(The Intelligence Daily) -- A strange feeling of déjà vu arises while listening to the administration sell further U.S. military intervention in Pakistan (our Predator drones are already there).
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen claimed in late March that Pakistan's intelligence service has "close links with al Qaeda and the Taliban network." In fact, Mullen warned, the Pakistani intelligence service, ISI, is "offering logistical support to them (the Taliban)."
In early April, veteran foreign policy icon and special advisor to the president on Afghanistan and South Asia, Richard Holbrook, let us know what this meant. There is a fundamental difference between the Pakistan conflict and the Viet Nam war, he argued. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Holbrook went on to say this:
"And the people who are in this area who we are fighting either pose a direct threat, having committed 9/11, having done Mumbai, having killed (Benazir) Bhutto, and they have publicly said they are going to do more of the same. That is: al Qaeda of course and their allies the Taliban." Richard Holbrooke, May 5, 2009 (Repeating April 19, 2009 statement)
On May 9, General David Petraeus supported his superiors as he announced that Pakistan was now "the world headquarters for the al Qaeda senior leadership."
There is even talk in the U.S. media that Pakistan is at risk of becoming a failed state controlled by Muslim extremists. Using Holbrooke's logic, the U.S. would then be faced with a nation of 170 million Hell bent on more 911's, Mumbai massacres, and nuclear blackmail.
This threat accounts for the use of unmanned drone aircraft to bomb Taliban fighters. The Pakistan's government opposes the unauthorized drone attacks as destabilizing and counterproductive. This is a recent example of U.S. policy that results in majorities of Pakistani's opposing al Qaeda's terrorist goals but, at the same time, favoring the goal of "driving U.S. forces out of their country."
Pakistan has a different take on events.
Fundamentalists in the rural, mountainous regions have sought Muslim law (Sharia) for decades. The largely urban population of Pakistan and its central government oppose this. Armed conflict has ebbed and flowed over time. This issue and conflict is a distant second to Pakistan's overriding focus on its hostile relationship with India. Three major wars with India and an ongoing tension between the nations since Pakistan was formed on August 14, 1947 account for this.
Pakistani fundamentalists in the volatile northwestern provinces gained strength during the 1980's due to their utility in fighting the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton explained this to Congress on April 25, 2009, "Let's remember here… the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago… and we did it because we were locked in a struggle with the Soviet Union."
Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, worked with the United States to fund religious extremists from Pakistan and elsewhere that were willing to fight the Soviet Union's forces occupying Afghanistan. Billions of dollars were committed to this effort by the United States.
Respected journalist Ahmed Rashid noted that, "CIA chief William Casey committed CIA support to a long-standing ISI initiative to recruit radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan Mujahideen." A prime recruiting area was the sparsely populated, conservative Muslim population in Pakistan's border provinces.
That cooperative effort became old news after September 1, 2001.
http://www.inteldaily.com/news/173/ARTICLE/10646/2009-05-09.html
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