Occults Powers Decided To Punish Pakistan

Occults Powers decided to punish Pakistan
(Punishing Pakistan and Challenging China)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world
Highs and lows of U.S.-Pakistan relationship

The two countries are allies but their relationship has been plagued by mistrust over the last 50 years.
SOURCE: The Washington Post; Council on Foreign Relations. GRAPHIC: Anup Kaphle and Sam Sanders - The Washington
MIA
1|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
2|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
3|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
4|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
5|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
6|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
7|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
8|P ag e
July 2, 2011

MIA
9|P ag e
July 2, 2011

Global Research, May 28, 2011 - 2011-05-27
Imperial Eye on Pakistan Pakistan in Pieces, Part 1

by Andrew Gavin Marshall Introduction As the purported assassination of Osama bin Laden has placed the focus on Pakistan, it is vital to assess the changing role of Pakistan in broad geostrategic terms, and in particular, of the changing American strategy toward Pakistan. The recently reported assassination was a propaganda ploy aimed at targeting Pakistan. To understand this, it is necessary to examine how America has, in recent years, altered its strategy in Pakistan in the direction of destabilization. In short, Pakistan is an American target. The reason: Pakistans growing military and strategic ties to China, Americas primary global strategic rival. In the Great Game for global hegemony, any country that impedes Americas world primacy even one as historically significant to America as Pakistan may be sacrificed upon the altar of war. Part 1 of Pakistan in Pieces examines the changing views of the American strategic community particularly the military and intelligence circles towards Pakistan. In particular, there is a general acknowledgement that Pakistan will very likely continue to be destabilized and ultimately collapse. What is not mentioned in these assessments, however, is the role of the military and intelligence communities in making this a reality; a veritable self-fulfilling prophecy. This part also examines the active on the ground changes in American strategy in Pakistan, with increasing military incursions into the country. Imperial Eye on Pakistan In December of 2000, the CIA released a report of global trends to the year 2015, which stated that by 2015, Pakistan will be more fractious, isolated, and dependent on international financial assistance.[1] Further, it was predicted, Pakistan: Will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction. Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. Further domestic decline would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military once Pakistans most capable institution. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central governments control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.[2] The report further analyzed the trends developing in relation to the Pakistan-India standoff in the region: The threat of major conflict between India and Pakistan will overshadow all other regional issues during the next 15 years. Continued turmoil in Afghanistan and Pakistan will spill over into Kashmir and other areas of the subcontinent, prompting Indian leaders to take more aggressive preemptive and retaliatory actions. Indias conventional military advantage over Pakistan will widen as a result of New Delhis superior economic position.[3] In 2005, the Times of India reported on a US National Intelligence Council report, written in conjunction with the CIA, which predicted a Yugoslavia-like fate for Pakistan, saying that, by year 2015 Pakistan would be a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and
MIA
10 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

complete Talibanisation.[4] In November of 2008, the US National Intelligence Council released a report, Global Trends 2025, in which they outlined major trends in the world by the year 2025. When it came to Pakistan, the report stated that, Ongoing low-intensity clashes between India and Pakistan continue to raise the specter that such events could escalate to a broader conflict between those nuclear powers.[5] It stated that Pakistan will be at risk of state failure.[6] In examining potential failed states, the report stated that: [Y]outh bulges, deeply rooted conflicts, and limited economic prospects are likely to keep Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and others in the high-risk category. Spillover from turmoil in these states and potentially others increases the chance that moves elsewhere in the region toward greater prosperity and political stability will be rocky.[7] The report referred to Pakistan as a wildcard and stated that if it is unable to hold together until 2025, a broader coalescence of Pashtun tribes is likely to emerge and act together to erase the Durand Line [separating Pakistan from Afghanistan], maximizing Pashtun space at the expense of Punjabis in Pakistan and Tajiks and others in Afghanistan.[8] In January of 2009, a Pentagon report analyzing geopolitical trends of significance to the US military over the next 25 years, reported that Pakistan could face a rapid and sudden collapse. It stated that, Some forms of collapse in Pakistan would carry with it the likelihood of a sustained violent and bloody civil and sectarian war, an even bigger haven for violent extremists, and the question of what would happen to its nuclear weapons, and as such, that perfect storm' of uncertainty alone might require the engagement of U.S. and coalition forces into a situation of immense complexity and danger.[9] A top adviser to former President George Bush and current President Obama warned in April of 2009, that Pakistan could collapse within months, and that, We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now. The adviser and consultant, David Kilcullen, explained that this would be unlike the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which each had a population of over 30 million, whereas Pakistan has [187] million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.[10] Target: Pakistan Going back to the later years of the Bush administration, it is apparent that the US strategy in Pakistan was already changing in seeing it increasingly as a target for military operations as opposed to simply a conduit. In August of 2007, newly uncovered documents revealed that the US military gave elite units broad authority in 2004, to pursue suspected terrorists into Pakistan, with no mention of telling the Pakistanis in advance.[11] In November of 2007, an op-ed in the New York Times stated categorically that, the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss, and that, we need to think now about our feasible military options in Pakistan, should it really come to that. The authors, Frederick Kagan and Michael OHanlon are both well-known strategists and scholars at the American Enterprise Institute and Brookings Institution, two of the most prominent and influential think tanks in the United States. While stating that Pakistans leaders are still primarily moderate and friendly to the US, Americans felt similarly about the shahs regime in Iran until it was too late, referring to the outbreak of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. They warn: The most likely possible dangers are these: a complete collapse of Pakistani government rule that allows an extreme Islamist movement to fill the vacuum; a total loss of federal control over outlying provinces, which splinter along ethnic and tribal lines; or a struggle within the Pakistani military in which the minority sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda try to establish Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.[12]
MIA
11 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

They state that the military solutions are daunting as Pakistan is a nation of 187 million people, roughly five times the size of Iraq. They wrote that, estimates suggest that a force of more than a million troops would be required for a country of this size, which led them to conclude, Thus, if we have any hope of success, we would have to act before a complete government collapse, and we would need the cooperation of moderate Pakistani forces. They suggested one plan would be to deploy Special Forces with the limited goal of preventing Pakistans nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hand. However, they admit that, even pro-American Pakistanis would be unlikely to cooperate. Another option, they contend: would involve supporting the core of the Pakistani armed forces as they sought to hold the country together in the face of an ineffective government, seceding border regions and Al Qaeda and Taliban assassination attempts against the leadership. This would require a sizable combat force not only from the United States, but ideally also other Western powers and moderate Muslim nations.[13] The authors concluded, saying that any state decline in Pakistan would likely be gradual, therefore allowing the US to have time to respond, and placed an emphasis on securing Pakistans nuclear arsenal and combating militants. They finished the article with the warning: Pakistan may be the next big test.[14] In December of 2007, the Asia Times Online ran a story about the US plan to rid Pakistan of President Musharraf, and that the US and the West, more broadly, had begun a strategy aimed at toppling Pakistans military. As part of this, the US launched a media campaign aimed at demonizing Pakistans military establishment. At this time, Benazir Bhutto was criticizing the ISI, suggesting they needed a dramatic restructuring, and at the same time, reports were appearing in the US media blaming the ISI for funding and providing assistance to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. While much of this is documented, the fact that it suddenly emerged as talking points with several western officials and in the media does suggest a turn-around against a long-time ally.[15] Both Democratic and Republican politicians were making statements that Pakistan represented a greater threat than Iran, and then-Senator (now Vice President) Joseph Biden suggested that the United States needed to put soldiers on the ground in Pakistan in cooperation with the international community. Biden said that, We should be in there, and we should be supplying tens of millions of dollars to build new schools to compete with the madrassas. We should be in there building democratic institutions. We should be in there, and get the rest of the world in there, giving some structure to the emergence of, hopefully, the reemergence of a democratic process.[16] In American policy-strategy circles, officials openly began discussing the possibility of Pakistan breaking up into smaller states, and increasing discussion that Musharraf was going to be removed, which obviously happened. As the Asia Times stated: Another worrying thing is how US officials are publicly signaling to the Pakistanis that Bhutto has their backing as the next leader of the country. Such signals from Washington are not only a kiss of death for any public leader in Pakistan, but the Americans also know that their actions are inviting potential assassins to target Bhutto. If she is killed in this way, there won't be enough time to find the real culprit, but what's certain is that unprecedented international pressure will be placed on Islamabad while everyone will use their local assets to create maximum internal chaos in the country.[17] Of course, this subsequently happened in Pakistan. As the author of the article pointed out with startlingly accurate foresight, Getting Bhutto killed can generate the kind of pressure that could result in permanently putting the Pakistani military on a back foot, giving Washington enough room to push for installing a new pliant leadership in Islamabad. He observed that, the US is very serious this time. They cannot let Pakistan get out of their hands.[18] Thus, it would appear that the new US strategic aim in Pakistan was focused on removing the Pakistani military
MIA
12 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

from power, implying the need to replace Musharraf, and replace him with a new, compliant civilian leadership. This would have the effect of fracturing the Pakistani elite, threatening the Armys influence within Pakistani politics, and undertaking more direct control of Pakistans government. As if on cue, in late December it was reported that, US special forces snatch squads are on standby to seize or disable Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in the event of a collapse of government authority or the outbreak of civil war following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.[19] The New York Times ran an article in early January 2008, which reported that, President Bushs senior national security advisers are debating whether to expand the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency and the military to conduct far more aggressive covert operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The article stated that the new strategy was purportedly in response to increased reports of Al-Qaeda and Taliban activity within Pakistan, which are intensifying efforts there to destabilize the Pakistani government. Bushs National Security team supposedly organized this effort in response to Bhuttos assassination 10 days previously.[20] Officials involved in the strategy discussions said that some options would probably involve the C.I.A. working with the militarys Special Operations forces, and one official said, After years of focusing on Afghanistan, we think the extremists now see a chance for the big prize creating chaos in Pakistan itself. Of pivotal importance to the strategy, as the Times reported: Critics said more direct American military action would be ineffective, anger the Pakistani Army and increase support for the militants.[21] Perhaps this is not simply a side-effect of the proposed strategy, but in fact, part of the strategy. As one prominent Pakistani political and military analyst pointed out, raids into Pakistan would expand anger and prompt a powerful popular backlash against the Pakistani government, losing popular support.[22] However, as I previously stated, this might be the intention, as this would ultimately make the government more dependent upon the United States, and thus, more subservient. On September 3, 2008, it was reported that a commando raid by US Special Forces was launched in Pakistan, which killed between 15 and 20 people, including women and children. The Special Forces were accompanied by five U.S. helicopters for the duration of the operation.[23] In February of 2009, it was reported that, More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the countrys lawless tribal areas. So not only are U.S. Special Forces invading Pakistani territory; but now US military advisers are secretly advising the Pakistani Army on its own operations, and the advisers are themselves primary made up of Special Forces soldiers. They provide the Pakistani Army with intelligence and advising on combat tactics, and make up a secret command run by US Central Command and Special Operations Command (presumably JSOC Joint Special Operations Command).[24] In May of 2009, it was reported that, the U.S. is sending Special Forces teams into one of Pakistan's most violent regions as part of a push to accelerate the training of the Pakistani military and make it a more effective ally in the fight against insurgents there. The Special Forces were deploying to two training camps in the province of Baluchistan, and will focus on training Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force responsible for battling the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. Further, the project is a joint effort with the U.K., which helps fund the training, although it is unclear if British military personnel would take part in the initiative. British officials have been pushing for such an effort for several years.[25] In December of 2009 it was revealed that, American special forces have conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan's tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region where Washington is pressing to expand its drone assassination programme, which was revealed by a former NATO officer. He said these incursions had occurred between 2003 and 2008, indicating they go even further back than US military documents stipulate. The source further revealed that, the Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn't confirm officially with them. Further, as the source noted, British SAS soldiers have been active in the province of Bolochistan in 2002 and 2003 and possibly beyond.[26]
MIA
13 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

The Balkanization of Pakistan: Blaming the Pakistanis Selig S. Harrison is a director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, senior scholar of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, former senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former journalist and correspondent. His reputation for giving early warning of foreign policy crises was well established during his career as a foreign correspondent. In his study of foreign reporting, Between Two Worlds, John Hohenberg, former secretary of the Pulitzer Prize Board, cited Harrisons prediction of the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war eighteen months before it happened. Further, More than a year before the Russians invaded Afghanistan, Harrison warned of this possibility in one of his frequent contributions to the influential journal Foreign Policy.[27] On February 1, 2008, Selig Harrison threw his renowned predictive abilities on Pakistan in an op-ed for the New York Times in the run-up to the Pakistani elections. He started by stating that, Whatever the outcome of the Pakistani elections, now scheduled for Feb. 18, the existing multiethnic Pakistani state is not likely to survive for long unless it is radically restructured. Harrison then went on to explain that Pakistan would likely break up along ethnic lines; with the Pashtuns, concentrated in the northwestern tribal areas, the Sindhis in the southeast uniting with the Baluch tribesmen in the southwest, with the Punjab rump state of Pakistan.[28] The Pashtuns in the north, would join with their ethnic brethren across the Afghan border (some 40 million of them combined) to form an independent Pashtunistan, and the Sindhis numbering 23 million, would unite with the six million Baluch tribesmen in the southwest to establish a federation along the Arabian Sea from India to Iran, presumably named Baluchistan; while the rump state of Pakistan would remain Punjabi dominated and in control of the nuclear weapons. Selig Harrison explained that prior to partition from India, which led to the creation of the Pakistani state in 1947, Pashtun, Sindhi and Baluch ethnicities had resist[ed] Punjabi domination for centuries, and suddenly: they found themselves subjected to Punjabi-dominated military regimes that have appropriated many of the natural resources in the minority provinces particularly the natural gas deposits in the Baluch areas and siphoned off much of the Indus Rivers waters as they flow through the Punjab. The resulting Punjabi-Pashtun animosity helps explain why the United States is failing to get effective Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorists. The Pashtuns living along the Afghan border are happy to give sanctuary from Punjabi forces to the Taliban, which is composed primarily of fellow Pashtuns, and to its Qaeda friends. Pashtun civilian casualties resulting from Pakistani and American air strikes on both sides of the border are breeding a potent underground Pashtun nationalist movement. Its initial objective is to unite all Pashtuns in Pakistan, now divided among political jurisdictions, into a unified province. In time, however, its leaders envisage full nationhood. ... The Baluch people, for their part, have been waging intermittent insurgencies since their forced incorporation into Pakistan in 1947. In the current warfare Pakistani forces are widely reported to be deploying American-supplied aircraft and intelligence equipment that was intended for use in Afghan border areas. Their victims are forging military links with Sindhi nationalist groups that have been galvanized into action by the death of Benazir Bhutto, a Sindhi hero as was her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.[29] This passage is very revealing of the processes and perceptions surrounding Balkanization and destabilization. What I mean by this, is that historically and presently, imperial powers would often use ethnic groups against each other in a strategy of divide and conquer, in order to keep the barbarians from coming together and dominate the region.
MIA
14 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, that, Geopolitics has moved from the regional to the global dimension, with preponderance over the entire Eurasian continent serving as the central basis for global primacy.[30] Brzezinski then gave a masterful explanation of the American global strategy, which placed it into a firm imperialistic context: To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.[31] While imperial powers manipulate, and historically, even create the ethnic groups within regions and nations, the West portrays conflict in such regions as being the product of these ethnic or tribal rivalries. This perception of the East (Asia and the Middle East) as well as Africa is referred to as Orientalism or Eurocentrism: meaning it generally portrays the East (and/or Africa) as the Other: inherently different and often barbaric. This prejudiced perspective is prevalent in Western academic, media, and policy circles. This perspective serves a major purpose: dehumanizing a people in a region that an imperial power seeks to dominate, which allows the hegemon to manipulate the people and divide them against each other, while framing them as backwards and barbaric, which in turn, justifies the Western imperial power exerting hegemony and control over the region; to protect the people from themselves. Historically and presently, Western empires have divided people against each other, blamed the resulting conflict on the people themselves, and thus justified their control over both the people, and the region they occupy. This was the strategy employed in major recent geopolitical conflicts such as the breakup of Yugoslavia and the Rwandan genocide. In both cases, Western imperial ambitions were met through exacerbating ethnic rivalries, providing financial, technical, and military aid and training to various factions; thus, spreading violent conflict, war, and genocide. In both cases, Western, and primarily American strategic interests were met through an increased presence militarily, pushing out other major imperial and powerful rivals, as well as increasing Western access to key economics resources. This is the lens through which we must view the unfolding situation in Pakistan. However, the situation in Pakistan presents a far greater potential for conflict and devastation than either Yugoslavia or Rwanda. In short, the potential strategy of Balkanization and destabilization of Pakistan could dwarf any major global conflict in the past few decades. Its sheer population of 187 million people, proximity to two major regional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its strategic location as neighbor to India, China, and Iran with access to the Indian Ocean, and its nuclear arsenal, combine to make Pakistan the potential trigger for a much wider regional and possibly global war. The destabilization of Pakistan has the potential to be the greatest geopolitical catastrophe since World War II. Thus, Selig Harrisons op-ed in the New York Times in which he describes the likely breakup of Pakistan along ethnic lines as a result of ethnic differences must be viewed in the wider context of geopolitical ambitions. His article lays the foundation both for the explanation of a potential breakup, and thus the justification for Western intervention in the conflict. His predictive capacities as a seasoned journalist can be alternatively viewed as preemptive imperial propaganda. Fracturing Pakistan The war in Afghanistan is inherently related to the situation in Pakistan. From the days of the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s, arms and money were flowing through Pakistan to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. During the civil war that followed, Pakistan armed and financed the Taliban, which eventually took power. When the U.S. and NATO initially attacked Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, this was primarily achieved through cooperation with Pakistan. When the war theatre was re-named AfPak, the role of Pakistan, however, was formally altered. While the previous few years had seen the implementation of a strategy of destabilizing Pakistan, once the AfPak war theatre was established, Pakistan ceased to be as much of a conduit or proxy state and became a target. In September of 2008, the editor of Indian Defence Review wrote an article explaining that a stable Pakistan is not
MIA
15 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

in Indias interests: With Pakistan on the brink of collapse due to massive internal as well as international contradictions, it is matter of time before it ceases to exist. He explained that Pakistans collapse would bring multiple benefits to India, including preventing China from gaining a major port in the Indian Ocean, which is in the mutual interest of the United States. The author explained that this would be a severe jolt to Chinas expansionist aims, and further, Indias access to Central Asian energy routes will open up.[32] In August of 2009, Foreign Policy Journal published a report of an exclusive interview they held with former Pakistani ISI chief Lieutenant General Hamid Gul, who was Director General of the powerful intelligence services (ISI) between 1987 and 1989, at a time in which it was working closely with the CIA to fund and arm the Mujahideen. Once a close ally of the US, he is now considered extremely controversial and the US even recommended the UN to put him on the international terrorist list. Gul explained that he felt that the American people have not been told the truth about 9/11, and that the 9/11 Commission was a cover up, pointing out that, They [the American government] havent even proved the case that 9/11 was done by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. He said that the real reasons for the war on Afghanistan were that: 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 thats why they were talking at that time very hotly about greater Middle East. They were redrawing the map.[33] He also stated that part of the reason for going into Afghanistan was to go for Pakistans nuclear capability, as 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. When he was asked about the Pakistani Taliban, which the Pakistani government was being pressured to fight, and where the financing for that group came from; Gul stated: 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. Thats the name. The Indians have helped create this organization, and its job is mainly to destabilize Pakistan.[34] He explained that the Chief of Staff of the Afghan Army had told him that he had gone to India to offer the Indians five bases in Afghanistan, three of which are along the Pakistani border. Gul was asked a question as to why, if the West was supporting the TTP (Pakistani Taliban), would a CIA drone have killed the leader of the TTP. Gul explained that while Pakistan was fighting directly against the TTP leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani government would provide the Americans where Mehsud was, three times the Pakistan intelligence tipped off America, but they did not attack him. So why all of a sudden did they attack? 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. ... there was some kind of a deal which was about to be arrived at they may have already cut a deal. I dont know. I dont 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 thats why there were no suicide attacks inside Pakistan for the past six or seven months.[35] An article in one of Canadas national magazines, Macleans, reported on an interview with a Pakistani ISI spy, who claimed that Indias intelligence services, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), have tens of thousands of
MIA
16 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

RAW agents in Pakistan. Many officials inside Pakistan were convinced that, Indias endgame is nothing less than the breakup of Pakistan. And the RAW is no novice in that area. In the 1960s, it was actively involved in supporting separatists in Bangladesh, at the time East Pakistan. The eventual victory of Bangladeshi nationalism in 1971 was in large part credited to the support the RAW gave the secessionists.[36] Further, there were Indian consulates set up in Kandahar, the area of Afghanistan where Canadian troops are located, and which is strategically located next to the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, which is home to a virulent separatist movement, of which Pakistan claims is being supported by India. Macleans reported on the conclusions by Michel Chossudovsky, economics professor at University of Ottawa, that, the regions massive gas and oil reserves are of strategic interest to the U.S. and India. A gas pipeline slated to be built from Iran to India, two countries that already enjoy close ties, would run through Baluchistan. The Baluch separatist movement, which is also active in Iran, offers an ideal proxy for both the U.S. and India to ensure their interests are met.[37] Even an Afghan government adviser told the media that India was using Afghan territory to destabilize Pakistan.[38] In September of 2009, the Pakistan Daily reported that captured members and leaders of the Pakistani Taliban have admitted to being trained and armed by India through RAW or RAMA in Afghanistan in order to fight the Pakistani Army.[39] Foreign Policy magazine in February of 2009 quoted a former intelligence official as saying, The Indians are up to their necks in supporting the Taliban against the Pakistani government in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that, the same anti-Pakistani forces in Afghanistan also shooting at American soldiers are getting support from India. India should close its diplomatic establishments in Afghanistan and get the Christ out of there.[40] The Council on Foreign Relations published a backgrounder report on RAW, Indias intelligence agency, founded in 1968 primarily to counter China's influence, [however] over time it has shifted its focus to India's other traditional rival, Pakistan. For over three decades both Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies have been involved in covert operations against one another. One of RAWs main successes was its covert operations in East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, which aimed at fomenting independence sentiment and ultimately led to the separation of Bangladesh by directly funding, arming and training the Pakistani separatists. Further, as the Council on Foreign Relations noted, From the early days, RAW had a secret liaison relationship with the Mossad, Israel's external intelligence agency.[41] Since RAW was founded in 1968, it had developed close ties with the Afghan intelligence agency, KHAD, primarily to do with intelligence sharing on Pakistan. In the 1980s, while Pakistan was funding, arming and training the Afghan Mujahideen with the support of Saudi Arabia and the CIA, India was funding two covert groups which orchestrated terrorist attacks inside Pakistan, which included a low-grade but steady campaign of bombings in major Pakistani cities, notably Karachi and Lahore. RAW has also had a close relationship with the CIA, as even six years before RAW was created, in 1962, the CIA created a covert organization made up of Tibetan refugees, which aimed to execute deep-penetration terror operations in China. The CIA subsequently played a part in the creation of RAW. In the 1980s, while the CIA was working closely with the ISI in Pakistan, RAW, while wary of their relationship, continued to get counterterrorism training from the CIA.[42] In October of 2009, the New York Times reported that the US strategy to vastly expand its aid to Pakistan, as well as the footprint of its embassy and private security contractors here, are aggravating an already volatile antiAmerican mood as Washington pushes for greater action by the government against the Taliban. The U.S. gave Pakistan an aid deal of $1.5 billion per year for the next five years, under the stipulation of Pakistan to cease supporting terrorist groups on its soil and to ensure that the military does not interfere with civilian politics. President Zaradari accepted the proposal, making him even more unpopular in Pakistan, and further angering Pakistans powerful military, which sees the deal as interfering in the internal affairs of the country.[43] America is thus expanding its embassy and security presence within the country, as the Embassy has publicized plans for a vast new building in Islamabad for about 1,000 people, with security for some diplomats provided through a Washington-based private contracting company, DynCorp. The NYT article referred to how relations were becoming increasingly strained between Pakistan and the US, and tensions were growing within the country
MIA
17 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

exponentially, as the American presence was fueling a sense of occupation among Pakistani politicians and security officials, and several Pakistani officials stated that, the United States was now seen as behaving in Pakistan much as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Futher: In particular, the Pakistani military and the intelligence agencies are concerned that DynCorp is being used by Washington to develop a parallel network of security and intelligence personnel within Pakistan, officials and politicians close to the army said. The concerns are serious enough that last month a local company hired by DynCorp to provide Pakistani men to be trained as security guards for American diplomats was raided by the Islamabad police. The owner of the company, the Inter-Risk Security Company, Capt. Syed Ali Ja Zaidi, was later arrested. The action against Inter-Risk, apparently intended to cripple the DynCorp program, was taken on orders from the senior levels of the Pakistani government, said an official familiar with the raid, who was not authorized to speak on the record. The entire workings of DynCorp within Pakistan are now under review by the Pakistani government.[44] As revealed in the Wikileaks diplomatic cables, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson wrote in September of 2009 that the U.S. strategy of unilateral strikes inside Pakistan risk destabilizing the Pakistani state, alienating both the civilian government and military leadership, and provoking a broader governance crisis in Pakistan without finally achieving the goal.[45] In an interview with Press TV, Hamid Gul, former Inter-Services Intelligence chief revealed more of what he sees as the US strategy in Pakistan. He explained that with the massive expansion of the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan, and alongside that, the increased security staff, the Chinese are becoming increasingly concerned with the sovereignty and security of Pakistan. He claimed that the money that the US government offered (with heavy conditions) to Pakistan, $1.5 billion every year for five years, will be spent under the direction of the Americans, and that they are going to set up a large intelligence network inside Pakistan, and ultimately they really want to go for Pakistan's nuclear assets. He further claimed that the Indians are trying to destabilize Pakistan; however, he explained, this does not necessarily mean disintegrate, but rather: they are trying to destabilize Pakistan at the moment so that it feels weak and economically has to go begging on its knees to Americans and ask for succor and help. And in that process they will want to expect certain concessions with regards to nuclear power and also with regards to setting up their facilities here in Pakistan.[46] When he was asked what Americas long-term goal was in regards to Pakistan, Gul responded that the goal: for America is that they want to keep Pakistan destabilized; perhaps create a way for Baluchistan as a separate state and then create problems for Iran so that this new state will talk about greater Baluchistan... So it appears that the long-term objectives are really to fragment all these countries to an extent that they can establish a strip that would be pro-America, pro-India, pro-Israel. So this seems to be their long-term objective apart from denuclearizing Pakistan and blocking Iran's progress in the nuclear field.[47] In Part 2 of Pakistan in Pieces, I will examine the specific ways in which the American strategy of destabilization is being undertaken in Pakistan, including the waging of a secret war and the expansion of the Afghan war into Pakistani territory. In short, the military and intelligence projections for Pakistan over the next several years (discussed in the beginning of Part 1 above) are a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those very same military and intelligence agencies that predict a destabilized Pakistan and potential collapse are now undertaking strategies aimed at achieving those outcomes.
MIA
18 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Notes [1] NIC, Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts. The Central Intelligence Agency: December 2000: page 64 http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_globaltrend2015.html [2] Ibid, page 66. [3] Ibid. [4] PTI, Pak will be failed state by 2015: CIA. The Times of India: February 13, 2005: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Pak-will-be-failed-state-by-2015-CIA/articleshow/1019516.cms [5] NIC, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The National Intelligence Council: November 2008: page x http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html [6] Ibid, page 45. [7] Ibid, page 65. [8] Ibid, page 72. [9] Peter Goodspeed, Mexico, Pakistan face 'rapid and sudden' collapse: Pentagon. The National Post: January 15, 2009:http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=1181621 [10] PAUL MCGEOUGH, Warning that Pakistan is in danger of collapse within months. The Sydney Morning Herald: April 13, 2009:http://www.smh.com.au/world/warning-that-pakistan-is-in-danger-of-collapse-withinmonths-20090412-a40u.html [11] Scott Lindlaw, AP: U.S. gave troops OK to enter Pakistan. USA Today: August 23, 2007: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-08-23-pakistan-engagement_N.htm [12] Frederick Kagan and Michael OHanlon, Pakistans Collapse, Our Problem. November 18, 2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/opinion/18kagan.html [13] Ibid. [14] Ibid. [15] Ahmed Quraishi, The plan to topple Pakistan's military. Asia Times Online: December 6, 2007: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IL06Df03.html [16] Ibid. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid. [19] Ian Bruce, Special forces on standby over nuclear threat. The Sunday Herald: December 31, 2007: http://www.heraldscotland.com/special-forces-on-standby-over-nuclear-threat-1.871766 [20] Steven Lee Myers, David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, U.S. Considers New Covert Push Within Pakistan. The New York Times: January 6, 2008:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/washington/06terror.html [21] Ibid. [22] Ibid. [23] Farhan Bokhari, Sami Yousafzai, and Tucker Reals, U.S. Special Forces Strike In Pakistan. CBS News: September 3, 2008:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/03/terror/main4409288.shtml [24] Eric Schmitt and Jane Perlez, U.S. Unit Secretly in Pakistan Lends Ally Support. The New York Times: February 22, 2009:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/world/asia/23terror.html [25] YOCHI J. DREAZEN and SIOBHAN GORMAN, U.S. Special Forces Sent to Train Pakistanis. The Wall Street Journal: May 16, 2009:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124241541672724767.html [26] Declan Walsh, US forces mounted secret Pakistan raids in hunt for al-Qaida. The Guardian: December 21, 2009:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/21/us-forces-secret-pakistan-raids [27] CIP, SELIG S. HARRISON. Center for International Policy: http://www.ciponline.org/asia/Seligbio.html [28] Selig S. Harriosn, Drawn and Quartered. The New York Times: February 1, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/opinion/01harrison.html [29] Ibid. [30] Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. (New York: Perseus, 1997), page 39 [31] Ibid, page 40.
MIA
19 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

[32] Bharat Verma, Stable Pakistan not in Indias interest. Indian Defence Review: September 11, 2008:http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2008/09/stable-pakistan-not-in-indias-interest.html [33] Jeremy R. Hammond, Ex-ISI Chief Says Purpose of New Afghan Intelligence Agency RAMA Is to destabilize Pakistan. Foreign Policy Journal: August 12, 2009: http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2009/08/12/ex-isi-chief-says-purpose-of-new-afghan-intelligenceagency-rama-is-%E2%80%98to-destabilize-pakistan%E2%80%99/ [34] Ibid. [35] Ibid. [36] Adnan R. Khan, New Delhis endgame? Macleans: August 23, 2009: http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/04/23/new-delhi%E2%80%99s-endgame/ [37] Ibid. See also Michel Chossudovsky, The Destabilization of Pakistan, Global Research, December 30, 2007 [38] Imtiaz Indher, Afgan MPs call for early withdrawal of foreign troop. Associated Press of Pakistan: April 1, 2009: http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=72423&Itemid=2 [39] Moin Ansari, Proof: Captured TTP terrorists admit to being Indian RAW agents. Pakistan Daily: September 20, 2009: http://www.daily.pk/proof-captured-ttp-terrorists-admit-to-being-indian-raw-agents-11015/ [40] Laura Rozen, Can the intel community defuse India-Pakistan tensions? Foreign Policy: February 16, 2009: http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/02/16/can_the_intel_community_defuse_india_pakistan_tensions [41] Jayshree Bajoria, RAW: India's External Intelligence Agency. The Council on Foreign Relations: November 7, 2008: http://www.cfr.org/publication/17707/ [42] Ibid. [43] Jane Perlez, U.S. Push to Expand in Pakistan Meets Resistance. The New York Times: October 5, 2009:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/world/asia/06islamabad.html [44] Ibid. [45] US embassy cables, Reviewing our Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy, The Guardian, 30 November 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/226531 [46] US military bases 'will destabilize Pakistan'. Press TV: September 13, 2009: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=106106&sectionid=3510302 [47] Ibid.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Andrew Gavin Marshall
MIA
20 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

The AfPak War Theatre: Establishing the New Strategy
Punishing Pakistan and Challenging China Pakistan in Pieces, Part 2

As Senator Obama became the President-elect Obama, his foreign policy strategy on Afghanistan was already being formed. In 2007, Obama took on veteran geostrategist and Jimmy Carters former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski as one of his top foreign policy advisers,[1] and he remained his foreign policy adviser throughout 2008.[2] On Obamas campaign, he announced that as President, he would scale down the war in Iraq, and focus the War on Terror on Afghanistan, promising to send in about 10,000 more troops and to strike nextdoor Pakistan, if top terrorists are spotted there.[3] In October of 2008, before the Presidential elections, senior Bush administration officials gathered in secret with Afghanistan experts from NATO and the United Nations, to deliver a message to advisers of McCain and Obama to tell them that, the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, and that the next president needed to have a plan for Afghanistan before he took office, or else, it could be too late.[4] Both McCain and Obama had agreed to a troop increase for Afghanistan, essentially ensuring the continuity of empire from one administration to the next. A week after winning the election, Obama invited one of Hillary Clintons top supporters and advisers to meet with him. Richard Holbrooke, who had worked in every Democratic administration since John F. Kennedy, which extended from the Vietnam War, in the sixties, to the Balkan conflicts of the nineties, was Clintons Ambassador to the United Nations for the last year and a half of the Clinton administration. Obama had decided that Holbrooke should take on the hardest foreign-policy problem that the Administration faced: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Holbrooke wrote in March of 2008, before Obama won the Presidency, that, The conflict in Afghanistan will be far more costly and much, much longer than Americans realize, and it will eventually become the longest in American history.[5] The position Holbrooke was to receive in the Obama administration was one created specifically for him. He was to become a special representative to the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan: [I]n addition to being an emissary to the region, Holbrooke would run operations on the civilian side of American policy. He would create a rump regional bureau within the State Department, carved out of the Bureau of South and Central Asia, whose Afghanistan and Pakistan desks would report directly to him. He would assemble outside experts and officials from various government agencies to work for him, and he would report to the President through Hillary Clinton. Clinton told Holbrooke that he would be the civilian counterpart to General David Petraeus, the military head of Central Command.[6] Holbrooke was thus placed in charge of Af-Pak, a term of his own creation, to make the point that the two countries could not be dealt with separately, which was then adopted into official parlance.[7] In November of 2008, the Washington Post reported that while Obama was considering giving the position of Secretary of State (which he then did), he was also discussing giving General James L. Jones the position of National Security Adviser, which he subsequently did. The article stated that, Obama is considering expanding the scope of the job to give the adviser the kind of authority once wielded by powerful figures such as Henry A. Kissinger. James Jones was a former NATO commander and Marine Corps commandant.[8] Jones as NATO commander was pivotal in assembling troops for the war in Afghanistan, and at the time of his nomination as NSA (National Security Adviser), he headed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy.[9] The official statement of purpose for the Institute for 21st Century Energy is:
MIA
21 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

to unify energy policymakers, regulators, business leaders, and the American public behind a common sense strategy that ensures affordable, reliable, and diverse energy supplies, improves environmental stewardship, promotes economic growth, and strengthens national security.[10] Jones earned $900,000 in salary from the Chamber of Commerce, and got $330,000 from serving on the board of Boeing and $290,000 for serving on the board of Chevron upon his resignations of those positions to become National Security Adviser.[11] In October of 2010, Jones was replaced as National Security Advisor by Tom Donilon. On February 8, 2009, within weeks of being installed as NSA, Jones gave a speech at the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy, in which he stated: As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. [Henry] Kissinger, filtered down through Generaal Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today.[12] He then elaborated on the purpose and restructuring of the National Security Council under the Obama administration. He stated that the NSC must be strategic in that, we wont effectively advance the priorities if we spend our time reacting to events, instead of shaping them. And that requires strategic thinking. He further stated that: the NSC today works very closely with President Obamas National Economic Council, which is led by Mr. Larry Summers, so that our response to the economic crisis is coordinated with our global partners and our national security needs.[13] Shortly after taking office, Obama set up a two-month White House strategic review of Afghanistan and Pakistan, to be headed by Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and scholar at the Brookings Institution, and Riedel will report to Obama and to retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr., the national security advisor, and was to work very closely with Richard Holbrooke in drafting the policy review.[14] In February of 2009, Henry Kissinger wrote an article for the Washington Post describing the strategy America should undertake in Afghanistan and Pakistan, emphasizing the role of security over the aim of reform of the Afghan government, stating that, Reform will require decades; it should occur as a result of, and even side by side with, the attainment of security -- but it cannot be the precondition for it. Militarily, Kissinger recommended the control of Kabul and the Pashtun area, which stretches from Afghanistan to the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan province in Pakistan. When it came to the issue of Pakistan, Kissinger wrote: The conduct of Pakistan will be crucial. Pakistan's leaders must face the fact that continued toleration of the sanctuaries -- or continued impotence with respect to them -- will draw their country ever deeper into an international maelstrom.[15] Following the policy review, on March 27, Obama announced the administrations new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, decidedly to make it a dual strategy: the AfPak strategy. Obama promised to send lawyers and agricultural experts to Afghanistan to reform its government and economy, and to offer seven and a half billion dollars in new aid for schools, roads, and democracy in Pakistan.[16] Holbrooke had a staff of 30 in the State Department, and nine government agencies, including the C.I.A., the F.B.I., the Defense and Treasury Departments, and two foreign countries, Britain and Canada, [were] represented in the office. General David Patraeus, then Commander of U.S. CENTCOM (the Pentagons Central Command with authority over the Middle East, Egypt and Central Asia), along with then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, and Richard Holbrooke worked together and pressured General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the Pakistani Army, to push back against the Taliban in Swat, which had the effect of precipitating the internal displacement of more than 2 million people.[17]
MIA
22 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Changing Strategy, Changing Command In January of 2009, shortly after Obama took office, he announced that his administration picked Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, a former top military commander in Afghanistan, to be the next United States ambassador to Kabul, of which the New York Times said: Tapping a career Army officer who will soon retire from the service to fill one of the countrys most sensitive diplomatic jobs is a highly unusual choice.[18] Further, the General had repeatedly warned that the United States could not prevail in Afghanistan and defeat global terrorism without addressing the havens that fighters with Al Qaeda had established in neighboring Pakistan, which is parallel to the new strategy in Afghanistan. His appointment has the backing of Richard C. Holbrooke, President Obamas special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.[19] On May 11, Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired General David D. McKiernan, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which commands all NATO forces in Afghanistan. Gates stated that, It's time for new leadership and fresh eyes, and that it was the Pentagon command which recommended the White House fire McKiernan, including Gates, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mullen and McKiernans military boss, General Patraeus, Commander of CENTCOM.[20] There has been much speculation as to the reasons for his firing, and it is a significant question to ask, as the firing of a General in the field is a rarity in the American experience. The general view pushed by the Pentagon was that it was due to a matter of consistency, as in changing strategies and changing ambassadors, it was also necessary to change Generals. While McKiernan was focused on military means and tactics, the strategy required counterinsurgency tactics. It was reported that, McKiernan was overly cautious in creating U.S.-backed local militias, a tactic that Petraeus had employed when he was the top commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.[21] One Washington Post article made the claim that the push to fire McKiernan came initially and most forcefully from the Chairman of the JCS Mullen, and that Gates agreed and lobbied Obama to fire him. The reasoning was that McKiernan was too deferential to NATO in that he wasnt able to properly manage the NATO forces in Afghanistan, and lacked the political fortitude to manage both military and political affairs.[22] The official reason for the firing was mostly to facilitate alignment with the new strategy requiring a new military commander, which is likely true. However, it requires an understanding of the new strategy as well as a look at who was sent in to replace McKiernan where you realize the true nature of his being fired. [Note: McChrystal himself was later fired in 2010 after publicly speaking out against top administration officials]. McKiernan was replaced with Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, former Commander of the Pentagons Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the highly secretive command of U.S. Special Forces operations. As the Washington Post pointed out, his appointment marks the continued ascendancy of officers who have pressed for the use of counterinsurgency tactics, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that are markedly different from the Army's traditional doctrine.[23] The new AfPak strategy, which McChrystal would oversee, relies on the kind of special forces and counterinsurgency tactics McChrystal knows well, as well as nonmilitary approaches to confronting the Taliban. It would hinge success in the seven-year-old war to political and other conditions across the border in Pakistan.[24] In March of 2009, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that the U.S. military was running an executive assassination ring during the Bush years, and that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was running it, and that, It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently, and that, They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office... Congress has no oversight of it. He elaborated:
MIA
23 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Under President Bushs authority, theyve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. Thats been going on, in the name of all of us.[25] Hersh appeared on Amy Goodmans program, Democracy Now, to further discuss the program, of which he stated: Theres moreat least a dozen countries and perhaps more. The President has authorized these kinds of actions in the Middle East and also in Latin America, I will tell you, Central America, some countries. Theyve beenour boys have been told they can go and take the kind of executive action they need, and thats simplytheres no legal basis for it.[26] At the time this news story broke, it was reported that the JSOC commander at the time, ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower are jeopardizing broader goals there. The halt lasted a total of two weeks, and came after a series of nighttime raids by Special Operations troops in recent months killed women and children.[27] All of this is very concerning, considering that the new Commander of NATO operations in Afghanistan, was the former head of the executive assassination ring. Having run JSOC between 2003 and 2008, McChrystal built a sophisticated network of soldiers and intelligence operatives, which conducted operations and assassinations in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as Pakistan.[28] In June it was reported that McChrystal was given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans, as he moves to carry out an ambitious new strategy. He was reported to be assembling a corps of 400 officers and soldiers who will rotate between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years. The New York Times referred to this strategy as unknown in the military today outside Special Operations. The Times further reported that McChrystal: picked the senior intelligence adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, to join him in Kabul as director of intelligence there. In Washington, Brig. Gen. Scott Miller, a longtime Special Operations officer now assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff but who had served previously under General McChrystal, is now organizing a new Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell.[29] In June of 2006, Newsweek referred to McChrystals JSOC as being a part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to work the dark side after 9/11. McChrystal also happened to be a Fellow at Harvard and the Council on Foreign Relations.[30] As it was later revealed, the CIA had been running from 2002 onwards a force of roughly 3,000 elite paramilitary Afghans, purportedly to hunt al-Qaeda and the Taliban for the CIA. Used for reconnaissance, surveillance, and actual operations, many in the force have been trained by the CIA in the United States, and their operations and numbers have expanded since the new strategy involving Pakistan was put in place. The paramilitary force or terrorists, depending upon ones perspective are undertaking covert operations inside Pakistan, often working directly with U.S. Special Forces.[31] It must be remembered that during the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s when the CIA was funding, arming and training the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviets late to become known as al-Qaeda they were, at the time, referred to as freedom fighters, just as the terrorist death squads were referred to in Nicaragua. Thus, the nomenclature of paramilitary force must be viewed with suspicion as to what the group is actually doing: covert operations, surveillance, assassinations, etc., which by many definitions would make them a terrorist outfit. In May of 2009, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was reported as saying that a US military offensive in southern Afghanistan could have the effect of pushing militants and Taliban into Pakistan, whose troops are already struggling to combat militants. Chairman Mike Mullen stated that this means that Pakistan could face even greater turmoil in the months ahead. This was based off of a US surge of troops in Afghanistan. Senator Russ Feingold said that, We may end up further destabilizing Pakistan without providing substantial lasting improvements in
MIA
24 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Afghanistan, and that, Weak civilian governments, an increased number of militants and an expanded U.S. troop presence could be a recipe for disaster for those nations in the region as well as our own nation's security. Mullen responded to the Senators concerns by stating, Can I... (be) 100 percent certain that won't destabilize Pakistan? I don't know the answer to that.[32] But of course, the answer is in fact, certain; and its an unequivocal yes. These remarks were made following the surge of an additional 21,000 US troops to Afghanistan in March. In the beginning of May, Pakistan launched a military offensive against the Taliban in Swat and other areas of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), after a peace deal broke down between them, forcing more than two million people from their homes.[33] It was further reported that: Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has told U.S. officials he's worried not only about Taliban moving across the border, but also the possibility that U.S. forces could prompt an exodus of refugees from southern Afghanistan.[34] In May, Holbrooke and the American military establishment had pressured the Pakistani government to undertake the offensive against the Taliban in the Swat Valley, which led to the displacement of more than 2 million people. As the New Yorker put it, Holbrooke was mapping out a new vision for American interests in a volatile region, as his old friend Henry Kissinger had done in Southeast Asia. And he was positioning himself to be a mediator in an international conflict, as he had done in the Balkans.[35] In September of 2009 a classified report written by General McChrystal was leaked, in which he had concluded, that a successful counterinsurgency strategy will require 500,000 troops over five years.[36] It was further reported in September that, the CIA is deploying teams of spies, analysts and paramilitary operatives to Afghanistan, part of a broad intelligence surge that will make its station there among the largest in the agency's history, rivaling its stations in Iraq and Vietnam at the height of those wars. The initiative began under pressure from Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and the extra personnel are being employed in a number of ways, including teaming up with Special Forces troops in pursuing high-value targets. Further: The intelligence expansion goes beyond the CIA to involve every major spy service, officials said, including the National Security Agency, which intercepts calls and e-mails, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency, which tracks military threats.[37] In October of 2009, it was reported by the Washington Post that although Obama announced a troop surge in Afghanistan of 21,000 additional troops, in an unannounced move, the White House has also authorized -- and the Pentagon is deploying -- at least 13,000 troops beyond that number. It was reported that these additional forces were primarily made up of support forces, including engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police. Thus, it brings the total 2009 surge in Afghanistan to 34,000 US troops. Thus as of October 2009, there were 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan (more than double the amount of when Bush left office), and 124,000 US troops in Iraq.[38] In early October, Henry Kissinger wrote an article for Newsweek in which he proposed a strategy for the US in Afghanistan, in which he initially made it clear that he supported General McChrystals proposal of sending an additional 40,000 troops to Afghanistan. Kissinger proclaimed that calls for an exit strategy were a metaphor for withdrawal, which is tantamount to abandonment. Clearly, Kissinger favours a long-term presence. He stated that even a victory may not permit troop withdrawals, citing the case of South Korea. Kissinger further wrote on the options for Afghan strategy, stating: A negotiation with the [Taliban] might isolate Al Qaeda and lead to its defeat, in return for not challenging the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan. After all, it was the Taliban which provided bases for Al Qaeda in the first place. This theory seems to me to be too clever by half. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are unlikely to be able to be separated so neatly geographically. It would also imply the partition of Afghanistan
MIA
25 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

along functional lines, for it is highly improbable that the civic actions on which our policies are based could be carried out in areas controlled by the Taliban. Even so-called realistslike me would gag at a tacit U.S. cooperation with the Taliban in the governance of Afghanistan.[39] Kissinger further claimed that a reduction of forces in Afghanistan would fundamentally affect domestic stability in Pakistan by freeing the Qaeda forces along the Afghan border for even deeper incursions into Pakistan, threatening domestic chaos, and that, the prospects of world order will be greatly affected by whether our strategy comes to be perceived as a retreat from the region, or a more effective way to sustain it.[40] He further explained that any attempts to endow the central government with overriding authority could produce resistance, which would be ironic if, by following the received counterinsurgency playbook too literally, we produced another motive for civil war. Kissinger thus proposed a strategy not aimed at control from Kabul, but rather, emphasis needs to be given to regional efforts and regional militia. Kissinger explained the regional importance of Afghanistan, and thus, the challenge of American strategy: The special aspect of Afghanistan is that it has powerful neighbors or near neighborsPakistan, India, China, Russia, Iran. Each is threatened in one way or another and, in many respects, more than we are by the emergence of a base for international terrorism: Pakistan by Al Qaeda; India by general jihadism and specific terror groups; China by fundamentalist Shiite jihadists in Xinjiang; Russia by unrest in the Muslim south; even Iran by the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban. Each has substantial capacities for defending its interests. Each has chosen, so far, to stand more or less aloof.[41] In November of 2009, Malalai Joya, a former Afghan MP and one of the few female political leaders in Afghanistan, said that: Eight years ago, the U.S. and NATOunder the banner of women's rights, human rights, and democracyoccupied my country and pushed us from the frying pan into the fire . . . Eight years is enough to know better about the corrupt, mafia system of [President] Hamid Karzai . . . My people are crushed between two powerful enemies . . . From the sky, occupation forces bomb and kill civilians... and on the ground, the Taliban and warlords continue their crimes . . . It is better that they leave my country; my people are that fed up . . . Occupation will never bring liberation, and it is impossible to bring democracy by war.[42] In late November, Pakistani Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani warned that the US's decision to send thousands of extra troops to Afghanistan may destabilize his country, as it would likely lead to a spill over of militants inside Pakistan. In particular, it could force militants and Taliban to migrate into Pakistans southern province of Balochistan.[43] On December 1, President Obama announced that the U.S. would send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan by summer 2010, and with a plan to purportedly withdraw by July 2011. As the Washington Post reported, adding 30,000 U.S. troops to the roughly 70,000 that are in Afghanistan now amounts to most of what Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces there, requested at the end of August. Obama stated that the chief objective was to destroy al-Qaeda, and a senior administration official said that, the goal for the Afghan army, for example, is to increase its ranks from 90,000 to 134,000 by the end of 2010.[44] President Karzai said in early December that, Afghanistan's security forces will need U.S. support for another 15 to 20 years, and that, it would take five years for his forces to assume responsibility for security throughout the country.[45] This statement supports the conclusions set out in McChrystals classified report, which stated that the US would need to remain for at least 5 years. Seth Jones, a civilian adviser to the U.S. military and senior political scientist at RAND Corporation, one of Americas top defense think tanks, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times in December titled, Take the War to Pakistan. He stated that the U.S. is repeating the same mistakes of the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan in
MIA
26 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

the 1980s by not attacking the Taliban sanctuary in Pakistans Baluchistan province. He stated that, This sanctuary is critical because the Afghan war is organized and run out of Baluchistan. He then proclaimed that, the United States and Pakistan must target Taliban leaders in Baluchistan, which could include conducting raids into Pakistani territory or hit Taliban leaders with drone strikes.[46] As Jeremy Scahill reported in June 2009, more than 240,000 contractor employees, about 80 percent of them foreign nationals, are working in Iraq and Afghanistan to support operations and projects of the U.S. military, the Department of State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Scahill reported on the findings of a Defense Department report on contracting work in the war zones, stating that, there has been a 23% increase in the number of Private Security Contractors working for the Department of Defense in Iraq in the second quarter of 2009 and a 29% increase in Afghanistan, which correlates to the build up of forces in the country. While contractors outnumbered forces in Afghanistan, in Iraq they were roughly equal to the US forces occupying the country, at 130,000.[47] It was reported that as Obama ordered more troops to Afghanistan in December of 2009, a new surge of contractors would follow suit. As of June 2009, the number of contractors in Afghanistan outweighed the US military presence itself, with 73,968 contractors and 55,107 troops. According to different estimates, Between 7% and 16% of the total are Blackwater-style private security contractors. As of December 2009, the number of contractors in Afghanistan was reported to be 104,100.[48] In January of 2010, as Obamas announced 30,000 extra troops began to be deployed to Afghanistan, Pakistani officials became increasingly fearful that a stepped-up war just over the border could worsen the increasingly bloody struggle with militancy within Pakistan itself, ultimately further destabilizing Pakistans southwestern border and the already volatile tribal areas in the northwest. On top of sending militants into Pakistan, there were fears that it would exacerbate the flow of Afghan refugees into Pakistani territory.[49] Blackwater and the Secret War in Pakistan In November of 2009, investigative journalist and best-selling author Jeremy Scahill wrote an exclusive report on the secret war of the United States in Pakistan. The story sheds light on the American strategy in the region aimed at the destabilization and ultimately the implosion of Pakistan. The chief architects and administrators of this policy in Pakistan are none other than the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), previously run as an executive assassination ring by General McChrystal, and the infamous mercenary organization, Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. JSOC and Blackwater work together covertly in undertaking a covert war in yet another nation in the region, adding to the list of Afghanistan and Iraq. Scahill described the covert operations as targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, as well as other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan. Further, the Blackwater operatives also assist in gathering intelligence and help direct a secret US military drone bombing campaign that runs parallel to the welldocumented CIA predator strikes. The sources for the report are drawn heavily from individuals within the US military intelligence apparatus. One source revealed that the program is so compartmentalized that senior figures within the Obama administration and the US military chain of command may not be aware of its existence. This program is also separate from the CIAs own programs, including both drone attacks and assassinations, of which the CIA assassination program was said to be cancelled in June of 2009. It was in 2006 that JSOC reached an agreement with the Pakistani government to run operations within the country, back when Stanley McChrystal was running it in close cooperation with Vice President Dick Cheney as an executive assassination ring. A former Blackwater executive confirmed that Blackwater was operating in Pakistan in cooperation with both the CIA and JSOC, as well as being on a subcontract for the Pakistani government itself, as well as working for the Pakistani government on a subcontract with an Islamabad-based security firm that puts US Blackwater operatives on the ground with Pakistani forces in counter-terrorism operations, including house raids and border interdictions, in the North-West Frontier Province and elsewhere in Pakistan. JSOCs covert program in liaison with Blackwater in Pakistan dates back to 2007, and the operations are
MIA
27 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

coordinated out of the US Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and that Blackwater operates at an ultra-exclusive level above top secret. The contracts are all kept secret, and therefore shielded from public oversight. On top of carrying out operations for JSOC and the CIA inside Pakistan, Blackwater further conducts operations in Uzbekistan. In regards to the drone strikes within Pakistan, while largely reported as being a part of the CIA drone program, many are, in fact, undertaken under a covert parallel JSOC program. One intelligence source told Jeremy Scahill that, when you see some of these hits, especially the ones with high civilian casualties, those are almost always JSOC strikes. Further, Blackwater is involved in the drone strike program with JSOC, Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality. Blackwater further provides security for many secret US drone bases, as well as JSOC camps and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) camps within Pakistan. With General McChrystals rise from JSOC Commander to Commander of the Afghan war theatre (which in military-strategic terms now includes Pakistan under the umbrella of AfPak), there is a concomitant rise in JSOC's power and influence within the military structure. McChrystal had overseen JSOC during the majority of the Bush years, where he worked very closely and directly with Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As Seymour Hersh had exposed, JSOC operated as an executive assassination ring and had caused many problematic diplomatic situations for the United States, as even the State Department wasnt informed about their operations. One high-level State Department official was quoted as saying: The only way we found out about it is our ambassadors started to call us and say, 'Who the hell are these six-foot-four white males with eighteen-inch biceps walking around our capital cities?' So we discovered this, we discovered one in South America, for example, because he actually murdered a taxi driver, and we had to get him out of there real quick. We rendered him--we rendered him home.[50] Blackwater is also involved in providing security for a US-backed aid project in a region of Pakistan, which implies that even some aid projects are connected with military and intelligence operations, often using them as a cover for covert operations. Blackwater still operates in Afghanistan working for the US military, the State Department and the CIA. As one military-intelligence official stated: Having learned its lessons after the private security contracting fiasco in Iraq, Blackwater has shifted its operational focus to two venues: protecting things that are in danger and anticipating other places we're going to go as a nation that are dangerous.[51] Mmuch of Scahills information has been supported by other mainstream news sources. In August of 2009, the New York Times reported that in 2004, the CIA hired outside contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al Qaeda. The CIA had held high-level meetings with Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince. The article also revealed that in 2002, Blackwater had been awarded the contract to handle security for the CIA station in Afghanistan, and the company maintains other classified contracts with the C.I.A. Blackwater has hired several former CIA officials, including Cofer Black, who ran the C.I.A. counterterrorism center immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks.[52] On December 10, 2009, the New York Times reported that in both Afghanistan and Iraq, Blackwater participated in some of the C.I.A.s most sensitive activities clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents. These raids, referred to as snatch and grab operations, occurred almost nightly between 2004 and 2006, and that, involvement in the operations became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the Central Intelligence Agency, the military and Blackwater became blurred. One former CIA official was quoted as saying, There was a feeling that Blackwater eventually became an extension of the agency. Further, Blackwater was reported to have provided security not only for the CIA station in Afghanistan, but also in Iraq; and in both countries, Blackwater personnel accompanied the [CIA] officers even on offensive operations sometimes begun in conjunction with Delta Force or Navy Seals teams.[53]
MIA
28 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

In late August it was reported that Blackwater had a CIA contract to operate the remotely piloted drones, carried out at hidden bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as provide security at the bases.[54] In December, the New York Times ran a story reporting that the CIA had terminated its contract with Blackwater that allowed the company to load bombs on C.I.A. drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, while the CIA claimed that all Blackwater contracts were under review, a CIA spokesperson said that, At this time, Blackwater is not involved in any C.I.A. operations other than in a security or support role,[55] which is still a very wide role, considering how the roles have been blurred between providing security and actively taking part in missions. As the Guardian reported in December of 2009, Blackwater had a contract in Pakistan to manage the construction of a training facility for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, just outside Peshawar, which is the Pakistani Armys paramilitary force.[56] Despite a continual official denial of Blackwater involvement in Pakistan, in December, the CIA admitted Blackwater operates in Pakistan under CIA contracts,[57] and in January of 2010, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that both Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) and DynCorp have been operating in Pakistan.[58] However, some reports indicate that Blackwater may be involved in even more nefarious activities inside Pakistan. A former head of Pakistanis intelligence services, the ISI, stated in an interview that apart from simply taking part in drone attacks, Blackwater may be involved in actions that destabilize the country. Elaborating, he said, My assessment is that they [Blackwater agents] either themselves or most probably through others, through the locals do carry out some of the explosions, and that, the idea is to carry out such actions, like carrying attacks in the civilian areas to make the others look bad in the eyes of the public. In other words, according to the former head of the ISI, Blackwater may be involved in committing false flag terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.[59] In November of 2009, Al-Jazeera reported that while many attacks occurring across Pakistan are blamed on the Tehreek e-Taliban, Pakistans Taliban, the group has issued its first video statement denying involvement in targeting civilians and has blamed external forces for at least two recent blasts. The denial stated that the attacks are being used as an excuse to prepare for military operations in various tribal regions of Pakistan, including South Waziristan. The denial also stated that the Pakistani Taliban had no role in the bomb blast in a Peshawar market that killed at least 100 people as well as an attack in Charsada, a town located in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The spokesperson claimed that the Pakistani Taliban does not target civilians, and that the bombings were linked to Blackwater activities in the country. Even when the bombings initially occurred the Taliban denied involvement, and the local media was blaming Blackwater and other American agencies.[60] The head of the Pakistani Taliban had previously stated that, if Taliban can carry out attacks in Islamabad and target Pakistan army's headquarters, then why should they target general public, and proceeded to blame the bomb blast in Peshawar that killed 108 people on Blackwater and Pakistani agencies [that] are involved in attacks in public places to blame the militants. He was further quoted as saying, Our war is against the government and the security forces and not against the people. We are not involved in blasts.[61] In January of 2010, it was reported that Blackwater is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan's troubled national police force, as Blackwater already trains the Afghan border police an arm of the national police and drug interdiction units in volatile southern Afghanistan.[62] As Jeremy Scahill reported in August of 2009 on a legal case against Blackwater, where a former Blackwater mercenary and an ex-US Marine have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. Among the claims: The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."[63]
MIA
29 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Further, both men stated that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq, often on Erik Princes private planes. These allegations surfaced in a trial against Blackwater for committing human rights violations and war crimes in Iraq against civilians. One of those who testified further stated that, On several occasions after my departure from Mr. Prince's employ, Mr. Prince's management has personally threatened me with death and violence. The testimony continued in explaining that: Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades. Mr. Prince operated his companies in a manner that encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life. For example, Mr. Prince's executives would openly speak about going over to Iraq to "lay Hajiis out on cardboard." Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game. Mr. Prince's employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms for Iraqis and other Arabs, such as "ragheads" or "hajiis."[64] In January of 2010, Erik Prince, the controversial founder and CEO of Blackwater gave an interview with Vanity Fair magazine which was intended to not simply discuss the company, but also the man behind the company. It begins by quoting Prince as saying, I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.s disposal for some very risky missions, and continued, But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus. It is worth quoting the article at some length: Publicly, [Erik Prince] has served as Blackwaters C.E.O. and chairman. Privately, and secretly, he has been doing the C.I.A.s bidding, helping to craft, fund, and execute operations ranging from inserting personnel into denied areasplaces U.S. intelligence has trouble penetrating to assembling hit teams targeting al-Qaeda members and their allies. Prince, according to sources with knowledge of his activities, has been working as a C.I.A. asset: in a word, as a spy. While his company was busy gleaning more than $1.5 billion in government contracts between 2001 and 2009by acting, among other things, as an overseas Praetorian guard for C.I.A. and State Department officialsPrince became a Mr. Fix-It in the war on terror. His access to paramilitary forces, weapons, and aircraft, and his indefatigable ambitionthe very attributes that have galvanized his criticsalso made him extremely valuable, some say, to U.S. intelligence.[65] Princes Afghan security team is the special-projects team of Blackwater, and except for their language its men appear indistinguishable from Afghans. They have full beards, headscarves, and traditional knee-length shirts over baggy trousers. In regards to Princes worth with the CIA, he: wasnt merely a contractor; he was, insiders say, a full-blown asset. Three sources with direct knowledge of the relationship say that the C.I.A.s National Resources Division recruited Prince in 2004 to join a secret network of American citizens with special skills or unusual access to targets of interest.[66] In Afghanistan, Blackwater provides security for the US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and his staff, and trains narcotics and Afghan special police units. There was also a revolving door of sorts between Blackwater and the CIA. Not only was Prince a CIA asset, but many higher-ups in the CIA would also move into Blackwater. A Blackwater-CIA team even hunted down an alleged Al-Qaeda financier in Hamburg, Germany, without even the German governments awareness of it. Publicly, the Blackwater program with the CIA was canned. Although there was no mention of its covert program with JSOC in Pakistan, so one must assume its relationship is maintained in some capacity. Prince ultimately left his position at Blackwater in the face of bad press, but still controls the majority of the stock.[67] In September of 2009, General Mirza Aslam Beg, Pakistans former Army Chief, said that, Blackwater was
MIA
30 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

directly involved in the assassinations of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto and former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. He told a Saudi Arabian daily that, former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green light to carry out terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and Quetta. It was in an interview with a Pakistani TV network when he stated that Blackwater and the United States killed Benazir Bhutto. Beg was chief of Army staff during Benazir Bhuttos first administration. He claimed that she was killed in an international conspiracy because she had decided to back out of the deal through which she had returned to the country after nine years in exile.[68] Is the West Punishing Pakistan to Challenge China? China and Pakistan established diplomatic ties in 1951, and have enjoyed a close relationship since then, with Pakistan being one of the first countries to recognize the Peoples Republic of China in 1950. One of the primary reasons behind the close and ever-closer relationship between China and Pakistan is the role of India, as both an adversary and competitor to Pakistan and China. A Pakistani ambassador to the United States said that for Pakistan, China is a high-value guarantor of security against India. Further, within India, increased Chinese military support to Pakistan is perceived as a key aspect of Beijing's perceived policy of 'encirclement' or constraint of India as a means of preventing or delaying New Delhi's ability to challenge Beijing's region-wide influence. These ties have increased since the 1990s, and especially as the United States became increasingly close to India. As a Council on Foreign Relations background report on China-Pakistan relations explained: The two countries have cooperated on a variety of large-scale infrastructure projects in Pakistan, including highways, gold and copper mines, major electricity complexes and power plants, and numerous nuclear power projects. With roughly ten thousand Chinese workers engaged in 120 projects in Pakistan, total Chinese investment--which includes heavy engineering, power generation, mining, and telecommunications--was valued at $4 billion in 2007 and is expected to rise to $15 billion by 2010.[69] As the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. further explained, Pakistan thinks that both China and the United States are crucial for it, however, he went on, If push comes to shove, it would probably choose China--but for this moment, it doesn't look like there has to be a choice. The recent U.S.-India civilian nuclear agreement has further entrenched a distrust of America within Pakistan and pushed the country closer to China. In 2010, China announced it would be building two nuclear power reactors in Pakistan.[70] In 2007, China and Pakistan inaugurated Gwadar Port in Pakistans Balochistan Province along the Arabian Sea, creating the first major point in an energy corridor which would eventually bring oil from the Gulf overland through Pakistan into China. China financed the building of the port city for $200 million, with plans to fund billions more worth of railroads, roads, and pipelines which would link Gwadar Port to China. Pakistan is strategically placed in the centre of the new Great Game, a nomenclature for the great imperial battles over Central Asia in the 19th century. Pakistan is neighbour to Iran, India, China, and Afghanistan, with a coastline on the Arabian Sea. Thus, Pakistan is situated between the oil-rich Middle East and the natural gas-rich Central Asian countries, with two of the fastest growing economies in the world India and China as energy-hungry neighbours; with the imperial presence of America in neighbouring Afghanistan, with its eye focused intensely on neighbouring Iran. A Great Game ensues, drawing in Russia, China, India and America, and the main focus of the game is pipelines.[71] China has a major pipeline project in the works to bring in natural gas from Central Asia, transporting the gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and into China, which is set to be completed by 2013.[72] Iran, OPECs second largest oil exporter (after Saudi Arabia), is among the top ten oil exporters to China, and in 2010 it was reported that the Chinese have invested roughly $40 billion in Irans oil and gas sectors, including financing for the construction of seven new oil refineries, as well as various oil and gas pipeline projects.[73] In June of 2011, it was reported that Chinas oil imports from Iran have increased by 32%, signaling a growing importance in the relationship between the two countries. The largest three oil exporters to China are Saudi Arabia, Angola, and Iran, respectively.[74]
MIA
31 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

The Gwadar Port city built by Chinese investments is destined to be a central hub in the pipeline politics of the Great Game, in particular between the competing pipeline projects of the Trans-Afghan Pipeline (TAP or TAPI), involving a pipeline bringing natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and into India; and the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline (IPI). The major issue here is that the TAPI pipeline cannot be built so long as Afghanistan is plunged into war, thus the project has been incessantly stalled. On the other hand, India has been wavering and moving out of the picture in the IPI pipeline, in no small measure due to its increasingly close relations with the United States, which has sought to dissuade Pakistan from building a pipeline with Iran. However, in 2010, Pakistan and Iran signed the agreement, and are willing to either allow India or China to be the beneficiary of the pipeline. Whether going to India or China, Gwadar Port will be a central hub in this project.[75] Pakistan has now been seeking direct help from China on the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project.[76] The U.S., for its part, warned Pakistan against signing onto a pipeline project with Iran, yet Pakistan proceeded with the project regardless.[77] The southern Pakistani province of Balochistan is home to oil, gas, copper, gold, and coal reserves, not to mention, it is the strategic corridor through which the pipeline projects would run, and is home to the strategically significant port city of Gwadar. For the past fifty years, however, Balochistan has been a major hub of Chinese investment and opportunity, with Chinese companies having poured $15 billion into projects in the province, including the construction of an oil refinery, copper and zinc mines, and of course, Gwadar Port.[78] India is increasingly concerned about Chinas presence in the Gulf and Indian Ocean. China is building ports not only in Pakistan, but in Bangladesh and Burma, as well as railroad lines in Nepal.[79] Following the supposed assassination of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. in Pakistani territory, tensions between Pakistan and America increased, and ties between China and Pakistan deepened. The Chinese were subsequently approached by the Pakistanis to take control of the port of Gwadar, and perhaps to even build a Pakistani naval base there, though the Chinese have denied Pakistani claims that any such deal had been reached. China, further, in response to the apparent U.S. assassination of Bin Laden, said that the international community (referring to the United States) must respect Pakistani sovereignty. Indian news quoted diplomatic sources as saying that China warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China.[80] Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani visited China on a state visit shortly after the American raid into Pakistan. Following the meetings, China agreed to immediately provide 50 fighter jets to Pakistan, a clear signal that Pakistan is looking for alternatives to its American dependence, and China is all too happy to provide such an alternative.[81] As the Financial Times reported, Pakistan has asked China to build a naval base at its south-western port of Gwadar and expects the Chinese navy to maintain a regular presence there.[82] China has also signaled that it would be interested in setting up foreign military bases, just as the United States has, and specifically is interested in such a base inside Pakistan. The aim would be to exert pressure on India as well as counter US influence in Pakistan and Afghanistan.[83] Conclusion It would seem, then, that the true cause of chaos, destabilization, and war in Pakistan is not the Orientalist perspective of Pakistanis being the Other: barbaric, backwards, violent and self-destructive, in need to intervention to right their own wrongs. Following along the same lines as the dismantling of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the destabilization of Pakistan is aimed at wider strategic objectives for the Western imperial powers: namely, the isolation of China. While Pakistan has long been a staunch U.S. puppet regime, in the wider geopolitical context of a global rivalry between the United States and China for control of the worlds resources and strategic positions, Pakistan may be sacrificed upon the altar of empire. The potential result of this strategy, in a country exceeding 180 million people, armed with nuclear weapons, and in the centre of one of the most tumultuous regions in the world, may be cataclysmic, perhaps even resulting in a war between the great powers. The only way to help prevent such a potential scenario would be to analyze the strategy further, and expose it to a much wider audience, thus initiating a wider public discussion on the issue. As long as the public discourse on Pakistan is framed as an issue of terrorism and the War on Terror alone, this strategic nightmare will continue forward.
As the saying goes, In war, truth is the first casualty.
MIA
32 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

But so too then, can war be the casualty of Truth.
Andrew Gavin Marshall is a Research Associate with the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is coeditor, with Michel Chossudovsky, of the recent book, "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century," available to order at Globalresearch.ca. He is currently working on a forthcoming book on 'Global Government'.
Notes [1] Russell Berman, Despite Criticism, Obama Stands By Adviser Brzezinski. The New York Sun: September 13, 2007: http://www.nysun.com/national/despite-criticism-obama-stands-by-adviser/62534/ [2] Eli Lake, Obama Adviser Leads Delegation to Damascus. The New York Sun: February 12, 2008: http://www.nysun.com/foreign/obama-adviser-leads-delegation-to-damascus/71123/ [3] Jonathan Tepperman, How Obamas Star Could Fall. Newsweek: October 13, 2008: http://www.newsweek.com/id/162316 [4] Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt, McCain and Obama advisers briefed on deteriorating Afghan war. The New York Times: October 31, 2008: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/world/americas/31iht-31policy.17405861.html [5] George Packer, The Last Mission. The New Yorker: September 28, 1009: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/28/090928fa_fact_packer [6] Ibid. [7] Ibid. [8] Michael Abramowitz, Shailagh Murray and Anne E. Kornblut, Obama Close to Choosing Clinton, Jones for Key Posts. The Washington Post: November 22, 2008: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103981.html [9] Ibid. [10] About Us, Our Mission. Chamber of Commerce: Institute for 21st Century Energy: http://www.energyxxi.org/pages/about_us.aspx [11] JOHN D. MCKINNON and T.W. FARNAM, Hedge Fund Paid Summers $5.2 Million in Past Year. The Wall Street Journal: April 5, 2009: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879462053487927.html [12] James L. Jones, Remarks by National Security Adviser Jones at 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy. The Council on Foreign Relations: February 8, 2009: http://www.cfr.org/publication/18515/remarks_by_national_security_adviser_jones_at_45th_munich_conference_o n_security_policy.html [13] Ibid. [14] Julian E. Barnes, Obama team works on overhaul of Afghanistan, Pakistan policy. Los Angeles Times: February 11, 2009: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/11/world/fg-us-afghan11 [15] Henry A. Kissinger, A Strategy for Afghanistan. The Washington Post: February 26, 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/25/AR2009022503124.html [16] George Packer, The Last Mission. The New Yorker: September 28, 1009: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/28/090928fa_fact_packer [17] Ibid. [18] Eric Schmitt, Obama Taps a General as the Envoy to Kabul. The New York Times: January 29, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/washington/30diplo.html [19] Ibid. [20] Agencies, US fires top general in Afghanistan as war worsens. China Daily: May 12, 2009: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-05/12/content_7766306.htm [21] Ann Scott Tyson, Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Fired. The Washington Post: May 12, 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051101864.html [22] Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Pentagon Worries Led to Command Change. The Washington Post: August 17, 2009:
MIA
33 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081602304_pf.html [23] Ann Scott Tyson, Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Fired. The Washington Post: May 12, 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/11/AR2009051101864.html [24] Agencies, US fires top general in Afghanistan as war worsens. China Daily: May 12, 2009: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-05/12/content_7766306.htm [25] Muriel Kane, Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney. The Raw Story: March 11, 2009: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hersh_US_has_been_running_executive_0311.html [26] Transcript, Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Countries, Including in Latin America. Democracy Now!: March 31, 2009: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/31/seymour_hersh_secret_us_forces_carried [27] MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT, U.S. Halted Some Raids in Afghanistan. The New York Times: March 9, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/asia/10terror.html [28] Ann Scott Tyson, Manhunter To Take On a Wider Mission. The Washington Post: May 13, 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051203679_pf.html [29] THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Given More Leeway. The New York Times: June 10, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11command.html [30] Michael Hirsh and John Barry, The Hidden General. Newsweek: June 26, 2006: http://www.newsweek.com/id/52445 [31] KIMBERLY DOZIER and ADAM GOLDMAN, Counterterrorist Pursuit Team: 3,000 Man CIA Paramilitary Force Hunts Militants In Afghanistan, Pakistan, Huffington Post, 22 September 2010: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/counterterrorist-pursuit-_n_734961.html [32] Andrew Gray, US Afghan surge could push militants into Pakistan. Reuters: May 21, 2009: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N21412211.htm [33] Isambard Wilkinson, Top US official warns that war in Afghanistan strengthens Taliban in Pakistan. The Telegraph: May 22, 2009: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5369740/Top-US-official-warns-that-war-inAfghanistan-strengthens-Taliban-in-Pakistan.html [34] AP, Afghanistan surge tied to Pakistan stability. MSNBC: May 21, 2009: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30871807/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/ [35] George Packer, The Last Mission. The New Yorker: September 28, 2009: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/28/090928fa_fact_packer [36] Tom Andrews, Classified McChrystal Report: 500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan. Huffington Post: September 24, 2009: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-andrews/classified-mcchrystal-rep_b_298528.html [37] Greg Miller, CIA expanding presence in Afghanistan. The Los Angeles Times: September 20, 2009: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-intel20-2009sep20,0,1183243.story?page=1 [38] Ann Scott Tyson, Support Troops Swelling U.S. Force in Afghanistan. The Washington Post: October 13, 2009: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/12/AR2009101203142.html?hpid=topnews [39] Henry A. Kissinger, Deployments and Diplomacy. Newsweek: October 12, 2009: http://www.newsweek.com/id/216704 [40] Ibid. [41] Ibid. [42] Travis Lupick, Suspended Afghan MP Malalai Joya wants NATO's mission to end. The Georgia Straight: November 12, 2009: http://www.straight.com/article-270310/vancouver/afghan-activist-wants-natos-mis
MIA
34 | P a g e
July 2, 2011

Occults Powers Decided To Punish Pakistan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Occults Powers Decided To Punish Pakistan

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Occults Powers Decided To Punish Pakistan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Occults Powers decided to punish Pakistan

(Punishing Pakistan and Challenging China)

Highs and lows of U.S.-Pakistan relationship