Pakistan, as most observers of the South-Central Asia war zone will tell you, is a bigger terrorist threat to our nations than Afghanistan. And as the The Great Afghan War Log Leak demonstrates, there is considerable worry that the ISI, the Pakistan intelligence service, has been actively supporting the Taliban against our forces while the country has been soaking up billions of our aid. As the New York Times says, there is “powerful new evidence that crucial elements of Islamabad’s power structure have been actively helping to direct and support the forces attacking the American-led military coalition”.
Pakistan has strongly denied these charges, and I am in no position to judge right or wrong. But if there has been duplicity in an ally, how much of the blame should be shared by the US and/or the UK? And what are we doing about it? One view, expressed eloquently by Imran Khan in The Times today, is that we should carry all the blame. His country, he says, had no suicide bombers and no problems until we showed up and pushed it into an abyss of chaos.
Imran says the ISI is not particularly powerful in Afghanistan, but does not rule out the Taliban allegations. “Certainly in an environment of chaos and uncertainty Pakistan will need to protect its interests through all means necessary.”
As soon as we give up in Afghanistan and the border areas in Pakistan, he says, all will be fine. “The US should not worry about Pakistan. Once the bombing stops, it will no longer be jihad and the suicide attacks will immediately subside.”
This seems dangerously wrong. Saying that Pakistan had no suicide bombers before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ignores the fact that a destabilising problem was festering on the border. That things are more chaotic now is a given, but Pakistan has most certainly been one of the architects of this descent.
I would make two further points: although Pakistan’s leaders have occasionally made encouraging noises about fighting the real enemy of the Taliban, the country’s military is still basically pivoted towards fighting a proxy war against India. There is strong evidence that tacit and real support has been given to terrorist action within India. Until this mindset changes, not much else will. Second, helping the UK and US out in Aghanistan or by sharing terrorist intelligence is the least of ISI’s worries. The Pakistan Taliban, who have dangerously overreached and lost huge amounts of domestic sympathy, killed 2,000 people in Pakistan last year. The streets of London are pretty low down the ISI’s priority list.
AP U.S. President Barack Obama announcing a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on Tuesday. Photo: AP
The leaked Pentagon documents reveal the increasing American frustration with Islamabad’s ambiguous policy toward terrorism and how the US is basically at war in Afghanistan with elements of the Pakistani establishment, U.S. experts feel.
“The leaked documents do reveal a level of US frustration with Pakistan’s dual policy of fighting some extremists while harbouring others that is not always apparent in US official statements praising Pakistan as a steadfast ally in the war on terrorism,” noted South Asian expert, Lisa Curtis, of the Heritage Foundation said.
“Given the continuing challenges posed by Pakistan’s ambiguous policy toward terrorism in the region, the Obama administration must consider carefully whether its current Pakistan policy is providing sufficient dividends or whether it needs to be recalibrated in ways that convince the Pakistanis to shift their strategy toward the Taliban in more fundamental ways,” Curtis said.
“If all of the media stories to date have not been clear enough, the Wikileaks documents describing in great detail how active Pakistan’s ISI has been in supporting and even managing the Afghan Taliban leave little room for doubt -- the United States is basically at war in Afghanistan with elements of the Pakistan government,” said Asia Society Executive Vice President Jamie Metzl.
“Unless this is changed and governance within Afghanistan improves significantly, there is no chance for anything resembling success in Afghanistan and American public support for the war will collapse,” he said.
“WikiLeaks may not be the Pentagon Papers, but the current situation of a military holding on in a far-away war and a disillusioned American public no longer willing to shoulder the burden is starting to look eerily familiar,” Metzl said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. President, Barack Obama, in a meeting with Congressional leaders at the White House sought their support for his efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and approved the funding for the war against terrorism in the region.
“I urged the House leaders to pass the necessary funding to support our efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Mr. Obama told reporters emerging after his meeting with Congressional leaders at the White House.
Speaking for the first time after Wikileaks released more than 92,000 classified documents on the war against terrorism in the region; Mr. Obama said he is concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations.
“The fact is, these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan. Indeed, they point to the same challenge.”
(composite video) - Australia's military commitment in Afghanistan is under scrutiny following the deaths of two 'diggers' today..... Counter-insurgency expert Retired Major General Jim Molan interview with Kerry O'Brien in Canberra..... (full Gen Molan interview @0.25 thru 8.53)
JIM MOLAN: I think that there is a lack of logic in what we're doing in Uruzgan Province. I don't believe that any honourable strategy is linked to the campaign that we're running in the province that can feed down into the tactics, Kerry.....
I don't believe that we impressed our allies in Iraq. We are impressing them a little bit more ....in Afghanistan. The only thing I'd say ....is that I think we should keep in mind that when we list the reasons for being there, that we should be there primarily for the humanitarian reasons..... We can help the Afghan people, and they deserve our help as much as the East Timorese.....
The second reason, in my view - second or third reason, perhaps, is our allies. So I would hope that for the families who sacrifice, for the soldiers who sacrifice we're there to help the people. It's a second or third order reason to impress our allies, but it's critical..... If we're making these sacrifices .....to assist the people and impress our allies and we're not putting the time and resources in to do it, then there's a lack of logic in there..... http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/20...
The bodies of two Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan will begin their journey home today.
The Brisbane-based combat engineers, 26-year-old Sapper Darren Smith and 21-year-old Sapper Jacob Moerland, were killed by a roadside bomb on Monday.
Sapper Smith's explosives detection dog, Herbie, was also killed..... Monday was the deadliest day for Coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan this year; the Australians were among 10 NATO-led soldiers killed.
A ramp ceremony will be held at Tarin Kowt before their bodies are flown to Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates.
Defence Minister John Faulkner and Defence Force chief Angus Houston will attend a service at the base (in luxurious DUBAI!)
The bodies are expected to be repatriated by the weekend. The dead soldiers were based at the Gallipoli Barracks in Brisbane. It was their first tour of Afghanistan..... http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/20...
AUSTRALIA suffered its first multiple combat deaths since the Vietnam War when two Diggers - one just 21 - died in an Afghanistan bomb blast..... http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/aust...
Australia to stay course in Afghanistan - Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says the deaths of two Australian soldiers in Afghanistan are tragic but Australia remains committed to staring down terrorism in the troubled region..... http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/ 1274152/We'll-stay-Afghan-course:-Smith
AFP - A string of attacks in Afghanistan killed 10 NATO soldiers and two foreign contractors in the bloodiest 24 hours for the alliance this year, as troops readied for a push into the heart of Taliban territory. Seven Americans, two Australians and one French soldier were killed on Monday, one of the deadliest days in the nine-year war in Afghanistan to crush the hardline Islamist Taliban.
Six US soldiers were killed by improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and another was killed by small arms fire, Washington announced. Two Australians, who were training Afghan troops, were killed by a roadside bomb during a patrol in the province of Uruzgan, officials in Australia said.
France said one of its troops was killed and three others wounded in a rocket attack by Taliban militants in the east of the country. Separately, two foreign contractors, one of them an American, were killed in a suicide attack on an Afghan police training centre in the southern city of Kandahar, the US embassy said.
NATO, US and Afghan troops are preparing their biggest offensive yet against the Taliban in Kandahar province, with total foreign troop numbers in the country set to peak at 150,000 by August. President Barack Obama ordered the US war effort to be ramped up in the hope that an initial surge will break the back of the Taliban insurgency and allow him to start drawing down troops next year..... http://www.france24.com/en/20100607-a...
Is Australian General Jim Molan a War Criminal?
Few people have heard of Australian General Jim Molan, despite his direct command responsibility for the brutal Coalition assault on Fallujah and other Sunni cities in Iraq in late 2004. He planned and directed the attacks on Najaf, Fallujah, and Samarra. CHRIS DORAN believes Molan must take responsibility for the atrocities that occured.
Fallujah is particularly notorious for the widespread and well documented allegations of serious atrocities, if not outright war crimes, committed by Coalition troops under Molan's command. Molan has just released a book, entitled Running the War in Iraq, a highly sanitised version of what actually occurred under his command. Molan's account suggests that the attack on Fallujah, codenamed Operation Fury, was little more than a few surgical missile strikes which unfortunately and only occasionally resulted in civilian deaths.
He conveniently omits the fact that an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 civilians still remained in Fallujah when the attack began. Citizens had been instructed to evacuate the city, population 250,000, before bombing began in October 2004, but any and all men aged 15 to 45 were prohibited from leaving. Many family members understandably chose to stay with their fathers and brothers. Once the bombing began, all exits out of the city were sealed off.
On October 16, the Washington Post reported that "electricity and water were cut off to the city just as a fresh wave of [bombing] strikes began Thursday night, an action that US forces also took at the start of assaults on Najaf and Samarra". The Red Cross and other aid agencies were also denied access to deliver the most basic of humanitarian aid - water, food, and emergency medical supplies to the civilian population.
The situation was so severe that the United Nation's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, stated that the Coalition had used "hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population [in] flagrant violation" of the Geneva Conventions. Specifically Article 14, which clearly states that cutting off water, electricity, and denying access to humanitarian aid is considered to be a war crime.
But it gets worse, much worse. On November 7, a New York Times front page story detailed how the Coalition's ground campaign was launched by seizing Fallujah's only hospital: "Patients and hospital employees were rushed out of the rooms by armed soldiers and ordered to sit or lie on the floor while troops tied their hands behind their backs." The story also revealed the motive for attacking the hospital: "The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Fallujah General Hospital with its stream of reports of civilian casualties". The city's two medical clinics were also bombed and destroyed.
In his excerpt, Molan also clearly views any non Coalition approved reporting of civilian deaths as propaganda. Independent American journalist Dahr Jamail interviewed scores of Fallujah survivors after the assault. He documented eye witness accounts of US troops denying the Red Cross entry to Fallujah to deliver medical aid, and firing on ambulances trying to enter the city. The fourth Geneva Convention strictly forbids attacks on hospitals, medical emergency vehicles and any impeding of medical operations.
Molan's account also neglects to mention the now irrefutable evidence that chemical weapons, specifically white phosphorous, were used under his command on Fallujah. Irrefutable because U.S. Colonel Barry Venable admitted it to the UK's Independent newspaper a year later. "Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants".
In a November 2005 editorial denouncing its use, the New York Times described white phosphorous: "Packed into an artillery shell, it explodes over a battlefield in a white glare that can illuminate an enemy's positions. It also rains balls of flaming chemicals, which cling to anything they touch and burn until their oxygen supply is cut off. They can burn for hours inside a human body."
Again, one does not have to be an international legal expert to know that the use of chemical weapons is considered to be a war crime, and a particularly heinous one. We are particularly aware of this thanks to The Australian and other Murdoch press, which told us ad nauseam in the lead up to the invasion that there was no better proof of the need to remove Saddam Hussein by force than his use of the same white phosphorous on the Kurds.
Further allegations of atrocities occurred when U.S. and Iraqi troops entered Fallujah. Jamail reports first hand accounts of U.S. snipers shooting women and children in the streets; unarmed men shot while seeking safe passage with their wives and children under a white flag; photographers shot as they filmed battle. And in images captured by journalist Kevin Sites and beamed around the world on November 9, a U.S. marine was shown to approach a clearly wounded man lying on the floor of a mosque. The marine then fired his rife directly into the man, said "He's done", and casually walked away.
Relatively few insurgents were found once the city was subdued; most had, predictably, fled the city long before the assault began. Meanwhile an estimated 70% of the city was utterly destroyed, with thousands dead (Jamail and Fadhil 2006). Molan claims, and perhaps even believes, that his actions "represented the rule of law". In writing about the "terrorists", Molan succinctly expresses the view of many in the international community regarding the Coalition in Iraq: "But there are rules; they just did not obey them. In fact they institutionalised the transgression of international law."
There is little evidence to suggest that the resistance emanating from Fallujah was anything other than Fallujans fighting an occupation they believed to be illegal and unjust, a view shared by good deal of the planet. Yet Molan doggedly holds onto the long warn out U.S. propaganda view that there were just a few extreme "terrorists" who could be singled out: "They went to Fallujah to hide among the people but committed mindless acts of violence against them. They set up local religious courts and Fallujans were tried and punished, even tortured and executed, if they did not commit to extreme fundamentalist Islamic ideology and sharia law."
While he does not provide evidence to support this claim, regardless, it is stunning to suggest that this was somehow a worse fate than what awaited ordinary Iraqis at Abu Ghraib, the scandal of which had broken months earlier. Or what clearly awaited them once the assault on their city began under his direct command.
Under the international legal doctrine of command responsibility, a commander can be held liable if they knew, or should have known, that anyone under their command was committing war crimes and they failed to prevent them. The consistency and similarity of the attacks at Najaf, Samarra, and Fallujah display a deliberate disregard for civilian casualties in the planning and implementation of those military assaults. By Molan's own admission, he was responsible for not only planning, but also directing, these attacks. It is not conceivable that Molan was unaware of the serious and well documented accusations of atrocities being committed under his command.
While admirable that General Molan is so quick to admit responsibility for Fallujah, it is disconcerting that he does not seem to feel that he has done anything wrong, or should in any way be held accountable, for his actions. It is this utter hubris that most accurately characterises his writing. Sanitised as it is though, Molan has written an excellent brief regarding why it is crucial we start holding our political and military leaders accountable for their actions in Iraq. He would be an excellent place to start.
This is a shorter version of the piece originally published here.
Chris Doran summarised these views in a letter to The Australian, which sparked a reply from Molan and a fierce debate. Molan has just released a book, entitled Running the War in Iraq.
Wake up America! How many versions have we heard since 2001? WMD, nations building, Bin Laden, Taliban, Pakistan, internal security and there are more. Why do we accept this? Mission creep is a process whereby the core goal is moved to justify a lack of accomplishment in a reasonable parameter of time.
Do you think it is justifiable to continue this process? What is the end game. Are we going to securitize the WMD apparatus of Pakistan? When did this become the objective.
Large standing armies are a byproduct of a socialist system. It takes huge revenue enhancement and the selective restriction of individuals based on the needs of the state. It is not a conservative democratic principle. Yes, we need a standing army. When it is active, there must be a clear cut goal supported by a consensus of the people. Tell me the goal. Just one more time, Mr. President.
The debate on the war is being deliberately maligned and marginalized. It is US citizens that no longer know the truth of a collective mandate. We lie to ourselves and blame our leaders. We are played based on our assumed sense of global superiority.
It is a clownshow. I don't have to be proud of my country to be a patriot. Blame ourselves and not others. Have the courage to admit the US is not so great anymore and fix it.
It's not about superiority anymore folks. It's survival. Have the courage to take a stand.
War is not a conservative issue. Stop treating it like there is no debate or that it is an exclusive talking point. People are dying. We need to be involved. The President is using this leak as a way to justify his actions as commander in chief. There is no strategy. President Bush was the king of creep.
From the March 1996 issue of the Progressive Review
MILITARY PERSONEL BEING USED TO SPY ON PROTESTERS IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL [IMC]
The nomination of General Barry McCaffrey as drug czar symbolizes the nation's dramatic retreat from the principle of separation of military and civilian power. It further demonstrates the degree to which the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 -- which outlaws military involvement in civilian law enforcement -- is being ignored and undermined by both the drug warriors and the Clinton administration.
Material cataloguing blunders justifies decision to deploy 30,000 more US troops, US president says
Barack Obama speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP Barack Obama today said the disclosures about the mishandling of the Afghanistan war contained in leaked US military documents justified his decision to embark on a new strategy.
Speaking on the White House lawn after a meeting with Congressional leaders to discuss funding for the war and other issues, the US president deplored the leak, saying he was concerned the information from the battleground could jeopardise the lives of US soldiers.
But he went on to say that the material, which catalogues a series of blunders, revealed the challenges that led him to announce late last year a change in strategy that involved sending an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan.
The tens of thousands of documents were sent to the website Wikileaks and published in the Guardian, the New York Times and Der Spiegel. They deal mainly with the conduct of the war during the Bush administration, which Obama has repeatedly accused of ignoring the Afghanistan war because of its focus on Iraq.
"For seven years, we failed to implement a strategy for this region," Obama said yesterday, of the period starting with the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.
"That is why we have increased our commitment there and developed a new strategy," he said, adding that he had also sent one of the finest generals in the US, General David Petraeus.
He ended with a plea to the House of Representatives to join the Senate in passing a bill needed to provide funds for the Afghan war.
The leaks have put attention on Afghanistan at a time when the Obama administration would rather focus on the economy, the main issue among voters, and have put pressure on him to explain why he thinks his new strategy will stand any better chance of success than the old one.
Obama is also facing pressure to explain continued financial, military and other support for Pakistan, in spite of allegations in the leaked documents that elements in the Pakistan intelligence service are supporting the Taliban.
Members of Congress are becoming increasingly sceptical in public about the conduct of the war, and public support is falling. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll published today, satisfaction with Obama's handling of the war has dropped to 33%, down from 38% in January and 47% in February last year.
The revelations by... WikiLeaks emerged as Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned of greater NATO casualties in Afghanistan as violence mounts over the summer.
It also came as the Taliban said they were holding captive one of two U.S. servicemen who strayed into insurgent territory, and that the other had been killed. The reported capture will further erode domestic support for America's 9-year-old war.
Contained in more than 90,000 classified documents, the Wikileaks revelations could fuel growing doubts in Congress about U.S. President Barack Obama's war strategy at a time when the U.S. death toll is soaring.....
Pakistan was actively collaborating with the Taliban in Afghanistan while accepting U.S. aid, new U.S. military reports showed, a disclosure likely to increase the pressure on Washington's embattled ally..... http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTR...
The US military has launched an inquiry to find the source of tens of thousands of classified American documents on the war in Afghanistan that were leaked to the media (they're from the US military, duh!) ..... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...
Wikileaks reveals Afghan civilian deaths - Thousands of secret military documents have been leaked, revealing details of incidents when civilians were killed by coalition troops in Afghanistan.
The cache contains more than 90,000 US records giving a blow-by-blow account of fighting between January 2004 and December 2009..... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wor...
Key findings from the WikiLeaks "Afghan War Diaries" -
•The C.I.A.'s paramilitary operations are expanding in Afghanistan
•The Taliban has used portable, heat-seeking missiles against Western aircraft
•Americans suspect Pakistan's spy service of guiding Afghan insurgency http://www.france24.com/en/20100726-w...
Founded by secretive Australian Julian Assange, Wikileaks was originally based in Sweden and garnered 1.2 million leaked documents in time for its launch in January 2007. It taps in to the world's web users' desire either for justice or revenge on former employers or acquaintances, but its most significant stories have been held up as largely in the public interest..... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/79103...
Obituary: Benazir Bhutto - Benazir Bhutto followed her father into politics, and both of them died because of it - he was executed in 1979, she fell victim to an apparent suicide bomb attack.
Her two brothers also suffered violent deaths.
Like the Nehru-Gandhi family in India, the Bhuttos of Pakistan are one of the world's most famous political dynasties. Benazir's father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was prime minister of Pakistan in the early 1970s.
