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Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on August 17th, 2012
Then Maj. Gen. Hamid Gul, Director General of the ISI (far left), with William Webster, Director of Central Intelligence, Clair George, Deputy Director for Operations, and Milt Bearden, CIA station chief, at a training camp for the mujahedeen in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province in 1987 (RAWA.org)
In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul responds to charges that he supports terrorism, discusses 9/11 and ulterior motives for the war on Afghanistan, claims that the U.S., Israel, and India are behind efforts to destabilize Pakistan, and charges the U.S. and its allies with responsibility for the lucrative Afghan drug trade.
Retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul was the Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from 1987 to 1989, during which time he worked closely with the CIA to provide support for the mujahedeen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Though once deemed a close ally of the United States, in more recent years his name has been the subject of considerable controversy. He has been outspoken with the claim that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were an “inside job”. He has been called “the most dangerous man in Pakistan”, and the U.S. government has accused him of supporting the Taliban, even recommending him to the United Nations Security Council for inclusion on the list of international terrorists.
In an exclusive interview with Foreign Policy Journal, I asked the former ISI chief what his response was to these allegations. He replied, “Well, it’s laughable I would say, because I’ve worked with the CIA and I know they were never so bad as they are now.” He said this was “a pity for the American people” since the CIA is supposed to act “as the eyes and ears” of the country. As for the charge of him supporting the Taliban, “it is utterly baseless. I have no contact with the Taliban, nor with Osama bin Laden and his colleagues.” He added, “I have no means, I have no way that I could support them, that I could help them.”
After the Clinton administration’s failed attempt to assassinate Osama bin Laden in 1998, some U.S. officials alleged that bin Laden had been tipped off by someone in Pakistan to the fact that the U.S. was able to track his movements through his satellite phone. Counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council Richard Clarke said, “I have reason to believe that a retired head of the ISI was able to pass information along to Al Qaeda that the attack was coming.” And some have speculated that this “retired head of the ISI” was none other than Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul.
When I put this charge to him, General Gul pointed out to me that he had retired from the ISI on June 1, 1989, and from the army in January, 1992. “Did you share this information with the ISI?” he asked. “And why haven’t you taken the ISI to task for parting this information to its ex-head?” The U.S. had not informed the Pakistan army chief, Jehangir Karamat, of its intentions, he said. So how could he have learned of the plan to be able to warn bin Laden? “Do I have a mole in the CIA? If that is the case, then they should look into the CIA to carry out a probe, find out the mole, rather than trying to charge me. I think these are all baseless charges, and there’s no truth in it…. And if they feel that their failures are to be rubbed off on somebody else, then I think they’re the ones who are guilty, not me.”
General Gul turned our conversation to the subject of 9/11 and the war on Afghanistan. “You know, my position is very clear,” he said. “It’s a moral position that I have taken. And I say that America has launched this aggression without sufficient reasons. They haven’t even proved the case that 9/11 was done by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.” He argued that “There are many unanswered questions about 9/11,” citing examples such as the failure to intercept any of the four planes after it had become clear that they had been hijacked. He questioned how Mohammed Atta, “who had had training on a light aircraft in Miami for six months” could have maneuvered a jumbo jet “so accurately” to hit his target (Atta was reportedly the hijacker in control of American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first plane to hit its target, striking the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 am). And he made reference to the flight that hit the Pentagon and the maneuver its pilot had performed, dropping thousands of feet while doing a near 360 degree turn before plowing into its target. “And then, above all,” he added, “why have no heads been rolled? The FBI, the CIA, the air traffic control — why have they not been put to question, put to task?” Describing the 9/11 Commission as a “cover up”, the general added, “I think the American people have been made fools of. I have my sympathies with them. I like Americans. I like America. I appreciate them. I’ve gone there several times.”
At this point in our discussion, General Gul explained how both the U.S. and United Kingdom stopped granting him an entry visa. He said after he was banned from the U.K., “I wrote a letter to the British government, through the High Commissioner here in Islamabad, asking ‘Why do you think that — if I’m a security risk, then it is paradoxical that you should exclude me from your jurisdiction. You should rather nab me, interrogate me, haul me up, take me to the court, whatever you like. I mean, why are you excluding me from the U.K., it’s not understandable.’ I did not receive a reply to that.” He says he sent a second letter inviting the U.K. to send someone to question him in Pakistan, if they had questions about him they wanted to know. If the U.S. wants to include him on the list of international terrorists, Gul reasons, “I am still prepared to let them grant me the visa. And I will go…. If they think that there is something very seriously wrong with me, why don’t you give me the visa and catch me then?”
‘They lack character’
I turned to the war in Afghanistan, observing that the ostensible purpose for the war was to bring the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, to justice. And yet there were plans to overthrow the Taliban regime that predated 9/11. The FBI does not include the 9/11 attacks among the crimes for which bin Laden is wanted. After the war began, General Tommy Franks responded to a question about capturing him by saying, “We have not said that Osama bin Laden is a target of this effort.” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, similarly said afterward, “Our goal has never been to get bin Laden.” And President George W. Bush himself said, “I truly am not that concerned about him.” These are self-serving statements, obviously, considering the failure to capture bin Laden. But what, I asked General Gul, in his view, were the true reasons for the invasion of Afghanistan, and why the U.S. is still there?
“A very good question,” he responded. “I think you have reached the point precisely.” It is a “principle of war,” he said, “that you never mix objectives. Because when you mix objectives then you end up with egg on your face. You face defeat. And here was a case where the objectives were mixed up. Ostensibly, it was to disperse al Qaeda, to get Osama bin Laden. But latently, the reasons for the offensive, for the attack on Afghanistan, were quite different.”
First, he says, the U.S. wanted to “reach out to the Central Asian oilfields” and “open the door there”, which “was a requirement of corporate America, because the Taliban had not complied with their desire to allow an oil and gas pipeline to pass through Afghanistan. UNOCAL is a case in point. They wanted to keep the Chinese out. They wanted to give a wider security shield to the state of Israel, and they wanted to include this region into that shield. And that’s why they were talking at that time very hotly about ‘greater Middle East’. They were redrawing the map.”
Second, the war “was to undo the Taliban regime because they had enforced Shariah”, or Islamic law, which, “in the spirit of that system, if it is implemented anywhere, would mean an alternative socio-monetary system. And that they would never approve.”
Third, it was “to go for Pakistan’s nuclear capability”, something that used to be talked about “under their lip”, “but now they are openly talking about”. This was the reason the U.S. “signed this strategic deal with India, and this was brokered by Israel. So there is a nexus now between Washington, Tel Aviv, and New Delhi.”
While achieving some of these aims, “there are many things which are still left undone,” he continued, “because they are not winning on the battlefield. And no matter what maps you draw in your mind, no matter what plans you make, if you cannot win on the battlefield, then it comes to naught. And that is what is happening to America.”
“Besides, the American generals, I have a professional cudgel with them,” Gul added. “They lack character. They know that a job cannot be done, because they know —I cannot believe that they didn’t realize that the objectives are being mixed up here — they could not stand up to men like Rumsfeld and to Dick Cheney. They could not tell them. I think they cheated the American nation, the American people. This is where I have a problem with the American generals, because a general must show character. He must say that his job cannot be done. He must stand up to the politicians. But these generals did not stand up to them.”
As a further example of the lack of character in the U.S. military leadership, the General Gul cited the “victory” in Iraq. “George Bush said that it was a victory. That means the generals must have told him ‘We have won!’ They hadnever won. This was all bunkum, this was all bullshit.”
Segueing back to Afghanistan, he continued: “And if they are now saying that with 17,000 more troops they can win in Afghanistan — or even double that figure if you like — they cannot. Now this is a professional opinion I am giving. And I will give this sound opinion for the good of the American people, because I am a friend of the American people and that is why I always say that your policies are flawed. This is not the way to go.” Furthermore, the war is “widely perceived as a war against Islam. And George Bush even used the word ‘Crusade.’” This is an incorrect view, he insisted. “You talk about clash of civilizations. We say the civilizations should meet.”
Alluding once more to the U.S. charges against him, he added, “And if they think that my criticism is tantamount to opposition to America, this is totally wrong, because there are lots of Americans themselves who are not in line with the American policies.” He had warned early on, he informed me, including in an interview with Rod Nordland in Newsweek immediately following the 9/11 attacks, that the U.S. would be making a mistake to go to war. “So, if you tell somebody, ‘Don’t jump into the well!’ and that somebody thinks you are his enemy, then what is it that you can say about him?”
‘This state of anger is being fueled’
I turned the conversation towards the consequences of the war in Afghanistan on Pakistan, and the increased extremist militant activities within his own country’s borders, where the Pakistani government has been at war with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP, or Pakistan Taliban). I observed that the TTP seemed well funded and supplied and asked Gul how the group obtains financing and arms.
He responded without hesitation. “Yeah, of course they are getting it from across the Durand line, from Afghanistan. And the Mossad is sitting there, RAW is sitting there — the Indian intelligence agency — they have the umbrella of the U.S. And now they have created another organization which is called RAMA. It may be news to you that very soon this intelligence agency — of course, they have decided to keep it covert — but it is Research and Analysis Milli Afghanistan. That’s the name. The Indians have helped create this organization, and its job is mainly to destabilize Pakistan.”
General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, former Deputy Minister of Defense of the Northern Alliance under Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army since 2002 — “whom I know very well”, General Gul told me — “had gone to India a few days back, and he has offered bases to India, five of them: three on the border, the eastern border with Pakistan, from Asadabad, Jalalabad, and Kandhar; one in Shindand, which is near Herat; and the fifth one is near Mazar-e Sharif. So these bases are being offered for a new game unfolding there.” This is why, he asserted, the Indians, despite a shrinking economy, have continued to raise their defense budget, by 20 percent last year and an additional 34 percent this year.
He also cited as evidence of these designs to destabilize Pakistan the U.S. Predator drone attacks in Waziristan, which have “angered the Pathan people of that tribal belt. And this state of anger is being fueled. It is that fire that has been lit, is being fueled, by the Indian intelligence from across the border. Of course, Mossad is right behind them. They have no reason to be sitting there, and there’s a lot of evidence. I hope the Pakistan government will soon be providing some of the evidence against the Indians.”
Several days after I had first spoken with General Gul, the news hit the headlines that the leader of the TTP, Baitullah Mehsud, had been killed by a CIA drone strike. So I followed up with him and asked him to comment about this development. “When Baitullah Mehsud and his suicide bombers were attacking Pakistan armed forces and various institutions,” he said, “at that time, Pakistan intelligence were telling the Americans that Baitullah Mehsud was here, there. Three times, it has been written by the Western press, by the American press — three times the Pakistan intelligence tipped off America, but they did not attack him. Why have they now announced — they had money on him — and now attacked and killed him, supposedly? Because there were some secret talks going on between Baitullah Mehsud and the Pakistani military establishment. They wanted to reach a peace agreement, and if you recall there is a long history of our tribal areas, whenever a tribal militant has reached a peace agreement with the government of Pakistan, Americans have without any hesitation struck that target.” Among other examples, the former ISI chief said “an agreement in Bajaur was about to take place” when, on October 30, 2006, a drone struck a madrassa in the area, an attack “in which 82 children were killed”.
“So in my opinion,” General Gul continued, “there was some kind of a deal which was about to be arrived at — they may have already cut a deal. I don’t know. I don’t have enough information on that. But this is my hunch, that Baitullah was killed because now he was trying to reach an agreement with the Pakistan army. And that’s why there were no suicide attacks inside Pakistan for the past six or seven months.”
‘Very, very disturbing indeed’
Turning the focus of our discussion to the Afghan drug problem, I noted that the U.S. mainstream corporate media routinely suggest that the Taliban is in control of the opium trade. However, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Anti-Government Elements (or AGEs), which include but are not limited to the Taliban, account for a relatively small percentage of the profits from the drug trade. Two of the U.S.’s own intelligence agencies, the CIA and the DIA, estimate that the Taliban receives about $70 million a year from the drugs trade. That may seem at first glance like a significant amount of money, but it’s only about two percent of the total estimated profits from the drug trade, a figure placed at $3.4 billion by the UNODC last year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has just announced its new strategy for combating the drug problem: placing drug traffickers with ties to insurgents —and only drug lords with ties to insurgents — on a list to be eliminated. The vast majority of drug lords, in other words, are explicitly excluded as targets under the new strategy. Or, to put it yet another way, the U.S. will be assisting to eliminate the competition for drug lords allied with occupying forces or the Afghan government and helping them to further corner the market.
I pointed out to the former ISI chief that Afghan opium finds its way into Europe via Pakistan, via Iran and Turkey, and via the former Soviet republics. According to the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, convoys under General Rashid Dostum — who was reappointed last month to his government position as Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Afghan National Army by President Hamid Karzai — would truck the drugs over the border. And President Karzai’s own brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, has been accused of being a major drug lord. So I asked General Gul who was really responsible for the Afghan drug trade.
“Now, let me give you the history of the drug trade in Afghanistan,” his answer began. “Before the Taliban stepped into it, in 1994 — in fact, before they captured Kabul in September 1996 — the drugs, the opium production volume was 4,500 tons a year. Then gradually the Taliban came down hard upon the poppy growing. It was reduced to around 50 tons in the last year of the Taliban. That was the year 2001. Nearly 50 tons of opium produced. 50. Five-zero tons. Now last year the volume was at 6,200 tons. That means it has really gone one and a half times more than it used to be before the Taliban era.” He pointed out, correctly, that the U.S. had actually awarded the Taliban for its effective reduction of the drug trade. On top of $125 million the U.S. gave to the Taliban ostensibly as humanitarian aid, the State Department awarded the Taliban $43 million for its anti-drug efforts. “Of course, they made their mistakes,” General Gul continued. “But on the whole, they were doing fairly good. If they had been engaged in meaningful, fruitful, constructive talks, I think it would have been very good for Afghanistan.”
Referring to the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, General Gul told me in a later conversation that Taliban leader “Mullah Omar was all the time telling that, look, I am prepared to hand over Osama bin Laden to a third country for a trial under Shariah. Now that is where — he said [it] twice — and they rejected this. Because the Taliban ambassador here in Islamabad, he came to me, and I asked him, ‘Why don’t you study this issue, because America is threatening to attack you. So you should do something.’ He said, ‘We have done everything possible.’ He said, ‘I was summoned by the American ambassador in Islamabad’ — I think Milam was the ambassador at that time — and he told me that ‘I said, “Look, produce the evidence.” But he did not show me anything other than cuttings from the newspapers.’ He said, ‘Look, we can’t accept this as evidence, because it has to stand in a court of law. You are prepared to put him on trial. You can try him in the United Nations compound in Kabul, but it has to be a Shariah court because he’s a citizen under Shariah law. Therefore, we will not accept that he should be immediately handed over to America, because George Bush has already said that he wants him “dead or alive”, so he’s passed the punishment, literally, against him.” Referring to the U.S. rejection of the Taliban offer to try bin Laden in Afghanistan or hand him over to a third country, General Gul added, “I think this is a great opportunity that they missed.”
Returning to the drug trade, General Gul named the brother of President Karzai, Abdul Wali Karzai. “Abdul Wali Karzai is the biggest drug baron of Afghanistan,” he stated bluntly. He added that the drug lords are also involved in arms trafficking, which is “a flourishing trade” in Afghanistan. “But what is most disturbing from my point of view is that the military aircraft, American military aircraft are also being used. You said very rightly that the drug routes are northward through the Central Asia republics and through some of the Russian territory, and then into Europe and beyond. But some of it is going directly. That is by the military aircraft. I have so many times in my interviews said, ‘Please listen to this information, because I am an aware person.’ We have Afghans still in Pakistan, and they sometimes contact and pass on the stories to me. And some of them are very authentic. I can judge that. So they are saying that the American military aircraft are being used for this purpose. So, if that is true, it is very, very disturbing indeed.”
http://www.jeremyrhammond.com
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Foreign Policy on August 17th, 2012
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in India on August 17th, 2012
U.S.-Pakistan relations have reached a new low this year, and Washington bears a significant amount of the blame. The American use of drone strikes in western Pakistan has always been unpopular with the Pakistani public, but these strikes are now being done in defiance of the formal demands of the Pakistani government. While effective in taking out targeted individuals, drone strikes are the embodiment of the short-sighted nature of U.S. policy toward Pakistan, which privileges short-term gains and assistance in the Afghanistan war over the strategic relationship with and internal stability of Pakistan.
On April 12, Pakistani officials confirmed that they had demanded an end to all drone strikes, many of which had been operated from Pakistani airfields in the past. But in the last two weeks the U.S. has nonetheless proceeded to launch at least two attacks on targets inside Pakistan. As has so often happened before, there were civilians reported killed along with the intended targets in the second strike. In addition to the public anger and political backlash that civilian casualties create against the Pakistani government and the U.S., the drone strikes represent the arrogance of the U.S. in Pakistan, as the U.S. is now attacking Pakistani territory without any official connivance or approval from Islamabad. AsDavid Ignatius says of the decision to use drones in the Libyan war, this tactic “projects American power in the most negative possible way.” The negative effects aren’t limited to public hostility, but also include increasing pressures on key Pakistani institutions.
The pressure that U.S. actions put on the Pakistani military is particularly worrisome. And the danger this poses to the U.S. is much greater than it may seem. Anatol Lieven, author of the new book Pakistan: A Hard Country, described the potential for disaster in The National Interestearlier this year: “The greatest potential catalyst for a collapse of the Pakistani state is not the Islamist militants themselves… it is that actions by the United States will provoke a mutiny of parts of the military. Should that happen, the Pakistani state would collapse very quickly indeed, with all the disasters that this would entail.” One of the stated goals of U.S. “Af-Pak” policy is to secure Pakistani stability, but in practice, the U.S. is undermining its own ally, and the situation is reaching a point where Pakistani authorities can no longer tolerate our behavior.
Relieving this pressure is the first thing that the U.S. can do, and one practical step is to halt drone strikes in Pakistan. This can actually serve U.S. goals in Afghanistan by making it easier for Pakistan to help facilitate a political settlement with the Afghan Taliban, and finally allow U.S. forces to withdraw entirely from Afghanistan in the near future. There is no question that withdrawing all American forces is ultimately in the best interests of both the United States and Pakistan. But it will become more difficult if Pakistan is alienated from the U.S. by actions that are radicalizing the population and the military rank and file. Whatever immediate value the U.S. derives from killing individual al Qaeda members, it is risking far more by jeopardizing the sustained, significant security cooperation that Pakistan still provides.
The fraught U.S.-Pakistan relationship is only the most recent example of how Washington often mismanages its alliances and expects allies to act more as subordinates than partners. Given the patron-client relationship that the U.S. has with many allies, it is understandable that this might happen, but it is an impulse that needs to be resisted as often as possible. We have seen this in the administration’s heavy-handed dealing with Japan over Okinawa basing rights, and the dismissive attitude taken toward Turkish mediation efforts related to Iran. Most recently, the administration used American diplomatic and military resources to facilitate military intervention in Libya over the strong objections of many of the most significant NATO allies, and it has now potentially put the future of the military alliance on the line, all for a war that doesn’t seem to be in the security interests of any U.S. ally.
The more strategically significant the ally, the more that Washington needs to take its perceived national interests and grievances seriously. In Pakistan’s case, this doesn’t mean that the U.S. should embrace antagonism toward India, but simply that it should stop imposing intolerable pressures on an ally that, while far from perfect, is more supportive of U.S. security interests than we have any right to expect.
Daniel Larison has a Ph.D. in history and is a contributing editor at The American Conservative. He also writes on the blog Eunomia.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on August 16th, 2012
Pakistan has perhaps taken more risks than any other nation in America’s war on terror. Yet it remains most insecure about its relations with Washington. In fact Pakistan’s extensive and risky cooperation with the US has done little to alleviate its own security dilemmas. Pakistan, even today remains exposed to the dangers of preemptive strikes from America’s other close allies in the war on terror, India and Israel. Even from the US, Pakistan is not fully assured.
Washington seems to maintain a complex strategy of coercive diplomacy combined with economic assistance towards Pakistan which rewards it economically for its cooperation but does not reduce its geopolitical threats. In a strange way Pakistan in spite of being a close ally of the world’s most dominant power continues to live in a Hobbesian world.
Insecurity can lead nations to monumental irrationality. Notice how a heightened sense of vulnerability after September 11 attacks has led American foreign policy from one monumental blunder to another. As Pakistanis, especially the Islamists are made to feel that their nation is being bullied into working against its own interests and its own people and faith, their anger, resentment and fear is increasing.
At seminar after seminar on South Asian security and on the war on terror, I hear Pakistanis expresses deep concern, confusion and suspicions about Washington’s policies and in particular the emergence of a new anti-Pakistan axis — US, Israel and India. Pakistan essentially identifies three dangers to its national security and they are:
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1. A conventional strike by India from the Kashmir border or a strategic strike by India against Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. 2. A preemptive strike by Israel at Pakistan’s nuclear facilities with India’s direct assistance or by using India as a base. 3. A preemptive strike by the US against Pakistan’s nuclear facilities to prevent them from becoming available to Islamists who could easily come to power in Pakistan. |
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Every nightmare scenario for Pakistan involves a threat to their nuclear capability form either one or all of the three states who are currently working very closely — India, Israel and the US. All three of these nations now identify “Islamic terrorism” as the main threat to their own security and their ultimate nightmare involves Jihadis armed with nukes. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, sought primarily for defense against a conventionally superior India, seem to have increased the possibility of Pakistan becoming a victim of attacks from more powerful nations far and near, rather than making it more secure. Perhaps there is a lesson in this for Iran.
The question however that Washington needs to address is a more complex one and needs more subtle geopolitical analysis than Washington has been indulging in lately. Can the world in general and India, Israel and the US in particular afford to make a nuclear armed nation feel confused and insecure about its relations with them? Pakistan’s defense strategy is based on a “first strike policy”. Very simple this means that when in danger the Pakistanis will trigger the nukes. Keep in mind that this is the policy of secular, rational generals and not some crazy Mullahs.
We do not have to wait for Pakistani nukes to fall in to the hands of Taliban types before we see them lighting the sky. All we need to do is scare the present administration sufficiently. Nothing can be scarier for the present military establishment in Pakistan than the threat to their nuclear weapons. Is Washington scaring the Pakistanis? Yes it is. But things have not reached dangerous levels, but who knows what the threshold level of Pakistan is? How much pressure can it handle?
Washington continues to insinuate that Pakistan has been sharing its nuclear secrets with Iran and North Korea. Washington also continues to express its fears about the stability of Pakistan’s command and control structure and the possibility of their nukes falling in the hands of militant Muslims. Despite Pakistan’s repeated reassurances on both counts, Washington continues to maintain its doubts.
Every time Indians meet with Israelis, the conversation is the same. Israelis ask, “What can you do for us?” And Indians ask “What are you going to do about Pakistan?” So far Israel has not expressed much concern over Pakistani nukes; it is more worried about the Iranian nuclear program. But the growing Indo-Israeli military and intelligence cooperation and the Indo-American military exercises in Kashmir are definitely raising the fear barometer in Islamabad.
The US must understand that it cannot enhance its own security by making others feel insecure. While it works to keep Taliban types out of power and out of range of the nuclear buttons in Pakistan it must also work to reduce the stress and uncertainty in the minds of those who now already have their fingers on the nuclear buttons in Islamabad. Washington can take the following concrete steps to allay mutual fears. (While the neocons may not understand the word “mutual”, I am sure Ms. Rice or General Powell can decode it for them).
1. Washington can use the war on terror to develop a semi-formal regional security institution involving US, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Starting with the basic limited goal, that is in the interest of all four nations, of keeping the Taliban types out of power in South-West Asia and maintaining regional stability, the US could reduce tensions and allay fears. This setup may also come in handy as a forum for future Indo-Pak peace process and for resolving the Kashmir issue through regional summits.
2. The US continues to guarantee Israeli security. It must use this guarantee to keep Israel from destabilizing other regions in pursuit of real or imagined threats. An institutional American security interest in South-West Asia will also help to reduce Israeli fears about Pakistani nukes.
3. Finally the US must learn that it cannot have an instrumentalist approach to other nations. It cannot force Pakistan to take risks with its domestic and international balances of power in US interests without the US also taking steps to ensure that Pakistan is not over exposed to strategic threats. A disregard for Pakistani domestic politics gave the Islamist parties a historically unprecedented victory in the last elections a contributing to current fears in Washington, Tel Aviv and New Delhi.
Before the nukes are triggered, Washington must learn to nurture its allies while nudging them to towards safer policies and pro-American postures.
CAN PAKISTAN WITHSTAND THE PRESSURE FROM US, INDIA AND ISRAEL?
This article was published in The Daily Star (Lebanon), 09.24.2003, Foreign Policy in Focus 09.24.2003, Counterpunch,09.18.2004, Dawn (Pakistan)09.27.2003, The Muslim Observer and The Detroit News.
Posted by Dr. Manzer Durrani in Defense on August 16th, 2012
Pakistan needs to respond, politically and militarily to Israel and India’s proxy war against Pakistan via Afghan and Central Asian proxies.
The Great Game to prove:
India and Israel badly want US to carry most of the load in attacking Pakistan in order to hijack its nuclear weapons.
Jewish Owned Media and Newspapers, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, and newspapers like the inveterate anti-Pakistan Zionist paper, New York Times & Washington Post are Spearheading Global Propaganda Against Pakistan’s Nuclear Program. Their aim is to develop a ground swell in US and Global public opinion to legally “hijack,” or neutralize Pakistan’s strategic Programs.
What would US and Obama administration get out of it? Another 4 years in the White House, because that would put the losses in the Afghan War appear well worth the effort
It would provide a fig leaf to President Obama’s administration or justify the trillion of dollar losses and thousand of battle causalities in Afghanistan.
Therefore, a justification for the global community wrest control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, with US spear-heading an effort under the UN charter
JOKER IN THE DECK
But, what these naive thinkers do not take into account is Pakistan’s response. Yes, any base of any country is vulnerable to suicide attacks. Even, the US base in Bagram has been attacked and penetrated several times by Taliban. It is how such attacks are countered by the defenders of the facility, to the chagrin of Israeli-Indian nexus, their latest scheme failed miserably. All nine terrorist sent from Central Asia through Afghanistan via FATA were killed before they could even come close to Pakistan’s strategic assets, i.e. its AWACs. Why AWACS? Because, the objective of India-Israel nexus is to neutralize the most lethal arm of Pakistan Armed Forces (and its eyes and ears), its early warning airborne radars, so that an airborne assault of US and ISAF to wrest control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could be mounted.
The Joker in the deck is Pakistan’s response, which is inevitable, within seconds of such foolish misadventure; India and Israel will be toast. How that will happen? Lets leave it at that…So, any power which is planning for such an attack must think a thousand times, before incurring losses of over 1.2 billion Indians and their Israeli friends.
Pakistan’s strategic forces will launch within three minutes their strike weapons, if an attack to wrest Pakistan’s strategic weapons by any nation, unilaterally or jointly.
Also, Pakistan’s safety and security is linked with China. An attack on Pakistan from any direction will trigger China’s nuclear defenses, because, China is wary of India launching a joint attack with US on it. Every, which way, you cut it; India and US end up as losers. So, US should let wisdom prevail and not let its junk yard dogs, India and Israel loose, because, once they are loose, the response to their attack may be uncontrollable, even, the great, and “almighty,” only global power. And, it may trigger another plan, which is Allah’s Plan, which works and may have devastating consequences for mischief making nations. History has shown this time and again. Hitler, the Super Man, died like a sick junk yard dog. So be warned all comers, you may trigger something, which like a fission reaction, may destroy all humanity.
Pakistan’s Foreign Policy Review on Iran-Israel Issue
Although, Pakistan has kept out of the fray between Iran and Israel over the formers development of nuclear technology, Pakistan’s tolerance threshold of India-Israel nexus has its limits. Indian and Israeli Intelligence agencies are training fanatical extremists in Afghanistan to attack Pakistan’s defense installation. This is happening under the nose of US and ISAF forces, which are turning a blind eye to it. However, the US does not want to rebuke Israel and India publicly, due to the danger of annoying US Jewish and Indian community, and those acting on their behalf and promoting funding Congressional campaign, like those of Dana Rohrabacher, through stealth contributions (fee paid speaking engagements to Indian and Jewish Organizations Israeli and Indian lobbyists in the US Congress.)
DEOBAND AND INDIAN MUSLIM DARUL ULOOM — — USED AS TRAINING GROUNDS FOR HINDU AND ZIONIST AGENTS
Training of Taliban takes place under Israeli and Indian agents, who in turn are being trained by Hindu teachers, who received their Islamic education in Deoband and other Muslim Madrassas’ in India. Hindu agents of RAW and Indian Military Intelligence get their initial training in Islamic studies department of Indian Universities. Then, they are sent to Darul Uloom Deoband disguised as Muslims to get in-depth knowledge of Fiqh. After this training they are sent to Afghanistan, where in collaboration with similarly trained Zionists, disguised as Mullahs, “brain-wash,” the naive and illiterate Afghans. The bogeyman presented to these trainees is that Pakistan is a Kafir state. Its people are kafirs, thus to save both Pakistan and Islam, attacks against these “kafirs,” are justifiable, and a direct ticket to Jannah.
Therefore, these Manchurian Candidates are ready to do their masters bidding and launch subversion against Pakistan.
One such attack, according to PTT sources in Pakistan is that on PAF Base Minhas, Kamra.
In the past, Pakistan did not retaliate against the RAW/Mossad inspired attack on GHQ, and Mehran Naval facilities. But, enough, is enough, Pakistan’s SSG, Salahuddin, Khalid, and Tariq Black-OPS unit, within ISI are perfectly capable of teaching Israel a lesson. India is a pathetic tag along with Israeli mastermind. We also would like to serve this as a warning to the Israeli intelligence operative, which is monitoring this site. Pakistan is NOT Iraq. Pakistan intelligence operatives know about Israel’s “secret,” strategic sites and locations of nuclear stock piles. DON’T TREAD ON US!
Pakistan also needs to reach out to Iran to have a joint plan of action against Israel/India nexus inspired attacks on Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan must warn both these mischief mongers traipsing around in ISAF Occupied Afghanistan. If there is no response, there will be more proxy attacks on Pakistan, by these enemies. Pakistan had warned Israel once before, when Gen.Zia told them that Tel Aviv is accessible to Pakistani retaliation.
It is also imperative that US take an active role in putting a chain around two of its vicious junkyard dogs. Or lose Pakistan’s support to ISAF against the Taliban.
McNair Paper Number 41, Radical Responses to Radical Regimes: Evaluating Preemptive Counter-Proliferation, May 1995
Israeli Wanted Destruction of Pakistan’s “Islamic Bomb”
Reference:http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/mcnair41/41ind.htm
There is some evidence that Iraq was not the only nuclear peril to Israel that Begin saw in the early 1980s. Nor was the Osirak reactor in Iraq his only intended target. He also feared the Pakistani nuclear effort because Israeli intelligence had found evidence that Libya and other Moslem states were helping Pakistan, supplying both money and uranium to their effort. (Note 52) Pakistan’s leader, Bhutto, was therefore under some obligation to share the nuclear fruits of Pakistan’s bomb effort with other Moslem states such as Libya.
According to an Indian official, Subramaniam Swamy, a former Janata Party member, Israel in 1982 asked him to sound out other Indian leaders to see if India would grant Israeli warplanes landing and refueling rights were they to undertake an Osirak-type raid against the Kahuta nuclear reactor in Pakistan. (Note 53) India refused, probably for a combination of reasons. As one expert on South Asia speculated:
“First, the Kahuta facility is well-protected and is thus a hard target to destroy. Second and more important, India expects that any first strike by India against Kahuta would be swiftly followed by a Pakistani attack against India’s nuclear facilities. Such an exchange would leave India worse off, since any potential deterrent capability against China would thereby be eliminated. Finally, India would be wary of launching such an attack against Pakistan as it would cause not only great death and destruction to Pakistan, but could blow radioactive fall-out back over India. Such an attack against Pakistan would also alienate the Muslim Middle Eastern states whose amity India has assiduously cultivated.”(Note 54)
In 1991, India and Pakistan signed a treaty pledging that neither would preemptively attack the nuclear facilities of the other.
By Raja G Mujtaba
Pakistan Air Force Base at Kamra was attacked in the very early morning hours today. Kamra, besides an Air Base, is Aeronautical complex also where PAF not only produces her latest JF 17 Aircraft but also has the rebuild facility for its entire weapon system.
Attack on Kamra is continuation of previous attacks on GHQ where the attempt was to take General Ashfaq Kayani as hostage and at PNS Mehran where the P3 C Orion Anti Submarine warfare Surviellance Aircraft were the target. At Kamra, SAAB 2000 the Early Warning Aircraft Sytem equipped with the latest techonology was the target.
The attack took place at 0230 hours when people were generally supposed to be busy with preparations of fasting. The date and time by the attackers was very carefully selected as it being the 27th of Ramadan on which night the maximum number of Muslims try and pray the whole night. Thinking that at this time all would be on low guard, the attackers tried to enter the base in PAF uniforms. The security guard Mohammad Asif having sensed the foul play shot dead one of the attackers who was later identified from Central Asia. Later the security guard was shot dead by the other attackers.
With this everyone was alerted and everything moved in very swiftly to defend the base successfully. Air Commodore Mohammad Azam who moved in immediately to lead the operation got a bullet a bullet in his shoulder. Likewise an injured Squadron Leader who crawled to put out the fire from a random firing that damaged a SAAB 2000 Aircraft.
The PAF spokesperson when contacted on telephone informed that PAF Chief Air Chief Marshal Rafiq Butt immediately at 0230 hours took over the entire operation for its logical conclusion.
All the eight attackers have been killed, the operation has concluded successfully for which the PAF deserves a commendation.
Prior to this report, I had written an analysis of the incident that is placed below.
Why are they a thorn in the side of so many?
“Pakistan’s nuclear facilities are secure”
Axis of Logic – When India exploded its first nuclear device in 1974, culminating a program launched as far back as 1951; Western powers only reacted with customary “show of concern”. But on the other hand, Pakistan’s nuclear program, initiated in response to the Indian acquisition of nuclear weapons, evoked immediate and “serious concern” from the same Western powers. This discriminatory attitude has since persisted. Pakistan has remained under pressure from the US-led lobby to scrap its program while the Indians remained uncensored.
India has often tried to justify its nuclear program as a counter to the Chinese threat. This is preposterous. China has shown no belligerency towards India. The war of 1962 resulted from India’s arrogance in refusing to amicably settle a boundary dispute with China, just as it has done with Pakistan. And if China was such a big threat why have other countries of the region not complained or scrambled to seek nuclear umbrellas?
Bhutto and the “religious bomb”
“The West simply used Pakistan’s bomb to make Islam and aggression synonymous.” That Western attitude was discriminatory can also be seen by the religious color it gave to Pakistan’s bomb by calling it an ‘Islamic bomb’.
One has never heard of the Israeli bomb being called a ‘Jewish Bomb’, or the Indian bomb a ‘Hindu Bomb’, or the American and British bomb a ‘Christian Bomb’ or the Soviet bomb a ‘Communist’ (or an ‘Atheist) Bomb’. The West simply used Pakistan’s bomb to make Islam and aggression synonymous, although Pakistan’s bomb was merely for defensive purposes and was not even remotely associated with Islam.
With India going nuclear soon after playing a crucial role in dismembering Pakistan in 1971 and enjoying an overwhelming conventional military superiority over Pakistan (in the ratio 4:1) a resource-strapped Pakistan was pushed to the wall. Left with no choice but to develop a nuclear deterrent to create a balance of power and ward off Indian threat, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto declared: “Pakistanis will eat grass but make a nuclear bomb”. And sure enough, they did it. But soon both he and the nuclear program were to become non-grata. Amid intense pressure, sanctions and vilification campaign, Henry Kissinger personally delivered to a defiant Bhutto the American threat: “give up your nuclear program or else we will make a horrible example of you.”
And a horrible example was made of Bhutto for his defiance. Bhutto signed Pakistan’s nuclear program with his blood to enable Pakistan to become the 7th nuclear power in the world, forcing India to shun belligerency. Although there has never been real peace in South Asia, at least there has been no war since 1971.
Pakistan’s nuclear program: a deterrent to Indo-Israeli dominion
Ignoring its perspective on acquisition of strategic assets, Pakistan’s Western ‘friends’ refused to admit it to their exclusive nuclear club, pressuring it to give up nuclear ambitions instead. However, expediency made them look the other way when it suited their purpose. In 1980s and post 9/11 when Pakistan was needed to play a key role in Afghanistan as the ‘front line state’, the American spotlights on its nuclear program were switched off.
Pakistan obstructs quest for dominion by India and Israel. But Pakistan’s nuclear program remained under threat from the foes – India and Israel, who felt their interests, were threatened. In collusion, both of them missed no opportunity to directly or indirectly malign Pakistan’s nuclear program or subvert it. Both countries having similar geo-strategic interests in their respective regions see Pakistan as an obstacle to their designs.
India sees Pakistan as an unnatural creation which, having been carved out of its body, now refuses to submit to its diktat and obstructs its quest for unchallenged domination of South Asia and the Indian Ocean region.
Israel looks at Pakistan’s military prowess and its nukes as indirectly strengthening the hands of Arab states with which it has remained in a state of conflict and which it has continued to terrorize all these years. It is conscious that several Arab states look up to Pakistan for military support when faced with external threat to their security that comes mainly from Israel. It is unsettling for Israel to see such a state to be in possession of nuclear weapons.
Israel also cannot overlook the fact that Pakistan Air Force pilots, when flying mostly Russian aircraft, surprised the Israeli Air Force and shot down several relatively superior Israeli jets in air combat in the 1973 Arab Israel war. They shattered the myth of the invincibility of Israeli pilots who believed themselves to be too superior in skill and technology. These Pakistani pilots happened to be assigned to Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi air forces on training missions when the war broke out and they inconspicuously joined the operations.
The foiled Israeli plan to bomb Kahuta
Having successfully bombed and destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, Israelis were encouraged to launch a similar attack on Kahuta, a village to the east of Islamabad where Pakistan’s nascent nuclear research program was located. In collaboration with India, the Israelis made plans for this mission in early 1980s. Using satellite pictures and intelligence information provided by the CIA, they reportedly built a full-scale mock-up of Kahuta facility in the southern Negev Desert and pilots of F-16 and F-15 squadrons went through mock attack exercises.
According to the story published in London by The Asian Age citing revelations by journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark in their book ‘Deception: Pakistan, the US and the Global Weapons Conspiracy’, the Israeli Air Force planned to launch an air attack on Kahuta in mid 1980s from Jamnagar airfield in Gujarat (India) and land and refuel at a base in northern India. The book claims “in March 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi signed off (on) the Israeli-led operation, bringing India, Pakistan and Israel to within a hairs breadth of a nuclear conflagration”.
Another report claims that Israel had planned to launch an air strike directly out of Israel. After midway and midair refueling, Israeli warplanes were to shoot down a commercial airline’s flight over the Indian Ocean that routinely flew into Islamabad early morning. The Israelis would have flown in a tight formation to appear as one large aircraft on radar screens preventing detection. Using the drowned airliner’s call sign they would have entered Islamabad’s air space, knocked out Kahuta and flown on to land in Jammu, an Indian airbase, to refuel and make an exit.
“Pakistan reminded the Israelis that Pakistan was no Iraq and that the Pakistan Air Force was no Iraqi Air Force.”
{Pakistan Air Force Must Retaliate Against both India and Israel, if, another Kamra incident occurs or this proxy war continue}
Reliable reports say that in mid 1980s this mission was actually launched one night. But the Israelis were in for a big surprise. They discovered that Pakistan Air Force had already sounded an alert and had taken to the skies in anticipation of this attack. The Indo-Israeli mission had to be hurriedly called off.
Pakistan reminded the Israelis that Pakistan was no Iraq and that Pakistan Air Force was no Iraqi Air Force. Using indirect channels, Pakistan is reported to have conveyed that an attack on Kahuta would force Pakistan to lay waste to Dimona, Israel’s nuclear reactor in the Negev Desert. Pakistan drew up contingency plans for retaliatory strike on Dimona in case of any future Israeli misadventure. India was also warned that Islamabad would attack Trombay if its facilities in Kahuta were hit.
The above quoted book claims that “Prime Minister Indira Gandhi eventually aborted the operation despite protests from military planners in New Delhi and Jerusalem.”
A paper published by the U.S. Air Force Air University also confirmed this Indo-Israeli plan.
It stated,
“Israeli interest in destroying Pakistan’s Kahuta reactor to scuttle the ‘Islamic bomb’ was blocked by India’s refusal to grant landing and refueling rights to Israeli warplanes in 1982.”
Clearly India wanted to see Kahuta gone but did not want to face retaliation against its own nuclear facilities at the hands of Pakistan Air Force. Israel, on its part wanted this to be a joint Indo-Israeli strikes so that Israel alone would not be held responsible.
The Reagan administration also showed reluctance to support the plan as any distraction on Pakistan’s part at that juncture would have hurt American interests in Afghanistan where Pakistan was engaged as key US ally against the Soviets.
The Propaganda Campaign
Although the two countries had to give up plans to hit Kahuta, they continued their diatribe against Pakistan’s nuclear program through an organized propaganda campaign, which has been accelerated today. Israel used its clout over the American political establishment and the Western media to create hysteria. India also worked extensively to promote paranoia. Pakistan’s program was branded as unsafe, insecure and a threat to peace, although it is technically more sound, much safer and more secure than that of India and has ensured absence of war in the region.
Use of terrorists to destabilize Pakistan
The US invasion of Afghanistan provided another opening for the Indo-Israeli nexus to target Pakistan’s strategic assets. This time the strategy was to present Pakistan as an unstable state, incapable of defending itself against religious extremist insurgents, creating the specter of nuclear assets falling into their hands in Islamabad. This was achieved by creating a proxy organization -Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Pak-Afghan border areas where they recruited rogue elements and spread chaos to destabilize Pakistan through terrorism. Suggestions were floated that in view of the possibility of Pakistan succumbing to extremists, its nuclear assets should be disabled, seized or forcibly taken out by the US. Alternatively, an international agency should take them over for safekeeping.
Pakistan has paid a high price in terms of civilian and military casualties but it has foiled the conspiracy and thwarted the threat. As a result of operations by Pakistan Army in Swat, South Waziristan and other areas in FATA, TTP terrorists have either been eliminated or are on the run. With the insurgency crushed, peace is returning to these former havens of terrorism.
Pakistan has made it clear that it would act decisively against any attempt by any quarter to seize its nuclear assets. The resulting situation would be disastrous as it could send South Asia up in flames.
The Indo-Israeli nexus is losing the initiative. But as long as the American umbrella is not denied, Afghanistan will remain a playground for these mischief mongers. It is now up to the US to walk its talk if it is sincere about its claim that it wants to see a secure and stable Pakistan. It must put an end to conspiracies to destabilize Pakistan.
Reference
By Shahid R. Siddiqi. Axis of Logic
Axis of Logic
Saturday, Jan 2, 2010
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