low intensity conflict

DOD Memorandum on Afghan War

pavocavalry — Sat, 22 May 2010 08:28:00 +0000

does not paint a good picture.

just bureaucrats waiting for the salary cheque with no interest in what is good or bad for their country or for the Afghans.

Agha

Department of Defense, State Department, USAID, and NSC Reporting on the Afghan War Memorandum for Distribution By Anthony H. Cordesman Center for Strategic and International Studies May 19, 2010

Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, and at a time our country is still involved in two wars, the US government still has failed to establish both transparency and credibility in the way it is conducting either conflict. It seeks to manage the message largely through testimony and public affairs reporting, and has not established transparency or credibility in communicating its progress in either war.

Testimony is often more spin and concepts than substantive. It remains more defense than proactive in justifying the course of the war.

It sometimes dodges around key issues, and sometimes it is not made broadly available – except for website circulation of the testimony of most senior Cabinet members and officers. Defenselink, for example, generally does not circulate testimony from key officers in the field, and rarely shows the charts and material they use in their testimony.

Oddly enough, this is also true of their own command web sites.

As for public affairs material, it is largely topical puff pieces and the similar content of various web sites. It almost universally lacks meaningful depth and credibility. To put it bluntly, it is little more than shallow propaganda that does more to provoke the media and informed observers than convince them. Governments routinely lie by omission, and this has become the professional focus of virtually all public affairs material.

Congressional Efforts to Force Integrity on the Executive Branch

To the extent that there is reporting of any depth, it has either been forced upon the Executive Branch by Congressional requirements, or has come from staff elements of the Congress. It is striking that the only consistent, in-depth, substantive reporting on either war is mandated by the Congress. In the case of Afghanistan, it takes the form of the Report on the Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan (P.L. 110-81) and the United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces (P.P. 110-81).

Failures and Non-response by the Department of Defense

Until this month, however, the Department's response to these two reporting requirements has been grudging, inadequate, and in some cases passively dishonest. While similar reporting did slowly improve on Iraq, the Afghan reports have been grossly late, dwelt largely on the past, and failed to report adequately on key problems in the Afghan force development effort, and the staffing and management of civil programs. Until last month, it did not begin to honestly address the problems in the civil aid programs or in the development of Afghan security forces – particularly the police.

These reporting problems grew actively worse under the Obama Administration. They led to a near farce in April 2010, when the Department of Defense was nearly half a year late in issuing a Report on the Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, and a year late in issuing a report on the United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces.

The only saving grace is the fact that that same month, the Department suddenly issued a combined report that updated both of the other reports to March 2009. The content of this report raised serious questions about the professional integrity of those who had prepared the earlier "historical" April 2009 version of the ANSF report that the Department had provided less than two weeks earlier.

A Lack of Meaningful Effort by State and USAID

The State Department and USAID have never produced a single meaningful report on their side of either war, and the NSC has repeatedly blocked substantive reporting rather than encouraged it.

Aside from the Department of Defense, it is Congressional agencies like the GAO and CRS that have played the major role in such reporting.

More importantly, so have the Special Inspector Generals for Iraqi and Afghan Reconstruction (SIGIR and SIGAR). The SIGIR and SIGAR reports have effectively served as a substitute for a lack of leadership and integrity at the highest levels of the State Department, USAID, and NSC. They have made it brutally clear just how bad the State Department and USAID "spin" reporting on the civil side of the conflict really is, that it is virtually all empty reporting on spending and activity levels, and that it has concealed vast waste, massive failures to properly manage and administrate key programs, and a virtual lack of meaningful effectiveness reporting.

These problems in State and USAID reporting have been countered to some degree by the reporting on civil activity in the Department of Defense Report on the Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, and its matching report on Iraq. Both Department of Defense reports, however, provide negligible data on the effectiveness of the civil effort. They do not validate requirements; explain the scale and endurance of most efforts, or show how they interact with the military campaign and civil-military effort in the field. They do not show the timelines necessary for success and transfer and make no reference to interactions with other foreign aid efforts. Substantive reporting left to SIGIR and SIGAR – which have a natural IG focus and many of whose caveats and warnings are ignored in the Executive Branch reports.

US reporting has also had the side effect of distorting reporting on corruption in Afghanistan, and creating false – if not impossible – expectations about the ability to improve the capacity and integrity of the Afghan government. The focus on volume of aid and spending has largely ignored the extent to which the US and its allies have distorted a subsistence economy through a virtual flood of military and aid spending, and the extent to which this both empowers and enriches corrupt officials and power brokers.

It is an open secret that the US, its allies, other donors, and the UN fund the worst elements in the Afghan power structure, encourage corruption, and effectively payoff both the insurgent and corrupt elements of the ANSF in the process. In fairness, major efforts are now being made to correct this situation, but they come late and US reporting finds it far easier to talk about Afghan corruption than the mistakes and empowerment made in US and other aid efforts.

Blocking Delayed Efforts by ISAF

The only self-initiated exceptions within the Executive Branch have been the detailed reports coming from senior officers and the intelligence sections of the commands in Baghdad and Kabul. Here, however, such data were only available in meaningful form on the Afghan side of the war after the reorganization of the ISAF command in Afghanistan in the summer of 2009 – well over half a decade into the conflict. It took a major reorganization of the ISAF intelligence effort, Strategic Analysis Group, and the creation of the ISAF Joint Command (IJC) and whole new systems of reporting to begin to produce honest internal and public reporting on the course of the war.

Even here, that reporting has been limited and much of it has consisted of metrics by external direction. At least according to source from within the theater, the NSC has blocked the release of two unclassified status reports that would be of great value in informing the Congress, the press, outside analysts, and the American people on the state of the war. These include a quarterly strategic assessment report that describes developments over the last three months, and monthly versions of the same report. These reports are effectively unclassified, but there circulation is blocked by direction by classifying them at the "Confidential, Releasable to NATO/ISAF" level.

Looking Towards the Future

The Afghan conflict is a war whose outcome will be determined as much by America's strategic patience as any other single factor. Put differently, the best insurgent strategy is to outlast the willingness of the US and its allies to fight. This means that Americans must trust not only the strategy but the actual conduct of the war, see credible progress, and know enough about the timelines involved to understand that progress by mid-2011 does not mean that the US can win without a military effort that will extend to at least 2015 and a civil effort that may well extend beyond 2020.

This means that there must be far more transparency and honesty in reporting on the war. It also means doing more than reporting on recent developments. The Executive Branch needs to set forth a clear picture of the way ahead, defined credible and achievable objectives, and be honest about the level of prolong effort and strategic patience required. It needs to issue reporting that is proactive, and shapes expectations that are realistic and can actually be met.

Being Honest About Timelines, Expectations, and the Need for Strategic Patience

The military side of the ISAF campaign plan meets some of these goals, but while it is unclassified, virtually no one has seen it. At the same time, the deadline in the President's speech threaten its timing and success. Major progress may well be possible by mid-2011, but it is far more likely to be 2014-2015 before major transfers of security responsibility can largely eliminate the need for large US forces.

Americans – as well as our Allies, Afghans, and regional powers — need to understand this, not expect the impossible. They need to see that the level of real progress we can make is not failure, but a credible path to success.

To repeat a point made for well over a year, the US needs to consistently and honestly "underpromise and overachieve" if it is to sustain credibility over time and win the war. This is necessary at both the military and civil levels. Executive Branch reporting needs to show that this is not yet another "first year" in Afghanistan, that the US has gone beyond yet another set of concepts and good intentions, and that that is now actually executing a valid program measured in goals that are realistic and are being achieved. Trust in the mission needs to be earned and maintained. The Executive Branch has fallen sadly short of earning that trust to date.

The Military Side of the Equation

ISAF has shown the way in honest reporting on the war. Releasing its Strategic Assessment Reports on a Monthly and Quarterly basis, and folding them into the Department's report, would make major progress.

More, however, is needed.

Far too much official reporting on the military effort still focuses on the past or current status of the conflict, and describes the national picture in kinetic terms and metrics. (Often in negative ways, such as highlighting the increase in IED and SIGACTs in ways that disguise that lack of increased insurgent effectiveness, or failing to show that ISAF has seized the initiative and is making progress in clear and some aspects of hold.)

Reporting needs to focus the campaign plan, show the direction ahead, and show that progress is taking place in terms of meaningful and achievable levels of performance. The US government cannot afford premature claims of victory in what may well be a long war of political attrition. It cannot afford to create the false expectations that surrounded Marja, and absurdities like "government in a box."

In the near term, US reporting needs to focus tightly on the three phases of the campaign plan: Helmand, Kandahar, and the East. It needs to show that ISAF and the ANSF can halt expansion of the insurgents in the north, center and west. It needs to drill down on critical districts in operational terms, and not bog down in incomprehensible metrics showing color codes for 46, 80, or 121 variable geographic areas. Both military and civil success need to be measured in warfighting terms, and in timelines that are real and practical.

The US needs to provide a far clearer picture – and one that is the subject of expert review and debate of whether ISAF is on a path that will generate an ANSF that can do the job and be ready to replace US and allied forces. The most recent report on United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National Security Forces is much better than its predecessor, but it disguises serious problems. There are still strong indications that ISAF may only be creating enough forces to achieve progress in security in ways where that use up key elements of the ANSF (especially key ANA leaders and ANCOP forces) through combat, AWOLs, and attrition.

Putting ANSF development on a destructive track remains a major risk in spite of new levels of trainers and resources. It is a risk that NTM-A – and ISAF – seem to understand, but where uncertainty over the meaning of the 2011 deadline could still force the pace in ways that could lose the war. Improvements in partnering may or may not correct short training times and shortfalls in trainers. The pace of combat may be limited enough to allow the ANSF to both perform short-term missions and become a mature and largely self-sufficient force. This is, however, so serious a risk that it might well be better to be less ambitious about short-term quantity and much more careful about sustained quality.

The Executive Branch also needs to act now to explain the need to prepare the Congress and American people for the fact they will have to fund ANSF development through at least 2015 and probably well beyond.

There is no practical chance of the Afghan government funding the needed forces as long as it faces a major insurgency, and it may need further years of help to convert out of a massive ANSF after that time.

Moreover, US reporting should stop acting as if the Afghan side of the war was separate from the Pakistani side. The April 2010 Report on the Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan begins to address these issues. The US needs to go further, and add a fully integrated set of reporting metrics that show both sides of the war. We cannot "win" in either country; we need a credible level of security and stability in both.

The Civil Side of the Equation

The Executive Branch cannot afford the present gaps and tensions between the military and civil efforts in Afghanistan. No one who works with media can be unaware that the tensions between the military and civilian efforts inside the US team in Afghanistan that permeate virtually every level of activity outside the East are a critical issue known to virtually every reporter who seriously works the country. This undermines both confidence in the US effort, and leads to a focus on the continuing problems in Afghan government integrity and capacity, and in the follow up efforts to military activity in terms of governance, government services, and aid.

Several major changes are needed. One is credible integration of the civil-military effort. The second is to shift reporting on the civil side of the conflict from "input measures" like spending and activity rates in the civil side of the war to reporting that shows that the civil effort really can bring stability, meets valid requirements and is judged by meaningful measures of effectiveness, and is tailored to credible expectations.

Vague, overambitious, concepts like "government-led" and "state building" outlived their usefulness before the first public affairs officer misused them in a briefing. US reporting must show that a population centric strategy is countering and destroying insurgent influence and control, bringing real stability, and can succeed over time. Phrases like "hold, build, and transition" need to acquire operational definition and meaning and become key parts of US metrics and reporting. US reporting needs to dial back to the level of "Afghan good enough," and not create unrealistic expectations for change, for anti-corruption, capacity building, and development.

As one key aid official in the field put it, "We cannot address most needs in the near or mid term. We can use tools like local Jirgas to find the worst grievances and most urgent needs and deal with them."

These are the kind of efforts that US reporting needs to focus on, make the goal, and then report on. It does not mean abandoning longer-term goals, but such goals will be meaningless if the US government finally exhausts strategic patience to the point where there is no "next year"

in Afghanistan. As noted earlier, one key factor will be plans and reporting that show there is real civil effort immediately in future campaigns. Marja may have been an experiment, but like Fallujah, it is not one to be repeated.

US reporting also needs to show there is unity within the civil effort, as well as unity within civil-military effort. The US needs to stop reporting on its civil efforts in terms of what one US official called "silos of excellence." Reporting needs to show that civil programs do more than consume money in performing vague good works. It needs to be clear that the overall impact is to slowly reshape Afghan perceptions and capabilities over time in ways that really do bring both stability and security and win lasting popular support, rather than merely rent short-term opportunism. Just as military reporting needs to focus on campaign impacts, so does civil reporting – with particular emphasis on Helmand, Kandahar, and the East.

It is also critical that such reporting show that US aid, and other US contracting, is becoming far more honest in who it selects, does far more to meet local and popular needs and perceptions, and is transparent in ways Afghans can see and understand. The US cannot address Afghan corruption and power brokering, and the impact of organized crime and narcotics, decisively in the near term – and probably ever. It can sharply reduced the impact of its mistakes and neglect, and work with effective Afghan officials at the Ministerial, provincial, district, and local levels – while steadily freezing out the corrupt, selfish, and incompetent officials and power brokers in the process.

Again, dialing back expectations and underpromising and overperforming are critical. There is, however, another equally serious problem to be addressed. Efforts to develop effective police and elements of the ANSF cannot be separated from far more dedicated efforts to buffer the police from Afghan politics and power brokering.

No police effort can ever — by itself – be successful without moderating the outside pressures on the police that make so many corrupt. It is inherently absurd to focus on police corruption in both force development and reporting and ignore the forces than make them corrupt. It is clear that NTM-A fully understands this. It is far from clear in any US reporting that the civil side of US efforts try to deal with the problem.

Similarly, there is a potentially fatal disconnect between the police development and rule of law efforts that now occurs at every level from the number and pay of judges to a focus on long-tern efforts to create a formal justice system that can only come into being after the war is lost. Reporting needs to show that the US is working with the Afghan government at every level in ways that will tie police presence and development to the presence of courts and jails, and to the use of popular assemblies and the informal or traditional justice systems. The insurgents need to be driven out of the prompt justice business and this cannot be done by waiting for Godot.

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

A NAIEVE WESTERNERS NAIEVE ANALYSIS OF PAKISTAN ARMY GENERALS

pavocavalry — Sat, 22 May 2010 03:41:00 +0000

THE NATIONAL INTEREST, 04.30.2010
All Kayani’s Men
by Anatol Lieven
Anatol Lieven, a senior editor at The National Interest, is a professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation in Washington, DC. He is author of America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2004). His next book, Pakistan: A Hard Country, is to be published in 2011
—-
VOLTAIRE REMARKED of Frederick the Great’s Prussia that “where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state!” The same can easily be said of Pakistan. The destruction of the army would mean the destruction of the country. Yet this is something that the Pakistani Taliban and their allies can never achieve. Only the United States is capable of such a feat; if Washington ever takes actions that persuade ordinary Pakistani soldiers that their only honorable course is to fight America, even against the orders of their generals and against dreadful odds, the armed forces would crumble.
There is an understanding in Washington that while short-term calculations demand some kind of success in Afghanistan, in the longer run, Pakistan, with its vastly greater size, huge army, nuclear weapons and large diaspora, is a much more important country, and a much greater threat should it in fact succumb to its inner demons. The collapse of Pakistan would so vastly increase the power of Islamist extremism as to constitute a strategic defeat in the “war on terror.”

The Pakistani military is crucial to preventing such a disaster because it is the only state institution that works as it is officially meant to. This means, however, that it also repeatedly does something that it is not meant to—namely, overthrow what in Pakistan is called “democracy” and seize control of the government. The military has therefore been seen as extremely bad for Pakistan’s progress, at least if that progress is to be defined in standard Western terms.
Yet, it has also always been true that without a strong military, Pakistan would probably have long since disintegrated. That is truer than ever today, as the country faces the powerful insurgency of the Pakistani Taliban and their allies. That threat makes the unity and discipline of the army of paramount importance to Pakistan and the world—all the more so because the deep dislike of U.S. strategy among the vast majority of Pakistanis has made even the limited alliance between the Pakistani military and the United States extremely unpopular in general society and among many soldiers. Those soldiers’ superiors fully understand the importance of this alliance to Pakistan and the disastrous consequences for the country if it were to collapse.
The Pakistani army is a highly disciplined and professional institution, and the soldiers will continue to obey their generals’ orders. Given their basic feelings, however, it would be unwise to push the infantrymen too far. One way of doing this would be to further extend the U.S. drone campaign by expanding it from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to Baluchistan. Much more disastrous would be any resumption of U.S. ground raids into Pakistani territory, such as occurred briefly in the summer of 2008.
TO UNDERSTAND this somewhat-counterintuitive (at least to Western audiences) prescription, a close look inside the military is necessary. In essence, the armed forces’ success as an institution and its power over the country come from its immunity to kinship interests and the corruption they bring with them; but the military has only been able to achieve this immunity by turning into a sort of giant kinship group itself, extracting patronage from the state and distributing it to its members.

During my journeys to Pakistan over the years, I have observed how the Pakistani military, even more than most armed forces, sees itself as a breed apart, and devotes great effort to inculcating new recruits with the feeling that they belong to a military family different from (and vastly superior to) civilian society. The mainly middle-class composition of the officer corps increases contempt for the “feudal” political class. The army sees itself as both morally superior to this group and far more modern, progressive and better educated.
Pakistani politics is dominated by wealth and inherited status, whereas the officer corps has become increasingly egalitarian and provides opportunities for social mobility that the Pakistani economy cannot. As such, a position in the officer corps is immensely prized by the sons of shopkeepers and big farmers across Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). This allows the military to pick the very best recruits and increases their sense of belonging to an elite. In the last years of British rule, circa 1947, and the first years of Pakistan, most officers were recruited from the landed gentry and upper-middle classes. These are still represented by figures like former–Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Jehangir Karamat, who, perhaps most tellingly, is the former president of the Pakistan Polo Association; but a much more typical figure is the current COAS, General Ashfaq Kayani, the son of an NCO. This social change partly reflects the withdrawal of the upper-middle classes to more comfortable professions, but also the immense increase in the quantity of officers required in the military as a result of its vast expansion since independence.
A number of officers and members of military families have told me something to the effect that “the officers’ mess is the most democratic institution in Pakistan because its members are superior and junior during the day, but in the evening are comrades. That is something we have inherited from the British.”
This may seem like a ludicrous statement, until one remembers that in Pakistan, saying that something is the most spiritually democratic institution isn’t saying very much at all. Pakistani society is permeated by a culture of deference to superiors.
Islamabad’s dynastically ruled “democratic” political parties exemplify this subservience in the face of inheritance and wealth; while in the army, as an officer told me:
You rise on merit—well, mostly—not by inheritance, and you salute the military rank and not the sardar [tribal chieftain and great landowner] or pir [hereditary religious figure] who has inherited his position from his father, or the businessman’s money. These days, many of the generals are the sons of clerks and shopkeepers, or if they are from military families, they are the sons of havildars [NCOs]. It doesn’t matter. The point is that they are generals.
Meanwhile, the political parties continue to be dominated by “feudal” landowners and wealthy urban bosses, many of them not just corrupt but barely educated. This increases the sense of superiority in the officer corps has toward the politicians—something I have heard from many officers (and which was very marked in General Pervez Musharraf’s personal contempt for the late Benazir Bhutto and her husband, the current president).
This same disdain for the country’s civilian political leadership is widely present in Pakistani society as a whole, and has become dominant at regular intervals, leading to mass popular support for military coups. Indeed, it is sadly true that whatever the feelings of the population later, when each military coup initially occurred, it was popular with most Pakistanis—including the media—and was subsequently legitimized by the judiciary.
It is possible that developments since 2001 have changed this pattern, above all because of the new importance of the independent judiciary and media, and the way that the military’s role in both government and the unpopular war with the Pakistani Taliban has tarnished its image with many Pakistanis. However, it is not yet clear that such a sea change has definitively taken place. Whether or not it eventually does depends in large part on how Pakistani civilian governments perform in the future.
By the summer of 2009—only a year after the resignation of then-President Musharraf, who had seized power from the civilian government of Nawaz Sharif in 1999—many Pakistanis of my acquaintance, especially in the business classes, were once again calling for the military to step in and oust the civilian administration of President Asif Ali Zardari; not necessarily to take over themselves, but to purge the most corrupt politicians and create a government of national unity (or, at the very least, a caretaker administration of technocrats) .
AS THE military has become more egalitarian, the less-secular have filled its ranks. This social change in the officer corps over the decades has caused many in the West to fear that the army is becoming “Islamized,” leading to the danger that the institution as a whole might support Islamist revolution, particularly as the civilian government falters. More dangerously, there might be a mutiny by Islamist junior officers against the high command. These dangers do exist, but in my view, the absolutely key point is that only a direct attack on Pakistan by the United States could bring them to fruition.
Westerners must realize that commitment to the army, and to martial unity and discipline, is drilled into every officer and soldier from the first hour of their joining the military. Together with the material rewards of loyal service, it constitutes a very powerful obstacle to any thought of a coup from below, which would by definition split the army and very likely destroy it altogether. Every military coup in Pakistan has therefore been carried out by the chief of army staff, backed by a consensus of the corps commanders and the rest of the high command. Islamist conspiracies by junior officers against their superiors (of which there have been two over the past generation) have been penetrated and smashed by Military Intelligence.
It is obviously true that as the officer corps becomes lower-middle class, so its members become less Westernized and more religious—after all, the vast majority of Pakistan’s population is conservative Muslim. However, it is made up of many different kinds of orthodox Muslim, and this is also true of the officer corps.
In the 1980s, then–President of Pakistan and Chief of Army Staff General Zia ul-Haq did undertake measures to make the army more Islamic, and subsequently, a good many officers who wanted a promotion adopted an Islamic facade. Zia also encouraged Islamic preaching within the army, notably by the Tablighi Jamaat, a nonviolent, nonpartisan but fundamentalist group dedicated to Islamic proselytizing and charity work. But, as the career of the notoriously secular General Musharraf indicates, this did not lead to known secular generals being blocked from promotion; and in the 1990s, especially under Musharraf, most of Zia’s measures were rolled back. In recent years, preaching by the Tablighi has been strongly discouraged, not so much because of political fears (the Tablighi is determinedly apolitical) as because of instinctive opposition to any groups that might encourage factions among officers and loyalties to anything other than the army.
Of course, the Pakistani military has always gone into battle with the cry of Allahu Akbar (God is Great)—just as the imperial-era German army inscribed Gott mit Uns (God with Us) on its helmets and standards; but according to Colonel Abdul Qayyum, a retired, moderate-Islamist officer:
You shouldn’t use bits of Islam to raise military discipline, morale and so on. I’m sorry to say that this is the way it has always been used in the Pakistani army. It is our equivalent of rum—the generals use it to get their men to launch suicidal attacks. But there is no such thing as a powerful jihadi group within the army. Of course, there are many devoutly Muslim officers and jawans [enlisted troops], but at heart the vast majority of the army are nationalists, and take whatever is useful from Islam to serve what they see as Pakistan’s interests. The Pakistani army has been a nationalist army with an Islamic look.
On the whole, by far the most important aspect of a Pakistani officer’s identity is that he (or sometimes she) is an officer. The Pakistani military is a profoundly shaping influence as far as its members are concerned. This can be seen, among other places, in the social origins and personal habits of its chiefs of staff and Pakistan’s military rulers over the years. It would be hard to find a more different set of men than generals Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan, Zia ul-Haq, Pervez Musharraf, Mirza Aslam Beg, Jehangir Karamat and Ashfaq Kayani in terms of their social origins, personal characters and attitudes toward religion; some were rich others poor, some secular others religious and some conspiratorial others loyal. Yet all have been first and foremost military men.
This means in turn that their ideology is largely one of nationalism. The military is tied to Pakistan, not to the universal Muslim ummah of the radical Islamists’ dreams; tied not only by sentiment and ideology but also by the reality of what supports the army. If it is true, as so many officers have told me, that “no army, no Pakistan,” it is equally true that “no Pakistan, no army.”
AMERICAN OPERATIONS in South Asia, however, are threatening to upset this fragile balance between Islam and nationalism in the Pakistani military. The army’s members can hardly avoid sharing the broader population’s bitter hostility to U.S. policy. To judge by retired and serving officers, this includes the genuine conviction that either the Bush administration or Israel was responsible for 9/11. Inevitably therefore, there was deep opposition throughout the army after 2001 to American pressure to crack down on the Afghan Taliban and their Pakistani sympathizers. “We are being ordered to launch a Pakistani civil war for the sake of America,” an officer told me in 2002. “Why on earth should we? Why should we commit suicide for you?”
Between 2004 and 2007, there were a number of instances of mass desertion and refusal to serve in units deployed to fight militants, though mostly in the Pashtun-recruited Frontier Corps rather than in the regular army. These failures were caused above all by the feeling that these forces were compelled to turn against their own. We must realize in these morally and psychologically testing circumstances, anything that helps maintain Pakistani military discipline cannot be altogether bad—given the immense scale of the stakes concerned, and the consequences if that discipline were to fail.
For in 2007–2008, the battle was beginning to cause serious problems of morale. The most dangerous single thing I heard during my visits to Pakistan in those years was that soldiers’ families in villages in the NWFP and the Potwar region of the Punjab were finding it increasingly difficult to find high-status brides for their sons serving in the military because of the growing popular feeling that “the army is the slave of the Americans” and “the soldiers are killing fellow Muslims on America’s orders.”
By late 2009, the sheer number of soldiers killed by the Pakistani Taliban and their allies, and still more importantly, the increasingly murderous and indiscriminate Pakistani Taliban attacks on civilians, seem to have produced a change of mood in the areas of military recruitment. Nonetheless, if the Pakistani Taliban are increasingly unpopular, that does not make the United States any more well liked; and if Washington ever put Pakistani soldiers in a position where they felt that honor and patriotism required them to fight America, many would be willing to do so.
And we have seen this willingness before. In August and September 2008, U.S. forces entered Pakistan’s tribal areas on two occasions in order to raid suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda bases. During the second incursion, Pakistani soldiers fired in the air to turn the Americans back. On September 19, 2008, General Kayani flew to meet U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, and, in the words of a senior Pakistani general, “gave him the toughest possible warning about what would happen if this were repeated.”
Pakistani officers from captain to lieutenant general have told me that the entry of U.S. ground forces into Pakistan in pursuit of the Taliban and al-Qaeda is an incredibly dangerous scenario, as it would put both Pakistan-U.S. relations and the unity of the army at risk. As one retired general explained, drone attacks on Pakistani territory, though humiliating for the ordinary officers and soldiers, are not the critical issue. What would create a military overthrow takes more:
U.S. ground forces inside Pakistan are a different matter, because the soldiers can do something about them. They can fight. And if they don’t fight, they will feel utterly humiliated, before their wives, mothers, children. It would be a matter of honor, which as you know is a tremendous thing in our society. These men have sworn an oath to defend Pakistani soil. So they would fight. And if the generals told them not to fight, many of them would mutiny, starting with the Frontier Corps.
At this point, not just Islamist radicals, but every malcontent in the country would join the mutineers, and the disintegration of Pakistan would become imminent.
THERE IS a further complication. Of course, the Pakistani military has played a part in encouraging Islamist insurgents. The army maintains links with military and jihadi groups focused on fighting India (its perennial obsession). Contrary to what many believe, the military’s support of these actors has not been based on ideology. The bulk of the high command (including General Musharraf, who is by no conceivable stretch of the imagination an Islamist) has used these groups in a purely instrumental way against New Delhi with Pakistani Muslim nationalism as the driver. But this doesn’t mean balancing these relationships with U.S. demands will be easy.
Since 2002, the military has acted to rein in these groups, while at the same time keeping some of them (notably Lashkar-e-Taiba, responsible for the 2008 terrorist attacks against Mumbai) on the shelf for possible future use against India should hostilities between the two countries resume. Undoubtedly, however, some lower-level officers of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), responsible for “handling” these groups, have developed close affinities for them and have contributed to their recent operations. The ISI’s long association with the militants, first in Afghanistan and then in Kashmir, had led some ISI officers to have a close personal identification with the forces that they were supposed to be controlling.
The high command, moreover, is genuinely concerned that if it attacks some of these groups, it will drive them into joining the Pakistani Taliban—as has already occurred with sections of the Jaish-e-Muhammad, suspected in the attempts to assassinate Musharraf in December 2003 (apparently with low-level help from within the armed forces).
This leads to a whole set of interlocking questions: How far does the Pakistani high command continue to back certain militant groups? How far does the command of the ISI follow a strategy independent from that of the military? And how far have individual ISI officers escaped from the control of their superiors and supported and planned terrorist actions on their own? And this leads to the even-more-vital question of how far the Pakistani military is penetrated by Islamist extremist elements, and whether there is any possibility of these groups carrying out a successful military coup from below.
Since this whole field is obviously kept very secret by the institutions concerned (including Military Intelligence, which monitors the political and ideological allegiances of officers), there are no definitive answers. What follows is informed guesswork based on numerous discussions with experts and off-the-record talks with Pakistani officers, including retired members of the ISI.
Concerning the ISI, the consensus of my informants is as follows: There is considerable resentment of the organization in the rest of the military due to its perceived arrogance and suspected corruption. However, when it comes to overall strategy, the ISI follows the line of the high command. It is, after all, always headed by a senior regular general, not a professional intelligence officer, and a majority of its officers are also seconded regulars. General Kayani was director of the ISI from 2004–2007 and ordered a limited crackdown on jihadi groups that the ISI had previously supported. As to the military’s attitude toward the Afghan Taliban, the army and the ISI are as one, and the evidence is unequivocal: both groups continue to give them shelter, and there is deep unwillingness to take serious action against them on America’s behalf, both because it is feared that this would increase the potential for a Pashtun insurgency in Pakistan and because they are seen as the only assets Pakistan possesses in Afghanistan. The conviction in the Pakistani security establishment is that the West will quit Kabul, leaving civil war behind, and that India will then throw its weight behind the non-Pashtun forces of the former Northern Alliance in order to encircle Pakistan strategically.
This attitude changes, however, when it comes to the Pakistani Taliban and their allies. The military as a whole and the ISI are now committed to the struggle against them, and by the end of 2009, the ISI had lost more than seventy of its officers in this fight—some ten times the number of CIA officers killed since 9/11, just as Pakistani military casualties fighting the Pakistani Taliban have greatly exceeded those of the United States in Afghanistan. Equally, however, in 2007–2008 there were a great many stories of ISI officers intervening to rescue individual Taliban commanders from arrest by the police or the army—too many, and too circumstantial, for these all to have been invented.
It seems clear, therefore, that whether because some ISI officers felt a personal commitment to these men, or because the institution as a whole still regarded them as potentially useful, actions were taking place that were against overall military policy—let alone that of the Pakistani government. As well, some of these Islamist insurgents had at least indirect links to al-Qaeda. This does not mean that the ISI knows where Osama bin Laden (if he is indeed still alive), Ayman al-Zawahri and other al-Qaeda leaders are hiding. But it does suggest that they could probably do a good deal more to find out.
However, for Islamist terrorists who wish to carry out attacks against India, ISI help is not necessary (though it has certainly occurred in the past). The discontent of sections of India’s Muslim minority (increased by ghastly incidents like the massacres of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, and encouraged by the Hindu nationalist state government) gives ample possibilities for recruitment; the sheer size of India, coupled with the incompetence of the Indian security forces, give ample targets of opportunity; and the desire to provoke an Indian attack on Pakistan gives ample motive. But whether or not the ISI is involved in future attacks, India will certainly blame Pakistan for them.
This creates the real possibility of a range of harsh Indian responses, stretching from economic pressure through blockade to outright war. Such a war would in the short term unite Pakistanis and greatly increase the morale of the army. The long-term consequences for Pakistan’s economic development would, however, be quite disastrous. And if the United States were perceived to back India in such a war, anti-American feelings and extremist recruitment in Pakistan would soar to new heights. All of this gives the United States every reason to push the Pakistani military to suppress some extremist groups and keep others on a very tight rein. But Washington also needs to press New Delhi to seek reconciliation with Islamabad over Kashmir, and to refrain from actions which will create even more fear of India in the Pakistani military.
IN THE end, Washington must walk a very fine line if it wants to keep the military united and at least onboard enough in the fight against extremists. If it pushes the army too far by moving ground troops into Pakistan proper, the consequences will be devastating. The military—and therefore the state of Pakistan—will be no longer.

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

George L. Singleton, Colonel, USAF, Ret on PAF and Z.A Bhutto

pavocavalry — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:14:00 +0000

George said…

What came of the posting I did here yesterday, April 30, 2010, about the late Group Captain P. G. K. (Pete) Williamson, RAF, who was the UK Air Advisor to Pakistan in 1963-64?

Thanks and your response will be appreciated.

George L. Singleton, Colonel, USAF, Ret.

May 1, 2010 6:18 AM

George said…

After the U2 was shot down May 1, 1960 over the Soviet Union, the US and her then ally Pakistan had to turn to the RB-57 program for a replacement intelligence gathering air craft.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident

In the May, 2010 issue of COLD WAR TIMES Magazine:

www.coldwar.org

is the first of 12 articles about my 18 month tour of duty 1963-65 as Commander, Detachment 2, 6937th Communications Group, the subordinate unit at our US Embassy then in Karachi to my higher headquarters the 6937th Communications Group at Badabur, near Peshawar.

1. During 1963-1965 Pakistan was a full fledged member of both CENTO, the Central Asia Treaty Organizational, successor to the old Baghdad Pact and of SEATO, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, which Pakistan belonged to largely because then East Pakistan was defined as in SE Asia while West Pakistan was defined as in Southwest Asia geopolitically speaking.

2. After the Soviet shoot down of Gary Powers and the U-2, President Eisenhower suspended U2 flights from and through Pakistan.

3. In lieu of the U2 the US and Paksitan used B-57Ds flown along the air borders of both the USSR and Communist China by the Pakistan Air Force. As these aircraft lacked the wing size to attain really high altitude to get a good look "over the horizon."
it was redesigning into the RB-57F with a larger wing structure came the RB-57F, with two being loaned to the Pakistani Air Force, free of charge, by the US in June, 1964. One such RF-57F intermittently was based at Maripur Pakistan Air Base in Karachi, where I did official USAF business routinely.

5. The RB-57F had a maximum altitude of 82,000 feet, had a specially pressurized bombay , to handle an intelligence equipment pod.

www.spyflight.co.uk/rb57.htm

www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b57_8.html

- Along with training a few PAF pilots to fly the high altitude RB-57F… the US plane contractor also brought to Texas two RAF pilots who were likewise trained to fly this aircraft wearing pressure suits, to augment the PAF pilots.

- The two RAF pilots flew very many but not all of the RB-57F high altitude missions.

- This all took place during a time of increasing tension when then Foreign Minister Mr. Bhutto was beating the drum with the Pakistani Army Chief of Staff toward the eventual 1965 India-Pakistan War, which I was there to observe the first half of 1965.

- Foreign Minister Bhutto tried to pressure the RAF Air Advisor (same as the US Air Attache) and the US Air Attache, as well as my commander at the 6937th Communications Group in Peshawar to make intelligence flights over Kashmir and India. Mr. Bhutto failed.

The purpose of this letter is to bring into clearer view the opinion I hold that the 1965 India-Pakistan War was incited by then Foreign Minister Mr. Bhutto as he agitated and did lead the start up that uncalled for war.

I hope this snap shot in time in 1964 and 1965 will be of use to military and civilian historians.

George L. Singleton, Colonel, USAF, Ret.
USA
GSingle556@aol.com

May 6, 2010 11:36 AM

George said…

The Internet site for the Pakistani Air Force blog has comments about me and the article I recently wrote for the DAILY TIMES of Pakistan. The longer article I wrote was in the COLD WAR TIMES Magazine on the Internet. Gary Powers, Jr. heads up the Cold War Museum in the DC area, which hosts and owns the COLD WAR TIMES Magazine,all of which is affilated with the Smithsonian Museum in DC. COLD

The COLD WAR TIMES Magazine on the Internet ran the lst of what will likely be 12 Quarterly articles about my experineces in Pakistan 1963-1965 as the then USAF Liaison Officer for the 6937th Communications Group at Badabur.

My observations (negative) about then Prime Minister Bhutto and still living today in Islamabad Air Chief Marshal Muhamnmad Ashgar Khan were based on first hand experiences myself as well as experiences/knowlege with and through the key officials cited who were both colleagues and friends of mine.

I had official duties involving what had been the old U-2 program, which became the RB-57F program, as well as involving communications intelligence support duties (logistics and operations). One of the two on loan to the Pakistan Air Force RB-57Fs was based out of Maripur Fighter Bomber base in Karachi, the other RB-57F flew out of the then Pakistani Air Force HQ field in Peshawar…that runway is where both the U-2 and later the RB-57F flew from. One RB-57F sometimes also flew out of Lahore on rotation.

The key to my articles was the fact that two RB-57F Royal Air Force pilots were trained in Ft. Worth, TX by the aircraft contractor to augment the PAF likewise trained in Texas RB-57F high altitute pilots.

Cold War communications intel and air sampling of nuclear test air born elements was the purpose and mission of the two RB-57Fs.

Air Chief Marshal Nuhr Khan was a very fine officer, too, and he inherited a Pakistani Air Force which was in top notch condition from Air Chief Marshal Ashgar Khan. Both Khans were friends and good colleagues and worked together very well. I personally knew Air Chief Marshal Ashgar Khan and condoled him in 2007 about the death of his late son who served in President Musharraf's cabinet for a time.

My duties as the USAF base in Badabur Liaison Officer required me to have good working relationships in Karachi with the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry (where Mr. Bhutto was then the Foreign Minister); the Paksitani Ministry of Defense; Pakistan International Airline which by contracts I oversay moved some of our civilian and military personnel to and from the Peshawar area…as well as moved some of our air cargo needs. My liaison work included on site missions at Maripur Fighter Bomber Base; Drigg Road Air Field (Technical PAF Base); and the Karachi Civil Airport, etc.

Watch for future articles in the COLD WAR TIMES Magazine on line for more factual, historic background related to the 1965 India-Pakistan War, among other things. I will also in future articles blend in more recent current history which is frequently shared with me from inside Pakistan.

I am a retired USAF Colonel who did 6 years active duty and 25 years in the USAF Reserve. One of my last reserve assignments was as the augmentee (to be able to step into his job in event of war if he was sent forward) Assistant Chief of Staff for Combat Logistics and War Plans for HQ US Special Operations Command.

I am also retired from a 25 year US Civil Service career and before that was for a few years an international banking officer in New York City immediately after my 6 years regular USAF duty. Our international territory I worked included all of the Indian Subcontinent, which included West and East Pakistan, which today is Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Thanks for moving this posting over to your Pakistan Air Force blog so that it is readable there, too.

George Singleton

May 20, 2010 8:06 PM

Agha H Amin said…

dear george

your comments are immensely valuable

thanks for sharing

my father was garrison engineer drigh road air base from 1964 to 1968.he had graduated from US Army Engineer School Fort Belvoir in 1964.

he was incharge of the runway of drigh road where planes were tested.

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

INTELLIGENCE

pavocavalry — Fri, 21 May 2010 13:29:00 +0000

Subscriptions for 2010 are 180 euros for indidivuals and
380 euros for organizations. Issue 557 Table of Contents below.

INTELLIGENCE                                     ISSN 1245-2122
N. 557, 3 May 2010
Every Two to Three Weeks
Next issue, 17 May 2010
Publishing since 1980

Editor
Olivier Schmidt
intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr;
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/intelligence-adi;

TABLE OF CONTENTS, N. 557, 3 May 2010

FRONT PAGE

USA – WATERBOARDING NOT MISSED p.1

TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES

TIMELINE FROM 17 APRIL TO 30 APRIL p.2
ECONOMIC CRISIS REPORTS p.3
INTEL DATA MINING & PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET p.4
FACEBOOK – Hacker's Take for Sale. p.5

PEOPLE

USA – MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. p.6
    – DARYL GATES p.7
GREAT BRITAIN – Daniel Houghton. p.8
TURKEY – HAKAN FIDAN p.9

AGENDA

CALLS & COMING EVENTS THROUGH 18 JUNE p.10

INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD

USA – ANOTHER CALL TO SPLITTING UP THE CIA p.11
    – More CIA Documents & Analysts. p.12
    – WALL ST. REFORM, OIL SPILL & GOP GOES RIGHT p.13
    – ARIZONA FULL OUT ON IMMIGRATION p.14
    – RADICAL RIGHT & BETTING AGAINST WASHINGTON p.15
    – POLICE & HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE US p.16
    – BUSH REGIME TORTURE POLICY STILL WITH US p.17
    – WIKILEAKS SOLDIERS APOLOGIZE & OTHER DOD NEWS p.18
CANADA – A SAFE PLACE TO SPY p.19
GREAT BRITAIN – BUGGING NUMBER 10 TO DEFEND THE REALM p.20
              – Dealing with "Waterborne Terror". p.21
NORTHERN IRELAND – TWO VOICES FROM THE GRAVE p.22
NETHERLANDS – THE ANNUAL AIVD REPORT p.23
WESTERN EUROPE – BRITAIN, FRANCE, VATICAN & GREECE p.24
EASTERN EUROPE – KYRGYZSTAN, UKRAINE & CHECHNYA p.25
LATIN AMERICA – ARGENTINA, MEXICO, COLOMBIA & HONDURAS p.26
AFRICA – Algerian Alliance & Sudan Election Farce. p.27
ISRAEL/PALESTINE – NO PEACE PROGRESS & MORE THREATS p.28
IRAQ – ELECTION PROBLEMS, TORTURE & AL QAIDA p.29
IRAN – SANCTIONS WILL FAIL & KNOWING SQUAT p.30
MIDDLE EAST – SUPPOSED NAZI ROOTS TO JIHADIST TERROR p.31
            – EGYPT, YEMEN, HEZBOLLAH & SAUDI ARABIA p.32
AFGHANISTAN – TALIBAN VIOLENCE AS A FAMILY FEUD p.33
PAKISTAN – CIA & ISI DEADLY "HORSE TRADING" p.34
INDIA – "HONEY-TRAP" DAMAGES RUSSIAN RELATIONS p.35
ASIA – KOREA, THAILAND, INDIA & PAKISTAN p.36

———————————————

Subscriptions for 2010 are 180 euros for indidivuals and
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INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122
N. 556, 19 April 2010
Every Two to Three Weeks
Next issue, 3 May 2010
Publishing since 1980

Editor
Olivier Schmidt
intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr;
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/intelligence-adi;
tel 33 (0)1 40 51 85 19;
ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France

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Copyright ADI 2010, reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. A one year subscription (19 issues with article index) is 380 euros. Reduced rates for personal subscriptions (180 euros). Payment by credit cardpossible.

TABLE OF CONTENTS, N. 556, 19 April 2010

FRONT PAGE

IRAN – CIA "APPROVED" MEDIA CAMPAIGN p.1

TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES

TIMELINE FROM 26 MARCH TO 16 APRIL p.2
EUROPEAN CYBER CRIME CONFERENCE & FOLLOW UP p.3
ISRAEL'S MULTI-LAYERED MISSILE SHIELD p.4
ECONOMIC & FINANCIAL CRISIS REPORTS p.5
TECHNOLOGY & TECHNIQUE REPORTS p.6

PEOPLE

GREAT BRITAIN – DAPHNE MARGARET SYBIL PARK p.7
– Daniel Houghton. p.8
URUGUAY – JUAN MARIA BORDABERRY p.9
IRAN – SHAHRAM AMIRI p.10

AGENDA

CALLS & COMING EVENTS THROUGH 31 MAY p.11

INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD

USA – NUCLEAR SECURITY, HEALTH CARE & GOP FOLLIES p.12
– WIKILEAKS VIDEO & AFGHAN SPECIAL FORCES "OP" p.13
– HUTAREE, & OTHER "WILD MEN" ON THE RIGHT p.14
– FBI OVERDOING IT ON ANTI-TERRORISM p.15
– THINGS AREN'T RIGHT WITHOUT TORTURE p.16
– CIA RED CELL, BSEG, NSA & THOMAS DRAKE p.17
CANADA – Ann Coulter Run Out of Town. p.18
GREAT BRITAIN – MILITARY INTERROGATION REMAINS SECRET p.19
– A "SAFE HAVEN" FOR WAR CRIMINALS p.20
– ARMS FOR ISRAEL p.21
NORTHERN IRELAND – RULING ON CONTROVERSIAL SAS KILLINGS p.22
- ELECTION DELAYS BLOODY SUNDAY REPORT p.23
- RIRA MAKES A "POLITICAL" POINT p.24
WESTERN EUROPE – VATICAN SEX SCANDAL, SPAIN & ICELAND p.25
RUSSIA – WHY THE METRO WAS BOMBED p.26
EASTERN EUROPE – JIHADISTS, KYRGYZSTAN REVOLT, POLAND & START p.27
LATIN AMERICA – Mexico, Venezuela & Brazil. p.28
SOUTH AFRICA – END-OF-THE-ROAD FOR ARMS CORRUPTION INQUIRY p.29
AFRICA – SUDAN, SOUTH AFRICA & SOMALIA p.30
ISRAEL – GOVERNMENT REPRESSION OF… JEWS p.31
IRAQ – INCONCLUSIVE ELECTIONS FOLLOWED BY BOMBS p.32
IRAN – US DIFFICULTIES WITH VOTING SANCTIONS p.33
MIDDLE EAST – Turkey's Ergenekon & No to Jihadists. p.34
AFGHANISTAN – ANP "NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE" p.35
– KARZAI "WHEELING & DEALING" HIS FUTURE p.36
PAKISTAN – WAR CONTINUES & ARMY REPORTS "PROGRESS" p.37
ASIA – THAI REVOLT, INDIA, CHINA & KOREA p.38

———————————————

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

Medvedev in Turkey & Syria – Consolidates Russian Influence

pavocavalry — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:03:00 +0000

Medvedev in Turkey & Syria – Consolidates Russian Influence

Economic Integration with Europe but Rebuff to US in near abroad

"The war in Iraq is a historic strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions – undermining America's global legitimacy – collateral civilian casualties, – abuses, – tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability." Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to US President Jimmy Carter.

While US led West is getting scalded by the economic and financial volcano unleashed by unregulated and rampant greed of its corporate oligarchy , which is still holding Washington to ransom ,Russia, imperceptibly, with support from its former republics and China has blocked and rebuffed US incursions into Moscow’s near abroad .In 2008 Russia thrashed Georgia , when its puppet ruler instigated by US and Israel with a hysterical David Milliband mouthing Western media and BBC lies ,attacked disputed South Ossetia .It sent a stern message around the Caucasus , making even Azerbaijan’s leader rethink its close embrace with Washington ,and beyond .

Russia then eased out discredited US proxy president Victor Yushchenko in Ukraine and the so called ‘Orange Revolution’ heroine prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko with pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovich back in power. It was followed by cementing of Russian-Ukrainian strategic partnership with a long lease on the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol for the Russian Black Sea fleet in exchange for discounted Russian gas , and other agreements including renewal of joint aircraft manufacture . The recent rounds of violence and still simmering tensions in Kyrgyz capital Bishkek and elsewhere could lend to constraints on Washington‘s use of its Manas airfield, from where bulk of US troops and sophisticated military equipment for war in Afghanistan are trans-shipped. This gives Kabul‘s northern neighbours a say in its affairs .

Moscow has now re-focused its attention on the Middle East , an arena of Cold War rivalry and conflict between the US led capitalist West and USSR and its communist , socialist and nationalist allies since WWII ,from where Russian influence vanished following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Fall of the Berlin Wall ,with Iraq and Syria left adrift without a protector .It resulted in US led illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and its brutal occupation. Syria‘s strategic relations with Iran and patch up with Turkey helped Damascus withstand intense Western pressures. Allies Hezbollah in Lebanon gave a bloody nose to the ‘invincible’ Israeli Defense Forces in south , as admitted even in a Israeli report on the outcome of the 2006 war with Lebanon .It is a deterrent to Israel . Caught in a quagmire of is own making in Iraq and in the harsh realities in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan , a grave yard of empires ,US and its allies are now in a bind.

In spite of immense power of destruction still at its command and the bluster , West’s limitations of military power have been exposed in the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia , now led in tandem by prime minister Vladimir Putin , a Karate champ and his handpicked soft spoken successor president Dimitry Medvedev , have brought about far reaching changes in Russian policies , not only in Eurasia and the Middle East but even in Latin America, once Washington’s backyard under Monroe Doctrine .

Remember how after a meeting in June 2001 , George Bush said patronizingly of Vladimir Putin, "I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country." Putin could hardly keep a straight face as Bush described him as "trustworthy" and "straightforward." How the strategic parameters have been turned around since then.

The Russian bear first growled at the 43rd annual International Security Conference held in Munich on 10 February,2007 when president Putin spoke about the importance of the role of United Nations, U.S. missile defense, NATO expansion to Russian borders, Iran's nuclear program and the Energy Charter and accused Washington of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions, trying to divide modern Europe and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.
The Soviet Union's collapse was ruthlessly exploited by US led West when its capitalist controlled media sang praises of economic reforms and democratization .which under Yeltsin brought about economic disintegration and ruination to Russia .The worst kind of depression in modern history with economic losses more than twice those suffered by USSR in World War II. Russian GDP was trimmed to half and capital investment fell by 80 percent. People were reduced to penury and misery, death rates soared ( by an extra one million) so the population shrank. And in August 1998, the Russian financial system collapsed. Under the charade of globalization and ushering in capitalism in Russia, as much as a trillion dollars of Russian wealth was reportedly taken out and seven oligarchs created, six of them Jews.
Stephen F. Cohen in an article "The New American Cold War " wrote in 10 July 2006 issue of US Magazine ,'The Nation" that since 1990s ,Washington has followed hypocritical policy of "strategic partnership and friendship," with Presidents being on first name basis but underneath, all US administrations have followed a ruthless policy of undermining Russia " accompanied by broken American promises, condescending lectures and demands for unilateral concessions. USA has been even more aggressive and uncompromising than was Washington's approach to the Soviet Communist Russia."
" A growing military encirclement of Russia, on and near its borders, by US and NATO bases, which are already ensconced or being planned in at least half the fourteen other former Soviet republics, from the Baltics and Ukraine to Georgia, Azerbaijan and the new states of Central Asia. The result is a US-built reverse iron curtain and the remilitarization of American-Russian relations.
" A tacit (and closely related) US denial that Russia has any legitimate national interests outside its own territory, even in ethnically akin or contiguous former republics such as Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia." Richard Holbrooke, a democrat Secretary of State in waiting roundly condemned Russia for promoting a pro-Moscow government in neighboring Ukraine, where Russia has centuries of shared linguistic, marital, religious, economic and security ties and declared ' that far-away Slav nation part of "our core zone of security."
"Even more , a presumption that Russia does not have full sovereignty within its own borders, as expressed by constant US interventions in Moscow's internal affairs since 1992. They have included an on-site crusade by swarms of American "advisers," particularly during the 1990s, to direct Russia's "transition" from Communism; endless missionary sermons from afar, often couched in threats, on how that nation should and should not organize its political and economic systems; and active support for Russian anti-Kremlin groups, some associated with hated Yeltsin-era oligarchs
After Munich speech ,Putin made a whirlwind tour of the Middle East where the Arab states, chastened , battered and frightened by irrational US policies, welcomed him. His visits included Saudi Arabia , a first for a Russian president , Qatar, sitting atop massive reserves of gas , Jordan , a key strategic stone in the middle east matrix , even for Israel. US blunders and Russian policy got Moscow observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 2005 . In 2006 the Russia-Muslim World Strategic Vision Group was established. Exchange of presidential visits with Syria in 2005 , writing off of old Syrian debts of almost $10 billion and supply of short range missiles to deter arrogant Israeli jets buzzing the presidential palace in Damascus almost restored the relationship of Cold War era with Syria.

Economic cooperation with Europe for industrial modernization !

However with American eagle’s wings singed , Russian leaders need not growl .They are coming out as sober ,responsible and constructive interlocutors .

To allay Washington’s suspicions , Moscow convinienetly ‘leaked’ a confidential policy document from foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to president Medvedev outlining proposals for a more pragmatic foreign policy to build closer ties with the U.S. and Europe to help modernize its outdated industries .The authenticity of the document was confirmed . But a Kremlin spokesman said it was not yet officially approved .Russian Newsweek posted the document's full text on its website.” It's a document that reflects the mainstream in today's Russian political leadership," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Though the document reiterates Russian opposition to U.S. policy to maintain global hegemony, it patronizingly singled out the Obama administration for its "transformational potential" to stabilise and improve relations with Moscow, by giving up the missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and staunch support for anti-Russian leaders in Georgia, and in Ukraine.

The document also gives an idea about Moscow’s relationship with former Soviet republics and recommends that taking advantage of the global financial crisis ,Moscow should acquire industrial and energy assets in the Baltics, Belarus, Ukraine and Central Asia—where Russian influence is a somewhat ambiguous and sensitive political issue.

A deal with the U.S. to reduce nuclear weapons has already been implemented. But the document names Iran as a potential flash point for renewed conflict with the West, in the event of a military strike against Iranian nuclear fuel facilities, which Moscow strongly opposes. Moscow is playing the great power game and has delayed completing the neclear power station in Iran. There is little news about the delivery of long promised Sam-300 missiles which would deter bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities . Moscow extracts whatever concession it can from Washington and keeps Tehran on leash.

The document calls for creating "alliances of modernization" with European countries to attract needed technology and ” find opportunities to use American technological potential." It singled out Germany, France, Italy and Spain as Russia's closest partners in Europe. [To neutralise US domination of Europe since WWII ,German leadership has been most enthusiastic to normalise and improve relation with Moscow and has many economic proposals including the ongoing project of Russian gas for Germany via a Baltic Sea pipeline , now headed by a former Chancellor Gerhard Schroder ,Angela Merkel's predecessor .

The 'new spirit' was reflected when U.S. and European troops for the first time marched alongside Russian forces during Moscow's annual military parade marking the end of World War II in which US,UK,France and USSR were allies .Russia made the maximum sacrifice in men and treasure and the country suffered terrribly while destroying three-fourth of the Nazi war Machine .With US releuctant to expend men and treasure and open a front in Greece , Soviet forces reached Berlin .US and UK films have exagerated beyond measure their role in the defeat of Nazi Germany though Hollywood films , which are regularly telecast as part of propaganda in Discovery ,History and other channels which many specially India's ignoranti lap up .

"The overall climate is better than it has been since the time of Perestroika," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, a foreign-policy analyst and frequent Kremlin adviser. "Russia has started to react to the more cooperative policy from the West." He and other analysts feel that the Kremlin's new approach carries some risks, as Moscow reasserts its influence in its near abroad. Medvedev's focus is on weaning Russia's economy from its dependence on oil and other natural resources and stimulating high-technology industries mandated the Westward focus. "The sources of modernization and innovation are in the West, not the East," he said. While the document covers China and other major developing countries, the focus is on ties with the U.S. and Europe. The report also suggests reduction in military buildup [If US military-industry complex would let it!]

Medvedev visits Turkey and Syria

Russian Turkish Relations; a Historical perspective

The relations between Turks and Russians have been tortuous and mostly adversarial throughout history from the days of Mongol –Turks and Russian warfare and rivalries reaching acuity during the half a millennia long Ottoman empire and the expanding Russian empire at Istanbul’s cost in the Caucasus , Crimea and East Europe till WWI , when whatever was left of the Ottoman empire , which once extended from Morocco to Oman , from Crimea to Sudan and from Hungary to the Iranian border was divided up by the European powers after the defeat of the Ottoman arms .Post Bolshevik revolution at the end of WWI, Moscow extended support to Kemal Ataturk ‘s new republic in Ankara which was welcomed as long as Communist ideology did not infiltrate nationalist and secular Turkey. Communist party has remained banned in Turkey.

Before his death in 1938 , with war clouds on the horizon ,Ataturk advised his would be successors to keep out of the WWII , so as not to be first run over by the Nazis and then ‘liberated’ by the Soviet forces .But after the war , during which Turkey remained neutral , USSR ,leader of victorious coalition in Eurasia against the Axis powers led by Germany demanded return of two Turkish provinces Kars and Ertvin in North West of Turkey which were once part of Czarist Russia and role in overseeing the Straits of Bosporus and Dardanelles , controlling access to the Black Sea and notionally separating Asia and Europe. Ankara looked around for a protector and found one in Washington in the wake of the burgeoning Cold War .It joined Nato and other Western pacts .But throughout that era till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ,Ankara never felt comfortable with US policies specially in regard to Greece and Cyprus where 18% of population is of Turkish origin .

After the war ,Turkey also found itself surrounded by hostile neighbours , not only Communist Bulgaria in the West and in the North East ,Soviet republics of Georgia , Armenia and Azerbaijan and a Black Sea full of hostile naval ships. In the East ,Ankara still faced another historical enemy of the Sunni Ottomans , the Shia Iran , both now successors of geopolitical rivals in history of Romans –Byzantines and Persians .Relations with Damascus were strained ever since Syria was carved out of former Ottoman Vilayat ( provinces ) and acquiescence of Western powers to let Ankara annex Alwaite dominated sub province of Hatay -Antakya , the ancient Antioch , to tempt Turkey to side with the Western powers in WWII. Since then building of dams and barrages on Euphrates and even on Tigris with strategic and economic ramifications made the relations even more inimical .

Damascus responded by sheltering Marxist Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan and letting him operate guerilla training camps in Syria and Lebanese territory under its influence .The rebellion cost Turkey nearly 40.000 lives mostly Kurds and destruction of economy of Kurdish populated East and South East Turkey bordering Syria, Iraq and Iran .Ocalan was apprehended by Turkish agents , helped by Western agencies in 1999 in Kenya after he was expelled when Turkey threatened war on Syria , now without Moscow’s umbrella .Ocalan was tried, convicted and is now imprisoned on a Marmara Sea island near Istanbul .

Relations with Greece have been complex and adversarial like India and Pakistan since the emergence of Turkey from the ashes of the Ottoman empire after Ataturk had beaten back Greek forces from 60 kms west of Ankara in 1922 and exchange of Christian and Muslim populations, made worse by the dispute over Cyprus , now partly under Turkish occupation since 1974 and various border and other disputes .Only with Iraq , Turkey had good relations .Ankara implemented an adroitly successful policy as a Nato ally , serving as an unsinkable aircraft career with over half a million armed men .But it felt somewhat neglected after the collapse of USSR as Washington found new allies in East Europe , Georgia and even Azerbaijan to roll back and throttle the Russian Federation.

But the US led 2003 illegal invasion of Iraq and occupation which has led to the death of over a million Iraqis , with whom Turks always had very good relations and emergence of an autonomous Kurdish state in north Iraq , as a magnet to its own Kurds in south and east Turkey has changed the strategic matrix completely in the region not only for Turkey but also for its neighbours.

Yes, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 , with buffer states between historical enemies Russians and Turks and even between Tehran and Moscow ,Turkey and Iran have now different compulsions and options , which they are implementing . The main question is –what will happen when US withdraws from Iraq leaving behind a whole new gamut of problems .A fractured and divided Iraq along Shia and or Sunni Arabs and Kurds lines, with a strengthened Iran , with Shias ruling in Baghdad and with full control of south Iraq .What of ramifications in the autonomous North Kurdish Iraq , under US protection since 1991 , with ‘let us try once more for a Kurdish state by turbulent and new generation Kurds in Turkey ,Iran and Syria ? What about reactions, counter reactions and policies of Iraq‘s Sunni neighbours like Saudi Arabia , Jordan ,Syria and even Egypt . And what about Israel ! By the invasion a veritable Pandora’s box has been opened , with borders created after WWI likely to come under stresses and strains .

Strategic and political changes in the region

Russian president Medvedev’s two days visit to Ankara in May is third ever head of state visit from Moscow .His predecessor and benefactor Putin was in Turkey in early September, 2004 .The first ever visit took place at the peak of the Cold War by the Soviet Union's president Nikolay Podgorny in 1973 , almost 4 decades ago ,when the author was first posted at Ankara. The invitation was to express anger at Washington's warnings that Ankara not use US arms in its dispute over Cyprus with Greece, also a NATO member. Frequent exchanges now at the highest level and signing of several economic and strategic agreements underscore the reshuffling of strategic perceptions and partnerships being forged by major players in the region after the Fall of the Berlin Wall , 119 and illegal invasion on Iraq and the so called war on terror in Afghanistan. And possible withdrawal of US troops !

March 2003 was a watershed in US-Turkish relations when the Turkish parliament rejected an AKP government motion ( which had a two-thirds majority) to allow troops of its ally the US to open a second front against north Iraq from Turkish soil. It led to much heated and bitter public exchanges and acrimony between the leaders of the two countries .It was followed by war of words when US imprisoned some Turkish special troops in Iraq and an US attack on Turcomen , Turkey’s ethnic cousins in Iraq , who also sit atop a sea of oil in Kirkuk , on which Ankara has sometimes laid claims on behalf of the Turcomen .And thus began a fairly fast decline in trust and overall relations . Then there are heated exchanges regarding PKK cadre holed up in North Iraq Kurdish areas , about which US has done little in spite of promises .Ankara and even Kurdish freedom organizations in Europe believe it is only a US card against Turkey .

But aware of the geopolitical importance of Turkey in the region and its military strength Washington has regularly sent senior officials to amend and ameliorate tense relations .Both president Bush and Obama have visited Ankara .It has been suggested that US might need Ankara’s goodwill if US withdrawal becomes difficult via Basra and Kuwait ,then the route up via South East Turkey could be considered. Withdrawals can never be well organized .Remember of US forces from Vietnam , with people hanging by helicopters or even from Russia‘s near abroad after USSR collapsed.

Since 2003 Turkish and Iranian leaders have also exchanged visits at the highest level and intensified efforts to put aside deep-rooted historical and ideological differences, because of instability interjected in the region , whose next stage or evolution unnerves every one. They exchange information on Kurdish rebels which worries them both and even take action in tandem.

US-Iran Turbulent nuclear Tango ;

Since quite some time Turkish PM Recep Tayep Erdogan has pooh-poohed US led allegations about Iran’s nuclear program .Now under a deal, brokered on 18 May along with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Iran will ship 1,200 kilograms from its stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey by the end of June in exchange for 120kg of 20% enriched uranium that is to be used at the Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical isotopes.

Wall Street Journal editorial described it as a "debacle" for US President Barack Obama's diplomacy. ''There are a number of unanswered questions regarding the announcement coming from Tehran,'' declared US secretary of state Hilary Clinton. While Washington will pursue the UNSC sanctions for which agreement has been claimed , but first the International Atomic Energy Agency ,the UN's nuclear watchdog, has to consider details of the agreement that opens up an alternative route to sanctions. Both Turkey and Brazil are elected members of the UN Security Council and the non-aligned members generally support Tehran.

Ankara is now following a policy designed by foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu of "zero problems with neighbors," "pro-active engagement," or "multi-lateral foreign policy" .The policy of “Look East” ,was initiated in 1995 by the first Islamist coalition prime minister Nacemettin Erbakan , who brought into politics both Erdogan and president Abdullah Gul in early 1990s . Ankara has now assiduously cultivated and improved its relations with its Muslim neighbours, with whom it had acrimonious relations except for Iraq . Under pressure and threats of further sanctions from the West , Syria put in cold storage its historic dispute over sharing of Euphrates waters with Ankara and other problems. After exchange of presidential visits Turkish Syrian relations have taken a 180 deg turn , beginning a new era of friendship with mutual benefits.

Along with closer relations with Muslim countries in east and south ,Ankara’s almost ally like relations with Tel Aviv have deteriorated with public brawls between Turkish and Israeli leaders . Erdogan and other leaders have publicly accused Israel of state terrorism in Gaza , while Israeli foreign minister publicly humiliated Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv .Ankara feels that it no longer needs Tel Aviv .With leftist organizations in middle east , except PKK , having declined if not disappeared ,Ankara needs no intelligence inputs from Tel Aviv . Let us see how Ankara manages to fill in gaps of its military equipment obtained from US and Israel and up-gradation by Israel . It is Tel Aviv , with its hemmed in small area which has lost its only friend in the region with whom it used to hold regular military exercises , specially air maneuvers ,which have now been suspended.

Wafted from the East and West , and sensitive to cross currents ,Ankara has got together with Moscow sensing the looming collapse of the West , with even Turkish ‘enemy’ neighbour Greece ‘ in deep economic peril , which could take down other EU members too. (How ever Erdogan did visit Athens a few days ago.)

Ankara knows there is scant chance of its joining EU as full member with freedom for 70 million Turks to potter inside Europe . The last opportunity was in 1986 when offered membership with Athens ; Ankara delined . Turkey has a Customs Union agreement with EU and a flourishing trade with it .After 119 ,EU membership will remain an impossible dream , a Chimera. Turkey‘s leadership and its proud people know it. The AKP leadership has used the charade of joining EU to keep the military away from apex decision making by downgrading the military dominated National Security Council so as to align with Copenhagen criteria for entry into EU .President Abdullah Gul had remarked some years ago –do Ankara or Istanbul look like European cities!

Medvedev in Ankara

During Medvedev's visit, the two countries signed 17 agreements, which are estimated to be worth US$25 billion. The trade turnover between Russia and Turkey now exceeds $30 billion, the ambitious target for the next five years is a whopping $100 billion. "It is hard even to imagine, but this figure is an attainable one," pronounced Medvedev, "Once we achieve this goal, it becomes a model for Europe." Russia's overall trade with Europe presently stands at $200 billion. From the beginning of the Bear and Gray Wolf coming together after 2003 ,economic cooperation has led into other sectors and restoration of trust .Russian tourists who throng in millions Turkey’s beaches along the Aegean, Mediterranean and even the Black Sea coast can now enter without visas.

Russian investments in Turkey total over $4 billion, and Turkey’s in Russia , over $6 billion. Presently Russian energy giant Gazprom supplies 70 % of Turkey's gas needs ( next only after Berlin and Rome ). Russia supplies approximately $1.8 billion worth of oil and between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion of refined oil products to Turkey annually.

The two countries are building the Blue Stream gas pipeline along the Black Sea bed and have decided to build a second line of the pipeline. Turkey is also considering joining the South Stream project to transport Russian natural gas across the Black Sea to Bulgaria and on to Italy and Austria. With Turkey becoming the hub for transports of gas and oil from the Caspian and Iran , Russia is ready to help in the construction of the other oil pipelines.

A major strategic change has come in the field of nuclear energy. Ankara will allow Moscow to build – and own – a $20 billion nuclear power house. The agreement envisages the construction of four reactors on Turkey ‘s southern Mediterranean coast. Russia's Rosatom will operate the facilities and sell electric power . Rosatom will complete the first reactor in seven years and thereafter one reactor every three years. Significantly, Rosatom may also set up a facility in Turkey to make nuclear fuel. Turkey has followed the BOT route of development in many other sectors too.

Rosatom will first establish a fully-owned subsidiary, which will then offer up to 49% shares to investors from Turkey or even from third countries. Rosatom expects to recoup the $20 billion cost of the project in 15 years by selling half of the electricity generated to the Turkish state distribution company and the rest to the country's private sector. But Rosatom must give 20% of its profits to the Turkish government. Russian terms would be difficult to match thus it is a strategic breakthrough .

The Russian Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, meanwhile, announced recently that Russia was holding discussions to sell helicopters and air-defense systems to Turkey.

Turkey and Russia with others in the region are charting a policy of friendship based on solid economic alliances .Turkey with its pre-Ottoman and Ottoman past shares ethnic, cultural and linguistic affinities with central Asia, Caucasus and Balkans. Ankara has excellent relations with East European nations and tie ups with its former Vilayats (provinces) .With economic gains as bait Ankara can even help Moscow re-enter Balkans including new states created out of Yugoslavia , from where Russia was forced out by US and Nato during 1990s . While their interests do not always coincide , the two can help each other out in the Caucasus , as and when US power and influence ebb there .

With Gul besides him ,Medvedev proclaimed in Ankara , "Russia and Turkey are working together to maintain global and regional stability. Sitting in the president's office just now we spoke about the fact that the Black Sea countries themselves, and above all the region's two biggest countries, Russia and Turkey, bear direct responsibility for the situation in the region." Russia , certainly and even Turkey might want to forestall any attempt to make the Black Sea a "NATO lake" . Moscow hopes Ankara would help keep outside powers at bay .Russia itself is trying its best to limit NATO's activities in Georgia and even the East European Black Sea coast.

Any Russia-Turkish attempt to create a regional security system or understanding in the South Caucasus will be resisted by Washington, which has its proxy ruling in Georgia and close relationship with Azerbaijan based on exploitations of its oil and gas reserves .The Baku -Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline gives US a handle to keep Baku and Georgia in line . Azerbaijan has close relations with Ankara but an agreement between Turkey and Armenia to normalise relations has sent Baku fuming. Armenia remains allied to Russia, Georgia is unlikely to join NATO any time soon after the August 2008 war between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia. On the whole Washington‘s influence is on the decline .

Syria and Middle East

Before coming to Ankara Medvedev was in Damascus , the first such visit by a ruler from Moscow since the 1917 Revolution.

In Cold War era such hyphenating would have been unthinkable. But there has been a sea change in their relations after the visit of Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer to Damascus in April 2005 , despite US ambassador in Ankara Eric Edelman's public stand against it .Sezer's visit reciprocated Syrian President Bashar Assad's visit to Ankara in January 2004, the first ever such visit since Syria broke away from Ottoman Turkey after World War I. As recently as 1998, Turkey had threatened to invade Syria unless it expelled Abdullah Ocalan, leader of the Marxist Kurdish Workers party (PKK), sheltered by Damascus as a lever against Turkey for its share of Euphrates waters and irredentist claims over Hatay province, which was annexed to Turkey in 1939.

During the Damascus visit no new arms deal were disclosed but under existing contracts, Russia is supplying MiG-29 fighter jets, Pantsir short-range air-defense systems and anti-aircraft artillery systems to Syria, according to Mikhail Dmitriyev, head of the Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation .Russia would also supply anti-tank weapons without specifying the type .”There are quite a few contracts to repair and upgrade systems delivered in the Soviet era,” .

Expectedly, Israel, reacted angrily calling into question the solvency of Damascus.

"Syria at the present time cannot afford to pay for this sophisticated weaponry. Indeed, it has hardly enough money to buy food for its citizens. One can only wonder what is the real reason behind this dubious deal," said an Israeli official in Jerusalem who declined to be identified.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Syria for its support of militant groups and for corruption. Washington has a blow hot blow cold policy , hoping to detach Damascus from Tehran‘ s embrace , which is most unlikely.

Medvedev unnerved Israel by meeting with Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian group Hamas. "Russia's haste to win this contract has seen it even willing to meet with notorious Hamas leaders in Syria," an Israeli official said.

Israel's Foreign Ministry was "deeply disappointed" with Medvedevs meeting with Meshaal . In Moscow, the Foreign Ministry rebuffed Israel's criticism of the meeting ."Hamas … is a movement supported by the trust and sympathy of a significant part of Palestinians," Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in a statement. "We have regular contacts with this movement."

While US. EU and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist group, Russia insists that Hamas should not be isolated. Russia, the United States, the EU and the United Nations make up a quartet of Middle East mediators. Russia considers Hamas a major party for a solution to the Palestine problem. Medvedev said that Hamas shouldn't be excluded from the peace process.

Medvedev described Gaza a "humanitarian disaster" and sought wider regional and international participation in seeking "actual solutions and decisions" in the Middle East , expressing regret at the slowdown in the US-brokered peace process which in turn "is having an impact on the situation in the Middle East.

Ankara has used much stronger words against Tel Aviv about the situation in Gaza , occupied West Bank and the Middle East. Ankara has hosted Hamas delegation and maintains contacts with it . During the Ottoman era , Palestinians were faithful subjects and Turks feel strongly whenever Palestinians are killed or maltreated .Books and films have been made expressing Turkish anger and repulsion at Israel.

Russian-Syrian relations after a hiatus following the collapse of USSR in 1991 were renewed in full vigour in January 2005 , when Syrian president Bashar Assad was invited for 4 day visit to Moscow The visit marked the first stirrings of the Russian bear, which was sent into hibernation after the USSR's power was dismantled by Mikhail Gorbachev, without leveraging anything in return. A drunk or drugged Boris Yeltsin then set Russia on the road to economic ruin , decay and humiliation everywhere.

To mark the historic Syrian visit, Russia wrote off 73% of US$13.4 billion in debt owed by Syria from the days of the USSR. President Putin said this created "opportunities for long-term cooperation".

Assad defended his country's right to acquire surface-to-air missiles from Russia. "these are weapons for air defense, meant to prevent aircraft from intruding in our airspace", he said "If Israel objects to our acquisition of these defensive weapons, it is as if it is saying, 'We want to attack Syria but we do not want them to defend themselves.' That's not logical," declared Assad. He reiterated an earlier denial of a deal for SA-18 missiles and long-range Iskandar-E missiles that could reach targets all over Israel. Ever since the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Syria has been threatened both by Israel and the US. Assad would be furious when Israeli jets buzzed him in his palace at will .

Commented a jittery Jerusalem Post, "Russia's planned sale of SA-18 missiles to Syria looms ominously as a throwback to the [Leonid] Brezhnev era's most misguided attitudes. Economically, Syria is a basket case whose debt-return record must make one doubt its financial commitments.’

This is funny and farcical .Where would Israel be without massive annual US aid and protection of US veto in the Security Council ? Would not Israel be a basket case too without US aid ?

For internal situation in Turkey read

President Abdullah Gul ; a distinguished visitor from Turkey http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0559.html , www.rebelnews.orgetc

New Delhi could learn from Ankara how to plan and conduct foreign policy .Unfortunately , Washington‘s soft diplomacy is flowering in India .New Delhi has too many in decision making positions who are afflicted with Washcon Syndrome

K ajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy right with the author http://tarafits.blogspot.com/

Catch the changing security environment Get it now.

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

Karzai’s trump cards brought Obama down from the high throne

pavocavalry — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:16:00 +0000

>
> Karzai’s trump cards brought Obama down from the hig
h throne> By Ramtanu Maitra
>
> It was amusing to see the U.S. President Barack Obama undergoing a complete flip, praising the Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who concluded his four-day trip to Washington on May 13, and seeking a long-term cooperation. Last time he met President Karzai in Kabul on March 28, when President Obama visited the Afghan capital “under the cover of darkness, it was all fire and brimstone with the U.S. president virtually ordering the Afghan president to get rid of corruption that ostensibly dominates the Karzai administration. It had been Washington’s long-held mantra the reason why its Afghan military campaign is not showing any progress is the deep-rooted and overwhelming corruption that reigns the Karzai administration.,
>
> To understand how much the views have changed in the White House, one must note that President’s Af-Pak policy maker, Richard Holbrooke, who is arguably the most vicious critic of President Karzai within the Obama administration, was trotted out to receive President Karzai at the Andrews Air Force base near Washington DC. According to an Indian scribe, many Indians dealing with Afghanistan in New Delhi may have chuckled at the sight of Obama sending Holbrooke to receive Karzai, whom Holbrooke had tried to humiliate and overthrow.
>
> However, this should not be read as Holbrooke getting the stick from Obama for his comeuppance, but it is much more fundamental than that. What is real is that after throwing tantrums and fits at the behest of the British ( who surely hate Karzai a lot more than Holbrooke does), blaming President Karzai for the present impossible security situation in Afghanistan brought about by the proliferation of opium production within Afghanistan and almost a nine-year-long incomprehensible military policy of the United States, and its rather inert tail, NATO, Washington is now grudgingly accepting the fact that things could get a lot worse if the Afghans are not listened to. After all, Afghanistan is inhabited by the Afghans and there is no denying that the U.S. and NATO troops have been pushed to the wall by the same-old primitive Afghans.
>
> Karzai’s trump cards
>
> But good senses in Washington usually do not prevail because someone saw the light. Instead, what the White House has come to realize is that while the United States and NATO together have more than 120,000 armed-to-their-teeth troops, which have functioned way below par, handicapped by an inept leadership and foggy goals set forth by Washington and London, President Karzai also holds a couple of trump cards. White House noticed that if President Karzai chooses to play those cards against the occupying forces, the campaign to wipe out terror from the face of this earth, launched by President Bush and faithfully dittoed by President Obama, may end as ignominiously as the American military campaign ended on that fateful early morning of April 29, 1975, following the fall of Saigon, when Defense Secretary James Schlesinger announced evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel.
>
> What trump cards President Karzai showed in recent day that rattled the nest in the White House? The first such card is the admission by Karzai's top adviser, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, during his recent visit to Washington where he made clear that the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been preparing a program to lure the Taliban off the battlefield and into peaceful coexistence. The government's 36-page document, entitled "The Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program," will be released later this month following a peace conference in Kabul, The Associated Press reported on May 11. The United States, Japan and Great Britain are among the countries contributing to the $160 million trust fund underwriting the effort.
>
> The initial focus for the reintegration will be in Kandahar, Helmand, Herat, Baghdis, Nangarhar, Kunduz and Baghlan provinces, the draft says. The reintegration program, which includes vocational training and promises of employment, involves "more than just a few mullahs changing sides," said Stanekzai during a recent visit to Washington. According to Stanekzai and NATO officials, insurgents in a handful of provinces – including Herat in the west, Baghlan and Balkh in the north and Daykundi in the south – have already expressed interest in signing up for the reintegration program. To join, insurgents must renounce violence, respect the Afghan constitution and severe ties with al Qaeda or other terrorist networks.
>
> The characteristics of these insurgents, who have allegedly agreed to lay down their arms, indicate they are anti-Pakistan, anti-US and NATO troops occupying Afghanistan, but not anti-Iran and not pro-Saudi-backed Wahabi movement. This became evident from the fact that Stanekzai, a former member of the Karzai Cabinet, who said last February that some factions within Pakistani military and its powerful intelligence service have yet to offer any substantial help to reintegrate fighters from the movement it has been accused of harboring and funding for 15 years.
>
> Challenging the British-Saudi nexus
>
> Karzai had long been battling the British design in Afghanistan. Back in 2007, some of Karzai’s closest advisers had accused Britain of conspiring with Pakistan to hand over southern Afghanistan. The deputy head of mission at the British embassy was in such a heated argument with the president that it was feared he would be expelled. Karzai’s chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, was forced to resign after his attempts to defend Britain led to accusations that he was a British spy. The row centered on the continued violence in Helmand province, where British troops were based, and London’s refusal to acknowledge publicly Pakistan’s role in supporting the Taliban. Karzai accused Britain of “compromising” with Islamabad because of its need for cooperation from Pakistan’s security services to infiltrate terrorist groups involving British Muslims.
>
> “I understand that Britain has a long friendship with Pakistan and that its relationship with Pakistan is different from that of other countries because of its domestic concerns,” Karzai told The Sunday Times on Feb 11, 2007. It’s from this part of the world [Pakistan] that training takes place, and inspiration and motivation. So for British security, simply foiling incidents in London is not the only way,” he added. “The important thing is to find the source of it. Otherwise you’ll continue to suffer as you have with the London bombs. By ignoring what is happening in Pakistan, you can never defeat terrorism.” At the time, U.S officials confirmed that Pakistan had moved border posts at least a mile into Afghan territory.
>
> There were further differences when Karzai began criticizing NATO bombing, saying mistakes were being made and too many lives taken. Whitehall was then outraged in December, 2006 when Karzai sacked the British-backed governor of Helmand, Engineer Mohammad Daoud.
>
> Stanekzai said: "Pakistan's civilian government now has a very good relationship with the Afghan government, but there are differences between their military set up and their elected government, so that is a different story." He said he hoped the recent offensive in Pakistan’s tribal areas heralded a realization in Pakistan that extremism threatened Islamabad as well. Without naming the British-Saudi nexus as sponsors, he claimed the Taliban leadership was totally controlled by its sponsors. "The leadership, the Quetta Shura, they are under the influence of regional state and non-state actors," he said. "They are acting in the way they are told by their supporters."
>
> This reintegration action of Karzai drew sharp rebuke from London. Mark Sedwill, NATO's senior civilian representative in Afghanistan, and former Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Robin Cook and Jack Straw) 2000-02 in the run up to and preparations for the 2003 Iraq conflict, says it's imperative that everyone agrees on the issue. "We know there are concerns and reservations among various ethnic groups and other communities in Afghanistan about the reconciliation program. They're concerned to ensure that all of the gains of the past eight years are cemented and not put at risk by any kind of process of reconciliation," Sedwill says.
>
> British Army Maj. Gen. Richard Barrons, who heads up NATO's reintegration program, says the Western alliance is sometimes blindsided by the actions of the Afghan government. "Well, this is Afghanistan. It would be hard to say we were genuinely surprised because we see that it's a very complex place. What I think we're clear about is that people aren't setting about to deceive us, but actually everyone is feeling their way in this process," Barrons says.
>
> What is evident is that the British empire-servers, who would like the British-Saudi nexus-backed Taliban to take control of Afghanistan in the post US-NATO occupation period, find Karzai’s action is undoing of their plans. In Washington, those who unwittingly, or wittingly endorse the British-Saudi nexus, are of the view that reconciliation process must not precede the planned UN-NATO-led Operation Hamkari to take control of Kandahar.
>
> Added to this difference, is President Karzai’s concern about civilian casualties that would occur during the Operation Hamkari (Dari for “togetherness”) in Kandahar. He strongly opposes killing of civilians, particularly in a province to which he belongs. During his recent visit to Washington he made this clear and he has also succeeded in getting unqualified support from both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama.
>
> At the joint press conference in Washington that followed two heads of states’ meeting, President Obama said their talk had been an opportunity to "review the progress of our shared strategy and objectives" and said the two leaders had discussed one of Karzai's top concerns — the level of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, which is seen as a major impediment to persuading the Afghan people to reject the Taliban and side with the government. "We've taken extraordinary measures to avoid civilian casualties. And I reiterated in my meeting with President Karzai that the United States will continue to work with our Afghan and international partners to do everything in our power to avoid actions that harm the Afghan people," Obama said.
>
> Karzai’s Kandahar Card
>
> During the ongoing preparation for Operation Hamkari, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the current Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), has come to realize that among the non-Taliban Pushtuns in the Kandahar city and Kandahar province, President Karzai and his half-brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, wield an absolute power.
>
> On the other hand, Tooryalai Wesa, the soft-spoken former Canadian academic who became provincial governor with the help of foreign allies’ intervention, is widely considered by the Pushtuns of Kandahar as ineffectual, and his power is eclipsed by the influential half-brother of President Karzai. Coalition officials have given Wesa additional staff and discretionary power over aid projects in an effort to change that balance of power, but the strategy has not helped Wesa.
>
> A recent report by the Institute of War, Politics and power in Kandahar, penned by Carl Forsberg in April 2010 says “the Karzai family is the key to politics in Kandahar. Of the actors contesting the vacuum left by the fall of the Taliban, the Karzai family has, along with the Quetta Shura Taliban, emerged as the most serious contender. In the course of eight years, President Hamid Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has, with the support of family members, built a political and commercial empire in Kandahar. By the end of 2009, all significant institutions desiring influence within the framework of the post-2001 Afghan government were dependent upon his blessing.”
>
> The Karzai family’s rise to power was facilitated by the U.S. but it also owes much to the Karzai family’s mastery of political tactics and intrigue. In more recent years, the Karzai family has benefited from using the institutions of the Afghan state to its advantage, and in doing so, has formed important synergies linking politics in Kandahar and Kabul, the report said.
>
> With such power in their hands in Kandahar, the Karzais have made clear to the U.S. and NATO that the tribal elders in Kandahar strongly oppose military operation within Kandahar City. Such an operation, the elders believe, will lead to large-scale loss of Pushtun lives, most of whom would be civilians with little or no association, with the targeted Taliban. If the bloodshed in Baghdad during the U.S. occupation is any indicator, there is an absolute certainty that the elders are right.
>
> The Churchillian General
>
> The other likely reason why President Obama was most cordial to President Karzai during the latter’s visit to Washington is the utter failure of the much-drummed up military campaign, Operation Moshtarak, of General McChrystal to take control of the Taliban and opium-infested town of Marjah. That military campaign began almost three months ago and the recent reports indicate that the US and NATO troops, after their initial success in flushing out the Taliban from that town, has not succeeded in achieving anything of significance. In fact, reports indicate that the Taliban are coming back and the foreign troops are now living within a virtual stockade, achieving nothing.
>
> Operation Moshtarak was drummed up by the mainstream media in the United States, under virtual orders from Gen. McChrystal, as the beginning of taking control of the vast southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban roam free. It was the beginning of the so-called COIN (counterinsurgency operation) which would “liberate” some towns of Helmand and Kandahar provinces by clearing, holding, building and transferring power to a clean government set up by the authorities. The objective was to create a Taliban-free corridor of security in southern Afghanistan. The last such post will be Kandahar.
>
> However, all those claims have turned out to be mere optimism, at best, or propaganda, at the worst. As Jim White pointed out in his May 11 article, McChrystal’s Box Was Empty: Blame Game Begins, General Stanley McChrystal’s now infamous "We’ve got a government in a box, ready to roll in" claim at the beginning of the Marjah offensive has now proven to be false. Competing narratives seem to be emerging on whether McChrystal is to blame for making an overly optimistic claim or the Afghan government is to blame for being unable to live up to its obligations under the plan. A senior U.S. military official conceded to White that this phrase, “government in a box”, “created an expectation of rapidity and efficiency that doesn’t exist now."
>
> Three months since Operation Moshtarak was launched, one hears a much subdued voice from the COIN operators. The official Pentagon line, after a White House review on May 10, is that there’s "slow but steady progress" in Afghanistan. But the senior U.S. military official cautions that 90 days after the offensive, "Marjah is a mixed bag," with parts of the area still controlled by the Taliban and Afghan government performance spotty. A top State Department official agrees: "Transfer is not happening" in Marjah.
>
> Gen. McChrystal is an avid fan of Winston Churchill, the colonial British premier. McChrystal is said to listen to the writings of Churchill on his iPod during his daily eight-mile jog. A recent visitor to NATO headquarters in Kabul found the American general immersed in Churchill’s first book, his account of the struggle to pacify the tribes of the North West Frontier at the end of the 19th century. General perhaps has realized by now that no matter how the history of that campaign was depicted by Churchill, the British troops were routed. It is apparently not worthwhile to read up the revisionist version of that humiliating defeat.
>
> Perhaps because of that, or his inability to achieve most of what he intended to achieve through Operation Moshtarak, he is now seemingly ready to set aside his most ambitious counterinsurgency aim: the creation of a large zone of control covering both provinces. In late January, an official working for McChrystal at the International Security assistance Forces (ISAF—an amalgamation of US and NATO troops) told International Press Services (IPS), "The first thing you’ll see is an effort to establish a contiguous security zone in Helmand and Kandahar accounting for 85 percent of the economic resources.”
>
> Now, Washington realizes that Gen. McChrystal had oversold the bill of goods to President Obama and without the cooperation of the Karzais in Kandahar, and President Karzai’s reconciliation move with the Taliban of his choice, to bring back some troops before the 2012 presidential election to help President Obama’s re-election efforts may turn out to be a non-starter.
>
>
>

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Was Operation Moshtarak a false flag — Is it meant for Iran by Ramtanu Maitra

pavocavalry — Wed, 12 May 2010 10:54:00 +0000

> Was Operation Moshtarak a false flag? Is it meant for Iran?
> By Ramtanu Maitra
> Less than three months ago, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFOR-A), unleashed amidst loud drumbeats the Operation Moshtarak. It was identified as the biggest battle of the eight-year war in the town of Marja situated in the Nad Ali district of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. Highly impressionable foreign media persons said out loud that its outcome will reveal the chances of "success" for President Obama's revamped Afghan strategy. Three months since, little is heard of Operation Moshtarak. From time to time reports from that corner of the world assure the Westerners that the ISAF troops were doing fine in Marja, but the area has not been fully secured. Some progress is visible, but the process in achieving it was tougher and slower, it is said.
>
> However, what cannot be denied is that the ISAF is moving in thousands of very well-equipped military to Kandahar province – a hop, skip and jump away from northern Iran. It has set up a number of forward operational bases to accommodate a surge of troops close to Iran borders. It was known at the outset that the troops will not go after the massive opium production that is now harvested in the area, but what was not known is that the troops may not fully engage the insurgents, who dominate the area.
>
> Meanwhile, war of words between Iran and the West, and Israel, of course, has sharpened since. And, talks among some in the corridors of power in the West is that all instruments, barring an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, to squeeze Tehran to give up its uranium enrichment program is close to getting exhausted, has become more audible now than before. In other words, why U.S. and NATO are amassing troops near a sensitive border remains a moot question. If indeed Operation Moshtarak was a false flag, it is likely that thousands of ISAF troops getting assembled under that false flag will stand-by waiting to participate when the war against Iran is launched.
>
> It is evident that the West is now in the process of putting the ducks in a row to impose a crippling sanction with the intent to bring Iran to its knees. That very well could be the last stop before the process to invade Iran to end its uranium enrichment program, and to expedite the regime-change process at Tehran, may get launched. Since Gen. McChrystal will not brief the media persons, who lapped up what he said about the objectives of Operation Moshtarak like hungry cats lap up spilled milk from the floor, about the original Plan A, it is for all of us to note the ISAF's gradual fizzling out of the Operation Moshtarak and the gathering of a new storm (since Gen. McChrystal is an avid fan of Winston Churchill, it is appropriate to use the phrase the colonial empire-builder used) north of Iran.
>
> Operation Moshtarak was launched with the objective of taking control of major towns of southern Afghanistan by driving the "Taliban" out and installing "good governments", who will work hand-in-glove with the ISAF to "win the hearts and minds" of the ethnic majority group of Afghanistan, the Pushtuns of Helmand and Kandahar province. At the time, media persons pointed out that Operation Moshtarak will be the first big show of force since President Obama ordered 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan last December. NATO and ISAF forces were under pressure to achieve decisive military gains this year to turn the tide in the war, before troops begin to withdraw next year.
>
> It was said that the assault on Marja, a densely populated warren of desert canals, will demonstrate NATO commander Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy, which emphasizes seizing control of population centers. The town's role as an infiltration route for fighters coming from Pakistan and centre of opium production, which provides much of the tax revenue that has fueled the insurgency, makes it particularly significant. It was also pointed out that the pacification of the area is seen as critical for reversing Taliban gains in and around Kandahar, the country's second largest city.
>
> Kandahar operation remains undecided
>
> While the western audience lapped up the stated objectives behind launching of Operation Moshtarak, Asma Nemati, a researcher working at the American University of Afghanistan, in her Kabul dispatch in the Foreign Policy magazine online on Feb 22, reported some Afghans she had spoken with were wondering why Operation Moshtarak has been talked about so much — and those were the ones who have heard of the offensive at all. Some Afghans in Kabul, where she was based at the time, were clueless about what was going on in a province 400 miles from where they live. Some Afghans, like other observers, were also wondering what the strategic importance of Marja is to Afghanistan overall, and criticized the operations. Nemati reported. Some believed the hype around Operation Moshtarak is all part of an elaborate American publicity stunt to bolster support for the Obama administration's 30,000-troop surge, announced in late December, she noted.
>
> Meanwhile, a new report, Operation Moshtarak: Lessons Learned, released in May by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), an international policy think-tank with offices in London, Brussels and Rio de Janeiro, said 61% of Afghans interviewed feel more negative about NATO forces after Operation Moshtarak than they did before the February military offensive in Marja. Of those interviewed, 95% believe more young Afghans have joined the Taliban in the last year. 78% of the respondents were often or always angry, and 45% of those stated they were angry at the NATO occupation, civilian casualties and night raids. This report reviewed the local perceptions of the operation from more than 400 Afghan men from Marja, Lashkar Gah and Kandahar, interviewed by the ICOS in March 2010.
>
> 97% of Afghans interviewed said the operation had led to new flows of internally displaced people. Thousands of displaced Afghans were forced to move to overcrowded refugee camps with insufficient food, medical supplies or shelter. Aid agencies were overwhelmed and under-resourced. In addition, 68% of Afghans questioned by ICOS believe that the Taliban will return to Marja.
>
> In a recent (April 15) article, McChrystal Backtracks on Troop Veto for Kandahar Shuras, Gareth Porter of IPS reported the U.S. military has now officially backtracked from its earlier suggestion that it would seek the consent of local shuras, or consultative conferences with those elders, to carry out the coming military occupation of Kandahar city and nearby districts – contradicting a pledge by Afghan President Hamid Karzai not to carry out the operation without such consent. Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis, a spokesman for Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, told IPS that local tribal elders in Kandahar could "shape the conditions" under which the influx of foreign troops operate during the operation, but would not determine whether or where NATO troops would be deployed in and around the city. Asked whether the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is committed to getting local approval before
> introducing more troops into Kandahar and surrounding districts, the McChrystal spokesman said, "We're not talking about something as simple as a referendum."
>
> At a Mar. 29 briefing in Kabul on plans for the Kandahar operation, however, an unnamed senior U.S. military official told reporters that one of the elements of the strategy for gaining control over the Taliban stronghold is to "shura our way to success" – referring to the Islamic concept of consultative bodies. In those conferences with local tribal elders, the officials said, "The people have to ask for the operation… We're going to have to have a situation where they invite us in."
>
> In end-April, NATO commanders scrapped a helicopter assault by hundreds of US and Afghan troops. The decision to cancel the assault, designed to prepare the ground for the biggest offensive of the nearly nine-year-old war, has frustrated US officers on the ground, who say their local partners are not ready to lead. "It wasn't Afghan enough … approval was denied," a US Army officer with knowledge of the plans told Reuters. "The implication is that the Afghans are in the lead. The bottom line is we're nowhere near the stage where they can be in the lead."The assault in a rural part of Kandahar – due to take place in March and repeatedly postponed – would have been one of the biggest operations so far in the province, where US troops are massing to carry out a major offensive beginning in June.
>
> These actions or the lack of it, and statements clearly suggest how to go ahead with the large-scale military operation scheduled to begin in June is far from being resolved. It is clear that the support of the elders is hard to come by. Afghan President Karzai said NATO's Kandahar operation would not be carried out until the elders themselves were ready to support it, according to a number of press reports.
>
> In other words, a full-fledged military operation to take control of the city of Kandahar is getting increasingly off-tracked. President Karzai, who hails from Kandahar, is strongly opposed to the expected bloodbath that would follow such an operation. On May 3, speaking to reporters via video conference in Kabul from Kandahar, provincial governor Tooryalai Wesa, "I have to say it is not a military operation. No tanks, artillery, aircraft or bombings are discussed."
>
> "It is very much contrary to the operations we conducted in Marja," he said, referring to the military campaign by thousands of Afghan and foreign troops in villages in neighboring Helmand province earlier this year. "As we agreed, and as President (Hamid) Karzai said earlier, no operation will be conducted without the agreement of Kandahar's people," Wesa said.
>
> At the same time, all reports indicate that ISAF troops are massing in large numbers in Kandahar, the spiritual homeland of the Taliban, in what will be ostensibly the largest offensive of the nearly nine-year-old war. But then, it is not a military operation, as Governor Wesa says, one wonders why the troops are being massed in such large numbers.
>
> The massing of troops
>
> This August, when all 30,000 US troops promised by President Obama get stationed in Afghanistan, foreign troop numbers, not counting the more-than-100,000 private contractors many of whom are "unofficial" arms bearers, will reach 150,000. Reports indicate that in fact, Kandahar, which housed 9,000 coalition troops as recently as 2007, is expected to have a population of as many as 35,000 troops by the time President Obama's surge is complete.
>
> With the objective to induct such large number of foreign troops in the area, U.S. has also speeded up building bases to house them and secure them. In an article, Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan, by Nick Turse of Tomdispatch.com, on Feb.10, said, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns, Turse said. One such mega-base emerged recently in the desert land of Helmand Province. According to Captain Jeff Boroway from the 25th Naval Construction regiment, "This place was desert at the end of January. I mean nothing. And now you've got a 443-acre (179-hectare) secure facility," he told reporters. Boroway said engineering units were rushing
> to finish work on the camp to accommodate the deployment of thousands of additional troops, including most of an 8,000-strong brigade of US Marines.
>
> On the other hand, the Shinwar site, located in the eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan, will be a small forward operating base (FOB) that will host both Afghan troops and foreign forces. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield (KAF), which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors.
>
> In addition, Lance Cpl. Dwight Henderson, Regimental Combat Team 7, in a report, Marines establish new patrol base in Southern Afghanistan, on April 19, said Marines and sailors with Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, established a new patrol base in the area of Laki, Garmsir District, Helmand province, Afghanistan, March 30. A platoon from Weapons Co., known as Combined Anti Armor Team 1, moved into the large, concrete compound that was a former hospital, to more easily conduct patrols and operations in the more southern portion of their area of operations.
>
> To facilitate U.S. base construction projects Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) has launched the Maintenance, Repair and Operations Uzbekistan Virtual Storefront website. From a facility located in Termez, Uzbekistan, cement, concrete, fencing, roofing, rope, sand, steel, gutters, pipe, and other construction material manufactured in countries like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan can be rushed to nearby Afghanistan to accelerate base-building efforts. "Having the products closer to the fight will make it easier for war-fighters by reducing logistics response and delivery time," Chet Evanitsky, the DLA's construction and equipment supply chain division chief told the media.
>
> While most of these bases are small, and abandoned as the troops get yanked out to assemble at larger bases, Rowan Scarborough, in his article, U.S. Adds Eight Bases in Afghanistan, with the Human Events published on Jan 7, 2009, said the U.S. Army is building eight major operating bases in southern Afghanistan in an expansion that underscores a new, larger troop commitment to try to defeat the stubborn Taliban insurgency. The planned network of new bases shows the degree to which U.S. commanders will step up operations to hunt down bands of Taliban insurgents from multiple staging points as part of the Iraq-style troop surge.
>
> Scarborough said two defense sources told Human Events the company will build eight of the largest Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in Afghanistan in the Kandahar area and other southern Afghanistan locations. This area is the birthplace of the radical Taliban movement that seized control of the country in the 1990s and was ousted from power by the U.S. in 2001. "The earlier bases were meant to hold hundreds. These will house thousands," one source said. FOBs are typically comprised of prefabricated buildings for dining, barracks, headquarters, recreation and training.
>
> A long, enduring plan
>
> While Operation Moshtarak, which followed bombarding the western population with a propaganda campaign of the "Taliban" takeover of southern Afghanistan and their cooperation with the opium traffickers of Helmand province, is a recent event, the plan to set up permanent large bases in Afghanistan was set in place years before. On Mar 30, 2005, Asia Times article, U.S. scatters bases to control Eurasia, pointed out that Washington had decided to set up nine new bases in Afghanistan in the provinces of Helmand, Herat, Nimrouz, Balkh, Khost and Paktia. Provinces of Helmand, Herat and Nimrouz are close to Iran's northern borders.
>
> The article noted US Army spokesman Major Mark McCann saying the United States was building four military bases in Afghanistan that would only be used by the Afghan National Army. On that occasion, McCann stated, "We are building a base in Herat. It is true." At the time, the US had three large operational bases inside Afghanistan; the main logistical center for the US-led coalition in Afghanistan was Bagram Air Field north of Kabul – known by US military forces as BAF. Other key US-run logistical centers in Afghanistan include Kandahar Air Field, or KAF, in southern Afghanistan and Shindand Air Field in the western province of Herat. Shindand is about 100 kilometers from the border with Iran, a location that makes it controversial.
>
> The proximity of Shindand to Iran is cause for concern of Tehran, says Paul Beaver, an independent defense analyst based in London. Beaver pointed out that with US ships in the Persian Gulf and Shindand sitting next to Iran, Tehran has a reason to claim that Washington is in the process of encircling Iran.
>
> At the time, the top U.S. military officer, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers told reporters in Kabul the Department of Defense was studying the possibility of setting up permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan. He said: "At this point we are in discussions with the Afghan government in terms of our long-term relationship, remembering that for the moment, the coalition has work to do here, the United States has work to do here, and that is where our focus is right now."
>
> Retired Pakistani Lieutenant General Talat Masood, responding to Gen. Myers' statement pointed out then that while Pakistan will not be upset about this, but Iran, Afghanistan's neighbor to the west, would be upset. Iran sees the United States as one of its enemies, and President Bush has criticized it as being part of an "axis of evil." General Masood said a U.S. decision to keep bases in Afghanistan could be partly out of a desire to contain Iran and monitor its forces. He says the United States also wants to keep as many bases near the Middle East as possible to ensure stability in the region, which has vital petroleum reserves.
>
> That was in 2005 and things have much further forward in 2010. It is safe to say that with 35,000 foreign troops in southern Afghanistan, and more small and large military bases in place, the process to encircle Iran has advanced a few more notches.
>
>
>

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http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

Building a military to fight only the weak

pavocavalry — Tue, 11 May 2010 06:01:00 +0000

Building a military to fight only the weak

MACGREGOR Wash Times may 10 2010 Remember the Blitzkrieg before it's
too late Building a military to fight only the weak will cost us later

MACGREGOR: Remember the Blitzkrieg before it's too late

Building a military to fight only the weak will cost us later

By Col. Douglas Macgregor

May 10 2010

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/may/10/remember-the-blitzkrieg-before-its-too-late/

Seventy years ago today, on May 10, 1940, the German armed forces
launched the deep-penetration attack through southern Belgium to the
English Channel that split the French and British armies in two – a
form of warfare known to the world as Blitzkrieg or "lightning war."
Three weeks later, the campaign ended with the German subjugation of
France, Belgium and the Netherlands and Britain's ignominious
withdrawal from the European continent.

To contemporary Western military observers accustomed to the grinding
attrition battles of World War I, Germany's incredibly successful
Blitzkrieg seemed magical. But there was no magic. For any great
victory to occur, the winning side must get most things right while
the losing side gets most things wrong.

The Germans got most things right. They integrated new technology into
new organizations – radio communications, tanks, armored infantry and
air power – under vastly superior battlefield commanders, commanders
who led Germany's superbly educated, physically fit and trained
soldiers from the front, not the rear. But it's what the British and
French got wrong that should command America's attention.

In the 1920s, Britain's top generals focused the British army on
organizing, training and equipping its troops to police the declining
British Empire. British military leaders decided the only enemy
Britain would fight for at least 10 years would be a colonial enemy, a
hostile tribesman or insurgent. The long-term results of this thinking
were nearly fatal to Britain.

Soon after Poland's defeat, Sir Winston Churchill privately
acknowledged that Britain had nothing to match the Germans in land
warfare. Britain lacked modern war-fighting equipment and the officers
trained to use it. So, Churchill played for time, replacing colonels
and generals who excelled at suppressing Arab insurgents in Palestine
or Pashtun tribesmen in northwestern India but performed poorly
against the skilled German and Japanese armies. Unfortunately,
Churchill's efforts were too late to prevent a string of British
defeats stretching from Paris to Singapore.

In France, where defense spending rose to account for one-third of all
government expenditures by 1939, there was no shortage of modern
equipment, only a shortage of competent senior leadership in the
general-officer ranks. "Methodical battle," a concept of war-fighting
emphasizing set-piece battles and the application of preplanned
firepower over maneuver, was enshrined as the French national vision
of future war. Its strategic effect was devastating. When French
politicians asked why the French army could not attack Germany to
support France's Polish ally in 1939, the army's commander in chief,
Gen. Maurice Gamelin, insisted the French and British armies must
prepare for the "long war" with an offensive in 1941 or '42.

Today, stars will only fall on American Army and Marine officers who
religiously embrace counterinsurgency inside the Islamic world as the
future. The notion that the generals have "discovered" a military
solution to Islam's societal misery in the form of counterinsurgency
is untrue, but no one in the White House, the Senate or the House, let
alone the media, is willing to challenge it.

In truth, the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and a
thousand other places are complex problems rooted in local societal
and governmental failures, destructive social pathologies and
widespread resistance not only to foreign military intervention, but
to modernity in general. The historic lessons of Iraq, Algeria, Libya,
Palestine and Afghanistan have far more to do with avoiding the hazard
of occupation in the first place and, thus, eluding the problem of
insurgency altogether.

But armies are what they do, and, for the moment, the U.S. Army and
Marine Corps are light constabulary forces designed to police Muslim
Arabs and Afghans with AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and
mines. This conversion to light forces designed to operate from fixed
bases while depending heavily on timely and accurate air strikes for
effectiveness and survival has left American ground forces in a
weakened, vulnerable state.

For the United States, the critical military lesson of May 10, 1940,
means avoiding Britain's mistake of optimizing its forces to fight
weak insurgents, especially when Muslim rebellions against unwanted
American military occupations are easily avoided. It also means
understanding that future conflicts will involve wars among nations
and alliances of nations waged by powerful armed forces for regional
power and influence; fights for energy, water, food, mineral resources
(Added: Resource wars) and the wealth they create. Otherwise, the
generals' current obsession with counterinsurgency will leave the
American armed forces as unprepared for a real war in 10 years as the
British and French forces were for their confrontation with Germany in
1940.

Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor is a decorated combat veteran and
the author of four books. His newest book is "Warrior's Rage: The
Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting" (Naval Institute Press, 2009).

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

The Looming Mother of all Economic and Social Crisis

pavocavalry — Tue, 11 May 2010 05:49:00 +0000

The Looming Mother of all Economic and Social Crisis

by Gajendra Singh

"Keynes's collective work amounted to a powerful argument that
capitalism was by its very nature unstable and prone to collapse. Far
from trending toward some magical state of equilibrium, capitalism
would inevitably do the opposite. It would lurch over a cliff," Hyman
Minsky.

On 6 May, Thursday, 90 minutes before the end of the trading day, the
U.S. stock market almost melted down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average
dropped nearly 1,000 points. The market recovered before the end and
closed down 348 points, or 3.2%, like a giant 747 narrowly averting a
crash landing, but the questions of the day are: What happened? And
what does it mean?

Said Robert Reich on his blog on 6 May," at this point no one knows
why. Some say it was sudden burst of worries about Greece's debt and
the increasing possibility of a default that might cause a run by
global investors. Others point to a "trading error." Giant high-speed
computers generate millions of trade based on instructions embedded in
computer programs designed to move fast enough to beat everyone else."

Then again on Friday, 7th May 2010, Dow fell another 140 points in
wild trading day. The decline wiped out US market gains for the year.
The Dow closed down to 10,380!

World's capital markets ; an out-of-control computerized Casino!

"Regardless of why it happened, it's further evidence that the
nation's and the world's capital markets have become a vast
out-of-control casino in which fortunes can be made or lost in an
instant — which would be fine except for the fact that most of us have
put our life savings there. Pension funds, mutual funds, school
endowments — the value of all of this depends on a mechanism that can
lose a trillion dollars in minutes without anyone having a clear idea
why. So much of the market now depends on computer programs and
mathematical models that no one fully understands, so much trading is
in the hands of a few people whose fat thumbs or momentary
carelessness might sink the economy, so much of global wealth now
depends on who can move their money quickest at the slightest
provocation — that we are toying with financial disaster every day.
The luck or foolishness of a few traders, and inside knowledge and
information that some possess and others don't, combined with ultra
high-speed computers, put us all at the whim of a system whose risk is
way out of proportion to any public benefits ," concluded Reich.

Greek Sickness Infects EU -PIGS to Slaughter

The austerity plans and the bailout packet for Greece which have
adversely dented the ruling coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel's
party in the just concluded regional elections in Germany , because
Berlin has to foot the bill , would spread around Europe and beyond
.It believed that the debt of five EU members Portugal, Ireland,
Greece and Spain (PIGS) totals around $3.9 trillion . Britain's debt
is larger than any one of them.

In very strong condemnation well known US economist and political
activist Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. accused that " the British swine have
once again imposed a 1923-style hyperinflationary collapse on modern
Germany, with the trillions-dollar bailout scheme imposed on the Euro
zone this past weekend. Only the immediate enactment of a
Glass-Steagall law could prevent the United States itself from falling
into the same fate now destined for continental European victims such
as, above all other targets for total destruction, as the Federal
Republic of Germany.

Bank of England Chief King paints a disastrous future for the country

London's financially precarious position , which has been known for
quite some time ,was further unveiled by Edmund Conway, the Economics
Editor of the Telegraph, UK. Conway revealed that US economist David
Hale who recently met with Mervyn King , Bank of England boss was told
by the latter that, "whoever wins this election will be out of power
for a whole generation because of how tough the fiscal austerity will
have to be."

Edmund Conway went on to further expose the untenable crisis awaiting UK ,

"…no-one yet comprehends just how tough the next five years will be.
For obvious reasons: we have not experienced anything like it in our
lifetimes. We have been insulated from the full pain of the
financial/economic crisis so far by unprecedented low interest rates
and by the bank bail-outs. At some point, the anaesthetic will wear
off and we will face a period of austerity that may well make the
ruling party so unpopular that it effectively becomes unelectable for
decades. There will be strikes; there will be stagnation; there will
probably be a double dip of some variety. But this time the pain will
be unmistakably imposed by the politicians."

This analysis was further strengthened by former British minister,
Michael Portillo who said that the "financial crisis ravaging Britain
would take 20 years to resolve, but the next five years would be
critical!"

The Institute for Fiscal Studies had warned earlier that all three
parties were hiding from voters the full details of their plans to cut
the deficit. It said that the scale of cuts following the election
could be the deepest since comparable records began just after World
War II

"Instability is an inherent and inescapable flaw of capitalism. "

Hyman Minsky , a hitherto obscure macroeconomist ,who saw what was
coming , predicted, decades ago, almost exactly the kind of meltdown
that is hammering the global economy.

Minsky believed in capitalism, but he also believed it had almost a
genetic weakness. Modern finance, he argued, was far from the
stabilizing force that mainstream economics portrayed: rather, it was
a system that created the illusion of stability while simultaneously
creating the conditions for an inevitable and dramatic collapse.

Minsky's vision might have been dark, but he was not a fatalist; he
believed it was possible to craft policies that could blunt the
collateral damage caused by financial crises.

In his writings, Minsky looked to his intellectual hero, Keynes,
arguably the greatest economist of the 20th century. But where most
economists drew a single, simplistic lesson from Keynes – that
government could step in and micromanage the economy, smooth out the
business cycle, and keep things on an even keel – Minsky had no
interest in what he and a handful of other dissident economists came
to call "bastard Keynesianism."

Instead, Minsky drew his own, far darker, lessons from Keynes's
landmark writings, which dealt not only with the problem of
unemployment, but with money and banking. Although Keynes had never
stated this explicitly, Minsky argued that Keynes's collective work
amounted to a powerful argument that capitalism was by its very nature
unstable and prone to collapse. Far from trending toward some magical
state of equilibrium, capitalism would inevitably do the opposite. It
would lurch over a cliff.

Minsky's "Financial Instability Hypothesis."

In the wake of a depression, he noted, financial institutions are
extraordinarily conservative, as are businesses. With the borrowers
and the lenders who fuel the economy all steering clear of high-risk
deals, things go smoothly: loans are almost always paid on time,
businesses generally succeed, and everyone does well. That success,
however, inevitably encourages borrowers and lenders to take on more
risk in the reasonable hope of making more money. As Minsky observed,
"Success breeds a disregard of the possibility of failure."

As people forget that failure is a possibility, a "euphoric economy"
eventually develops, fueled by the rise of far riskier borrowers -
what he called speculative borrowers, those whose income would cover
interest payments but not the principal; and those he called "Ponzi
borrowers," those whose income could cover neither, and could only pay
their bills by borrowing still further. As these latter categories
grew, the overall economy would shift from a conservative but
profitable environment to a much more freewheeling system dominated by
players whose survival depended not on sound business plans, but on
borrowed money and freely available credit. Once that kind of economy
had developed, any panic could wreck the market. The failure of a
single firm, for example, or the revelation of a staggering fraud
could trigger fear and a sudden, economy-wide attempt to shed debt.

"Minsky Moment"

This watershed moment – later dubbed the "Minsky moment" – would
create an environment deeply inhospitable to all borrowers. The
speculators and Ponzi borrowers would collapse first, as they lost
access to the credit they needed to survive. Even the more stable
players might find themselves unable to pay their debt without selling
off assets; their forced sales would send asset prices spiraling
downward, and inevitably, the entire rickety financial edifice would
start to collapse. Businesses would falter, and the crisis would spill
over to the "real" economy that depended on the now-collapsing
financial system. ( Note .The write up on Minsky has been extracted
from " Why Capitalism Fails " by By Stephen Mihm in 'Boston Globe " of
14 September ,2009.)

"Humanity faces the most serious crisis in modern history."

In a book titled "The Global Economic Crisis, the Great Depression of
the XXI Century," edited by Prof Michel Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin
Marshall ( to be released by end May ) , over a dozen distinguished
economists and writers, Ellen Brown, Tom Burghardt, Michel
Chossudovsky, Richard C. Cook, Shamus Cooke, John Bellamy Foster,
Michael Hudson, Tanya Cariina Hsu, Fred Magdoff, Andrew Gavin
Marshall, James Petras, Peter Phillips, Peter Dale Scott, Bill Van
Auken, Claudia von Werlhof and Mike Whitney look under the glittering
facade of western Capitalism and reveal a complex web of deceit and
media distortion which serves to conceal the workings of the global
economic system and its devastating impact on people's lives.
Despite the diversity of viewpoints and perspectives presented within
this volume, all of the contributors ultimately come to the same
conclusion: humanity is at the crossroads of the most serious economic
and social crisis in modern history

The economic recession is deep-seated in all major regions of the
world, resulting in mass unemployment, the collapse of state social
programs and the impoverishment of millions of people. The crisis in
tandem with a worldwide process of militarization, a "war without
borders" led by Washington and its NATO allies is intimately related
to the restructuring of the global economy. The global financial
architecture sustains strategic and national security objectives of US
led West and their powerful business elites which control and
dominates the functions of civilian government.

This book explains how the Federal Reserve ( a private body ) , the
Council on Foreign Relations, the Bank for International Settlements,
and corporate boardrooms on Wall Street take far-reaching financial
transactions routinely from computer terminals linked up to major
stock markets, at the touch of a mouse button.

"The meltdown of financial markets in 2008-2009 was the result of
institutionalized fraud and financial manipulation. The "bank
bailouts" were implemented on the instructions of Wall Street, leading
to the largest transfer of money wealth in recorded history, while
simultaneously creating an insurmountable public debt."

This process of economic decline is cumulative. The payments system of
money transactions is in disarray. Payments of wages are no longer
implemented, credit is disrupted and capital investments are at a
standstill. Meanwhile, in Western countries, the "social safety net"
inherited from the welfare state, which protects the unemployed during
an economic downturn, is also in jeopardy.

The Myth of Economic Recovery

While the existence of a "Great Depression" on the scale of the 1930s,
is often acknowledged, but is veiled by false claims : "The economy is
on the road to recovery". [ US recovered from the 1930s depression by
the booming economic industrial production during and post WWII , when
it had a vibrant and expanding industrial economy with European powers
dependent on it – a process carried on after the War's end which
shifted the financial centre from the City, London to the Wall Street
]

The financial meltdown is not simply composed of the housing real
estate bubble – which has already burst but there are many more
bubbles, all of which dwarf the housing bubble burst of 2008.

About the so called economic recovery, already in early 2010, the
"recovery" of the U.S. economy was predicted and confirmed through a
carefully worded barrage of media disinformation. The social plight of
increased unemployment in US has been scrupulously camouflaged.
Economists view bankruptcy as a microeconomic phenomenon. The media
reports on bankruptcies, fail to provide an overall picture of what is
happening at the national and international levels. When all these
simultaneous plant closures in towns and cities across the land are
added together, a very different picture emerges: entire sectors of a
national economy are closing down.

Public opinion continues to be misled as to the causes and
consequences of the economic crisis, not to mention the policy
solutions. People are led to believe that the economy has a logic of
its own which depends on the free interplay of market forces, hiding
the role of powerful financial actors, who pull the strings in the
corporate boardrooms, and have willfully influenced the course of
economic events.

"The American Dream" morphs into a nightmare for the majority

The relentless and fraudulent appropriation of wealth is upheld as an
integral part of "the American dream", as a means to spreading the
benefits of economic growth. A myth becomes entrenched that "without
wealth at the top, there would be nothing to trickle down." This is
pure hogwash .

Media disinformation largely serves the interests of a handful of
global banks and institutional speculators which use their command
over financial and commodity markets to amass vast amounts of wealth.
The "bank bailouts", presented to the public as a requisite for
economic recovery, have facilitated and legitimized a further process
of appropriation of wealth. With inside information and foreknowledge,
major financial actors, using the instruments of speculative trade,
have the ability to fiddle and rig market movements to their
advantage, precipitate the collapse of a competitor and wreck havoc in
the economies of developing countries. These tools of manipulation
have become an integral part of the financial architecture; they are
embedded in the system.

The Failure of Mainstream Economics

The economics profession rarely addresses the actual "real world"
functioning of markets. Theoretical constructs centered on
mathematical models serve to represent an abstract, fictional world
far removed from reality. By failing to examine the interplay of
powerful economic actors in the "real life" economy, the processes of
market rigging, financial manipulation and fraud get overlooked. The
concentration and centralization of economic decision-making, the role
of the financial elites, the economic thinks tanks, the corporate
boardrooms: none of these issues are examined in the universities'
economics programs. The theoretical construct is dysfunctional; it
cannot be used to provide an understanding of the economic crisis.

Economic science has become an ideological construct to camouflage and
justify the New World Order. The powers of market manipulation which
serve to appropriate vast amounts of money wealth are rarely
addressed. And when they are acknowledged, they are considered to
belong to the realm of sociology or political science. This means that
the policy and institutional framework behind this global economic
system, which has been shaped in the course of the last thirty years,
is rarely analyzed by corporate hired economists.

Poverty and Social Inequality

The global political economy thus enriches the very few at the expense
of the vast majority. The crisis has contributed to widening social
inequalities both within and between countries. Under global
capitalism, mounting poverty is not the result of a scarcity or a lack
of human and material resources. The structures of social inequality
have, quite deliberately, been reinforced, leading not only to a
generalized process of impoverishment but also to the demise of the
middle and upper middle income groups.

Bankruptcies have hit several of the most vibrant sectors of the
consumer economy. The middle classes in the West have, for several
decades, been subjected to the erosion of their material wealth. It
exists in theory, built and sustained by household and other debts.
With the demise of the civilian economy, the development of America's
war economy, supported by a whopping near-trillion dollar defense
budget, has reached new heights. As stock markets tumble and the
recession unfolds, the advanced weapons industries, the military and
national security contractors and the up-and-coming mercenary
companies (among others) have experienced a thriving and booming
growth of their various activities.

War and the Economic Crisis

Wars lead to the impoverishment of people at home and around the
world. The provision of essential goods and services to meet basic
human needs has been replaced by a profit-driven "killing machine" in
support of America's "Global War on Terror". While the poor are made
to fight in Iraq and elsewhere , wars enrich the upper class, which
controls industry, the military, oil and banking. "Western nations,
particularly the United States, spend hundreds of billions of dollars
a year to murder innocent people in far-away impoverished nations,
while the people at home suffer the disparities of poverty, class,
gender and racial divides."

An outright "economic war" resulting in unemployment, poverty and
disease is carried out through the free market. In the last twenty
years of global "free market" economy have brought poverty and social
destitution in the lives of millions of people. Instead of tackling
the impending social catastrophe, Western governments, to serve the
interests of the economic elites, have installed a "Big Brother"
police state, with a mandate to confront and repress all forms of
opposition and social dissent. [George Orwell's 1984 is being created
in USA]

The economic and social crisis has by no means reached its climax and
entire countries, including Greece and Iceland, are at risk. One need
only look at the escalation of the Middle East Central Asian war and
the U.S.-NATO threats to China, Russia and Iran to witness how war and
the economy are intimately related.The Decline of the West and a
Depressing Scenerio
In blog Global Guerilla , John Robb writing on " THE DECLINE OF THE
WEST" states , the current sovereign debt crisis is another battle in
a war for dominance between "our" integrated, impersonal global
economic system and traditional nation-states. At issue is whether a
nation-state serves the interests of the governed or it serves the
interests of a global economic system.
The global economic system is winning . The 2008 financial crisis, the
first real battle of this war (as opposed to the early losses in
skirmishes in Russia, Argentina, the Balkans, etc) was a resounding
defeat for nation-states. The current crisis in the EU will almost
certainly end with the same results.
When this war ends, and it won't be long, the global economic and
financial system will be the victor. The nation-states of the West
will be join with those of the global south ,mere shells of states
that serve only to enforce the interests of the global economic
system. More market-states than nation-states, citizens incomes will
fall to developing world levels (made easy to due highly portable
productivity), and wealth will stratify. Regulatory protections will
be weak. Civil service pensions will be erased and corruption will
reign. The once dominant militaries of the West will be reduced to a
small fraction of their current size, and their focus will be on the
maintenance of internal control rather than on external threats. The
clear and unambiguous message to every citizen of the West will be he
is on his own .
It will fragment society and lead to perpetual stagnation/depression,
endemic violence/corruption, and squalor. New sources of order will
see the rise of the criminal entrepreneur, whether they be the
be-suited corporate gangster or the gang tattooed thug. For in the
world of hollow states (without a morality that limits behavior) and
limitless connectivity to the global economic system, these criminal
entrepreneurs quickly become dominant, violently coercing or
corrupting everyone in the path to their enrichment. [ in former
socialist states of east and central Europe local and migrant mafias
form an important segment of the new ruling elites ]
Recap
The author has kept a watch and written about the decline and fall of
US hegemony since 11 September , 2002 , when a declining US empire
appeared at its most dazzling power like the after noon sun past its
prime .
The decline of the American Century Sept 11, 2002 Atimes:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/DI11Ak06.html

The US Empire –Beginning of the End Game 24 Nov, 2006
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15729.htm

The Decline And Coming Fall Of US Hegemony March 30, 2008
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m42600&hd=&size=1&l=e

– An editorial titled ' Collapse of U.S. economy ' in Belleville
Intelligencer of 27 Feb, 2008 confirms, by now generally accepted ill
health of US economy. Harry Koza in the Globe and Mail recently quoted
Bernard Connelly, the global strategist at Banque AIG in London, that
the likelihood of a Great Depression is growing by the day. Martin
Wolf of U.K.'s Financial Times cited Dr. Nouriel Roubini of the New
York University's Stern School of Business, who outlines how the
losses of the American financial system will grow to more than $1
trillion, an amount equal to all the assets of all American banks.

The next domino to fall will be credit card defaults, and after
that… who knows? There are so many exotic funds out there, with
trillions of dollars in paper – or rather computer-screen money – all
carrying assorted acronyms, and all about to disintegrate into
nothingness. Over the next couple of years, scores of banks that have
thrived on these devices, based on quickly disappearing equities, will
fail.

The most frightening forecast so far comes from the Global Europe
Anticipation Bulletin (GEAB), "The end of the third quarter of 2008
(thus late September, a mere seven months from now) will be marked by
a new tipping point in the unfolding of the global systemic crisis.

"In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into -
get this – a collapse of the real economy, (the) final socio-economic
stage of the serial bursting of the housing and financial bubbles and
of the pursuance of the U.S. dollar fall. The collapse of U.S. real
economy means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery:
private and public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public
services closing down."

"We are not experiencing a "remake" of the 1929 crisis nor a
repetition of the 1970s oil crises or 1987 stock market crisis. What
we will have, instead, is truly a global momentous threat – a true
turning point affecting the entire planet and questioning the very
foundations of the international system upon which the world was
organized in the last decades."
Western Military-Capitalist Civilization in Disarray September 25, 2008
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m47513; http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0386.htm

"Credit easing does not and cannot substitute for earnings, wages or
tax revenues." Max Fraad Wolff

"The [US] financial system is out of control and has led the economy
into a wildly turbulent sea of heavily leveraged speculation. — the
road ahead is dark and unknown." Steve Fraser author of" Wall Street:
America's Dream Palace."

"Before the US economy can truly begin to expand again, the savings
rate must rise to pre-bubble levels of 8pc–$2 trillion of household
debt must be eliminated", Economist David Rosenberg

Corporate Culture and Greed Sink the American Republic 17 May, 2009
http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0442.htm

"Over-grown military establishments are under any form of government
inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly
hostile to republican liberty." –George Washington (1732-1799), First
US President.

"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our
country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an
artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an
incessant propaganda of fear." –General Douglas MacArthur, Speech,
May 15, 1951

"[The] conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large
arms industry is new in the American experience. . . . In the councils
of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power
exists and will persist." –Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US
President, Farewell Address, Jan. 17, 1961
Confirmation of Pressure on Dollar and US 8 October, 2009

http://www.boloji.com/analysis2/0493.html

And finally,

Falling Empires and their Currencies Rome, France, England and the USA
Part 2: From England to the United States of America Rolf Nef January 16, 2007
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2007/0116.html

K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to
Turkey and Azerbaijan from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that,
he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal. He is
currently chairman of the Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies. Copy
right with the author. http://tarafits.blogspot.com/

________________________________
Invest your money wisely post Budget Sign up now.

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21693873/Indo-Pak-Wars-1947-71-A-STRATEGIC-AND-OPERATIONAL-ANALYSIS-BY-A-H-AMIN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals

http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857

http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel

http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War

http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN

Fwd: "The bridge of indignities"

pavocavalry — Sun, 09 May 2010 17:41:00 +0000

ANALYSIS: The bridge of indignities —Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

Leaders, both good and bad, have a direct relationship to the level of social and political awakening in the populace. The public is always as good or bad as its leaders because politicians are role models

Law-flouting elite rulers are the norm in Pakistan and not an aberration. Their immense influence and power is unchallenged because the people are unable to challenge their violations and transgressions and even if someone does, they simply ignore it.

An example will illustrate the brazenness with which the authorities disregard people’s rights. Mr Naeem Sadiq is a public rights activist and environment consultant. He wrote to the Sindh Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seeking information under the ‘Freedom of Information Act’ on ‘ghost schools’ and the number and names of factories in Karachi that were and were not in full compliance with the National Environmental Quality Standards. Four months passed without reply, after which he approached the Sindh Ombudsman. Another three months passed before the departments were asked to appear and explain the withholding of information. He appeared twice before the Ombudsman in April but the summoned departments did not turn up. His query about ‘ghost schools’ still remains unanswered, while the EPA instead of giving the required information sent irrelevant information about Kotri. If the Mohtasib-e-Ala Sindh is treated thus, imagine what awaits commoners.

A brief recount of history may put things in proper perspective. During the long brutal British colonial rule, due to the obsequiousness of the elite, the people here were cowed into submission. To make matters worse, the new rulers after independence rode roughshod over their ‘subjects’, further demoralising them.

The new rulers were mainly Urdu-speaking migrants because of their domination of the Muslim League and bureaucracy, and from Punjab because of their overwhelming presence in the army. They set themselves the task of making all conform to the Pakistan ideology. Urdu as the national language, the Objectives Resolution and One Unit were imposed to deny the Bengalis, Baloch, Sindhis and Pashtuns their identity and to coerce them into accepting and adopting the new ideology and culture. However, these measures failed to erase the millenniums-old identities.

Chaudhry Ghulam Mohammad, a bureaucrat, though incapacitated by illness, became the Governor General on October 17, 1951, and ruled arbitrarily till October 6, 1955. The politicians submissively served him and his dissolution of the Constituent Assembly on October 24, 1954, was challenged only by Maulvi Tamizuddin.

Interestingly, the Muslim League politicians metamorphosed into the Republican Party after meeting the new Governor General, Iskandar Mirza. My paternal uncle Mir Rasool Baksh Talpur, who resigned the gubernatorial position under protest during Z A Bhutto’s rule, had aptly described them then as “nylon socks that would fit feet of any size and shape”.

Encouraged by the politicians and consequently people’s submissiveness, the military — instead of idly watching the bureaucracy reap benefits — stepped in. They realised that if the patwaris and thanedars could keep the people acquiescent, they could do it better. A decade of military rule, supported by the ever accommodating ‘nylon sock’ variety politicians, followed Ayub Khan’s October 1958 Martial Law.

Wherever political bullying failed; brute force was employed. There was defiance by the people and some leaders in Balochistan, Bangladesh, Sindh and Khyber. The defiance of Nawab Nauroz Khan and his companions was exemplary. The surrender of licensed arms was ordered to belittle Baloch leaders. Nawab Khair Baksh Marri complied, but after sawing the guns into umpteen pieces.

Fatima Jinnah’s 1964 elections galvanised an upsurge among the people and Ayub was eventually ousted in 1969. General Yahya’s policies, supported by conniving politicians, led to the unforgivable brutal crackdown on the Bengalis. Sadly, a majority of politicians and people under a false sense of patriotism abetted or remained silent spectators to the atrocities. The silence on Bangladesh atrocities was deafening and the worst example of submissiveness.

Bhutto ruled according to his whims, resulting in Zia and his disastrous 11 years. Then came the musical chairs era with Benazir and Nawaz Sharif alternating each other at the establishment’s will.

Musharraf’s 1999 coup was a natural corollary of the army’s belief that it is the panacea for all civilian-made messes. The ‘nylon socks’ again gelled into the ruling party. Disillusionment with this democratic dispensation’s cronyism, nepotism and quid pro quo politics under the guise of consensus, is rife.

People have continued to suffer since independence. The present inordinate and ever-increasing prices of essentials, utilities, petroleum products and the power crisis have put people in a stupor; mired in troubles, they do not even have the chance to think about the larger picture. Economic woes and physical insecurity combined with pusillanimous politicians and leaders make people extremely submissive.

A popular anecdote illustrates the curse of abject submissiveness and reminds us of the ignominy of acquiescing to injustices and indignities. I repeat it with due respect for those who resist injustices.

In a kingdom, the people had to cross a river daily for work. Hoping to increase revenue, the king built a bridge. Surprisingly, the revenue fell. On the Vizier’s counsel, he imposed a toll. He assumed protests would erupt but the people meekly paid up and thereafter whenever the revenue fell, the tariff was jacked up.

Planning to provoke protests, he stationed a person at each end to whack passersby with shoes. A few days later the entire populace converged on the palace. Hoping they would protest, he was shocked to hear them say that with only two people whacking them, this was a cause of inordinate delays and the people demanded that more people be deployed to quicken up the process. He concluded that people who cheerfully crossed ‘the bridge of indignities’ could be ruled capriciously.

Leaders, both good and bad, have a direct relationship to the level of social and political awakening in the populace. The public is always as good or bad as its leaders because politicians are role models; with leaders accepting indignities and insults for the sake of power, the people adopt these as laudable qualities. Leaders of Ho Chi Minh and Nelson Mandela’s calibre are able to make people wreak miracles. Sadly, there are no Mandelas here and the ‘nylon sock’ variety of politicians and leaders abound.

Mir Taqi Mir was prescient about these times when he said,

“Kis Tarah, Aah! Khaaq-e-Muzzlat Say Main Uthhoon

Uftadaa Tar Mujh Say Jo Mera Dastgeer Ho.”

The key for achieving rights and liberty is resistance to unjust actions and perseverance in adversity. Friedrich Nietzsche says, “It is not the strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men.” Nelson Mandela’s persistence defeated apartheid. We need hundreds of thousands of Mandelas here to bring about meaningful and durable changes. The people in authority will transform and submit to laws governing all when the people refuse to submissively follow the politicians across the ‘bridge of indignities’.

Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=201059\story_9-5-2010_pg3_4

–
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." –
Albert Einstein !!!

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