Afghanistan: The 'Decision' . . .

I realize it's just political bs, but anyone who really expects the Obama administration to announce its decision on what it's doing in Afghanistan before health care is resolved is simply out of touch with American politics. No way is Obama - or any President, to be fair - going to make that sort of controversial announcement while the fate of his most important piece of legislation is hanging by a few votes in congress.

If you're looking for what the decision going to be, consider this: a significant number of troops have already been detailed to Afghanistan since General McChrystal's report "leaked."

The number of troops the U.S. sends to Afghanistan may get the headlines, but the real issue is what to do about Pakistan. Or rather, al Quedastan, which better describes the area over the border. You can put a billion troops in Afghanistan, but if you're not willing to take the battle into the hills where the enemy really is, you're never going to beat him.

But unless the Pakistan government and its dysfunctional intelligence service and military get their act together, not even wiping out al Quedastan is going to solve the problem.

Nuclear duds . . .

There's a controversy raging in India following a statement by a scientist the the country's nuclear test in 1998 was a fizzle. The scientist was involved in the country's nuclear weapons program at the time.

The gist of what he claims is that the Indian government pushed up the tests because of intelligence that Pakistan was about to test its own device. There is ample circumstantial evidence that the test was not everything India wanted at the time, since the yield it announced was more than half the yield estimated in non-classified sources. But the official response has been that he's wrong.

The irony is that the Pakistanis also have had nuclear "fizzles," as the Indian press put it. The yield on their weapons has generally been below expectations.

But perhaps some perspective would be useful - the Indian explosion was measured by outside experts at 20 kilotons. That's in the neighborhood of the yield of the bombs the U.S. used in World War II.

Well, duh . . .


Headline in today's NY Times:

Pakistan Strife Raises U.S. Doubts on Nuclear Arms

Good story. Tip of the iceberg.

Link.

The situation in Pakistan

Militants have launched six such attacks [rocket-propelled assaults on NATO depots and staging areas] in Peshawar since the beginning of December, destroying some 300 Humvees and other military vehicles as well as supplies worth millions of dollars. While these raids have obvious consequences for international troops in Afghanistan, they also mark a new level of insecurity for Peshawar, a city of universities, kebab stands, and carpet dealers that has always had an edgy border-town vibe but that now seems increasingly vulnerable to a Taliban takeover.

Article in Slate detailing what's going on in Peshawar, on the border with Afghanistan. You can judge the government's seriousness by the pay gap between what it pays officers and what the Taliban pays its fighters.

The story mentions the possibility of residents forming a vigilante militia to take matters into their own hands, something I'd never heard of before.

Pakistan today

From today's NY Times . . .

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — With great fanfare, the Pakistani Army flew journalists to a rugged corner of the nation’s lawless tribal areas in May to show how decisively it had destroyed the lairs of the Taliban, including a school for suicide bombers, in fighting early this year.

Then, just days later, the usually reclusive leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, held a news conference of his own, in the same region, to show just who was in charge.

Here's a hint about how well Mehsud is doing - he's got a nicer truck than the army leader there . . . and he's not worrying about the price of gas.

Full story:


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/02/world/asia/02pstan.html?ex=1370145600&en=9c5f2e8207b51128&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Which road for Pakistan now?

Bhutto Assassinated in Attack on Rally

Pakistan watch


The plot continues to thicken . . . From the NY Times:

LAHORE, Pakistan, Nov. 26 — Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, back from exile, denounced the military dictatorship of Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, today and said he would lead street protests if his demands for the general to lift emergency rule and reinstate the Supreme Court were not met.

A day after his return to Pakistan, Mr. Sharif signed his nomination papers for January’s parliamentary election at a court in Lahore as his supporters packed into the courtroom chanting "Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!" the Associated Press reported.

Separately, a spokesman for General Musharraf said the president would “most probably” be sworn in Thursday as a civilian head of state, removing his uniform and relinquishing his role as chief of the army on Wednesday. “He is going to take off his uniform a day before that," the spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, told AP Television News, referring to the swearing-in ceremony slated for Thursday.

The whole story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/world/asia/27pakistan.html?ex=1353819600&en=bea4dc529c193c69&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

They still don't get it . . .

The NY Times reported Sunday on some steps that the U.S. has taken to help secure nuclear weapons in Pakistan. The story is good, as far as it goes . . .

U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 — Over the past six years, the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials.

The real point of the story supposedly is this:

Debate is growing about whether an American classified program has done enough to help protect Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Actually, even the story indicates that the debate took place a few years ago, and it's not at all clear that it's growing, but I digress . . .

The article spends quite a lot of time focusing on the PALS or failsafe code safeguards (that of it as a PIN number that prevents nuclear weapons from being used by unauthorized people), and the fact that the administration debated giving the technology to Pakistan. They ended up deciding not to, supposedly for legal reasons.

Not to defend the decision, but the story doesn't explain that if you understand that technology, it's possible that you could use that knowledge to defeat similar systems in American and Russian weapons. As for the argument about the law preventing it . . .

While PALS systems are important, and something similar should be part of any nuclear device, the presumed lack of those safeguards are only a small part of the overall problem posed by Pakistan's nuclear program.

In fact, the bombs themselves are only the most obvious part of the problem. In the meantime, a good portion of the money given to Pakistan has clearly not been spent as intended. But you probably expected that.

Not the least thing that's interesting about the story is the revelation that the NY Times has been sitting on the information about the secret training aid and Failsafe coding debate (and presumably much more) for several years, supposedly because the administration feared that the stories would harm efforts to secure the weapons. The speciousness of that argument is matched only by their reasoning for printing it now. The newspaper's position basically boiled down to, We're only going to report on this when there's nothing anyone can do about it.

But read the story yourself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/washington/18nuke.html?ex=1353128400&en=ac9da51bed0e24ca&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Eventually, you'll read stories that everything is fine because there are contingency plans to secure the warheads if all else fails. Those plans are great as book plots - yes, I speak from experience - but they're poor substitutes for national policy.

They have nukes, we have ... what exactly?

Pakistan is a country of great beauty and industrious people, but at the moment it is spinning out of control. The situation there is even more confused and dangerous than what you’re seeing on TV or reading in the newspaper.

The country’s dictator, General Musharraf, is at the center of vortex of forces pulling Pakistan in different directions. One of those forces is democracy, though the recently returned (at our urging) former Prime Minister Benzair Bhutto is far from the ideal leader of a democratic movement. Nor is her party, as large as it is, the only one in the country. To give you an idea of how fractured Pakistani politics are, the CIA counts 21 separate political parties active in the country. And that doesn’t include the most potent force: the army.

We get news stories in the West about radical Islamists and the havoc they’re causing in Pakistan, but the tribal and ethnic conflicts are arguably even more important. The Kite Runner revealed to many Westerners the enmity between different ethnic groups in Afghanistan; Pakistan has essentially the same problem. While much of the conflict occurs in the northern tribal areas of the country – the name indicates who’s really in control there – the conflicts exist throughout Pakistan.

Why is all this turmoil important for the rest of the world?

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are being guarded by an army that has had its ass kicked in the northern provinces over the past year in what amounts to an undeclared civil war. And yes, the Taliban is part of that war. And no, they still don’t like us.

So let me ask . . . am I just nuts, or does Bhutto’s return seem a little like Khomeini’s to Iran during the 1970s?

One thing that's clear - Condi's as clueless as anyone in the Carter administration ever was.