The AfPakIndo Theater

[skyhook77sfg]

The AfPakIndo Theater




Three neighboring but unneighborly nations are today inextrciably entwined in a historic struggle with root causes going back to distant tribal movements and religious collisions. Instead of viewing events through a lense that focuses on Afghanistan or Pakistan as country specialists tend, a larger perspective examines both and includes the elephant on this geopolitical stage...India.

Rather than a lengthy elaboration of historical forces so available in the regional literature by instant electronic delivery, our starting point will be expert evaluation of the current interplay of interests by a well informed player...a SITREP in the idiom of intelligenc professionals.

Michael Scheuer, former CIA Station Chief, head of CIA Bin Laden pursuit unit "Alec", informs us in these excerpts from his warning "COMING NUCLEAR FLASH POINT":




In their usual ahistorical manner, Washington and its NATO allies believed their 2001 occupation of the major Afghan cities signified not only the complete defeat of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but also an erasure of two millennia of Afghan history and religion that afforded an opportunity to start the country anew. In this context, they looked for other countries to share the enormous cost of nation-building, and India stepped up to the task without having to be asked twice.

And what has India been up to? Mostly infrastructure projects, such as a 250-kilometre highway from Zaranj near the Iran-Afghanistan border to the town of Delaram on the road that connects Kabul, Kandahar and Herat. Indian firms and Indian-government funding are also rebuilding the Salma Dam power project in Herat Province; building the new Afghan parliament house in Kabul; and constructing a power line that will use 600 transmission towers to bring electricity from Uzbekistan, over the Hindu Kush, to Pol-i-Khumri, and thence to Kabul. These and other projects now employ up to 4000 Indian nationals in Afghanistan. In addition, Indian firms are investing in Afghan agriculture and mining, and New Delhi is providing student scholarships, medical aid programs and training for Afghan police and civil servants.
Clearly, Afghanistan’s battered infrastructure needs this help and much more. Like all foreign aid, however, India’s aid has come with accompaniments the Hamid Karzai regime fully accepts, but which tend to drive Pakistan’s government-and especially its general officers-to distraction and deep strategic worry. New Delhi, for example, has built one of its biggest embassies in the world in Kabul, and with it has built four consulates-some media reports say as many as seven-two of which, in Jalalabad and Kandahar, face Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

In their one-sided confrontation with India’s overwhelming military power, Pakistan’s political leaders and generals have long prized Afghan territory as an area where Pakistani forces can retreat and regroup if India invades from the east. This idea has long been ridiculed by Western strategists, but it’s a central tenet of Pakistan’s strategic doctrine. And now, in less than a decade, this area of limitless strategic depth has been transformed into a second military frontier with India, one that puts Pakistan in a strategic vice with Indian forces on each side.

The seriousness with which Islamabad views this issue is seen in the fact that, per the media, up to 30 percent of Pakistan’s ground forces are now stationed on the country’s western border. This redeployment degrades the country’s strength on its border with India and has been made to fight what Islamabad believes are rebellious, India-supported militants in its tribal agencies and Balochistan Province.


Pakistan’s military considers India’s embassy and consulates as intelligence centres that are running covert operations into Pakistan’s Pashtun agencies and-with the help of Indian army engineers and border police-are training, arming, funding and picking targets for Balochistan’s tribal insurgents in their low-level war against Islamabad. It’s likely that Islamabad is even now responding to its perception of India’s intervention by stepping up the tempo of the Kashmir insurgency.

Pakistani generals also worry that India’s growing and deliberately flamboyant military ties with Israel-that the Pakistani media call the ‘Indo-Israeli nexus’-means the two countries are working together to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear capability, and will use Afghanistan as a base from which to do so. ‘We have strong evidence,’ a Pakistani foreign ministry official said in March, 2010, 'that India is using Afghanistan against Pakistan’s interests and do destabilize Pakistan.’ Now none of this need be true, of course. But it clearly is how the Pakistanis perceive the intent of India’s presence in Afghanistan. And perception is always reality.

Pakistan’s perception has been encouraged-perhaps unwisely-by Indian officials and pundits. Granting that there’s Good Samaritan-ism in India’s activities in Afghanistan, New Delhi is far from blind to the strategic advantages accruing from its Afghan involvement. Indeed, the advantages are continuously outlined in the Indian media. The Zaranj-Delaram road mentioned above, for example, has been identified as a means to hurt Pakistan’s economy by giving Afghan exports access to the sea through Iran without transiting Pakistani territory and ports.

Indian officials also have talked of their intention to use Afghanistan as a springboard for exploiting economic opportunities and accessing energy resources in Central Asia. Military-oriented Indian publications like the Indian Defense Review, moreover, haven’t been shy about crowing over how the growing Indian presence in Afghanistan is making the Pakistan Army more ‘worried with each passing day that its so-called strategic depth is becoming shallower by the minute.’All this sets the stage for tragedy, even though Western and Indian commentators are trumpeting India’s performance in Afghanistan as the triumph of ‘soft power’ over military operations. This is nonsense. The success of India’s soft power has depended utterly on the presence of 100,000-plus US-NATO bayonets, and even those haven’t been enough to stop lethal attacks on Indian military personnel, construction crews and New Delhi’s embassy in Kabul.

A good deal of the Indian media portrays India’s activities in Afghanistan as successfully winning Afghan hearts and minds and building a long-term welcome for India. This is unlikely. If the Afghans have little materially, they do possess a prodigious historical memory and recall that India fully backed the murderous Soviet occupation (1979-1989) and then the Afghan communist regime until it fell in April 1992. This knowledge will be especially fresh among all mujahedin who fought the Soviets-and believed Indian pilots flew combat missions against them-but most intense among the Taliban-led Afghan Pashtuns whose war against Ahmed Shah Masood and his Northern Alliance was prolonged and made more costly by generous Indian aid to Masood. The idea that India’s money-backed soft power is enough to negate such recollections and the vengefulness they fuel could only be believed by those trained at Harvard.

The real rub, of course, will come when NATO withdraws in defeat and leaves India high and dry in a country that dislikes foreigners, and especially non-Muslim polytheists like the Indians.

entire article at:

http://www.asiadespatch.com/2010/11/com ... ash-point/

[skyhook77sfg]

Davis issue could spark Egypt-style revolution in Pakistan
Feb 22, 2011, 05.45pm IST


Tags:Taliban|Raymond Davis|Imran Khan|CIA



The case of American official Raymond Davis, arrested for double murder in Lahore last month, could spark an Egypt-style revolution in Pakistan, cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has said.

Contradicting reports have emerged regarding Davis, some claiming that he had "close links" with Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan while others said the US official "was part of a covert, CIA-led team of operatives conducting surveillance on militant groups deep inside the country."

"This is not an ordinary situation," Khan told the Time. "If he (Davis) is returned to the US under diplomatic immunity, it might trigger the revolution off."

37-year-old Davis, arrested in Lahore on January 27 for killing two men he claimed were trying to rob him, is currently in jail in Pakistan.

The US had demanded the release of Davis contending that he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and that he enjoys diplomatic immunity.

However, Khan suggested that Pakistan was ripe for an uprising. "I think Pakistan is completely ready for it," he said, adding, "In fact, it's even more ready than Egypt was."

Following the overthrow of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, large-scale protests have erupted in several countries in the region including Bahrain, Yemen and Libya.

Observers have wondered how far the call for change will spread in the Muslim world.

The media report pointed out that, unlike Egypt, Pakistan has had three years of civilian democracy, a lively media, and other political freedoms that allow its citizens to dissent. But Khan asserted that youth in Pakistan suffer many of the same problems as their counterparts in Egypt.

"Never in our history have we had such levels of corruption and such bad governance," Khan claimed, slamming the economic and political situation in the country as well.

"You can see the whole thing already bubbling under surface," he added.



SAYS TIMES OF INDIA....

schadenfreude?

or bloody well done?

[skyhook77sfg]

REMEMBER MULLAH OMAR?

The other one who got away'''




PESHAWAR: Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud appeared in a video issued by militants on Saturday to claim responsibility for killing a former ISI official, kidnapped in the Waziristan tribal region last year.

Militant spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan, in a message sent to a news agency, accepted responsibility for the killing of Colonel Imam on behalf of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The militants also released a video that showed the killing and contained a message from Mehsud. Imam was widely respected by the Afghan Taliban for his role in the Afghan Jihad against Soviet forces during 1979-89 . He had described himself as the "teacher" of Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Muhammad Omar in several interviews.

mullah omar's mentor ISI colonel....

that clears that up...

and it takes the times of india to tell us

there are some serious rifts developing in the "resistance...

c'est bon.

tres bon

[monster_gardener]

[skyhook77sfg]

The following news is so terribly shocking that the prestigious Captain Louis Renault Award must be issued yet again this month.

Here goes: the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, was behind the 2008 terror assault on Mumbai. This shocking news comes up in the testimony of two Pakistanis who were detained by the US and are currently on trial for terrorist activities, including the scouting of the Mumbai terror assault.


From The Times of India

David Headley aka Daood Gilani and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, the two Pakistani expat foot soldiers who allegedly planned and conducted the Mumbai recce before the 26/11
terrorist carnage have implicated the Pakistani government and its intelligence agency ISI in the ghastly attack.

In court documents that have surfaced ahead of his upcoming trial in Chicago, Rana says his acts of providing material support to terrorists in the Mumbai attacks as
alleged by US prosecutors ''were done at the behest of the Pakistani government and the ISI, not the Lashkar terrorist organization.'' The documents also cite Rana
invoking his friend David Headley's Grand Jury testimony in which the latter too implicates ISI.



More from The Globe and Mail (which has the court documents) and The Press Trust of India


If there was any doubt about ISI involvement in Mumbai, it should have been erased after the chilling transcripts of the Pakistan-based Mumbai handlers speaking to the
terrorists were released in early 2009. One of the handlers was referred to as "Major General." And Zarar, one of the handlers, was a go-between for the ISI and
Lashkar-e-Taiba, which executed the Mumbai assault.

From The Long War Journal, January 2009:

Six Pakistani handlers monitored the news coverage from Mumbai and kept in constant touch with the terrorists holed up in Nariman House and the Taj Mahal and Trident
hotels during the three day siege. The handlers are identified as Zarar, Kafa, Wassi, Jundal, Buzurg, and "Major General."Zarar has been identified as Zarar Shah, the Lashkar-e-Taiba communications expert who set up the network that allowed the Mumbai terrorists to speak with Lashkar-e-Taiba commanders in Pakistan during the attack. He also served as a key liaison between the terror group and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. Zarar is currently in Pakistani custody and has admitted to his role in the Mumbai attacks.


http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-ma ... z1K1yEyZ2I

SEE WHY IT IS THE AFPAKINDO THEATER?

and the invisible mainspring driving the conflict is indian occupied kashmir...

just like in the middle east

but less coverage.

[skyhook77sfg]

The Chineese Connection





China has been deploying thousands of soldiers in the strategic Gilgit-Baltistan, a mountainous area in northern Pakistan, and a region historically contested by Pakistan, India and its inhabitants.

Although cooperation between Pakistan and China is not new -- it was China in the 1970s that supported Pakistan's attempts to acquire its nuclear capability -- the deployment of Chinese troops in Pakistan, however, indicates a worrying alliance for the US. The US would do well to monitor these developments before a catastrophic scenario, especially for its troops, takes place.

The presence of the Chinese People's Liberation Army [PLA] in the contested Gilgit-Baltistan region, where a nascent revolt against the Pakistani rule is taking place, constitutes the direct involvement of Beijing in the dispute over Kashmir, making any future understanding between Pakistan and India more difficult, and can only arouse a new and serious rift between New Delhi and Beijing.

According to Mumtaz Khan, director for the International Centre of Peace and Democracy in Toronto, many Western analysts who view China's stance merely as a bargaining chip against India will unfortunately soon realize that China is redefining its priorities and interests in South Asia and beyond. "The current involvement of China in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan administered Kashmir consists of more than just providing military and diplomatic support to Pakistan. Soon, Pakistan will swap its role to take the backseat as China exerts itself as a major player in the Kashmir issue" and maybe also in Afghani one.

The Gilgit-Baltistan region borders Afghanistan to the north; China to the northeast; the Pakistani administrated state of Azad, Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to the south, and the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir to the southeast. Recently, the New York Times reported that two major developments are taking place there: a rebellion against the Pakistani rule, and the influx of an estimated 7,000 to 11,000 soldiers of the PLA.

China's Grip on Pakistani Strategic Area

"China wants a grip on the strategic area to assure unfettered road and rail access to the Gulf through Pakistan," stated the NYT. Beijing intends to create a corridor from the Indian Ocean up to the Chinese province of Xinjiang. The first cornerstone of this grandiose project has been the construction of the Gwadar Port, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and outside the Strait of Hormuz. It is near the key shipping routes used by the mainline vessels that have connections to Africa, Asia and Europe, and it enjoys a high commercial and strategic significance.

The port was financed and built by China and inaugurated in 2007 by the former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. At present, it takes a Chinese tanker about 16 to 25 days to reach the Gulf. Once high-speed rail and road links through Gilgit-Baltistan are completed, however, China will be able to transport cargo to and from Xinjiang to Gwadar and to other Pakistani port facilities, within 48 hours.

PLA's soldiers in Gilgit-Baltistan are also expected to work on the infrastructure in the region. According to reports, China is planning the construction of roads and bridges; a high-speed rail system, and nearly two-dozen tunnels. As the whole area is closed to foreign observers, news can only be obtained through intelligence information, as well as satellite imagery that shows construction activities are underway throughout the region.

Many of the PLA soldiers are supposedly currently building the railroad. Others are extending the Karakoram Highway, which connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, and engaged in activities for constructing dams, expressways and other projects.

Their presence is also apparently meant to deter any possible disturbances from the local population, within which are simmering rebellious sentiments against the Pakistani rule.

China and Pakistan's Common Interest is India

The presence of Chinese soldiers on Pakistani soil is not an ordinary matter. If all Pakistani governments have always objected to the deployment of U.S. troops in the country, why is there such openness towards the Chinese army?

The alliance between the U.S. and Pakistan appears to be becoming less and less sound. The U.S.-led war against the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan is quickly deteriorating into a growing open conflict with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)., which represents the core of Pakistani military power and can also act independently from Pakistan's government. The agency is responsible for the creation of the mujahiddin movement in Afghanistan during the war against the USSR; and later, for the movements for the "liberation" of Kashmir, as well as the first attack on World Trade Center, and the attacks on hotels and a Jewish Habad Cenmter in Mumbai. . The main ISI's concern, however, is India's rule in Kashmir. This is why the ISI, in order to confront New Delhi, is providing help and shelter to Islamist groups ready to fight for the "Muslim" Kashmir.

China and Pakistan share many common interests: both have territorial disputes with India. China and India, whose populations, combined, make up slightly less than 40% of the world population. They are also both striving for strategic regional supremacy. By linking its western province to the Indian Ocean, China will not gain just a strategic stronghold and access to the Persian Gulf, but also could significantly influence the geopolitics and trade in the Indian Ocean Region, as well as in Central Asia.

A Possible War Between Pakistan/China and the US

The possible scenarios coming out of the present situation are also dangerous. A deterioration of the relations between the U.S. and Pakistan over the war in Afghanistan could lead to a direct confrontation -- in which event, the involvement of the giant China, as Pakistan's ally, might be inevitable. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reports that already a delegation of the Chinese Army visited the Pakistan-Afghan Border last October[5].

The same MEMRI's analysis also predicts that in a possible war between Pakistan/China on the one hand and the US on the other, Russia would be on the side of the West. Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, has said that Russia does not want the international troops to leave Afghanistan. Moscow, concerned about development in this region, has begun strengthening the Afghan police forces by supplying weapons and ammunition.

In the meantime, the relationship between Pakistan and Russia are marred by the Cold War legacy, and will take a long time to get normalized. MEMRI reports that the Urdu-language Pakistani daily Roznama Nawa-i-Waqt has warned that "another enemy of Pakistan" –. Russia – has been added to the list of the countries influencing Afghanistan; and that the presence of Russian troops in Afghan will reinforce anti-Pakistan forces in Afghanistan.

Conclusion

Before apocalyptic scenarios become a reality, it would help if Washington exerted exert maximum efforts -- and firmness -- to convince Pakistan not to continue on such a dangerous path. Two new war fronts seem rapidly to be opening: Afghanistan on one side, and Kashmir on the other.. The explosion of a possible war could involve both fronts, the Afghani and the Kashmiri, where the US ally, India, might pay a heavy price, finding itself between two enemies: Pakistan and China.



http://pakistanthinktank.org/

[Demon of Undoing]

Ah , fuck .

I think we need a bigger boat .

[cincinnatus]

[monster_gardener]

[Azrael]

Russia is a natural ally of the West in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan were to export terrorism, it would export terrorism to the soft underbelly of Russia through ex-Soviet states. We ought to encourage Russia to get more involved in Afghanistan, to counterbalance China and keep Pakistan in line. Russia appears to be getting involved little by little. They don't need an engraved invitation to see where their interests lie.

[Demon of Undoing]

I can just imagine the enthusiasm in Moscow for intervening in AFG.

" Hey , skyhook , ruck up. We're going back to Lang Vei ". ' Bout like that , I imagine. Doesn't mean it won't happen ( guess it already sorta is ).

What a stinking mess. It's almost like something is trying to turn 2012 into some sort of Apocalyptic disaster movie. Somebody should film that , give it a snappy title.

[AzariLoveIran]

[Azrael]

[skyhook77sfg]

AZARI

citing brief interludes in ancient history as basis for the future reminds me of La Raza calls for revival of a neo Aztec Aztlan in California, AZ, NM CO.

Return Turkish Asia Minor to Greeks and Trojans?

Magyar's return Hungary to Veneti Slavs?

Germans return Berlin/Brandenburg to Wends?

good luck in your Eretz Iran efforts...

[skyhook77sfg]

REGIONAL RESET POSSIBLE NOW....




The United States believes that Osama bin Laden`s killing has created a new opportunity for Pakistan to redefine

its relations with India and review its security preferences.

President Barack Obama and other US officials and lawmakers emphasised the need for a new political discourse with

Pakistan in a series of interviews to various television networks over the weekend.

In these interviews, they defined last week`s raid on Bin Laden`s compound in Abbottabad, which led to the Al

Qaeda`s leader`s death, also as an opportunity for Pakistan to recommit itself to the international community.

In doing so, President Obama also stressed that “the United States will not have to rely exclusively on Pakistan

to investigate Osama bin Laden`s support network inside the country” and has retrieved enough materials from Bin

Laden`s compound to make its own conclusions.

“The US has had Bin Laden`s compound under surveillance for months, checking the comings and goings. And there is

all that material that was confiscated from his lair during the raid,” he said.

Mr Obama also acknowledged that the differences between the United States and Pakistan were real and underlined

the need to work together more effectively to overcome those differences.

“There have been times where we`ve had disagreements. There have been times where we wanted to push harder, and

for various concerns, they might have hesitated,” he said.

“Those differences are real. And they`ll continue,” he said but also stressed that Osama bin Laden`s discovery in

a military town deep inside Pakistan provided an opportunity to remove those differences as well.

“I think that this will be an important moment in which Pakistan and the United States get together and say, `All

right, we`ve gotten Bin Laden, but we`ve got more work to do`.”

The US president noted that there were “ways for us to work more effectively together than we have in the past”

and such cooperation will be “important for our national security”.

Mr Obama did not explain the issues that divide the two countries, nor did he tell how he intended to deal with

those issues.

But Senator John Kerry, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and often conveys the Obama

administration`s messages to Pakistan, not only underlined those issues but also spelled out plans for dealing

with them.

But before doing so, like President Obama, Senator Kerry also conceded that “for a period of time our interests in

Pakistan have not converged”.

The Pakistanis, he said, had had “a different set of interests about India, a different set of interests about

what kind of Afghanistan they want to see”.

The Pakistanis, he added, have also been apprehensive about a 350,000-strong army being built up in Afghanistan.

“They have a different interest on nuclear weapons, for instance, and on nuclear policy,” he noted.

“All of that has to change. And all of that, I believe, can change,” he emphasised. “I`ve had some early

conversations with high level officials of Pakistan. And there`s an indication to me there is an enormous amount

of introspection going on and some very deep evaluating within Pakistan.” Senator Kerry said Pakistani officials

had told him that they were thinking of “a government inquiry outside of the military” to determine who was

responsible for keeping Bin Laden in Abbottabad.

“For the first time there is major criticism in Pakistani papers of the intelligence network and military in

Pakistan,” the senator said.

“So I see this as a time for us to be careful, to be thoughtful, to proceed deliberately but determinedly in order

to lay on the table the things that we know have to change,” the senator said.

“The relationship with the ISI, the double-dealing, the attitude, and frankly wastefulness of resources towards

India, the question of cooperation with respect to Afghanistan” were the issues over which Pakistan needed to

change its attitude, the senator said.

“I see opportunity in all of this to sort of punch a reset button and frankly serve our interests and theirs much

more effectively.”



JUST DO IT DAMMIT...

HIGH TIME


http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/10/us-expec ... ences.html

[AzariLoveIran]

[skyhook77sfg]

MONSTER

YOU ASKED

"
Don't like letting allies down but I am probably am too short sighted to to see a US interest in "Great Games" like this. Other than terrorist suppression I am pretty much uninterested in Afghanistan. Don't really care that much if the Chinese or the Indians rule that worthless to me country as long as no more attacks on the West and friends are launched from there............... Have some liking for the Indians but think the Chinese might actually do a better job of it... Like some aspects of China too.............

Tell me where I'm wrong."



Ideally, you're not.

But in a civilization that depends on energy to function, reliable access to energy supplies is a geopolitical and economic imperative to strategic planning.

Central Asia could replace the declining Middle East oil fields in our lifetime.

Pipeline routes that avoid Russian territory are prime real estate.

Look at a map and draw the line from Kazakstan/Turkmenistan to the nearest ocean port....

[skyhook77sfg]

[Demon of Undoing]

I said the same the night of the briefing. Somebody is pulling some plugs.

[Azrael]

[skyhook77sfg]

and what ocean is that ...

an easily closed gulf?

or a land locked sea?


the chineese know better.

thats why they built the biggest newest port in the world

Gwadar....Pakistan.

Next door to Afghanistan.

Next door to Central Asia.

And Balkh to Baku.

[AzariLoveIran]

[Azrael]

[anderson]

AfPakIndo? I realize you have to define the problem space somewhere, drawing some boundaries, but I think you need to move the boundaries back a bit.
RussIranAfPakIndoChina. Or you mean AfPakIndo as where things happen, with the other players as outside interests. Guess you'd have to throw in America/NATO as external interested players too.

[Tinker]