere between Khost and Kabul, Mashal raised a subject I had considered best to avoid in these precincts.
“I, I, I want to find out more about the Jews,” he said from the front seat, craning his neck to talk to me as we bounced over the rocky road like hot popcorn kernels. I didn’t respond; instead, I continued to stare out the window at the packed-mud buildings dotting the remote landscape, careful as ever to avoid direct eye contact with the men we passed. “Because I believe that they are related to us,” Mashal continued, “and that maybe we, we were once Jews.”
I learned about Dr. Navras J. Aafreedi's work and his blog some years ago when searching "pathan" in Google Images. At the same occasion I found the following page by Qazi Fazli Azeem.
B'ni Israel in Pakistan - The Israeli History of the Pathan Tribes
Around 722 BC, Israeli civil war and changing strategic interests forced Assyria to deport ten tribes to the east, towards Persia (Iran). A hundred years later, the Babylonians deported the remaining tribe of Yehudah and some Benjaminites to Babylon (Iraq). The Yehudah returned to Israel with the help of Cyrus the great of Persia, but the other ten tribes never retuned. The search for the “Ten tribes of Israel” is a very controversial issue because their descendants lost most of their Israelite traditions and do not possess the Talmud (Oral Torah similar to the hadith of the Muslims). Perhaps the focal point which has dissuaded Israelites from searching openly for their brethren is the Israelite civil war after King Solomon’s reign, which pitted Yehudah (Judah) against all the other tribes and eventually brought their collective downfall. Hence the descendants of the “Lost Tribes” have lived and spread in the lands east of Israel which are now known as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, India, Burma and even western China.
The Pakhtuns have been living in the Afghanistan area for over 2,000 years. Their language Pashto/Pakhto borrows widely from the Arab-ized Persian of their neighbors (now Iran), yet it was a purely spoken dialect. There was no Pakhto/Pashto written script whatsoever, the first Pashto book appearing about the 1500s. Hence the traditions, customs, tribal genealogy and law orally transferred from father to son. The first book on Pakhtun genealogy, the Makhzan-al-Afghani was written in 1613, and contained for the first time a printed table of descent from Abraham to the Pakhtun tribes, through the tribe of Binyamin. While the book was not accepted initially by British historians, modern historians consider it the most accurate account as compared to the other theories proposed by classical historians.
04 July, 2009
Afghanistan - Illusions, Language, Books, Culture
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.
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.
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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