
What Position Should Imran Khan Take on War On Terror Now

Israeli officials at a police station in Jalalabad, Afghanistan scrambled to control their secret station after a surprise raid by the Afghan Taliban on March 26, 2013.
Sources close to Terminal X report that the station, which was located inside a police compound in the city, was used by around 14 operatives of the Mossad, 3 of whom were reportedly “highly proficient in Arabic”. Just before dawn, it came under heavy firing and subsequent bombings by an 8-member brigade of the Taliban in a 2-hour raid. It resulted in the immediate killing of 12 Israelis with 2 in ‘highly critical’ condition shifted to an unknown hospital.
“This centre was being used as a mind-control academy by the Israeli spies who indoctrinated young recruits from within the country and Pakistan with highly interpolated material related to Islam”, said a senior source.
This, the source maintains, was evident from the fact that a large stash of ‘psychological manuals’ written in English and Hebrew along with copies of Islam’s holy books were recovered from the site. Night-vision goggles, headscarves along with a large cache of daggers were also found in a closet beside the station chief’s desk.
“The training centre housed recruits that were brought in from eastern Afghanistan and mostly from Pakistan, in particular South Waziristan. At least a dozen terrorists who were killed by the Pakistan Army in the ongoing Tirah Valley operation have their past movements traced to this very location”, said the source.
The source added that recruits are initially rounded up at the Indian consulate in Habibabad area of Jalalabad from where they are handpicked for programming in Mossad centres.
“This was just one of the 9 Israeli intelligence centres I personally know of”, the source added, “majority of which are in eastern Afghanistan”.
The presence of Israeli intelligence officials was kept highly classified, hence an alert was issued to Tel Aviv by their American counterparts in the CIA.
The Afghan Taliban’s spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had accepted responsibility for the attack.
The unconditional participation of Pakistan in America’s war on terror in Afghanistan has rendered the country vulnerable to various kinds of security threats. Pakistan has suffered from this war to an extent that is unprecedented in world. India has been exploiting this situation to her advantage, knowing fully well that Pakistan will not be able to stop her interference. The statement of Chuck Hagel has removed all doubts about this bitter fact and is an eye opener for the policy-makers in Pakistan.
(Akhtar Malik)
While some in Pakistan have for long been crying hoarse over growing Indian subversive activities in Pakistan through Afghanistan, the latest confirmation of this came from US defense secretary nominee Senator Chuck Hagel who in a previously unreleased video suggested that India has over the years “financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border.”
Hagel in a talk on Afghanistan at the Cameron University in Oklahoma in 2011 said that India has been using Afghanistan as a second front against Pakistan. “India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border, and you can carry that into many dimensions.” The 2011 video had not been released previously, and only came to light after it was uploaded on to video sharing website by Washington Free Beacon. Hagel was nominated by President Barack Obama in January to replace US defence secretary Leon Panetta. He is due to hear a verdict on on his confirmation by the US Senate on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Washington has decried Hagel’s statement. An Indian embassy spokesperson told the Washington Free Beacon that Hagel’s statement was not grounded in “reality”. “Such comments attributed to Senator Hagel, who has been a long-standing friend of India and a prominent votary of close India-US relations, are contrary to the reality of India’s unbounded dedication to the welfare of the Afghan people,” the spokesperson said.
“India’s commitment to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan is unwavering, and this is reflected in our significant assistance to Afghanistan in developing its economy, infrastructure and institutional capacities.” The spokesperson, seeking to dispel the notion that India may have sponsored terrorism, added that “India’s development assistance has been deeply appreciated by the people and the Government of Afghanistan, and by our friends around the world, including the United States,” and that “We [India] do not view our engagement with Afghanistan as a zero sum game.”
“India and the United States have a shared perspective and a deep convergence of interests for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan,” the spokesperson added. “We will continue to work to help the Afghan people build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic and inclusive future for themselves in an environment free from terror and intimidation.” ”Our opposition to terrorism and its safe havens in our neighborhood is firm and unshakeable,” the statement added.
By: Samson Simon Sharaf| June 29, 2012 |
The economic meltdown of Pakistan is a deliberate and methodical operation executed by Pakistan’s own policymakers in concert with state and non-state actors. The political malaise rife with immorality flows out of this charter.
It is no coincidence that in the past two years, the war fronts in what USA calls AF-PAK have flipped. Slowly and gradually, Pakistan has been pushed to a corner; being accused as the spoiler. As the US and NATO forces contemplate a symbolic withdrawal from Afghanistan, they will leave behind effective perpetual pivots of threat against presumed policies/targets in Pakistan. The credibility of this policy is based on a script of a discredited, ill organized and failing Pakistan; a direction we are headed to and discussed/war gamed by Pakistan’s security establishment as early as 2002.
Why has Pakistan willingly made itself vulnerable and disadvantaged in an environment that offered fleeting opportunities? A nuclear country with abundant natural resources, manpower, and sustainable economic indices succumbing to a melting point speaks volumes of the mindset and elastic conscience of its rulers; also a reflection of dysfunction within.
In an essay, entitled From East India Company to West Pakistan Corporate, in 2010, I had written: “Notwithstanding tactical military successes in FATA, Pakistan is ultimately positioned to lose on the larger canvas. A cohesive national policy needed to win such a conflict remains elusive. The government rather than strengthen and energizing other instruments of policy in tandem with military operations is hell-bent to reach an irretrievable position. As the anger of people grows to frustration, it will give way to violence, chaos and more militancy.” This is happening!
Pakistan’s rapid descent to anarchy is engineered by a coterie of corrupt and opportunist political parties adhering to different shades of ideologies conspicuously short on a unified national purpose, an interventionist and anti-anarchic judiciary acting as a custodian of ‘rule of law’, an insurgency laced by urban terrorism, lack of federal and provincial writs, proliferation of alternative systems of arbitration, shady ‘jirgas’, poverty and rising waves of crime. Was this the Pakistan envisioned by Asif Ali Zardari when he declared that “democracy is the best revenge?” Within the given script, he pursued the policies of a military dictator with vigor and craft.
Within a year, the distinction on Salala as a JSOC Operation or a NATO/iSAF strike has blurred. This hybrid notion is not without a purpose; most explicit in seeking an exclusive apology from the USA and severing the ground lines of communications (GLOC) for NATO (blame Pakistan), and least explicit in why such denial from the USA. Where is the relevance?
In the US perspective, one major consideration seems to be the controlled attrition and demolition of Pakistan under ‘shaping the environment’ on a timeline. The USA’s support of Pakistan’s corrupt political elites through backdoor deals has ensured moral and fiscal bankruptcy. At the same time, it engages select Pakistani scholars and opinion makers to create a breed of armchair liberals, critics, intellectuals and writers, who untiringly praise the merits of the supremacy of democracy oblivious to the frightening drama unfolding within.
The USA also calculates that pushing Pakistan army too far into Waziristan could be counterproductive and may bring more instability than planned. According to Christine Fair, elements of Pakistan’s erstwhile ‘jihadi’ proxies have refocused their efforts to sustain a bloody war on Pakistan itself. She says that such disturbing mobilization should give pause to those who champion the causes of the “silent moderate majority” in Pakistan. This explains a veiled existential threat that non-state actors pose to US adventurism into Pakistan and the reason why focus remains on its ‘jihadi’ nexus and the Mumbai bombing.
Consequently, the USA could end up following a containment policy of Pakistan through economic manipulation, symbols of threat and outright coercion including limited Cold Start raids. It is expected that as Pakistan becomes weaker, it will also become pliable. The ultimate mismanagement will unleash implosion, parochialism, division of the country and lead to an international intervention. The issue of Punjab as a bastion of a strong army and Pakistani nukes would be settled for good. Pakistan’s geography could be redrawn. But laced within this simple narrative are dynamics that could explode the entire region and, therefore, the efficacy of working through proxies in Pakistan.
The government’s intransigence in not opening NATO land routes has relevance to the theory of uncontrolled demolition, which neither suits it nor the USA. Knowing that in diplomacy, the secretaries and under secretaries draft and finalize agreements well in advance of the political ceremonies, this political bravery deflects all the effects of this stubbornness on the people and armed forces. Any haste may lead to a popular reaction within and upset the US scheme of sequential events in Pakistan focused exclusively on the army and the nuclear capability.
The army actually feels convinced that the US has stabbed it more than once in the back and the times of GHQ-Pentagon romance are over. The container traffic has resulted in the proliferation of US weapons and linkages with the ongoing insurgencies in Pakistan. Yet, it has persisted with military diplomacy and kept communications open. According to Fair, the attainment of common strategic objectives in the PAk-US relations has been overcast by divergence over security issues. With its hands full, the army is not keen to be sucked into any new conflict. It will wait and see how the dynamics within Pakistan shape themselves and may choose to work invisibly.
By choosing this option, the pressure on Pakistan army is likely to increase through drones, sponsored militant activities particularly in Baluchistan and posturing. The arrest of the Mumbai mastermind, fresh offensives into Dir/Chitral from bases in north Afghanistan and presence of a US carrier off Gawadar are some of the implied threats. In case the issue of GLOCs cannot be resolved, raids into Pakistan will intensify. In a worst firebreak point, the naval quarantine of Pakistan cannot be ruled out. Opening of a corridor through Baluchistan alluded in my Op-ed titled Pakistan’s Future War could not be farfetched? This is how Pakistan’s Long War will be fought step by step.
Pakistan has reached a point where democracy as revenge is counterproductive. Every event is set to move in concert with US designs, unless the Supreme Court finally decides that the present dispensation is no more in the national interests of Pakistan; a question for Pakistan’s legal experts to ponder and liberals to rue.
The writer is a retired officer of Pakistan Army and a political economist. He can be reached at Email: samson.sharaf@gmail.com