By allowing foreign militaries a free reign in our tribal belt to kill hundreds of innocent Pakistanis, Pakistan is committing the same mistake as Putin’s, who initially did well a decade ago by crushing the rebellion in Chechnya but now is creating more rebels because of highhandedness. Also, Pakistan has no business eliminating the Afghan Taliban, who survived the 2001 war thanks to US mismanagement. The problem should be solved inside Afghanistan, not Waziristan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—It was brave on the part of Pakistan army chief to publicly apologize for mistakenly bombing and killing tens of innocent Pakistanis in a Khyber Agency village. In a similar incident in 2006 during the reign of his predecessor, where a US missile killed up to 80 children in a school, the action was not only defended but the Pakistani military was forced to own it, giving the first signal to everyone that innocent Pakistanis can be killed with impunity as part of the war on terror. Since then, more than a thousand innocent Pakistanis have lost their lives as collateral damage in these ‘successful’ drone attacks. This would remain one of the darkest spots in our history where our rulers shirked their responsibility for the protection of every Pakistani citizen on our soil.

But the army chief’s apology is also an opportunity to review whether it is acceptable to have allowed ourselves and our American allies to import their methods of dealing with occupied populations in Iraq and Afghanistan to be used with our own people inside our own homeland.

This review is important because these imported methods of dealing with occupied populations are not only unsuitable here but are radicalizing our own citizens instead of pacifying them, producing more disgruntled citizens for our enemies to recruit, brainwash and use to kill more Pakistanis and spread mayhem.

In using these imported methods we are committing the same mistake that President Putin, now a prime minister, has been committing in Chechnya for the past decade. He successfully curbed the insurgency and ended the ability of the US and other countries to use Chechnya to bleed Russia by covertly supplying weapons and intelligence to the insurgents. But instead of building on that success, Mr. Putin continues to use aggressive tactics in Chechnya, breeding more insurgents and more opportunities for outsiders to meddle. [The latest suicide attacks in Moscow involved a young woman who blew herself up because Russian military killed her husband].

The same is happening in our tribal belt. Just when we have stamped out insurgents and criminals in some pockets [thanks to Gen. Kayani and his team], here comes the collateral damage – both from CIA drones and our own occasional mishaps – to create additional pools of disgruntled citizens ready to be picked up by anyone who has resources to use them against the Pakistani state.

It’s a vicious cycle that destroys the massive nation-building work that our military is conducting in places such as Swat, with the military’s own money and often without any support from incompetent civilian governments in Islamabad and Peshawar. For example, few people know that our soldiers donated two days’ pay to collect US$1.2 million to renovate more than half of the 400 schools in Swat destroyed by terrorist groups. The army is building roads and restoring water supply lines in Swat, even organizing cultural and musical events to provide much need entertainment to a disturbed population and restore normalcy. Not to mention achieving the impossible by restoring two million refugees back to their homes in less than a year.

But all of this good work is eaten away by the kind of massive bloodshed that occurred on April 10 at remote Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency. Despite the brave apology, the accident will create new rebels and revenge seekers. It also brings into focus an old complaint about the veracity of intelligence that the Americans have and share with our military. Once again, the insurgency within our tribal belt is directly linked with the American mismanagement in Afghanistan. Allowing the Americans or anyone else to set up spy networks inside our territory and unleash private defense contractors in beards and local dresses is like allowing our own people and territory to be treated in the same manner as Iraq and Afghanistan, which are foreign occupied zones. This foreign element, including collateral damage and the faulty intelligence that causes it, is also sending a wrong message to ambitious criminal and tribal leaders and politicians, and that message is: the Pakistani state and its military are too weak to check foreign meddling and thus taking matters into their own hands is a legitimate option.

Another mistake that is bound to breed more enemies for the state is our faulty policy of not clearly asserting that the Afghan Taliban along with any other Afghan parties are legitimate Afghan political players. Fighting them is not and should never be Pakistan’s responsibility. The presence of some Afghan Taliban on Pakistani soil is expected to due to close ties between Pakistani and Afghan Pashtuns, but the solution is not for Pakistan to help US eliminate them but to resolve the deadlock inside Afghanistan that has resulted in the Afghan Taliban escaping their country to take refuge here.

Make no mistake about it: rebels who terrorize and kill Pakistanis must be eliminated by force and without mercy. But allowing outsiders to kill our people directly or through faulty intelligence means we will see suicide attackers for a long time to come.

This op-ed was originally published by The News International in Pakistan under the title, Waziristan And Chechnya.

· A variety of sex scandals, financial scams and land frauds in Indian army welcome General Singh

· Land scams like Sukna issue await Singh n Issue of Uniformed female sex workers in India army’s Kashmir establishment set to test Singh’s nerves

· Inability of Indian Army’s Armour and Artillery to fight in the night tops issues facing new Indian Army Chief

· Plans to mess with China via Afghanistan appears to be on top of Singh’s war doctrine

· General Singh finding it hard to re-unite Indian army that he did divide during cold war with General Kapoor

· Global acknowledgment of Pak army’s capabilities to tackle challenges demoralizes new Indian Army Chief

Over the past few months, the Indian army was divided in two: half supporting former army chief Gen. Kapoor, and the other half supporting Gen. Singh, in charge of the eastern command who succeeded this month in dislodging the army chief. Now Gen. Singh’s first task is to reunite a divided army. But that’s not all. This in-depth look also shows Gen. Singh comes with other interesting plans.

From Christina Palmer and Ajay Mehta

The Daily Mail of Pakistan

Tuesday, 7 April 2010.

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

NEW DELHI—Gen V K Singh, the senior most infantry officer of the Indian army took over as the country’s 26th Army Chief after winning the notorious ‘War of the Generals’ with General Deepak Kapoor on Thursday with a variety of spicy scandals, juicy scams, serious disciplinary, administrative as well as technical issues waiting to test his nerves, reveal the findings of a The Daily Mail investigation.

Fifty-nine-year-old Singh, who took over from arch rival Gen Deepak Kapoor, who retired from service, has become the 26th chief and will stay at the helm of the 1.13 million personnel-strong ‘night blind’ Army of India for a period exceeding two years.

General Singh, who was earlier known as the Fort Williams’ Boss as he was head of the Eastern Command, emerged victorious in the notorious War of Generals in Indian Army that he started off with his arch rival General Deepak Kapoor, a year back over certain personal and professional issues. During the War of Generals, General Singh managed to divide the Indian army top brass into two factions which subsequently resulted into the division of the entire Indian army into two camps that were know as the Kapoor camp and Singh camp. The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal that the tough most task for General Singh would be re-unite the Indian army at least at the top leadership level but it appears to be an uphill task as he has souring ties with at least 5 important Corps Commanders and some even senior generals in the staff side. The Daily Mail’s finding further reveals that the top Generals that were in the Kapoor camp are still at odds with Singh and are stuck to the Kapoor’s policies and war doctrine. Highly credible sources at the Indian Army headquarters informed The Daily Mail that there was no warmth and excitement amongst the Command and Staff top brass over the arrival of General Singh at the helm of the affairs as many were of the view that General Singh had polluted the atmosphere of the institution through his dirty games during his cold war with General Kapoor. “He ensured insulting punishments for some very senior Generals who could have been punished with rather mild censures. Then he ran a campaign with own Chief General Kapoor with the help of Military Intelligence Chief General Loomba and leaked many secrets of Kapoor to press and politicians and now MI Chief General Loomba, who is his personal friend is busy in round the clock monitoring and scanning of those senior generals who were considered to be close to General Kapoor. Everybody is feeling suffocated”, said Brigadier Sharma while talking to The Daily Mail (of course the name has been changed for the safety of the source).

The Daily Mail’s findings further reveal that General Singh’s other biggest challenge is to implement his war plans of messing with China via Afghanistan but with the current state of affairs in the direction of Indian Army’s ability to fight in the night with the night vision problems of Armour and Artillery vehicles, he is reported be to be concentrating more on intelligence operations from Afghanistan via Xinjiang province of China.

The Daily Mail’s investigations disclose that other major challenge for General Singh is going to be the elimination of night blindness from Indian army’s Armour and Artillery wings which is not possible to happen in his 2-years tenure, making him chew his butts regarding implementation of his war plans and other strategies.

The Daily Mail’s findings reveal that the most complicated task for General Singh would be to handle the issue of deployment of female sex workers in the disguise of women soldiers in held Kashmir. It remains a fact that General Kapoor’s experiment of deploying sex workers as female battalion in India controlled Kashmir last year, backfired earlier this year as many of the 172 female sex workers that were deployed in Kashmir region as a female battalion to minimize the suicide ration of the male Indian soldier who in this practice out of sexual frustration, not only started spreading sex related diseases but also went pregnant due to no concept of safe sex amongst the soldiers of Indian Army and the Indian government, as a response to SOS from General Kapoor, purchased 1085 condom vending machines for Indian army to be installed at different units in Kashmir’s border areas. The Daily Mail’s sources say that General Singh was not in favour of this experiment of General Kapoor but now he finds himself helpless in this direction as Indian government and Indian media had already glorified this experiment, considering it to be a part of women empowerment by Indian government. General Singh is very much perturbed by this challenge.

The Daily Mail’s findings reveal that there are at least 3 land and financial scam in the Indian army that are to be taken care of by General Singh while in at least of these scams, Singh aides are reported to be deeply involved.

The Daily Mail’s investigations further reveal that Pakistan Army’s global appreciation and acknowledgment for its tremendous abilities to handle the challenges after the successful operations against militants and terrorists in Swat and Tribal areas of Pakistan has caused enough worry to General Singh.

The report is reproduced under special arrangement with The Daily Mail of Pakistan.

SHIREEN M MAZARI
The much awaited – primarily by Pakistan – Pak-US strategic dialogue will begin today in Washington. The major players, including the COAS of Pakistan, are already gathered in that capital and are being feted like never before. The Americans are being clever by laying out the red carpet for their main Pakistani guests, including not putting them through the notorious scanners but getting their immigration done while they were still in the plane! Now that really is a first for the Yanks. The COAS is especially being softened, with Petreaus being a welcoming host offering military-style entertainment. The ridiculous grin on the face of one of the Pakistanis accompanying General Kayani in the official picture released by the US military says it all – and explains why the Americans think that if they make all the right PR moves before the dialogue, the Pakistanis will have been softened enough to take US dictation. And there will be plenty of hard demands put before the Pakistanis again – let us make no mistake on that count.
The issue for us, though, is that are the Pakistanis prepared to stay the course and stick to some basic demands that they need to make, or will we have a repeat of the Kerry-Lugar drama where our foreign minister effectively became an apologist for the Americans and sought to justify a most demeaning and intrusive piece of Pakistan-specific legislation? So what are the main issues Pakistan needs to focus on and demand a positive response from the Americans?
First, and a basic issue is for the US to deliver on all past outstanding commitments, some made immediately after 9/11 when Musharraf committed this nation to the US’s debilitating and erroneous “war on terror”. Amongst these unfulfilled commitments are: access to US markets especially for our textiles, payment of the Coalition Support Fund for services rendered primarily by the military and the whole ROZ drama which may actually be more costly for Pakistan in terms of conditionalities, so perhaps we need to do a rethink on this since the Americans have not moved yet on this project.
Second, an end to the drone attacks – including a decisive withdrawal of the permission which the US claims successive Pakistani governments have given them. Here the Pakistan military must make its position clear also. Given how for decades we have done quite well without US military weapon systems, why should the army suddenly feel so desperate for these knowing what happens in terms of spares and so on if we fall out of synch with US demands and expectations?

Third, an end to the continuous raising of the proliferation issue which has become a tool of pressure on Pakistan, despite the fact that the US knows that all our safeguards and legislation in this regard are not only in place, they are far more stringent than anything the US or India have in place. The A Q Khan issue must end with a firm commitment on the part of the US, because keeping this issue alive is pushing him to the edge with the sort of disastrous consequences to our national security in terms of “confessionals”. Given the US’s ongoing proliferation to Israel, and now to India through the 123 Agreement, it is hardly in a position to berate Pakistan and its citizens on this count. The Pakistani state must also stop going on the defensive, given how the reality is that neither it nor any of its citizens actually did anything illegal. As for issues of command and control, it is the US that continues to have problems as the world witnessed when two US bombers flew off with live nukes with no authorisation and no one knew where they were headed!
Fourth, Pakistan also needs to demand from the US a civil nuclear deal similar to the one signed with India – and then Pakistan can study it and see whether it is actually in their interest to accept such a deal. The Indians are already hysterical at even a hint that Pakistan may be offered such a deal, quite forgetting their own rather dismal past proliferation record which is public knowledge. Nevertheless, regardless of Indian histrionics, Pakistan should be cautious about a US offer in the nuclear energy field, and first ensure that it will not operationalise the unacceptable and highly intrusive conditionalities of the Kerry-Lugar Act. But all these issues will only come up when the US shows its intentions of offering us a civil nuclear deal similar to the Indian one. That will show the intent of the US towards Pakistan – as a strategic partner or a vassal state. But the US cannot be allowed to hold a nuclear agreement as bait or a lure for us to do still more of their bidding which goes against our own interests.
Pakistan also needs to put an end to the free run the US has gained in Pakistan with all manner of private contractors and covert operatives proliferating through the length and breadth of the country. It needs to make clear to the US that it cannot have immunity in terms of its activities being exposed in the press either. No one can be above the law, and certainly not foreign intruders up to all manner of harmful antics. As for the US intent of putting in money in the fields of education and development, the schemes they come up with need to be studied very carefully to examine the costs to Pakistan in non-financial terms and the usual conditionalities. As the US never fails to point out: there is no such thing as a free lunch! But the US has been lunching and dining free in Pakistan since 9/11, thanks to the pusillanimity of our successive leaders.
The Pakistanis also need to come clean on Dr Aafia and demand the US return her to Pakistan as well return her children if they are still alive. The fate of these innocent Pakistani children needs to be known.
As for US demands on Pakistan – they should not be making any, since these and our willy nilly compliance have already destroyed our country. We need to ensure that we extricate ourselves from the present debilitating alliance with the US before it proves completely fatal for us – which may be the end goal of the US in any case if one is to believe their analysts writing in official publications.
Finally, what should be our red lines if the US does not meet our demands? We certainly should not end up begging again in Washington – they need us more than we need them right now so let us make this apparent to them. Apparently the prime minister has actually been having discussions on our post-dialogue policies and actions if we do not get what we seek. One does not know what red lines the PM has formulated, but in case the dialogue has no substantive results for Pakistan, we should make some hard decisions including: delinking clearly and visibly from cooperation in the so-called “war on terror”; cutting down on the US access in Pakistan and in terms of the numbers of US personnel present in the country; halting of all NATO supplies into Afghanistan; and revaluating the whole gamut of Pakistan-US relations. It is time we played hardball with the Americans who are in a quagmire in this region. This is a rare opportunity which we must recognise and exploit instead of always putting ourselves up for abuse by the Americans.