Pakistan "Next US Nightmare"

NEW JERSEY, DEC 30 - A hard-hitting article by one of Australia's major broadsheets - The Sydney Morning Herald, says the "Talibanisation" of Pakistan itself is now a looming worry for the West.

Published today, as if to coincide with Saddam's hanging, who by the way, according to reports, refused to wear the hood, and carried a copy of the Koran in his hands, the article is punctuated with slant opinions and contextual observations on Pakistan affairs, and is headlined "Pakistan could become next US nightmare".

The article, which carries no byline, - therefore safe to say that it is the newspaper's own opinion, accuses Musharraf and his government of being deeply ambivalent in their commitment to supporting the Western campaign, (so-called war against terrorism) in return for which about $US4 billion ($5 billion) in US aid has flowed their way over the past five years, the article said.

It also accuses Gen Musharraf, West's most critical and valuable ally, of relying on Islamists for domestic political support.

Given that almost every ominous move made by the West for its "strategic" and/or "national" interests, is subtly actually launched first by its media, it isn't surprising that the said article is an indicator of what's cooking.

Some time back (Sept 24, 2006) I had written that some analysts think stage is being set by the U.S. to "enter" Pakistan - it's the backyard of Iran after all. It will be easier to take out Iran's nuclear assets and reduce its increasing clout in the region. Bugti's removal from the scene and Bush's insistence that U.S. forces will "absolutely" be sent into Pakistan to capture or kill Bin Laden if they have actionable intelligence, are some of the significant moves in that direction. (Read more: Oscar Tangoing Bin Laden's Where about or...Death)


Here's the full text of the article by the Australian Newspaper. It deserves to be read!

IT HAS more than twice as many people as Iran, six times more than Iraq, many primed for Islamic extremism by a legacy of poverty and illiteracy left by decades of misrule by corrupt secular leaders, civilian and military.

It already has nuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles made with North Korean help. It shelters jihadists battling Western forces across its border, and fanatical cells training Muslim youth in Western countries to put bombs on buses and metros.

If Iraq has turned into a nightmare for the US President, George Bush, think about Islamists gaining power in Pakistan, population 166 million, and their hands on its nuclear arsenal.

Across the border in Afghanistan, 31,000 US, Canadian, European and Australian troops are fighting a resurgent Taliban in the country's south.

The British-led forces can outbattle the Islamist fighters, but the constant fighting and presence of foreign troops is steadily undermining local support for the government of President Hamid Karzai. Frustratingly for the British and Afghan commanders, the Taliban are able to operate out of neighboring Pakistan with little hindrance.

The Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, is said to live in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's Balochistan province, hold his "shura" or council meetings openly in the city, and train his fighters at two camps on the city's outskirts.

Before an attack by 1500 Taliban fighters in early September, the Taliban streamed across the border into Afghanistan cheered on by Pakistani border guards.

Pakistan's President and army chief, Pervez Musharraf, has been confronted several times this year, by Karzai, the British and the Americans, who have supplied addresses and phone numbers for Omar and his cohorts in Quetta.

Musharraf throws up unconvincing bluster. He claims that Pakistan has done all it can to prevent cross-border military activity, with its army losing 750 killed in campaigns since September 11, 2001, along its frontier with Afghanistan.

Yet Musharraf and his government are deeply ambivalent in their commitment to supporting the Western campaign, in return for which about $US4 billion ($5 billion) in US aid has flowed their way over the past five years.

With the leaders of the country's two main secular parties, former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, in exile and opposing military rule, Musharraf relies on Islamists for domestic political support.

Principal among these is the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, which explicitly supports the Taliban and reinforces it with recruits from its madrassas (Koranic schools), and which the Pakistan Army and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency helped join ruling coalitions in both Balochistan and the North-West Frontier Province.

As its founding patron, the ISI is said to be highly protective of the Taliban, keeping it in reserve in case Pakistan needs to regain control of its northern neighborhood and transport corridors as "strategic depth" against India.

Pakistan's security agencies have been more active against elements of the al-Qaeda hiding out in its cities, notably by capturing the group's No.3 figure, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in March 2003 and handing him over to the Americans.

But according to a new report by the International Crisis Group, the Brussels-based think tank headed by the former Australian foreign minister, Gareth Evans, the campaigns against al-Qaeda and Taliban militants operating into Afghanistan have failed.

Pakistani authorities have flip-flopped between excessive force, stirring up more resistance in the fiercely independent border tribes, and appeasement.

Accepting "empty pledges" from tribal maliks (headmen) to end attacks on Pakistani troops and curb foreign terrorists, Islamabad has effectively given the Taliban a free hand in this border region.

Musharraf is trying to shore up an administrative system left by the British based on government political "agents" supervising the traditional maliks, while the Taliban's parallel authority is spreading to "settled" areas of the North-West Frontier.

The "Talibanisation" of Pakistan itself is now a looming worry for the West.

Soon after he seized power in 1999 - ahead of being sacked by Sharif - The Economist magazine called Musharraf a "useless dictator".

Seven years later, he hangs onto power without having achieved much in the way of reform, largely because the US regards him as key to keeping the Islamists out of power.

That is turning out to be another big misconception in Washington.