Musharraf warns against action in tribal areas

Bush was warned before the Iraqi invasion that such an action held a grave risk to stability in the region. The ever-optimistic Decider, however, only saw a prosperous democracy, a grateful populace, and a whole lot of oil that could be swindled away from them. He threw in something about a "Central Front in the War On Terror" that jingoistic zombies would lap up, and proceeded to create a disaster that strengthened Iran, destabilised Turkey, flooded the region with weapons and refugees, bolstered the ranks of radical islamists, alienated us from virtually all of our allies, and of course brought about a civil war in "liberated" Iraq that continues today.

Now with Afghanistan at a standstill, Iraq sucking up several billion a week, and Pakistan coming apart at the seams, Bush has another plan: invade Pakistan. There is no situation so complex and dynamic that Bush cannot find a way to apply his trademark ultra-simplistic and aburdly optimistic strategies to "solving". Musharraf is now warning Bush that the situation in the tribal areas is more complicated and challenging than Bush sees it, and he further warns that Pakistan will not support any such action. Iraq and Afghanistan apparently have taught the world that the last thing you want is for Bush to try to sort out whatever difficult crisis you may have on your hands. Obviously such warnings will go unheeded, and it's equally obvious that Bush has created a culture of "yes men" in the military who will tell their glorious leader exactly what he wants to hear. One would think that Afghanistan has taught us that air power cannot quell an insurgency; we have been sending armed drones into the Pakistan tribal areas for almost a year now to no effect. Bush keeps on applying conventional war paradigms to an insurgency, and the media boldly follows through on their end with analyses of areas "taken" as if this were some kind of WW2-style conflict. Then we scratch our heads as to why areas that we've 'taken' keep falling back into "enemy" hands. It's an insurgency - there are no "front lines" and salients, no fortifications, no headquarters, no industrial base that can be crushed, no enemy armoured columns, and nobody on the "enemy" side wears a uniform. On top of that, mountain combat is far different. Tanks and trucks can't be brought in on non-existent roads, the air is thin and troops unaccustomed to the altitude get exhausted quickly, communication and supply are difficult, and the population will be against us. And we should not, by Musharraf's words, expect any co-operation from the Pakistani military, which will probably be snickering at our arrogance and unfounded optimism.

Bush has blundered into extremely complex situations where our "allies" have interests that run counter to our and where the "enemy" has interests that coincide with ours, yet everything is viewed through a "with us or against us" lens. A bombing run can, in Bush's mind, simplify things tremendously and make people like us. In a culture where the blood feud is the norm, the population somehow will shrug off the deaths of their relatives in "collateral damage" and be thankful that Bush is setting things right in their backward land.
In short, they will continue to greet us with flowers and chocolates.

story from Express India

America will regret entering Pakistan: Musharraf

Agencies

Posted online: Friday , January 11, 2008 at 05:42:15
Updated: Friday , January 11, 2008 at 05:57:12

Islamabad, January 11: President Pervez Musharraf warned that any unilateral action by US troops to enter Pakistan's border region with Afghanistan in the hunt for al-Qaida militants would be regarded as an invasion and asserted they would "regret" that day.
"The United States seems to think that what our army cannot do, they can do. This is a very wrong perception. I challenge anybody to come into our mountains. They would regret that day," Musharraf said in an interview to Straits Times of Singapore in what seems to be an open dare by him.
Asked if any unauthorised incursion by US forces in the mountainous tribal areas in the hunt for al-Qaida and Taliban militants would be considered an invasion, Musharraf replied, "Certainly. If they come without our permission, that's against the sovereignty of Pakistan."
Musharraf's sternest language yet with the US came in the backdrop of reports that Washington was considering granting the Pentagon and CIA new authority to conduct more aggressive covert operations in Pakistan's tribal areas where al-Qaida is believed to be gaining strength.
Musharraf, however, said when it comes to Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the "methodology of getting him will be discussed together and we'll attack the target together".
"Any action against him will be free, if we know where he is, if we have good intelligence," he said, adding US forces alone would fare no better than their Pakistani counterparts in the rugged terrain.
"Here it's a mountainous terrain. Minimal communications infrastructure. Every individual has a weapon and each tribe has its own armoury and they don't like intrusions into their privacy at all," he said, adding "it's better if they ask some military or intelligence commander of their own whether their army, their people, coming into our mountains will operate better than our army".
Musharraf also joined issue with US Democratic Presidential contender and Senator Hillary Clinton's proposal to place Pakistan's nuclear weapons under supervision by the US and the UK.
Her statement, the President said, was "an intrusion into our privacy, into our sensitivity. She doesn't seem to understand how well-guarded these assets are".
Musharraf also repeated his advice to Afghan President Hamid Karzai to negotiate with the Taliban.
Not all Taliban wanted to behave barbarously, he said, and military action could not, by itself, provide an ultimate solution. A solution would come by moving simultaneously on the socio-economic, political and military fronts.
The road would be long, and in Afghanistan, coalition forces - the US, NATA, Australia and others - would have to have the stamina to persist.
If US-led coalition forces depart without some stable government in place that is strong enough to defend itself, that would "affect the stability of the whole region and the world", he said.
Musharraf also spoke about his talks with the then US President Bill Clinton on the policy to be adopted towards Taliban when he visited Pakistan.
"We were criticised before Sept 11 because we were the only ones who had a relationship with the Taliban. When I came on the scene in 1999, I spoke to the Saudis, to the United Arab Emirates, they had also recognised the Taliban but had removed their embassies from Kabul. I told President Bill Clinton, who was visiting Islamabad, that we should accept the reality (of the Taliban in power in Kabul), have diplomatic relations with them and then change them from within. Had that happened, some things might have been different today."