Things become frustratingly complex and confusing when so many Muslims are enthusiastic practitioners of taqiyya. In an earlier post, Personal Reasons Are Important, I pointed out that the new leader of Pakistan seems personally committed to removing Jihadis from his country.On the other hand, in this excellent (very long) article in the New York Times (thank you, WC at Gathering Storm), I gained a new appreciation for the complexity of this problem. Some Pakistanis seem authentically committed to removing the Jihadis (but maybe some of them are only pretending), while others are clearly double dealing.
So whether or not Asif Ali Zardari is sincere, he may be unable to effectively fulfill his intentions. We shall see. Explaining why the Pakistani military sometimes cooperates with the Taliban, Dexter Filkins, the author of the New York Times article, wrote:
Another explanation is growing popular hatred of the United States. Pakistan’s leaders — whether Musharraf or the army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, or the country’s leading civilian politicians — are finding it more and more difficult to mobilize their own army and intelligence services to act against the Taliban and other militants inside the country. And while the Pakistan Army used to be a predominantly secular institution, increasingly it is being led by Islamist-minded officers.Dexter Filkins interviewed a man with an insightful perspective. Filkins wrote:
The pro-Islamist and anti-American sentiments pervading the armed forces might help explain why a group of ill-trained, underpaid Pakistani Frontier Corps soldiers would open fire on American troops fighting the Taliban. Those same sentiments buttress the notion, offered by some American and Pakistani officials, that rogue officers inside the army and ISI are supporting the militants against the wishes of their superiors.
Finally, there is the problem of the Pakistan Army’s competence. For all the myths that officers like Musharraf have spread about the institution, the simple fact is that it isn’t very good. The Pakistan Army has lost every war it has ever fought. And it isn’t trained to battle an insurgency. Each of the half-dozen offensives the army has launched into the tribal areas since 2004 has left it bloodied and humbled.
One sweltering afternoon in July, I ventured into the elegant home of a former Pakistani official who recently retired after several years of serving in senior government posts. We sat in his book-lined study. A servant brought us tea and biscuits.It is insidious. It is maddening.
Was it the obsession with India that led the Pakistani military to support the Taliban? I asked him.
“Yes,” he said.
Or is it the anti-Americanism and pro-Islamic feelings in the army?
“Yes,” he said, that too.
And then the retired Pakistani official offered another explanation — one that he said could never be discussed in public. The reason the Pakistani security services support the Taliban, he said, is for money: after the 9/11 attacks, the Pakistani military concluded that keeping the Taliban alive was the surest way to win billions of dollars in aid that Pakistan needed to survive. The military’s complicated relationship with the Taliban is part of what the official called the Pakistani military’s “strategic games.” Like other Pakistanis, this former senior official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of what he was telling me.
“Pakistan is dependent on the American money that these games with the Taliban generate,” the official told me. “The Pakistani economy would collapse without it. This is how the game works.”
As an example, he cited the Pakistan Army’s first invasion of the tribal areas — of South Waziristan in 2004. Called Operation Shakai, the offensive was ostensibly aimed at ridding the area of Taliban militants. From an American perspective, the operation was a total failure. The army invaded, fought and then made a deal with one of the militant commanders, Nek Mohammed. The agreement was capped by a dramatic meeting between Mohammed and Safdar Hussein, one of the most senior officers in the Pakistan Army.
“The corps commander was flown in on a helicopter,” the former official said. “They had this big ceremony, and they embraced. They called each other mujahids. ”
“Mujahid” is the Arabic word for “holy warrior.” The ceremony, in fact, was captured on videotape, and the tape has been widely distributed.
“The army agreed to compensate the locals for collateral damage,” the official said. “Where do you think that money went? It went to the Taliban. Who do you think paid the bill? The Americans. This is the way the game works. The Taliban is attacked, but it is never destroyed.
“It’s a game,” the official said, wrapping up our conversation. “The U.S. is being taken for a ride.”
The regular practice of deceit by Jihadis makes the whole situation impossibly difficult for both non-Muslims and Islamic apatheists.
The apatheists, who would just as soon go on about their business and ignore Islamic teachings that urge them to prove their faith with jihad (while still wanting to call themselves Muslims) are in a difficult position. The non-Muslim world cannot trust them until they prove over time they are trustworthy, and maybe not even then. But if the apatheists want to declare their apostasy and reject Islam, they put their lives (and their families' lives) in danger because the Islamic penalty for apostasy is death. Most of them have not chosen to be Muslims. They were brought up that way.
And it is equally difficult, if not more so, for non-Muslims. With over a billion Muslims in the world, that's a lot of people to distrust. And yet only a fool (or someone who knows nothing about taqiyya) would trust a Muslim who has not proven himself trustworthy. For simple survival, we had better look upon all Muslims with suspicion. But who wants to live this way? On the other hand, who wants to die a fool?
There is no simple solution, no easy answer. We struggle to come to grips with it like we would struggle to come to grips with a deadly plague. But the first step seems clear, with jihad or with a plague: People need to know what causes it.
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Here's another choice quote from that article. The author spoke with the governor of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province:
The new approach, Ghani said, would entail negotiations and economic development. Under the plan, the government would pour billions into the region over the next five years to build schools, roads and health clinics. (The United States has agreed to pitch in $750 million.) The political negotiations, Ghani said, would be conducted by civilian members of the government and the region’s tribal leaders, not, as in the past, by military officers and Taliban militants. Ghani called this new strategy “Jang and Jirga” — the Pashto words for “war” and “tribal council.” Carrot and stick.
“The idea is to drive a wedge between the militants and the people,” Ghani said. “There will be no negotiations with the militants themselves.”
Ghani’s previous post had been as governor of Baluchistan Province, to the south, where he had weakened an ethnically based insurgency that had churned on for decades. He said he was confident he could do the same here. “Don’t underestimate the Pakistani desire to confront the militants,” he insisted. “Ninety percent of the country is behind us.”
It was sundown when Ghani and I finished talking. As I strolled across the grounds of the governor’s compound, a group of soldiers had just begun lowering the Pakistani flag. Another man blew into a bugle, playing “A Hundred Pipers,” a Scottish air.
FOR GHANI AND PAKISTAN’S civilian government, the crucial players in achieving peace are traditional tribal leaders whose power is independent of the Taliban or other militants. This method of governing the tribal areas — indirect rule through local chiefs — dates back to the British imperial period. The British put tribal leaders — known as maliks — on the payroll to stand in for the central government, which imposed no taxes or customs duties and, in turn, did very little. At the same time, imperial administrators reserved for themselves extraordinary powers of arrest and punishment that extended to collective reprisals against entire tribes. The purpose of the malik system was to keep the tribal areas quiet and at least nominally under the thumb of the imperial government. This preserved a feudal political structure, and feudal levels of economic development, into the 20th century.
The author spoke with a young man who lived in Pakistan and went on raids into Afghanistan:
Fighting in Afghanistan, Abu Omar said, was a hit-and-miss, sometimes tedious affair: once across the border, he and the other fighters sat inside another safe house for two days, waiting for word to launch their attack. Finally, Abu Omar’s commander told them that there were too many American and Afghan soldiers about and that they would have to return to Pakistan.
The second time, the mission worked. Crossing into Kunar once more, Abu Omar and the other fighters attacked a line of Afghan army check posts just inside the border. Omar put his heavy machine gun to good use, he said, and four of the posts were overrun. “We killed seven Afghan soldiers,” he claimed. “Unfortunately, there were no Americans.”
Their attack successful, Abu Omar and his comrades trekked back across the Pakistani border. The sun was just rising. The fighters saw a Pakistani checkpoint and headed straight for it.
“They gave us some water,” he said of the Pakistani border guards. “And then we continued on our way.”
It's all irrelevant.
The pakistani govt, like every previous govt which held sway over the NW territories including Britain had neither the will, nor the public support nor the means to affect a damn thing up there.
Our choice is to try to use SOG's to raid and kill worthy targets, UAV's, or major forces in a targeted way - which we will have to be sanguine, could trigger anything from a closing of the Pak border to supplies from the sea headed to NATO, up to and including a hostile govt taking over which is suddenly Taliban in all but name.
Pakistani forces, even WELL MEANING will never have the backing needed.
A pak govt which recognizes this and cedes to us the ability to act, will fall.
That's really all there is...at base is an irreducible % of the pakistani peoples (pathans and pushtuns) who hate our guts (see support after huge earthquake relief efforts) BECAUSE WE ARE SATAN.
Color me Huntington
That's the impression I have also: The general Pakistani public would not tolerate any government allowing U.S. forces to kill any Muslims, even the Taliban, and yet they don't want al-Qaeda or the Taliban to get too carried away either.
What's an SOG and a UAV?
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