by B.RAMAN
China has gone all the way with Pakistan in the difficult situation being faced by Pakistan in the aftermath of the Abbottabad raid by some U.S. naval commandos on May 2, which led to the death of Osama bin Laden.
2. This became apparent during the just concluded (May 20,2011) four-day visit of Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani to China during which he met, among others, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. The visit had been fixed weeks before the Abbottabad raid to mark the high-profile observance of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, but as it took place a few days after the raid, Pakistan ’s much-doubted sincerity in fighting terrorism became the defining and dominating theme of the visit.
3. Even before Gilani’s departure for China , the Chinese authorities had made it clear in no uncertain terms on many occasions that they did not share the skepticism being expressed in the U.S. regarding the sincerity of Pakistan in the so-called war against terrorism. The Chinese also refrained from subscribing to the view that to have been able to live undetected for over five years at Abbottabad, OBL must have had some local support from official circles in Pakistan . They had no hesitation in endorsing the claims made by Pakistan that its security forces had made huge sacrifices in the war against terrorism.
4. These points were reiterated with even greater force by the Chinese during their interactions with Gilani after his arrival in China . It was apparent that the Chinese leaders have had no difficulty in accepting the claims of Pakistan that it was taken by surprise by OBL being found in Abbottabad. While refraining from any comments that could have been misinterpreted as criticism of the unilateral U.S. raid to kill OBL, the Chinese underlined their own preference for joint operations with Pakistan in dealing with the Uighur dissidents operating on both sides of Pakistan’s border with the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang. The Chinese also refrained from any remarks that could be interpreted as an attempt to capitalize on the post-Abbottabad anti-U.S. sentiments in Pakistan to drive a wedge between Pakistan and the U.S. Chinese analysts stressed the importance of continuing Pakistani counter-terrorism co-operation with the U.S. on the one side and with China on the other.
5. During his meeting with Gilani, Hu promised to increase cooperation with Pakistan on fighting terrorism and cross-border crimes in a bid to create a sound security environment for the economic and social development of both countries. Hu expressed his appreciation of Pakistan ’s contribution in the fight against terrorism, and said China would promote security dialogue and coordination with Pakistan. He said China would join Pakistan in the fight against drug trafficking, cross-border crimes and the "three evil forces"--terrorism, extremism and splittism.
6. Pakistani journalists who had accompanied Gilani have claimed that during his meeting with Gilani, Wen said that Pakistan had made great sacrifices in the global war against terrorism and urged the international community to understand and support Pakistan's efforts to maintain domestic stability and advance the economic and social development. They also quoted Wen as telling Gilani that "Pakistan's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected," and as disclosing that China had asked the U.S. to respect Pakistan ’s sovereignty, understand its problems, address its concerns and acknowledge the sacrifices rendered by it in the war against terror. China was reported to have made this point to the U.S. during a recent strategic dialogue between the two countries in Washington DC.
7. The strong Chinese support for Pakistan on the counter-terrorism issue was also underlined in the joint statement ussued by the two countries at the end of the visit on May 20. The statement inter alia said: “China believes that Pakistan ’s efforts for promoting peace and stability in South Asia need to be recognised and supported. The Chinese side recognised the tremendous efforts and great sacrifice that Pakistan has made in fighting terrorism and reiterated its respect and support for Pakistan ’s efforts to advance its counter-terrorism strategy and safeguard its security.”
8. In a commentary on the visit carried on May 18, the Party-controlled “People’s Daily” said: “Due to special causes in various aspects, such as historical and tribal influences, the 'three forces' headed by the 'East Turkistan Islamic Movement' have existed for a long time in the tribal areas at the Pakistani-Afghan border. However, China has always respected Pakistan 's sovereignty when combating the 'three forces' jointly with Pakistan and understands Pakistan's enormous sacrifices and significant contributions in the forefront of the international fight against terrorism. Pakistan has also always supported China 's sovereignty and territorial integrity in major issues related to the Taiwan region, Tibet Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.”
9. In a commentary published on May 20 in the Government-controlled “China Daily”, Han Hua, associate professor at Peking University's School of International Studies, said: “Instead of creating a gulf in relations, the death of bin Laden has offered a chance to Pakistan, the U.S. and China to work together to combat terrorism. After all, the three countries' anti-terrorism mission is still very much on.”
10. Thus, the following points relating to the Chinese position have come out loud and clear from the visit:
- China welcomes the death of OBL as a result of the U.S. raid.
- Despite the success of the raid which was organized unilaterally by the U.S., it stresses the importance of respecting Pakistan ’s sovereignty.
- Pakistan’s failure to detect the presence of OBL at Abbottabad does not detract from the sacrifices made by it in the war against terrorism. These sacrifices have to be recognized.
- China has no intention to capitalize on the U.S. misgivings about Pakistan to wean Pakistan away from the U.S.
- Continuing counter-terrorism co-operation between Pakistan and the U.S. would benefit the war against global terrorism which continues despite OBL’s death.
11. Though India has not figured in any of the statements and reports emanating from China on Gilani’s visit, reading between the lines one could infer that Pakistan ’s concerns over its ability to prevent any Indian air intrusions into Pakistan must have figured in the discussions. The reported Chinese agreement to expedite the supply of 50 JF-17 Thunder aircraft to the Pakistan Air Force during the next six months strengthens this inference.
12. The “Daily Times” of Lahore has commented on this as follows in its report: “According to official sources, these aircraft will be equipped with sophisticated avionics. Not only will the aircraft be handed over within weeks, China will also foot the bill initially. Although Pakistan and China have been jointly developing this multirole combat aircraft in the past, in the aftermath of the U.S. operation in Abbottabad, serious questions have been raised about Pakistan ’s defence capabilities. According to a strategic expert, the speedy delivery of 50 pieces of this aircraft, originally to be done over two years, is expected to allay apprehensions of not only the Pakistani public but will also send a message to the world that Pakistan ’s defence is not weak. It might be remembered that not only has the Indian military chief speculated on the possibility of a U.S.-style strike from the Indian side to take out jihadi outfits in Pakistan, there has been escalation on the Pakistan-India border near Sialkot recently. Also, observers believe that in a situation when the speculations are rife that Pakistan may not be able to resist another U.S. attack inside its territory if it so decides, this agreement will send a clear message to the world on which side China stands.” (22-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
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My comment: This analysis reflects an understanding (by the Chinese) that Pakistan is wont to play both sides; that Pakistan remains vulnerable to both China and the U.S.; that China’s strategic involvement in Pakistan is not driven by sentiment alone. As such, China’s involvement seeks to focus on practical goals; specifically, mitigating the threat of Islamic terrorism within its own sphere.
Furthermore, it employs the now failed Bush policy of encircling the perceived enemy (Iran) by establishing useful bases on either side of it (Iraq and Afghanistan); and now, figuring in China’s calculations: India (in the middle) with Pakistan and China surrounding it.
Showing posts with label death of OBL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death of OBL. Show all posts
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Category Error: Attacking Norway for Pearl Harbor
Bahukutumbi Raman, in a recent dispatch labeled “PAK ARMY & ISI: DANGEROUS MIX OF HUMILIATION & DESPERATION”, warns that Pakistan may be planning to redeem itself by orchestrating a successful strike against India, especially in the contentious Kashmir region.
No doubt, Pakistan’s citizens are seriously concerned about the ability of their government and armed forces to protect them. No doubt there has been talk on the streets of intelligence failure at best or illicit collusion with the Americans at worst.
Yet, all this follows a familiar pattern. Most military incursions into sovereign territory for any reason are done in stealth. The inevitable questions and accusations follow. Did Roosevelt know about Pearl Harbor in advance? Did Bush know about 9/11? And in her column in yesterday’s Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick accuses Ehud Barak, Israel’s Defense Minister of failing to anticipate trouble along the country’s Syrian border on Nakba Day.
The truth is, no government can promise ironclad security to its citizens. A successful strategy, however, must involve the threat of consequences for anyone intending such a move. If Pakistan were to attack India in the wake of its so-called ‘humiliation’, such redemption would be short lived. For one thing, India had nothing to do with the bin Laden raid.
President Bush underwent a hell of tortures for his decision to attack Iraq in the wake of 9/11. His opponents constantly labeled it as “the wrong war”. In the end, rightly or wrongly, it proved to be his undoing.
My own sense of Pakistan’s leadership is that it is too mature to attack India as a direct consequence of the U.S. bin Laden raid. It has far better options: Turning its focus away from Washington to cooperating more with China is one. If India is attacked, it will not be because of anything that happened in Abbottabad.
I wish I had a similar degree of confidence in America’s foreign policy.
Monday, May 16, 2011
View from India: ALL EYES ON GILANI’S VISIT TO CHINA
by B.RAMAN
All eyes in Pakistan are on the four-day visit to China from May 17, 2011, by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. The dates of the visit were finalized some weeks ago to enable him to participate in the year-long observance of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It has since acquired special significance in the eyes of Pakistani analysts as it is taking place at a time when Pakistan has come under severe criticism in the U.S. for failing to detect the presence of Osama bin Laden for over five years at Abbottabad, the cradle of the Pakistan Army, where the Pakistan Military Academy is located. OBL was killed by helicopter-borne U.S. naval commandos on May 2.
2.According to Chinese sources, the documents and computer records seized by the raiding party at OBL’s residence do not appear to have yielded any evidence so far to indicate that Osama was in touch with any of the Pakistani agencies. However, the examination of the records and computer documents is still on. In the meanwhile, the Pakistani political leadership, at the urging of the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has kept the focus more on the security failure which enabled the U.S. naval commandos to raid OBL’s place without being detected by the Pakistan Air Force and the Army than on the intelligence failure that enabled OBL to live at Abbottabad for over five years.
3. The anger over the clandestine U.S. raid has been widespread in Pakistan and has led to demands for a re-examination of Pakistan ’s relations with the U.S. and of the intelligence and counter-terrorism co-operation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. A resolution passed during an in camera session of the two Houses of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13 has also reportedly threatened to stop the flow of logistic supplies to the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port if the U.S. continued with the Drone (pilotless plane) strikes in the two Waziristans and carried out any more unilateral raids by its commandos in other parts of Pakistan.
4. According to reliable Pakistani sources, Gilani is expected to raise with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao two issues which were not originally on the agenda---namely, the possibility of an increase in Chinese economic assistance to enable Pakistan to resist the U.S. pressure and Chinese military assistance for the strengthening of the air defences near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Even though Pakistan Air Force officials have attributed the non-detection of the intrusion of the U.S. choppers to the USA ’s superior stealth technology, there is also a feeling that the air defences on the Afghan border were not as good as they are on the Indian border and hence there is a need to strengthen them.
5. In the present estranged atmosphere, the U.S. is unlikely to help Pakistan in this regard. The Pakistani sources say that Gilani is expected to request the Chinese for urgent assistance in this connection. Pakistani expectations of an enhanced Chinese role to enable Pakistan to reduce its dependence on the U.S. have put the Chinese in an embarrassing position. Though they would like to oblige Pakistan to the extent possible, they would not like to do anything which could come in the way of the fresh initiatives under way for improving China ’s military-military relationship with the U.S.
6. After a gap of seven years, Gen. Chen Bingde, the Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is on a week-long visit to the U.S. from May 15. The Chinese would not like any jarring note in the military-military relations with the U.S. during Gen. Chen’s visit due to any special gesture shown by them to Pakistan. The Chinese are also keen that the U.S. Drone strikes should continue since some of the strikes in the past were directed at the training camps of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in the Waziristans, which were also training Uighur jihadis from the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang province of China .
7. Since the May 2 Abbottabad raid, the Chinese have maintained a high level of oral support for Pakistan on the counter-terrorism issue, highlighting the sacrifices allegedly made by the Pakistani security forces in the fight against jihadi terrorism. At the same time, they have avoided any dramatic gestures of a concrete nature such as increasing significantly their economic assistance to Pakistan or giving additional military assistance.
8. While they may give some concrete assistance of a limited nature during Gilani’s visit, they are likely to advise Pakistan to cool it and not to let its relations with the U.S. and its counter-terrorism co-operation with the U.S. reach a breaking point. (16-5-11)
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(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
All eyes in Pakistan are on the four-day visit to China from May 17, 2011, by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. The dates of the visit were finalized some weeks ago to enable him to participate in the year-long observance of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It has since acquired special significance in the eyes of Pakistani analysts as it is taking place at a time when Pakistan has come under severe criticism in the U.S. for failing to detect the presence of Osama bin Laden for over five years at Abbottabad, the cradle of the Pakistan Army, where the Pakistan Military Academy is located. OBL was killed by helicopter-borne U.S. naval commandos on May 2.
2.According to Chinese sources, the documents and computer records seized by the raiding party at OBL’s residence do not appear to have yielded any evidence so far to indicate that Osama was in touch with any of the Pakistani agencies. However, the examination of the records and computer documents is still on. In the meanwhile, the Pakistani political leadership, at the urging of the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has kept the focus more on the security failure which enabled the U.S. naval commandos to raid OBL’s place without being detected by the Pakistan Air Force and the Army than on the intelligence failure that enabled OBL to live at Abbottabad for over five years.
3. The anger over the clandestine U.S. raid has been widespread in Pakistan and has led to demands for a re-examination of Pakistan ’s relations with the U.S. and of the intelligence and counter-terrorism co-operation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. A resolution passed during an in camera session of the two Houses of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13 has also reportedly threatened to stop the flow of logistic supplies to the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port if the U.S. continued with the Drone (pilotless plane) strikes in the two Waziristans and carried out any more unilateral raids by its commandos in other parts of Pakistan.
4. According to reliable Pakistani sources, Gilani is expected to raise with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao two issues which were not originally on the agenda---namely, the possibility of an increase in Chinese economic assistance to enable Pakistan to resist the U.S. pressure and Chinese military assistance for the strengthening of the air defences near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Even though Pakistan Air Force officials have attributed the non-detection of the intrusion of the U.S. choppers to the USA ’s superior stealth technology, there is also a feeling that the air defences on the Afghan border were not as good as they are on the Indian border and hence there is a need to strengthen them.
5. In the present estranged atmosphere, the U.S. is unlikely to help Pakistan in this regard. The Pakistani sources say that Gilani is expected to request the Chinese for urgent assistance in this connection. Pakistani expectations of an enhanced Chinese role to enable Pakistan to reduce its dependence on the U.S. have put the Chinese in an embarrassing position. Though they would like to oblige Pakistan to the extent possible, they would not like to do anything which could come in the way of the fresh initiatives under way for improving China ’s military-military relationship with the U.S.
6. After a gap of seven years, Gen. Chen Bingde, the Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), is on a week-long visit to the U.S. from May 15. The Chinese would not like any jarring note in the military-military relations with the U.S. during Gen. Chen’s visit due to any special gesture shown by them to Pakistan. The Chinese are also keen that the U.S. Drone strikes should continue since some of the strikes in the past were directed at the training camps of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in the Waziristans, which were also training Uighur jihadis from the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang province of China .
7. Since the May 2 Abbottabad raid, the Chinese have maintained a high level of oral support for Pakistan on the counter-terrorism issue, highlighting the sacrifices allegedly made by the Pakistani security forces in the fight against jihadi terrorism. At the same time, they have avoided any dramatic gestures of a concrete nature such as increasing significantly their economic assistance to Pakistan or giving additional military assistance.
8. While they may give some concrete assistance of a limited nature during Gilani’s visit, they are likely to advise Pakistan to cool it and not to let its relations with the U.S. and its counter-terrorism co-operation with the U.S. reach a breaking point. (16-5-11)
------------------------------------------------
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Sunday, May 15, 2011
View from India: PAKISTAN —TALK, TALK, HIT, HIT
by B.RAMAN
Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is presently in Afghanistan on his way to Pakistan. His visit to Pakistan has been triggered off by the discovery of Osama bin Laden living for six years in a safehaven at Abbottabad, the cradle of the Pakistan Army, where he was killed by U.S. Naval commandos on May 2,2011. Tensions in the relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, which had already worsened before the clandestine U.S. raid into OBL's hide-out, have been further aggravated by the defiant refusal of the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to agree to any independent enquiry into the circumstances under which OBL managed to live undetected for nearly six years.
2. The U.S. suspects, with valid reasons, that OBL could not have lived that long in a garrison town without local support---- official or unofficial or both. Identifying and neutralising the sources of local support would be an important step forward in the fight against jihadi terrorism. The Pakistan Army and the ISI have dismissed suspicions of local support and are stonewalling demands----made in Pakistan as well as in the U.S.--- for an independent enquiry.
3. Kerry, known in the past as a well-wisher of Pakistan and as a strong advocate of long-term aid commitments to Pakistan, has been showing signs of skepticism after May 2. He has been quoted as saying that it was “extraordinarily hard to believe” Osama could have survived in Pakistan for so long without any knowledge.
4. This skepticism seems even stronger now, nearly two weeks after the death of OBL. He has been quoted as saying on May 14 at Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan, where he had gone on a visit before proceeding to Pakistan: “Washington will consider all its options if it found out that Mullah Omar (Amir of the Afghan Taliban) was living in Pakistan. The United States government will always reserve all of its options to be able to protect our people. Other plots have been conducted and organised and planned out of Pakistan. It is really critical that we talk with the Pakistanis as friends. The United States wanted Pakistan to be a real ally in combating militants inside its borders, but serious questions remain in relations between the countries after Osama’s killing. We obviously want a Pakistan that is prepared to respect the interests of Afghanistan, and to be a real ally in our efforts to combat terrorism. We believe there are things that can be done better. And there are serious questions that need to be answered in that relationship. But we’re not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart, we’re trying to find a way to build it.”
5. Can Pakistan ever be a real ally against terrorism? That is a question that even well-wishers of Pakistan in the U.S. have started posing----not in secret, but in public. Can it be trusted to fight sincerely and genuinely against terrorism? All those, who were talking of a transformational moment in the history of Pakistan in the wake of May 2, would have been disappointed by the details of the in camera session of the Pakistan Parliament held on May 13, to discuss the OBL affair. Not the slightest sign of a feeling of shame that Osama was living unmolested in a Pakistani army garrison town for over five years. Not the slightest sign of a determination to find out the truth.
6. The fact that the world’s most dreaded terrorist was found living in an important garrison town did not seem to embarrass the Pakistani leaders and their Army and the ISI. What has embarrassed them is the fact that the U.S. managed to find that out and carry out a clandestine raid to kill him. They have decided to hold a commission of enquiry only into the security failure and not into the intelligence failure. That is, they want to find out how the U.S. carried out the raid. Nothing more.
7. Kerry has referred to other plots conducted, organized and planned out of Pakistan. Many of those plots targeted India and Indian nationals in different cities of India and in Kabul working in the Indian Embassy there. Three of those plots---all in Mumbai—involved mass fatalities---in March 1993, July 2006 and November 2008. No other city in the world has suffered so many acts of mass fatality terrorism. Pakistan has been able to carry on this policy of using terrorism as a strategic weapon because of the reluctance of the U.S. and other members of the international community to act against it.
8. The time has come for sustained action against terrorists and their hide-outs in Pakistan. If Pakistan will not act, the international community has to. Pakistanis talk of a violation of their national sovereignty----whether at Abbottabad or in respect of the Drone strikes in the two Waziristans. Of course, they constitute violations of national sovereignty---- but they are justified violations in exercise of one’s right of self-defence.
9. There are UN resolutions that describe the state-sponsorhip of terrorism as amounting to indirect aggression against the targeted country. This indirect aggression gives one the right to exercise one’s self-defence in the territory of that country if left with no other option. Till now, Pakistan managed to get away without any negative consequences because no country was prepared to take the right of self-defence into its territory.
10. Now that the U.S. has shown the way and taken the lead, it is important for India to follow its lead----not by doing a copy cat of Abbottabad, which would be messy between two neighbours--- but through other means, which would not be spectacular, but effective without involving any civilian casualties in Pakistan and without the use of Indian security or para-military forces or commandos for that purpose.
11. Options, suited to our needs, are available. We have to identify them, acquire the capability to use them and use them. As we acquire the capability, we have to educate the international community, particularly the U.S., on the serious dimensions of the problems faced by us, on our right of self-defence and on our determination to exercise that right even outside our territory if left with no other option.
12. I have endorsed strongly our Prime Minister’s initiatives for talks with Pakistan . Talks do not mean we renounce our right of self-defence. The two have to go together. I have always advocated a policy of “Talk, Talk, Hit, Hit”----keep talking so long as the talks promise results, but be prepared to hit if the talks prove counter-productive. ( 15-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
------------------------------------------
It goes without saying. Not sure how much John Kerry - a Robert Redford Red - adds to the conversation.
Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is presently in Afghanistan on his way to Pakistan. His visit to Pakistan has been triggered off by the discovery of Osama bin Laden living for six years in a safehaven at Abbottabad, the cradle of the Pakistan Army, where he was killed by U.S. Naval commandos on May 2,2011. Tensions in the relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, which had already worsened before the clandestine U.S. raid into OBL's hide-out, have been further aggravated by the defiant refusal of the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to agree to any independent enquiry into the circumstances under which OBL managed to live undetected for nearly six years.
2. The U.S. suspects, with valid reasons, that OBL could not have lived that long in a garrison town without local support---- official or unofficial or both. Identifying and neutralising the sources of local support would be an important step forward in the fight against jihadi terrorism. The Pakistan Army and the ISI have dismissed suspicions of local support and are stonewalling demands----made in Pakistan as well as in the U.S.--- for an independent enquiry.
3. Kerry, known in the past as a well-wisher of Pakistan and as a strong advocate of long-term aid commitments to Pakistan, has been showing signs of skepticism after May 2. He has been quoted as saying that it was “extraordinarily hard to believe” Osama could have survived in Pakistan for so long without any knowledge.
4. This skepticism seems even stronger now, nearly two weeks after the death of OBL. He has been quoted as saying on May 14 at Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan, where he had gone on a visit before proceeding to Pakistan: “Washington will consider all its options if it found out that Mullah Omar (Amir of the Afghan Taliban) was living in Pakistan. The United States government will always reserve all of its options to be able to protect our people. Other plots have been conducted and organised and planned out of Pakistan. It is really critical that we talk with the Pakistanis as friends. The United States wanted Pakistan to be a real ally in combating militants inside its borders, but serious questions remain in relations between the countries after Osama’s killing. We obviously want a Pakistan that is prepared to respect the interests of Afghanistan, and to be a real ally in our efforts to combat terrorism. We believe there are things that can be done better. And there are serious questions that need to be answered in that relationship. But we’re not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart, we’re trying to find a way to build it.”
5. Can Pakistan ever be a real ally against terrorism? That is a question that even well-wishers of Pakistan in the U.S. have started posing----not in secret, but in public. Can it be trusted to fight sincerely and genuinely against terrorism? All those, who were talking of a transformational moment in the history of Pakistan in the wake of May 2, would have been disappointed by the details of the in camera session of the Pakistan Parliament held on May 13, to discuss the OBL affair. Not the slightest sign of a feeling of shame that Osama was living unmolested in a Pakistani army garrison town for over five years. Not the slightest sign of a determination to find out the truth.
6. The fact that the world’s most dreaded terrorist was found living in an important garrison town did not seem to embarrass the Pakistani leaders and their Army and the ISI. What has embarrassed them is the fact that the U.S. managed to find that out and carry out a clandestine raid to kill him. They have decided to hold a commission of enquiry only into the security failure and not into the intelligence failure. That is, they want to find out how the U.S. carried out the raid. Nothing more.
7. Kerry has referred to other plots conducted, organized and planned out of Pakistan. Many of those plots targeted India and Indian nationals in different cities of India and in Kabul working in the Indian Embassy there. Three of those plots---all in Mumbai—involved mass fatalities---in March 1993, July 2006 and November 2008. No other city in the world has suffered so many acts of mass fatality terrorism. Pakistan has been able to carry on this policy of using terrorism as a strategic weapon because of the reluctance of the U.S. and other members of the international community to act against it.
8. The time has come for sustained action against terrorists and their hide-outs in Pakistan. If Pakistan will not act, the international community has to. Pakistanis talk of a violation of their national sovereignty----whether at Abbottabad or in respect of the Drone strikes in the two Waziristans. Of course, they constitute violations of national sovereignty---- but they are justified violations in exercise of one’s right of self-defence.
9. There are UN resolutions that describe the state-sponsorhip of terrorism as amounting to indirect aggression against the targeted country. This indirect aggression gives one the right to exercise one’s self-defence in the territory of that country if left with no other option. Till now, Pakistan managed to get away without any negative consequences because no country was prepared to take the right of self-defence into its territory.
10. Now that the U.S. has shown the way and taken the lead, it is important for India to follow its lead----not by doing a copy cat of Abbottabad, which would be messy between two neighbours--- but through other means, which would not be spectacular, but effective without involving any civilian casualties in Pakistan and without the use of Indian security or para-military forces or commandos for that purpose.
11. Options, suited to our needs, are available. We have to identify them, acquire the capability to use them and use them. As we acquire the capability, we have to educate the international community, particularly the U.S., on the serious dimensions of the problems faced by us, on our right of self-defence and on our determination to exercise that right even outside our territory if left with no other option.
12. I have endorsed strongly our Prime Minister’s initiatives for talks with Pakistan . Talks do not mean we renounce our right of self-defence. The two have to go together. I have always advocated a policy of “Talk, Talk, Hit, Hit”----keep talking so long as the talks promise results, but be prepared to hit if the talks prove counter-productive. ( 15-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
------------------------------------------
It goes without saying. Not sure how much John Kerry - a Robert Redford Red - adds to the conversation.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Literature: J. M. Coetzee
I don’t often recommend books to read. People seldom take the time to read anymore – not the classics, anyway. Today a woman called to tell me she had enjoyed one of the authors I had suggested to her years ago. Ironically, she had read a book that I have yet to get to.
J. M. Coetzee is South African (or was), now living in Australia. He is a contemporary of Nadine Gordimer, also South African. The two could not be more different. Gordimer writes erratically and from the heart. It’s sometimes difficult to follow. I did like “The Pickup” for her vivid depiction of the desert. I started several of her other books but never could finish them.
Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for “Disgrace” in 2003. Oddly enough, I only got to it earlier this year.
I was first introduced to J. M. Coetzee in college when assigned “Life and Times of Michael K”. I no longer remember the details of the plot, but I do remember the feeling it left me with and the novel’s pivot that made it unique. The protagonist is a simpleton. It was pointed out to me (I don’t think I thought of it myself) how difficult it must have been to write an interesting story about a simpleton. Yet, Coetzee had pulled it off; so much so, I remembered his name all during the decades when I read nothing at all.
The next book of his I happened across was “Slow Man”. Again, it was the story of an ordinary man who had lost his leg in a bicycle vs. auto accident and was trying to adjust to his loss - should have been a bomb. Not so. It pulled the reader along, page by page, sustaining interest in small, ordinary things; obviously very skillfully told. “Disgrace”, Coetzee’s breakthrough novel, again, was just as advertised – and more. It told of South Africa at the end of Apartheid through the eyes of a man burdened with his own troubles.
When comparing Gordimer to Coetzee, I see cars. Gordimer is an economy model (possibly Italian). It sputters and moves in fits and starts. Even when fitfully tuned, it coughs, rattles and shakes. Coetzee, on the other hand is a Rolls-Royce. From the first sentence, you can expect a smooth and solid ride. Coetzee is a reader’s writer. He sees to every comfort the reader could possibly want: easy, yet not simple prose; characters are defined again with each mention (not like the oodles of characters in thick, meaty Russian novels that make you lose your place and leave you hanging). He does not use sex or violence gratuitously. When it suits the plot, such things happen, and then it’s over. He does not build suspense in the usual predictable way. He simply makes us deeply interested in the characters he portrays. Not sure how he does it. In fact, it never occurs to even ask the question. He makes it look simple.
I know, of course, that it isn’t (simple). It requires uncommon discipline and much editing, and endless polishing. Coetzee’s novels tend to be relatively short. But they are gems.
The woman who called me today is an avid reader in several languages. She had found “Diary of a Bad Year” in a Vermont second-hand book shop. By the time she finished reading, she was excited and gushing. Everything I’ve said about Coetzee she would now second. …and she’s ready for more.
-------------------------------------------------
Interesting to note the narrative that is emerging after Obama’s so-called bin Laden kill. On one hand you have a virtual treasure trove of material that shows bin Laden as head of a significant worldwide organization, inspiring and directing his followers to inflict dastardly damage on ‘The Great Satan’ that is America; that he was larger than life and quite worthy of Obama’s wrath and anger, so skillfully employed in his capture. On the other, he’s portrayed as a broken-down pervert, living in a hovel amidst half-eaten scraps of food, surfing analog TV in his underwear.
You would think that given a story with so many holes, this administration would make an effort to remain at least somewhat consistent. Suffice it to say, that no one writing the scripts for Obama has any notion of good literature. They have taken a terrific plot and reduced it to an incomprehensible mess, leaving most people scratching their heads.
The coda, to be released as soon as next week, said to reset this administration’s commitment to Middle East peace, should be painful to watch. Already, the race is on to preempt and outflank Netanyahu’s own initiatives, also scheduled to make headlines during the Israeli leader’s upcoming visit to Washington (next week).
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
J. M. Coetzee is South African (or was), now living in Australia. He is a contemporary of Nadine Gordimer, also South African. The two could not be more different. Gordimer writes erratically and from the heart. It’s sometimes difficult to follow. I did like “The Pickup” for her vivid depiction of the desert. I started several of her other books but never could finish them.
Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for “Disgrace” in 2003. Oddly enough, I only got to it earlier this year.
I was first introduced to J. M. Coetzee in college when assigned “Life and Times of Michael K”. I no longer remember the details of the plot, but I do remember the feeling it left me with and the novel’s pivot that made it unique. The protagonist is a simpleton. It was pointed out to me (I don’t think I thought of it myself) how difficult it must have been to write an interesting story about a simpleton. Yet, Coetzee had pulled it off; so much so, I remembered his name all during the decades when I read nothing at all.
The next book of his I happened across was “Slow Man”. Again, it was the story of an ordinary man who had lost his leg in a bicycle vs. auto accident and was trying to adjust to his loss - should have been a bomb. Not so. It pulled the reader along, page by page, sustaining interest in small, ordinary things; obviously very skillfully told. “Disgrace”, Coetzee’s breakthrough novel, again, was just as advertised – and more. It told of South Africa at the end of Apartheid through the eyes of a man burdened with his own troubles.
When comparing Gordimer to Coetzee, I see cars. Gordimer is an economy model (possibly Italian). It sputters and moves in fits and starts. Even when fitfully tuned, it coughs, rattles and shakes. Coetzee, on the other hand is a Rolls-Royce. From the first sentence, you can expect a smooth and solid ride. Coetzee is a reader’s writer. He sees to every comfort the reader could possibly want: easy, yet not simple prose; characters are defined again with each mention (not like the oodles of characters in thick, meaty Russian novels that make you lose your place and leave you hanging). He does not use sex or violence gratuitously. When it suits the plot, such things happen, and then it’s over. He does not build suspense in the usual predictable way. He simply makes us deeply interested in the characters he portrays. Not sure how he does it. In fact, it never occurs to even ask the question. He makes it look simple.
I know, of course, that it isn’t (simple). It requires uncommon discipline and much editing, and endless polishing. Coetzee’s novels tend to be relatively short. But they are gems.
The woman who called me today is an avid reader in several languages. She had found “Diary of a Bad Year” in a Vermont second-hand book shop. By the time she finished reading, she was excited and gushing. Everything I’ve said about Coetzee she would now second. …and she’s ready for more.
-------------------------------------------------
Interesting to note the narrative that is emerging after Obama’s so-called bin Laden kill. On one hand you have a virtual treasure trove of material that shows bin Laden as head of a significant worldwide organization, inspiring and directing his followers to inflict dastardly damage on ‘The Great Satan’ that is America; that he was larger than life and quite worthy of Obama’s wrath and anger, so skillfully employed in his capture. On the other, he’s portrayed as a broken-down pervert, living in a hovel amidst half-eaten scraps of food, surfing analog TV in his underwear.
You would think that given a story with so many holes, this administration would make an effort to remain at least somewhat consistent. Suffice it to say, that no one writing the scripts for Obama has any notion of good literature. They have taken a terrific plot and reduced it to an incomprehensible mess, leaving most people scratching their heads.
The coda, to be released as soon as next week, said to reset this administration’s commitment to Middle East peace, should be painful to watch. Already, the race is on to preempt and outflank Netanyahu’s own initiatives, also scheduled to make headlines during the Israeli leader’s upcoming visit to Washington (next week).
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Monday, May 9, 2011
View from India: PAKISTAN AFTER OBL ---QUO VADIS?
by B.RAMAN
(Written at the request of the Editor, “Hindustan Times”, New Delhi)
A wave of skepticism and anger in Pakistan has greeted the clandestine raid by U.S. naval commandoes into the place of residence of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad, near Islamabad, on the night between May 1 and 2, which resulted in his death.
The skepticism has been over the claims made by both the U.S. and Pakistan regarding the operation itself. Large sections of the Pakistani civil society believe that a chopper-borne hit and run raid of this nature could not have been carried out by the U.S. Special Forces without the acquiescence, if not the covert collaboration, of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment.
Barring the technical break-down of a chopper which resulted in its being blown up, the entire operation lasting about two hours --- most of which was spent by the U.S. raiding team either in the Pakistani air space or territory ---- was carried out with clock-like precision. It would be very difficult to attribute the total absence of any engagement between the U.S. raiding party and the Pakistani security forces only to the remarkable capabilities of the U.S. forces alone for a clandestine operation of this nature.
There ought to have been a Pakistani role --- even if that role was only one of pre-determined inaction till the Americans had killed OBL and left ---- which ensured the success of the operation with a remarkable absence of engagement in the air or on the ground and a total lack of any collateral damage. That is what many not only in Pakistan, but also outside believe and this belief will remain strong whatever U.S. claims and explanations may say.
There have been outbursts of public anger, but surprisingly not of rage. The first Friday prayers after the raid on May 6 passed off without any serious incident of violence. The anger has been over the U.S. violation of the Pakistani sovereignty and over the suspected Pakistani collaboration with the U.S. for killing a pious Muslim, who is seen by many in the Islamic world not as a dreaded terrorist, but as a saviour and defender of Islam.
It would be difficult to assess for how long this skepticism and anger will last; but as long as it does, Pakistan will remain a vulnerable State---even more so than in the past. Its internal security situation could further deteriorate due to a possible rise in acts of suicide terrorism directed against soft as well as hard targets. At a time when the anger caused by the Pakistani commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July 2007 was showing signs of subsiding, there is a danger of its being re-kindled by the U.S. operation in Abbottabad.
Pakistan has been passing through a state of unstable equilibrium for some years now. This equilibrium could become even more unstable in the weeks and months to come as a consequence of the Abbottabad raid. How to prevent this unstable equilibrium from worsening further? That will be an important objective of the U.S. policy towards Pakistan.
Pakistan’s strategic importance for the U.S. will not diminish despite the elimination of OBL. Pakistani co-operation had served U.S. interests well in the past---whether it was in relation to the cold war or the U.S. rapprochement with China. It could serve U.S. interests in the Islamic world equally well in the future. There cannot be a stable Afghanistan without a stable Pakistan and vice versa. The U.S. interest in ensuring the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal will remain as strong as ever. Pakistan will continue to be a key state in the fight against Islamic extremism and jihadi terrorism.
It would be a miscalculation to think that U.S. suspicions and anger over possible local support----official or unofficial or both---to OBL in Pakistan could result in major changes in the U.S. policy in the sub-continent to the detriment of Pakistan and benefit of India. While stepping up pressure on Pakistan for more sincerity and effectiveness in dealing with jihadi terrorism, the U.S. will eschew any policies or actions which could prove detrimental to its interests in Pakistan.
Instead of hoping to be able to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Pakistan by exploiting the cloud over the sanctuary enjoyed by OBL, India should examine how the OBL incident could be used as one more argument for convincing Pakistan of the need to give up the path of terrorism. These are traumatizing moments for Pakistan and its people. We should avoid any signs of glee. That would be unwise.
The problems faced by us in our relations with Pakistan due to its use of terrorism will continue. We should seek a solution to this problem through our own genius and in our own way through an appropriate mix of policy incentives and disincentives. We need a stand-alone policy which will not depend on the U.S. policy towards Pakistan for its success. (9-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinert Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi)
-----------------------------------------
My comment: It would be wrong to assume that U.S. interests are solely focused on the strategic importance of Pakistan. In my view, the Osama kill was strictly a political calculation to bolster Obama's sagging popularity. We are already seeing the American long knives coming out for Pakistan. We are witnessing a broken-down old man built up into a super-hero by the American media to make him appear a worthy prize for their own Marxist super-hero to use as a weapon against any domestic opponent. Everything else - Pakistan, India, Israel, etc. - is subservient and readily expendable to the single-minded goal of getting Barack Hussein Obama reelected.
(Written at the request of the Editor, “Hindustan Times”, New Delhi)
A wave of skepticism and anger in Pakistan has greeted the clandestine raid by U.S. naval commandoes into the place of residence of Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad, near Islamabad, on the night between May 1 and 2, which resulted in his death.
The skepticism has been over the claims made by both the U.S. and Pakistan regarding the operation itself. Large sections of the Pakistani civil society believe that a chopper-borne hit and run raid of this nature could not have been carried out by the U.S. Special Forces without the acquiescence, if not the covert collaboration, of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment.
Barring the technical break-down of a chopper which resulted in its being blown up, the entire operation lasting about two hours --- most of which was spent by the U.S. raiding team either in the Pakistani air space or territory ---- was carried out with clock-like precision. It would be very difficult to attribute the total absence of any engagement between the U.S. raiding party and the Pakistani security forces only to the remarkable capabilities of the U.S. forces alone for a clandestine operation of this nature.
There ought to have been a Pakistani role --- even if that role was only one of pre-determined inaction till the Americans had killed OBL and left ---- which ensured the success of the operation with a remarkable absence of engagement in the air or on the ground and a total lack of any collateral damage. That is what many not only in Pakistan, but also outside believe and this belief will remain strong whatever U.S. claims and explanations may say.
There have been outbursts of public anger, but surprisingly not of rage. The first Friday prayers after the raid on May 6 passed off without any serious incident of violence. The anger has been over the U.S. violation of the Pakistani sovereignty and over the suspected Pakistani collaboration with the U.S. for killing a pious Muslim, who is seen by many in the Islamic world not as a dreaded terrorist, but as a saviour and defender of Islam.
It would be difficult to assess for how long this skepticism and anger will last; but as long as it does, Pakistan will remain a vulnerable State---even more so than in the past. Its internal security situation could further deteriorate due to a possible rise in acts of suicide terrorism directed against soft as well as hard targets. At a time when the anger caused by the Pakistani commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July 2007 was showing signs of subsiding, there is a danger of its being re-kindled by the U.S. operation in Abbottabad.
Pakistan has been passing through a state of unstable equilibrium for some years now. This equilibrium could become even more unstable in the weeks and months to come as a consequence of the Abbottabad raid. How to prevent this unstable equilibrium from worsening further? That will be an important objective of the U.S. policy towards Pakistan.
Pakistan’s strategic importance for the U.S. will not diminish despite the elimination of OBL. Pakistani co-operation had served U.S. interests well in the past---whether it was in relation to the cold war or the U.S. rapprochement with China. It could serve U.S. interests in the Islamic world equally well in the future. There cannot be a stable Afghanistan without a stable Pakistan and vice versa. The U.S. interest in ensuring the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal will remain as strong as ever. Pakistan will continue to be a key state in the fight against Islamic extremism and jihadi terrorism.
It would be a miscalculation to think that U.S. suspicions and anger over possible local support----official or unofficial or both---to OBL in Pakistan could result in major changes in the U.S. policy in the sub-continent to the detriment of Pakistan and benefit of India. While stepping up pressure on Pakistan for more sincerity and effectiveness in dealing with jihadi terrorism, the U.S. will eschew any policies or actions which could prove detrimental to its interests in Pakistan.
Instead of hoping to be able to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Pakistan by exploiting the cloud over the sanctuary enjoyed by OBL, India should examine how the OBL incident could be used as one more argument for convincing Pakistan of the need to give up the path of terrorism. These are traumatizing moments for Pakistan and its people. We should avoid any signs of glee. That would be unwise.
The problems faced by us in our relations with Pakistan due to its use of terrorism will continue. We should seek a solution to this problem through our own genius and in our own way through an appropriate mix of policy incentives and disincentives. We need a stand-alone policy which will not depend on the U.S. policy towards Pakistan for its success. (9-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinert Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi)
-----------------------------------------
My comment: It would be wrong to assume that U.S. interests are solely focused on the strategic importance of Pakistan. In my view, the Osama kill was strictly a political calculation to bolster Obama's sagging popularity. We are already seeing the American long knives coming out for Pakistan. We are witnessing a broken-down old man built up into a super-hero by the American media to make him appear a worthy prize for their own Marxist super-hero to use as a weapon against any domestic opponent. Everything else - Pakistan, India, Israel, etc. - is subservient and readily expendable to the single-minded goal of getting Barack Hussein Obama reelected.
In Every Room
When you say ‘we’, I think you mean the media (elites). Their next step in this chaos of information, disinformation, self-aggrandizement and outright lying is quite obvious. Equally obvious is that we’re not buying it – you’re not buying it, and there’s no good reason to believe that anyone of any significance is either.
The job of the MSM is to turn this Osama killing (if it really was that) into a ‘prodigal son’ moment for POTUS – to have us forget whatever else he’s done. They’ll manufacture polls that say it is so; that the American people now approve of how Obama is handling his job.
The same was true of the health care debacle. Our marches on Washington; our phone calls that paralyzed Washington phone banks; our e-mails; our town hall confrontations; our special and midterm election votes – all should have been huge stories. They were not. And the impression remains that we, the people, are now on board with this, America’s first black and historic president. We are not.
The narrative between what the press would have us believe and what we know to be true is several miles wide. In a fair election contest, this chasm would be exposed. This is why I believe the next election (2012) will not be fair (if even held). The degree of fraud will depend on internal polling as we get closer; or, on the Left’s ability to put a Republican Progressive in place as to essentially effect a Hobson’s choice.
I believe that POTUS and his handlers know that this latest OBL narrative is full of holes. On one hand they are happy that it’s sucking all the oxygen out of the room. (Legislatively, Washington is once again stalled.) On the other, they are now scrambling to patch it by wagging fingers at Pakistan. There will be accusations and threats of congressional inquiry. Aid to Pakistan may or may not be withheld. Pakistan will end up so utterly smeared and discredited that nothing they can possibly say or do can absolve them. Again, that is the plan, tailored to American audiences. The world will see it differently.
POTUS does not seem to be concerned. He has likely been hoodwinked as well. He may actually see himself as the ‘bigger than life’ hero the press is making him out to be. At this point, I actually believe that we, the people, know more about virtually everything than Obama does. Should something not add up in his own mind and he is moved to raise questions, he will likely be told to relax and go out and play (a round or two on the WH putting green) – that everything will be taken care of; that his next speech has already been queued in on the teleprompter. All he has to do is read it with his customary make-believe gravitas; and, BTW, that make-up has suggested he tape his ears back a bit to make him seem less like Dumbo, the flying elephant in every room.
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Sunday, May 8, 2011
When Did OBL Die?
The question that has everybody lining up on one side or another is: Who actually is responsible for the killing of OBL? Obviously, every right-thinking American must admit that America (and the world) is a better place with OBL gone. The WH is positioning itself for the next election cycle. Obama stands to gain the most simply by having been there. He will do his best to remind voters every day that he was the one who found, and gave the order to kill America’s arch villain.
It looks like a successful strategy until we begin to scratch the surface a little. For one thing, there is now evidence to suggest that Obama was backed into a corner; that he was at first reluctant, but was forced to pull the trigger when confronted with the fact that OBL had been located.
It is also becoming quite obvious that the WH had help; that someone in Pakistan not only knew, but assisted.
The speed with which OBL’s body was disposed of will continue to raise questions. Now the latest: Was OBL’s body dumped into the sea, or was it dumped somewhere in the Hindu Kush? Conspiracy theorists will continue to ask: Is bin Laden really dead?
All this back and forth sorely misses main point. The real question that should be asked is when did OBL die?
-----------------------------------------------------
Picture: Original art by Fritz Horstman entitled, "To Perish Twice".
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Guest Contributer: Tom From NJ: Seed Corn
Despite all the adoring hoopla accorded by the MSM to their precious Obama as he cavorts like a war president on his post-UBL victory lap, The Messiah could well be heading for a major political fall here. And make no mistake, politics -- specifically the hyper-partisan, hyper-personal politics typical of Barack Obama -- is what is in play here and nothing else. In short, in trying to make not only the elimination of UBL but also the whole 9/11 story all about HIM, The Bamster may be setting the stage for his own "Mission Accomplished" moment that embarrassed George W. Bush long after he landed that jet on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.
First, the UBL assassination is yet another example of POTUS living off the seed corn left behind by the supposedly cretinous Dubya. Only now it's not the tax cuts, it's our national security at stake, and here Obama is heedlessly devouring that seed corn. Having now profited shamelessly and hypocritically off the Bush-era policies of harsh interrogations that he himself hotly opposed, Obama continues to pooh-pooh their necessity and morality while allowing his leftist-racist-corrupt AG Eric Holder to hound with a criminal investigation the very CIA interrogators who made the UBL takedown possible, not to mention the gutting of the defense budget that POTUS is alleged to have in mind. These contradictions will become clearer to voters sooner or later, despite MSM resistance, and we unfortunately cannot rule out some sort of successful terrorist strike in this country over the next year or two, especially since The Bamster himself has wasted so much of our national security seed corn. In which case, Obama's victory lap – BTW, isn't that "spiking the football?" -- could well come back to haunt him and, to paraphrase Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his war-on-terror political "chickens” could “come home to roost" in 2012.
Second, there's the complete bungle the Obama Administration is making out of its post-UBL communications. Dubya’s communications operation was often inept, but the Obama Administration’s is totally clueless with its numerous makeovers, walk-backs, and flat contradictions within its ever-changing UBL takedown story. In addition, I think it’s a serious mistake over the long haul to suppress all photos of the happily deceased bin-Dirtbag. It’s not because a new set of wackos we might call “deathers” need to be convinced that UBL is really dead; they won’t listen anyway. Rather, an image or two released to the world of the great jihadi bin-Laden with his head blown open would finally prove definitively who is the “weak horse.” In that case, such photos would probably not be ideal “recruiting tools” for new AQ recruits but another source of discouragement like their beating at US hands in Iraq. Perhaps The Bamster thinks that withholding the UBL photos gives him a chance to play rope-a-dope effectively like he did with the “birthers” and Donald Trump over his birth certificate. Maybe or maybe not -- but can’t POTUS come up with some sort of original strategic thinking for a change?
Therefore, I agree with Henry Kissinger in his interview at NRO – Obama is an able tactician but he lacks any real strategic sense abroad or, I would say, at home either. Kind of what we might expect from a Community Organizer as opposed to a true statesman, or even a moderately competent President, as started to become apparent to the electorate by November 2010. So, POTUS had better not rush to proclaim "Mission Accomplished" especially since, as Kissinger and others have pointed out, the "mission" has never been clearly defined by Obama, certainly not at the strategic level.
First, the UBL assassination is yet another example of POTUS living off the seed corn left behind by the supposedly cretinous Dubya. Only now it's not the tax cuts, it's our national security at stake, and here Obama is heedlessly devouring that seed corn. Having now profited shamelessly and hypocritically off the Bush-era policies of harsh interrogations that he himself hotly opposed, Obama continues to pooh-pooh their necessity and morality while allowing his leftist-racist-corrupt AG Eric Holder to hound with a criminal investigation the very CIA interrogators who made the UBL takedown possible, not to mention the gutting of the defense budget that POTUS is alleged to have in mind. These contradictions will become clearer to voters sooner or later, despite MSM resistance, and we unfortunately cannot rule out some sort of successful terrorist strike in this country over the next year or two, especially since The Bamster himself has wasted so much of our national security seed corn. In which case, Obama's victory lap – BTW, isn't that "spiking the football?" -- could well come back to haunt him and, to paraphrase Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his war-on-terror political "chickens” could “come home to roost" in 2012.
Second, there's the complete bungle the Obama Administration is making out of its post-UBL communications. Dubya’s communications operation was often inept, but the Obama Administration’s is totally clueless with its numerous makeovers, walk-backs, and flat contradictions within its ever-changing UBL takedown story. In addition, I think it’s a serious mistake over the long haul to suppress all photos of the happily deceased bin-Dirtbag. It’s not because a new set of wackos we might call “deathers” need to be convinced that UBL is really dead; they won’t listen anyway. Rather, an image or two released to the world of the great jihadi bin-Laden with his head blown open would finally prove definitively who is the “weak horse.” In that case, such photos would probably not be ideal “recruiting tools” for new AQ recruits but another source of discouragement like their beating at US hands in Iraq. Perhaps The Bamster thinks that withholding the UBL photos gives him a chance to play rope-a-dope effectively like he did with the “birthers” and Donald Trump over his birth certificate. Maybe or maybe not -- but can’t POTUS come up with some sort of original strategic thinking for a change?
Therefore, I agree with Henry Kissinger in his interview at NRO – Obama is an able tactician but he lacks any real strategic sense abroad or, I would say, at home either. Kind of what we might expect from a Community Organizer as opposed to a true statesman, or even a moderately competent President, as started to become apparent to the electorate by November 2010. So, POTUS had better not rush to proclaim "Mission Accomplished" especially since, as Kissinger and others have pointed out, the "mission" has never been clearly defined by Obama, certainly not at the strategic level.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
View from India: ABBOTTABAD RAID: A RECONSTRUCTION THROUGH TWEETS
by B.RAMAN
Chirpstory is a website that facilitates reconstruction of events through a study of Tweets relating to that event. It has put out at: http://chirpstory.com/li/1294, a compilation of "on-the-ground tweets from Abbottabad, Pakistan, compiled with very well-informed journalists/researchers' tweets." Most of the Tweets discuss the coming down of one of the helicopters participating in the raid. They discuss the following questions without being able to come to definitive answers: Was it an American or a Pakistani chopper? Did it come down due to technical reasons or was it brought down by ground fire? What was the source of the explosions heard around the same time?
2. One interesting thing that stands out is that the choppers which participated in the raid were very noisy, to the point of irritating some of the Tweeters. One of the Tweeters says: "It was too noisy to be a spy craft, or, a very poor spy craft it was." He again says: "I started noticing the helicpoter when the noise got irritating." This Tweeter was interviewed by Barkha Dutt of NDTV in her "The Buck Stops Here" show on May 3. A transcript of her interview is available at http://tinyurl.com/6kr8tyv. If the helicopters were so noisy, how is it the local security people including those in the local police stations and in the Military Academy did not hear the noise and try to make enquiries about the source of the noise?
3. There are also references in the Tweets to a black-out in the town, roads being blocked, telephones going dead and sirens being sounded. It is not clear whether these things happened during the raid or after the choppers had left with the dead body of Osama bin Laden. A taxi-driver has been quoted as saying as follows: "The army has cordoned off the crash area and is conducting door-to-door search in the surrounding." This was possibly after the raiding party had left. A sweeper has been quoted as saying as follows: "A family also died in the crash, and one of the helicopter riders got away and is now being searched for."
4. There is also a reference to a plane flying over Abbottabad, but it is not clear whether this was a Pakistani or a U.S. plane and whether it was during or after the raid.
5. During his media briefing on May 2,2011, John Brennan, Assistant to President Barack Obama on Homeland Security, was asked about the incident involving the downed chopper. He replied as follows: "Seeing that helicopter in a place and in a condition that it wasn’t supposed to be, I think that was one -- at least for me, and I know for the other people in the room -- was the concern we had that now we’re having to go to the contingency plan. And thankfully, they were as able to carry out that contingency plan as they were the initial plan." Which was that place and what was the condition in which one of the two helicopters found itself to be, forcing the Navy Seals to move from the initial plan to the contingency plan? How did the contingency plan differ from the initial plan? Brennan did not give these details; nor did the media personnel pose these questions to him.
6. Where did that chopper find itself to be which forced its being destroyed and abandoned? Was it in the court-yard of the house in which OBL was living? Or was it elsewhere? The Tweets give differing locations for the chopper crash. One of the Tweets says it was very close to the Pakistan Military Academy.
7. According to U.S. official briefings, Pakistan was not associated with the planning and execution of the operation to prevent any leaks. It was informed of the raid after the raiding party in its remaining chopper had crossed back into Afghanistan. To quote Brennan: "We didn’t contact the Pakistanis until after all of our people, all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace. At the time, the Pakistanis were reacting to an incident that they knew was taking place in Abbottabad. Therefore, they were scrambling some of their assets. Clearly, we were concerned that if the Pakistanis decided to scramble jets or whatever else, they didn’t know who were on those jets. They had no idea about who might have been on there, whether it be U.S. or somebody else. So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of Pakistani airspace. And thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces. This operation was designed to minimize the prospects, the chances of engagement with Pakistani forces. It was done very well, and thankfully no Pakistani forces were engaged and there was no other individuals who were killed aside from those on the compound."
8. The raiding party itself went in two choppers one of which found itself in a place where it was not supposed to be and hence had to be destroyed. The other chopper brought the raiding party back to Afghanistan with OBL's body and those captured. Brennan said that Pakistan was not informed till "all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace" This would indicate there were other U.S. planes and/or choppers in the Pakistani air space during the raid.
9. One U.S. claim can be accepted without any problem----that it was purely a U.S. operation with no involvement of Pakistan in the planning and execution. The problem arises with reference to the U.S. claim that Pakistan was informed only after the raiding partry had re-entered the Afghan airspace. The entire operation in Abbottabad itself lasted at least an hour: 40 minutes of the fire-fight and at least 20 minutes for the time taken by the choppers to manoeuvre themselves. During this period there was the heavy noise made by the choppers as they came down near OBL's house, the noise made by the crashing chopper and the noise of the fire-fight. How come during this entire period none of the security personnel posted in Abbottabad for the protection of the PMA and the senior Army officers living in the town and in the campus of the PMA noticed that there was something wrong and alerted the local units of the armed forces, para-military forces and the police.?
10. Only two explanations are possible: either there was total security incompetence at Abbottabad or the local security had been told by the Pakistani military leadership not to worry and keep quiet. If the second explanation is correct, the Pakistanis must have known of the impending raid before it took place. ( 5-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
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My comment: Very little is being made of the crashed helicopter here in America. It does not even seem a part of the story. Could be that the helicopter was deliberately crashed to create a diversion and give Pakistan a reason to close off roads? Also, if the crashed helicopter is mentioned at all, it's mentioned within the context of it having been one of our most advanced models and will likely be going to China for them to examine. The Tweets seem to indicate that it was junk.
Chirpstory is a website that facilitates reconstruction of events through a study of Tweets relating to that event. It has put out at: http://chirpstory.com/li/1294, a compilation of "on-the-ground tweets from Abbottabad, Pakistan, compiled with very well-informed journalists/researchers' tweets." Most of the Tweets discuss the coming down of one of the helicopters participating in the raid. They discuss the following questions without being able to come to definitive answers: Was it an American or a Pakistani chopper? Did it come down due to technical reasons or was it brought down by ground fire? What was the source of the explosions heard around the same time?
2. One interesting thing that stands out is that the choppers which participated in the raid were very noisy, to the point of irritating some of the Tweeters. One of the Tweeters says: "It was too noisy to be a spy craft, or, a very poor spy craft it was." He again says: "I started noticing the helicpoter when the noise got irritating." This Tweeter was interviewed by Barkha Dutt of NDTV in her "The Buck Stops Here" show on May 3. A transcript of her interview is available at http://tinyurl.com/6kr8tyv. If the helicopters were so noisy, how is it the local security people including those in the local police stations and in the Military Academy did not hear the noise and try to make enquiries about the source of the noise?
3. There are also references in the Tweets to a black-out in the town, roads being blocked, telephones going dead and sirens being sounded. It is not clear whether these things happened during the raid or after the choppers had left with the dead body of Osama bin Laden. A taxi-driver has been quoted as saying as follows: "The army has cordoned off the crash area and is conducting door-to-door search in the surrounding." This was possibly after the raiding party had left. A sweeper has been quoted as saying as follows: "A family also died in the crash, and one of the helicopter riders got away and is now being searched for."
4. There is also a reference to a plane flying over Abbottabad, but it is not clear whether this was a Pakistani or a U.S. plane and whether it was during or after the raid.
5. During his media briefing on May 2,2011, John Brennan, Assistant to President Barack Obama on Homeland Security, was asked about the incident involving the downed chopper. He replied as follows: "Seeing that helicopter in a place and in a condition that it wasn’t supposed to be, I think that was one -- at least for me, and I know for the other people in the room -- was the concern we had that now we’re having to go to the contingency plan. And thankfully, they were as able to carry out that contingency plan as they were the initial plan." Which was that place and what was the condition in which one of the two helicopters found itself to be, forcing the Navy Seals to move from the initial plan to the contingency plan? How did the contingency plan differ from the initial plan? Brennan did not give these details; nor did the media personnel pose these questions to him.
6. Where did that chopper find itself to be which forced its being destroyed and abandoned? Was it in the court-yard of the house in which OBL was living? Or was it elsewhere? The Tweets give differing locations for the chopper crash. One of the Tweets says it was very close to the Pakistan Military Academy.
7. According to U.S. official briefings, Pakistan was not associated with the planning and execution of the operation to prevent any leaks. It was informed of the raid after the raiding party in its remaining chopper had crossed back into Afghanistan. To quote Brennan: "We didn’t contact the Pakistanis until after all of our people, all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace. At the time, the Pakistanis were reacting to an incident that they knew was taking place in Abbottabad. Therefore, they were scrambling some of their assets. Clearly, we were concerned that if the Pakistanis decided to scramble jets or whatever else, they didn’t know who were on those jets. They had no idea about who might have been on there, whether it be U.S. or somebody else. So we were watching and making sure that our people and our aircraft were able to get out of Pakistani airspace. And thankfully, there was no engagement with Pakistani forces. This operation was designed to minimize the prospects, the chances of engagement with Pakistani forces. It was done very well, and thankfully no Pakistani forces were engaged and there was no other individuals who were killed aside from those on the compound."
8. The raiding party itself went in two choppers one of which found itself in a place where it was not supposed to be and hence had to be destroyed. The other chopper brought the raiding party back to Afghanistan with OBL's body and those captured. Brennan said that Pakistan was not informed till "all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace" This would indicate there were other U.S. planes and/or choppers in the Pakistani air space during the raid.
9. One U.S. claim can be accepted without any problem----that it was purely a U.S. operation with no involvement of Pakistan in the planning and execution. The problem arises with reference to the U.S. claim that Pakistan was informed only after the raiding partry had re-entered the Afghan airspace. The entire operation in Abbottabad itself lasted at least an hour: 40 minutes of the fire-fight and at least 20 minutes for the time taken by the choppers to manoeuvre themselves. During this period there was the heavy noise made by the choppers as they came down near OBL's house, the noise made by the crashing chopper and the noise of the fire-fight. How come during this entire period none of the security personnel posted in Abbottabad for the protection of the PMA and the senior Army officers living in the town and in the campus of the PMA noticed that there was something wrong and alerted the local units of the armed forces, para-military forces and the police.?
10. Only two explanations are possible: either there was total security incompetence at Abbottabad or the local security had been told by the Pakistani military leadership not to worry and keep quiet. If the second explanation is correct, the Pakistanis must have known of the impending raid before it took place. ( 5-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
------------------------------------------------
My comment: Very little is being made of the crashed helicopter here in America. It does not even seem a part of the story. Could be that the helicopter was deliberately crashed to create a diversion and give Pakistan a reason to close off roads? Also, if the crashed helicopter is mentioned at all, it's mentioned within the context of it having been one of our most advanced models and will likely be going to China for them to examine. The Tweets seem to indicate that it was junk.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
View from India: DEATH OF A JIHADI FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER
by B.RAMAN
(Written at the request of the Editor of the “Economic Times”, New Delhi)
Osama bin Laden (OBL), the head of Al Qaeda, was killed by the U.S. Special Forces during a past midnight chopper-borne raid on his hide-out at Abbotabad, a garrison town, about 100 kms from Islamabad, on May 1. He influenced thousands of young Muslims, who grew to adulthood in the 1980s and the 1990s, to take to jihadi terrorism as a weapon of defiance. He wanted them to use this weapon to correct what he looked upon as the historic injustices done to the Ummah by the non-Islamic world.
Among such instances of historic injustices to the Muslims, he cited the Jewish occupation of Palestine and the occupation of lands, which, according to him, had historically belonged to the Muslims by non-Islamic forces. He also wanted the Muslims to take to arms against ideological influences that tended to corrupt Islam.
He initially fought against the corrupting influence of the Marxist ideology in Afghanistan against the Soviet and Afghan troops in the 1980s. He saw nothing wrong in accepting the assistance of Western ideological forces for countering Marxism and to force it to quit Afghanistan.
He might not have acquired the iconic image which he developed subsequently but for the use of him by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIAS) and the agencies of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia which projected him as a jihadi fighter par excellence in order to use him for mobilising Muslim youth of the Arab world for the jihad against the Soviet troops and the Marxist ideology.
With the assistance of these agencies, he forced the Soviet troops to withdraw from Afghanistan and helped to bring Afghanistan under the control of medieval Islamic forces in the form of the Taliban. His medieval version of Islam, which is condemned today by the U.S., was encouraged by the U.S. in the 1980s to use it as a strategic weapon against Marxism .
Having tasted success in Afghanistan, he and his force of Arab youth, trained and armed with the help of these agencies in secret camps in Pakistan turned against their Western benefactors and mentors and transformed their jihad against Marxism into a new jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish people in the 1990s. The icon of the 1980s, toasted by the U.S. because of his success against the Marxists, became the dreaded Frankenstein’s monster of the 1990s and thereafter.
This jihadi Frankenstein’s monster, jointly created by the agencies of the U.S., Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, became the world’s most dreaded terrorist who spread death and destruction across the world through his Al Qaeda and International Islamic Front (IIC) starting from 1996. The 9/11 terrorist strikes in the U.S. Homeland made the U.S. realize that the reach of this monster of its own creation had extended up to the U.S.
The slaying of this monster became the driving force of the so-called war against international terrorism. It has taken nearly 10 years and an expenditure of billions of dollars to slay this monster. At the end, the death of this monster came at the place where it was born, namely, in Pakistan. After 10 years of search the monster was traced .
The monster was found hiding in the place where the Pakistan Army was born and where its new officer-recruits are trained every year. Abbotabad is the cradle of the Pakistan Army and in that cradle was found the monster. There were indicators of a cosy relationahip between the monster and one of its original creators----the Pakistani Army and intelligence.
The death of the jihadi Frankenstein’s monster in the cradle of the Pakistan Army has thrown the spotlight even more intensely than till now on another Frankenstein’s monster --- namely, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.
Since the 1980s, the ISI was was pampered, fed and fattened by the U.S. along with the Pakistan Army. The U.S., which closed its eyes to the pernicious role played by this State Frankenstein’s monster in sponsoring terrorism of various kinds against India, Afghanistan and other countries, is confused and does not know how to act against this State Frankenstein’s monster after having killed the non-State monster.
The end of OBL will not be the end of international jihadi terrorism. The non-state head of international jihadi terrorism may be dead, but the State of Pakistan, which continues to use this terrorism, lives in a denial mode. Neither the State of Pakistan nor its civil society is prepared to admit that Al Qaeda and its surviving leaders have managed to escape arrest, prosecution or death so far, because of the support extended to them by the State of Pakistan. The same is the case with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and other jihadi affiliates of Al Qaeda.
Unless the U.S. and other members of the international community are prepared to draw the right lessons from the discovery that OBL had been living and surviving in an important garrison town of Pakistan and force the State of Pakistan to stop using terrorism as a weapon of the State, OBL’s death may not mark the beginning of the end of international jihadi terrorism.
OBL may be dead but jihadi terrorism in some form or the other will survive so long as it enjoys the support of the State of Pakistan.( 3-5-2011)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India)
(Written at the request of the Editor of the “Economic Times”, New Delhi)
Osama bin Laden (OBL), the head of Al Qaeda, was killed by the U.S. Special Forces during a past midnight chopper-borne raid on his hide-out at Abbotabad, a garrison town, about 100 kms from Islamabad, on May 1. He influenced thousands of young Muslims, who grew to adulthood in the 1980s and the 1990s, to take to jihadi terrorism as a weapon of defiance. He wanted them to use this weapon to correct what he looked upon as the historic injustices done to the Ummah by the non-Islamic world.
Among such instances of historic injustices to the Muslims, he cited the Jewish occupation of Palestine and the occupation of lands, which, according to him, had historically belonged to the Muslims by non-Islamic forces. He also wanted the Muslims to take to arms against ideological influences that tended to corrupt Islam.
He initially fought against the corrupting influence of the Marxist ideology in Afghanistan against the Soviet and Afghan troops in the 1980s. He saw nothing wrong in accepting the assistance of Western ideological forces for countering Marxism and to force it to quit Afghanistan.
He might not have acquired the iconic image which he developed subsequently but for the use of him by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIAS) and the agencies of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia which projected him as a jihadi fighter par excellence in order to use him for mobilising Muslim youth of the Arab world for the jihad against the Soviet troops and the Marxist ideology.
With the assistance of these agencies, he forced the Soviet troops to withdraw from Afghanistan and helped to bring Afghanistan under the control of medieval Islamic forces in the form of the Taliban. His medieval version of Islam, which is condemned today by the U.S., was encouraged by the U.S. in the 1980s to use it as a strategic weapon against Marxism .
Having tasted success in Afghanistan, he and his force of Arab youth, trained and armed with the help of these agencies in secret camps in Pakistan turned against their Western benefactors and mentors and transformed their jihad against Marxism into a new jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish people in the 1990s. The icon of the 1980s, toasted by the U.S. because of his success against the Marxists, became the dreaded Frankenstein’s monster of the 1990s and thereafter.
This jihadi Frankenstein’s monster, jointly created by the agencies of the U.S., Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, became the world’s most dreaded terrorist who spread death and destruction across the world through his Al Qaeda and International Islamic Front (IIC) starting from 1996. The 9/11 terrorist strikes in the U.S. Homeland made the U.S. realize that the reach of this monster of its own creation had extended up to the U.S.
The slaying of this monster became the driving force of the so-called war against international terrorism. It has taken nearly 10 years and an expenditure of billions of dollars to slay this monster. At the end, the death of this monster came at the place where it was born, namely, in Pakistan. After 10 years of search the monster was traced .
The monster was found hiding in the place where the Pakistan Army was born and where its new officer-recruits are trained every year. Abbotabad is the cradle of the Pakistan Army and in that cradle was found the monster. There were indicators of a cosy relationahip between the monster and one of its original creators----the Pakistani Army and intelligence.
The death of the jihadi Frankenstein’s monster in the cradle of the Pakistan Army has thrown the spotlight even more intensely than till now on another Frankenstein’s monster --- namely, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan.
Since the 1980s, the ISI was was pampered, fed and fattened by the U.S. along with the Pakistan Army. The U.S., which closed its eyes to the pernicious role played by this State Frankenstein’s monster in sponsoring terrorism of various kinds against India, Afghanistan and other countries, is confused and does not know how to act against this State Frankenstein’s monster after having killed the non-State monster.
The end of OBL will not be the end of international jihadi terrorism. The non-state head of international jihadi terrorism may be dead, but the State of Pakistan, which continues to use this terrorism, lives in a denial mode. Neither the State of Pakistan nor its civil society is prepared to admit that Al Qaeda and its surviving leaders have managed to escape arrest, prosecution or death so far, because of the support extended to them by the State of Pakistan. The same is the case with the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and other jihadi affiliates of Al Qaeda.
Unless the U.S. and other members of the international community are prepared to draw the right lessons from the discovery that OBL had been living and surviving in an important garrison town of Pakistan and force the State of Pakistan to stop using terrorism as a weapon of the State, OBL’s death may not mark the beginning of the end of international jihadi terrorism.
OBL may be dead but jihadi terrorism in some form or the other will survive so long as it enjoys the support of the State of Pakistan.( 3-5-2011)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India)
A Little Bit Pregnant
JB raises a salient point when he poses the question regarding OBL being shot in cold blood; that is to say, he was ‘unarmed’. Even the WH spin-Meisters appeared to have trouble explaining it as evidenced by the fact that they felt compelled to change their story regarding this. It must be assumed that the second version is true.
This administration has had trouble with (what now appears to be) this particular policy before. It reminds me of the would-be Detroit bomber who was read Miranda rights before he even had time to spill the beans. And again, with a strike that presumably was designed to take out Kaddafi (but failed to achieve its objective). It may just be a way for the administration to circumvent its own rules and directives; and also a way to keep from having to add to the inconvenient GITMO population. It may also be due to an understanding that there are now no longer any interrogation methods at our disposal that are both legal and effective.
It’s not a question of us knowing what bin Laden would have said. By unwritten contract with our government we agree to not know some of the seamier deals that go on between governments and international outlaws. We assume that there are competent people whose job it is to know and how to handle such things while keeping our own best interests at heart.
I remember Bush saying (shortly after the 9/11 attacks) that appropriate measures will be taken; that we will be aware of some of these and not of others; that even our successes might never be known. In trying to find the exact quote (which I didn’t), I ran across Bush’s speech before a joint session of Congress (with Tony Blair in attendance). I was moved by this speech. I had forgotten it, though I must have seen it because I remember the line, ‘you’re either with us or…”
How our world has changed since then! Bush was subsequently attacked and vilified incessantly for cheap partisan political advantage. He was mocked, taunted. He was denied his victory. That would go the Barack Hussein Obama in much diluted form.
I urge you to watch this particular speech again and tell me honestly how Bush’s own words paint him as a buffoon. He was never a buffoon. He was painted that by ourselves (for whatever prurient reasons). This speech says volumes about the Bush presidency – the last American presidency.
Everything Bush spoke that night was true, logical and understandable. His plan of attack was measured and sound. Little did he know that the nation would be derailed by our own; that the enemies of America had already infiltrated and organized into a powerful force at the highest levels of our key institutions.
Instead of coming together, we came apart, installing our first post-American president to our highest office; a man, whose words ring hollow to most Americans. They serve only to divide us even further. Trust has been broken between us and our government. Even, what now should be regarded as a great victory is tainted with uncertainty and suspicion.
Take some time to hear President Bush’s post 9/11 speeches again and note how far we have fallen – now, to the very brink of bankruptcy. Take a look at the pictures of the collapsed Trade towers. It’s a fair metaphor of where we find ourselves today. Bin Laden never had to lift another finger. We ourselves bravely went out and finished his work in his stead.
The fact that many people are yet unwilling to recognize what has happened to us makes us into little girls who come home and announce, “Guess what? I’m a little bit pregnant.”
http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Monday, May 2, 2011
View from India: OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DEATH
by B.RAMAN (questions and answers)
Question: Was the operation that was carried out by the U.S. Special Forces against Osama bin Laden resulting in his death at Abbotabad in Pakistan on the night of May 1 an exclusive U.S. operation or was it a joint U.S.-Pak operation?
Answer: Till now the indications are that it was an exclusive U.S. operation. Since it involved the ingress of the U.S. specal forces into Pakistani territory by air in helicopters, it was likely that Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), was informed before the helicopters with the special forces took off from Afghanistan for the raid even though U.S. officials have reportedly been asserting that Pakistan was informed only after the helicopters had taken off at the end of the operation. When Bill Clinton's Administration launched the Cruise missile strikes on the training camps of Al Qaeda in the Jalalabad area of Afghanistan in 1998 they followed a similar procedure. Gen Anthony Zinni, the then Commanding Officer of the U.S. Central Command, flew to Islamabad from a U.S. naval ship and informed Gen. Jehangir Karamat, the then COAS, about the impending raid. The U.S. did so to make sure that Pakistan did not interpret that the missile had been launched by India and order a missile strike against India. A similar precaution was likely to have been taken this time too. Moreover, Abbotabad, an important military garrison town, has high air defence cover. It was important to prevent a messy air defence action by Pakistan against the U.S. helicopters if its radars had detected their approach. The entire operation lasted a little over two hours. During this period, one of the helicopters crashed. It was blown up and destroyed by the special forces. A newsletter disseminated by a retired U.S. naval officer says: "Source says actual crash sight was on Kakul Road, Abbottabod, Pakistan just down from the Pakistan Military Academy exercise grounds. See image for road, which was reportedly blocked off by local security after the incident. Folks in the city mentioned on Twitter at the time that the action was very, very close to the PMA." This would indicate that during the entire operation on the ground, which lasted over 90 minutes if one excludes the time taken by the choppers for their to and fro journey, the Pakistani security forces did not intervene and try to find out what was going on. The local police blocked the stretch of the road where the helicopter had crashed to prevent onlookers rushing there till the Americans had destroyed the chopper. All this clearly shows that the Pakistanis must have had advance knowledge of the operation and had instructions from above not to intervene.
Q: Has the U.S. undertaken similar operations deep inside Pakistan before?
A. Yes thrice before. Twice in 2002 in Faislabad and Karachi to capture Abu Zubaida and Ramzi Binalshibh respectively and once in 2003 in Rawalpindi to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).
Q: How did those operations differ from the latest operation to kill OBL?
A: The three previous operations were joint U.S.-Pakistan operations with the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) playing the leadership role. The raids were organised on the basis of technical intelligence (TECHINT) collected by the U.S. agencies due to the careless use of mobile telephones by the three arrested persons. The latest operation against OBL seems to have been an exclusive U.S. operation with the prior knowledge of Pakistan, but with no Pakistani role in its planning and execution. Since OBL was not using any communication equipment such as mobile telephone, Internet etc in his hide-out, no Technical Intelligence would have been possible. It seems to have been mounted purely on the basis of Human Intelligence (HUMINT). The success of the operation speaks very highly of the improvement in the HUMINT capability of the U.S. agencies.
Q: Wherefrom could the HUMINT have come?
A: Abbotabad is a Hazara town. The Hazaras are strongly against Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban because of the massacre of the Hazaras, many of whom are Shias, in East Afghanistan when the Taliban was in power in Kabul. It is likely that the local Hazara community might have played a role in assisting the U.S. in its OBL hunt. In fact, it is surprising that OBL took shelter in that town despite the strong presence of the Hazaras there. No explanation for this has been forthcoming so far.
Q: Is it possible that the ISI might have played a role in the collection of the HUMINT?
A. Difficult to answer this question.
Q: How come the huge mansion in which OBL was reportedly living did not attract suspicion as it was being constructed in 2005?
A: Difficult to explain it unless the mansion had been constructed by a retired senior General of the Army as his farm house and then given on rent to OBL's family with or without the knowledge that it was the family of OBL.
Q: For how long OBL must have been living in the mansion?
A: According to U.S. media reports, the house had been under watch by the U.S. since Auguat last year. Obama gave the order for the operation on April 29 on the receipt of precise information that OBL was inside the mansion. This would give rise to the possibility that Osama's family had been living in the mansion at least since last August, that OBL had been visiting them off and on and that Obama gave the order for the operation after receiving information in the last week of April that OBL had come to visit his family. This is what happened in the case of Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who was killed in a Drone strike. His wife and children were living with her father. Baitullah was visiting them off and on. The Americans had reportedly managed to find out the details of the car of Baitullah. One day they received information that Baitullah's car was parked outside his in-laws' house. They directed a missile strike at it. Baitullah was among those killed. In the case of OBL, they did not make a missile strike. Instead, they sent a special forces team to kill OBL in a fire-fight.
Q: Was there an official Pakistani complicity in OBL's living in Abbotabad?
A: The evidence till now is circumstantial and not direct. Why did OBL choose to live in Abbotabad despite the presence of a large number of Hazaras there? The only possible answer is because he felt confident his security would be assured there. He could have got this confidence only if had the support of some sections of the local security agencies and/or the police and also of some local elements of the non-Hazara segment of the population. This is more speculative than of any evidentiary value. The direct evidence could come from the interrogation of those arrested alive from the mansion by the U.S. special forces.
Q: What impact this will have on U.S. relations with Pakistan?
A: The U.S. already has considerable suspicion that Pakistan has been playing a double game by dragging its feet on the issue of action against Al Qaeda. This suspicion will now be further strengthened. The smoking gun in the form of OBL's dead body has clearly established that OBL was living in an urban town of Pakistan. Was he living there with the knowledge or collusion of the Pakistani security agencies? There is no smoking gun on this yet. Unless that becoms available, the U.S. would find it difficult to act against the State of Pakistan. The relations will continue as before with ups and downs and with alternating praise for action taken and reprimands for actions not taken.
Q: Will the death of OBL be the end of Al Qaeda?
A: No.Since 9/11, Al Qaeda is already a weakened organisation due to repeated Drone strikes on its hide-outs and capture of some of its leaders on the ground in Pakistan. This process of weakening that has been there since 2002 could acquire pace and strength as a result of the death of OBL. Despite this, Al Qaeda, by itself, will remain a potent force for some years to come until it suffers more attrition.
Q: Will it have any impact on Obama's plans to start thinning out troops from Afghanistan? Will it enable or tempt Obama to accelerate the process?
A: No. Obama's decisions relating to Afghanistan will depend on the evolution of the ground situation in Afghanistan and on the proved ability of the Afghan National Army to withstand pressure from the Taliban.
Q: What are the dangers of reprisal attacks by Al Qaeda and its affiliates?
A: High in the Af-Pak region. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaeda affiliates like the Lashksar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) will presume that the Pakistani security forces must have co-operated with the U.S. Acts of suicide terrorism against the Pakistani security forces and U.S. nationals and interests in Pakistan could increase.
High against U.S. nationals and interests in other countries.
Medium to low in the U.S. homeland. ( 2-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Question: Was the operation that was carried out by the U.S. Special Forces against Osama bin Laden resulting in his death at Abbotabad in Pakistan on the night of May 1 an exclusive U.S. operation or was it a joint U.S.-Pak operation?
Answer: Till now the indications are that it was an exclusive U.S. operation. Since it involved the ingress of the U.S. specal forces into Pakistani territory by air in helicopters, it was likely that Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Pakistan's Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), was informed before the helicopters with the special forces took off from Afghanistan for the raid even though U.S. officials have reportedly been asserting that Pakistan was informed only after the helicopters had taken off at the end of the operation. When Bill Clinton's Administration launched the Cruise missile strikes on the training camps of Al Qaeda in the Jalalabad area of Afghanistan in 1998 they followed a similar procedure. Gen Anthony Zinni, the then Commanding Officer of the U.S. Central Command, flew to Islamabad from a U.S. naval ship and informed Gen. Jehangir Karamat, the then COAS, about the impending raid. The U.S. did so to make sure that Pakistan did not interpret that the missile had been launched by India and order a missile strike against India. A similar precaution was likely to have been taken this time too. Moreover, Abbotabad, an important military garrison town, has high air defence cover. It was important to prevent a messy air defence action by Pakistan against the U.S. helicopters if its radars had detected their approach. The entire operation lasted a little over two hours. During this period, one of the helicopters crashed. It was blown up and destroyed by the special forces. A newsletter disseminated by a retired U.S. naval officer says: "Source says actual crash sight was on Kakul Road, Abbottabod, Pakistan just down from the Pakistan Military Academy exercise grounds. See image for road, which was reportedly blocked off by local security after the incident. Folks in the city mentioned on Twitter at the time that the action was very, very close to the PMA." This would indicate that during the entire operation on the ground, which lasted over 90 minutes if one excludes the time taken by the choppers for their to and fro journey, the Pakistani security forces did not intervene and try to find out what was going on. The local police blocked the stretch of the road where the helicopter had crashed to prevent onlookers rushing there till the Americans had destroyed the chopper. All this clearly shows that the Pakistanis must have had advance knowledge of the operation and had instructions from above not to intervene.
Q: Has the U.S. undertaken similar operations deep inside Pakistan before?
A. Yes thrice before. Twice in 2002 in Faislabad and Karachi to capture Abu Zubaida and Ramzi Binalshibh respectively and once in 2003 in Rawalpindi to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM).
Q: How did those operations differ from the latest operation to kill OBL?
A: The three previous operations were joint U.S.-Pakistan operations with the Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) playing the leadership role. The raids were organised on the basis of technical intelligence (TECHINT) collected by the U.S. agencies due to the careless use of mobile telephones by the three arrested persons. The latest operation against OBL seems to have been an exclusive U.S. operation with the prior knowledge of Pakistan, but with no Pakistani role in its planning and execution. Since OBL was not using any communication equipment such as mobile telephone, Internet etc in his hide-out, no Technical Intelligence would have been possible. It seems to have been mounted purely on the basis of Human Intelligence (HUMINT). The success of the operation speaks very highly of the improvement in the HUMINT capability of the U.S. agencies.
Q: Wherefrom could the HUMINT have come?
A: Abbotabad is a Hazara town. The Hazaras are strongly against Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban because of the massacre of the Hazaras, many of whom are Shias, in East Afghanistan when the Taliban was in power in Kabul. It is likely that the local Hazara community might have played a role in assisting the U.S. in its OBL hunt. In fact, it is surprising that OBL took shelter in that town despite the strong presence of the Hazaras there. No explanation for this has been forthcoming so far.
Q: Is it possible that the ISI might have played a role in the collection of the HUMINT?
A. Difficult to answer this question.
Q: How come the huge mansion in which OBL was reportedly living did not attract suspicion as it was being constructed in 2005?
A: Difficult to explain it unless the mansion had been constructed by a retired senior General of the Army as his farm house and then given on rent to OBL's family with or without the knowledge that it was the family of OBL.
Q: For how long OBL must have been living in the mansion?
A: According to U.S. media reports, the house had been under watch by the U.S. since Auguat last year. Obama gave the order for the operation on April 29 on the receipt of precise information that OBL was inside the mansion. This would give rise to the possibility that Osama's family had been living in the mansion at least since last August, that OBL had been visiting them off and on and that Obama gave the order for the operation after receiving information in the last week of April that OBL had come to visit his family. This is what happened in the case of Baitullah Mehsud, the Amir of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) who was killed in a Drone strike. His wife and children were living with her father. Baitullah was visiting them off and on. The Americans had reportedly managed to find out the details of the car of Baitullah. One day they received information that Baitullah's car was parked outside his in-laws' house. They directed a missile strike at it. Baitullah was among those killed. In the case of OBL, they did not make a missile strike. Instead, they sent a special forces team to kill OBL in a fire-fight.
Q: Was there an official Pakistani complicity in OBL's living in Abbotabad?
A: The evidence till now is circumstantial and not direct. Why did OBL choose to live in Abbotabad despite the presence of a large number of Hazaras there? The only possible answer is because he felt confident his security would be assured there. He could have got this confidence only if had the support of some sections of the local security agencies and/or the police and also of some local elements of the non-Hazara segment of the population. This is more speculative than of any evidentiary value. The direct evidence could come from the interrogation of those arrested alive from the mansion by the U.S. special forces.
Q: What impact this will have on U.S. relations with Pakistan?
A: The U.S. already has considerable suspicion that Pakistan has been playing a double game by dragging its feet on the issue of action against Al Qaeda. This suspicion will now be further strengthened. The smoking gun in the form of OBL's dead body has clearly established that OBL was living in an urban town of Pakistan. Was he living there with the knowledge or collusion of the Pakistani security agencies? There is no smoking gun on this yet. Unless that becoms available, the U.S. would find it difficult to act against the State of Pakistan. The relations will continue as before with ups and downs and with alternating praise for action taken and reprimands for actions not taken.
Q: Will the death of OBL be the end of Al Qaeda?
A: No.Since 9/11, Al Qaeda is already a weakened organisation due to repeated Drone strikes on its hide-outs and capture of some of its leaders on the ground in Pakistan. This process of weakening that has been there since 2002 could acquire pace and strength as a result of the death of OBL. Despite this, Al Qaeda, by itself, will remain a potent force for some years to come until it suffers more attrition.
Q: Will it have any impact on Obama's plans to start thinning out troops from Afghanistan? Will it enable or tempt Obama to accelerate the process?
A: No. Obama's decisions relating to Afghanistan will depend on the evolution of the ground situation in Afghanistan and on the proved ability of the Afghan National Army to withstand pressure from the Taliban.
Q: What are the dangers of reprisal attacks by Al Qaeda and its affiliates?
A: High in the Af-Pak region. The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaeda affiliates like the Lashksar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) will presume that the Pakistani security forces must have co-operated with the U.S. Acts of suicide terrorism against the Pakistani security forces and U.S. nationals and interests in Pakistan could increase.
High against U.S. nationals and interests in other countries.
Medium to low in the U.S. homeland. ( 2-5-11)
(Bahukutumbi Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
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