The Taleban and Al’Qaeda: What’s the Difference and What Do We Do Know?

We are pleased to announce that we are co-hosting a lecture with the Afghanistan Development Society.  Professor Fawaz Gerges will be speaking on the complexities of the current situation in the New Theatre at 18.30 on the 1st December.

Coffee Morning with Howard Davies

The LSE Director will be discussing – “Britain in Europe under the Conservatives: The Coming Crisis”. Places are strictly limited so please turn up early so as not to miss out!

Howard Davies is a former chairman of the FSA, as well as having worked as Deputy Governor of the Bank of England and in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.  We’ll be holding this event in NAB2.09 at 11.00 on the 2nd December.

Read more about it here!

International Winter Camp

Our Polish partner organisation, The Young Diplomat’s Centre, is pleased to open applications to their International Winter Camp called “The Borderlands”. It gathers over 100 participants from all over the Europe and is based on non-formal education and intercultural learning. This winter (7-13 February 2010) we would like to challenge the theme of borderlands what a melting pot of different nationalities and cultures means in practice.

For more information, please either contact us or have a look at www.zabinki.pl.

Reminders!

Our Christmas Dinner Tickets are almost all sold out, so act fast to get one of the few remaining!

By: RupeeNews | Moin Ansari

There is a parable in South Asia, mainly Bharat (aka India) which loosely translated goes something like this “All night long, we told you the lengthly and long-winded story of Ramayan–and in the morning you asks was ‘Sita’ one of the main characters–a man or a woman”. Obviously one who has ever read or heard the story of Sita, will never forget the fact that Sita was a woman. In Western terms it would be like reading Shakespeare and then asking whether Juliette was a woman or a man. This is exactly what happened in Washington. Even before Prime Minister arrived in Delhi, everyone know what the agenda would be—Bharati gripes against Pakistan on terror.

Mr. Manmohan didn’t realise that each time he mentioned Mumbai and terror in the same breath, it took millions of Dollars away from business in the commercial capital of Bharat. However he along with Sancho Panza in Delhi persisted in the old story of terror and why Pakistan should be sanctioned, blah blah blah.

After the long discussion, the congratulatory interview paid advertisement (interview) with Pakistanphobe Farid Zakaria and others, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with President Obama, he wanted to hear mr. Obama threaten, castigate, and scold Pakistan–to Bharati chagrin, the exact opposite happened.

After patiently listening to Bharati whining for the years, Washington essentially ignored Bharat, tripled aid to Pakistan, increase military supplies to Islamabad, and is working on construction a Reconstruction Opportunity Zone (ROZ), and a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Bharat’s arch-enemy.

Obviously Mr. Singh knew all this before he came to Washington. The Bharati lobby had essentially failed to derail the Biden/Kerry-Lugar bill and the amendment letter attached to it watered down or eliminated the Bharati inspired language in the bill.

This picture is very descriptive and worth a thousand words—as Mr. Singh “stood rapt withal”, his stone faced silence, drooping face and stoic demeanour was unable to hide the disappointment–when he heard President Obama snubbed the Bharati Prime Minister by loudly proclaiming that Pakistan was a very important ally of the United States and that it was doing a lot in fighting terror.

Mr. Singh will have a lot to answer for when he returns to Delhi–the opposition will tear him apart on why he was unsuccessful in his mission–maligning Pakistan

In a press conference with the Indian PM, the US president emphasised that Pakistan was progressing against extremism. —Photo by AFP

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama on Tuesday re-emphasised Pakistan’s key position in the American strategy for South Asia, telling a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that Islamabad had an enormously important role in the security of that region.

His statement, in response to a question about US military assistance to Pakistan, was a calculated departure from the tributes he had paid to India earlier.

In remarks delivered before the news conference, Mr Obama described India as ‘indispensable’ for his visions for the future of the world, ‘a leader in Asia and around the world,’ and a ‘nuclear power’ with which the United States would like to work ‘in preventing the spread of the world’s most deadly weapons, securing loose nuclear materials from terrorists, and pursuing our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons.’

While Mr Obama continued this eulogy in the press conference as well, he paused to stress Pakistan’s importance in the South Asian region when an Indian journalist spoke about the perception that US military aid to Pakistan was misused against India.

‘Obviously, Pakistan has an enormously important role in the security of the region,’ said Mr Obama, adding that Islamabad could fulfil this role ‘by making sure that the extremist organisations that often operate out of its territories are dealt with effectively.’

I have gained confidence that there’s not an important question out there that has not been asked that we haven’t answered to the best of our abilities, the US president said. —Photo by AFP

While acknowledging that Pakistan faced the problem of terrorism, Mr Obama said he also had ‘seen some progress’ in Islamabad’s efforts to fight the militancy.

While Prime Minister Singh was bush playing victim in Washington, his Chief of Staff General Kapoor, suffering from Foot-in-mouth-disease was busy displaying his incompetence by threatening war to its nuclear armed neighbors.

Stephen Cohen a known Indophile who created the now debunked “Cold Start Strategy” has clearly said that the India and the US are strategically moving apart. This assessment comes in the wake of the reality that America’s new banker is not New York—it is Beijing. Prime Minister Manamohan Singh sheepishly mentioned this anomaly during his various conversations in Washington and elsewhere. While the chest thumping on democracy fell on deaf ears, what chagrined the prime minister and Bharati media was the fact that the US has ignored Delhi’s whining on Mumbai. Contrary to the lobbying efforts of Delhi, the US Congress tripled aid to Pakistan, and then some—it is also working on ROZ and a FTA with Pakistan. Unbeknownst to Delhi, the US Army has helped the generals in Islamabad with weapons that are under the radar or press and or media scrutiny.

‘The work that the Pakistan military is doing in the Swat Valley and in South Waziristan all indicates the degree to which they are beginning to recognise that extremism, even if initially directed to the outside, can ultimately also have an adverse impact on their security internally,’ he said.

‘So my hope is that over time what we’re going to see is further clarity and further cooperation between all the parties and all peoples of goodwill in the region to eradicate terrorist activity, to eradicate the kind of violent extremism that we’ve seen.’

Such cooperation, he said, would benefit the peoples of Pakistan and India, and the world community as well.

Mr Obama conceded that in the past the US-Pakistan relationship was ‘single-mindedly focussed just on military assistance’ and that the United States didn’t think more broadly about how to encourage and develop the kinds of civil society in Pakistan that would make a difference in the lives of people day-to-day.

His administration, Mr Obama added, had tried to change this approach by re-focussing its attention on helping the Pakistani people.

Showing more diplomatic skill than some of his senior diplomats, President Obama also nudged India and Pakistan to resume their dialogue without appearing intrusive.

‘One of the things I admire most about Prime Minister Singh is that I think at his core he is a man of peace,’ said Mr Obama before stressing the need for a peaceful resolution of India-Pakistan disputes.

‘Obviously, there are historic conflicts between India and Pakistan. It is not the place of the United States to try to, from the outside, resolve all those conflicts,’ he said.

Pakistan has important role in S. Asia: Obama

PKKH

By Shahid R. Siddiqi. Axis of Logic

When the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meets President Obama during his visit to the US this week, the two leaders will discuss the framework for strategic dialogue between the two countries.

Singh seeks to solidify a relationship, transformed under the Bush administration from distant friendship to that of a ‘key ally’. That transformation led to a nuclear cooperation deal, increasing trade and investment, educational exchanges and unprecedented security collaboration. He is keen to finalize the civilian nuclear deal and seek Obama’s support for his bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Singh may also seek reassurance that the Indo-US relationship will not be overshadowed by the increasing Sino-US collaboration.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, India’s former mentor and ally, India sought an alliance with the United States who also had interest in wooing it. In the US containment-of-China policy under Bush, India could prove extremely useful to advance U.S. interests, particularly because of strained Sino-Indian relations over regional ambitions and border disputes which led it into a war with China in 1962, though with a humiliating outcome.

But this created a paradox for the US. Pakistan was once a key ally of the U.S., an important link in their strategy to contain communism during the cold war era and a member of the U.S.-sponsored, but now defunct military pacts – SEATO & CENTO. Pakistan became highly suspicious of this U.S. ‘tilt’ towards India. Pakistan had an acrimonious relationship with India mainly over the Kashmir and water and India’s blatant role in the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971.

The consistent Indian threat to Pakistan’s security led Pakistan to develop a nuclear response to Indian acquisition of nuclear weapons in 1974 to maintain the balance of power and ward off Indian hegemonic designs. Despite Pakistan’s efforts and calls by the international community, India refused negotiated settlements of disputes. This has kept the pot simmering, maintaining an uneasy peace in the region. In the absence of progress in resolving the root causes of tensions, recent assurances by Obama and Singh, that India poses no threat to Pakistan – were rejected outright in Pakistan.

The US has used Pakistan for its own geopolitical objectives in the past during the cold war, to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan in the 1980s and then for its war on terror in Afghanistan after 9/11. While it aided and equipped Pakistan for the role it wanted Pakistan to play, Pakistan’s relationship with the US has swung from being the ‘most allied ally’ to being the “most neglected ally” and then to being the ‘most sanctioned ally’, depending upon how much the US needed Pakistan’s services at any given time. In Pakistan, the US has come to be perceived as most unreliable and is viewed with deep suspicion.

Presently, the deepening U.S. relations with India result from the changing American perspective of the region. India could prove to be a huge market for American high tech goods and weapon systems in the future. Also its growing nuclear and military strength coupled with regional ambitions could be useful to the US as its proxy for policing the region.

Realizing that he cannot maintain a military presence in Afghanistan for long, Obama needs to install a proxy power there too when he decides to pull out, most likely by 2011. India fits the bill. The US expects India to keep the government in Kabul under check, keep peace among warring factions and protect American interests.

India has its own interests too. The nuclear deterrence will not allow India to launch military aggression against Pakistan, but it can work for the dismemberment of Pakistan by promoting an Eastern Pakistan style insurgency in Balochistan and by continuing to squeeze Pakistan on the western border using rogue elements from the tribal belt. It has already begun to position its troops there under cover of “development work”.

The belief that India can hold the fort for the US is a fallacy. If the Afghans, who fiercely oppose foreign occupiers whom they have thrown out unceremoniously in the past and if the U.S. is also on the verge of withdrawal, what makes anyone think that Indian forces would be welcome to stay? Besides, the Taliban, who are bound to gain political influence in Kabul sooner or later, will reject Indian military presence on their soil, as it will represent American interests.

This Indo-US partnership, which seeks to serve divergent geopolitical objectives and is based on taking advantage of one and other, will neither be smooth nor lasting. Above all, it will seriously jeopardize peace in South Asia by alienating Pakistan and adding to its existing tensions with India. This will also ring alarm bells in Tehran and Beijing.

As of now in the current US matrix, cordial Sino-US relations are very important for a variety of reasons, mainly owing to U.S. reliance on Chinese economic support and that will not end any time soon. It is clearly not feasible for Obama to promote relations with India at the cost of its relations with China.

But this will not sit well with a sensitive India, given the history of Sino-Indian rivalry. Only recently the Indian officials, says a Washington Post report, in an outburst of Brahmanic self importance expressed concern that New Delhi has suddenly been relegated to the second tier of U.S.-Asian relations because Obama did not mention India in his speech on US relations in Asia recently. The speech was delivered in Tokyo and focused on the Asia-Pacific region and not South Asia. This, the Indians believe, is Obama’s failure to recognize India’s broader regional aspirations, something that the Bush administration had encouraged. The Indians were upset that “Washington was leaning too closely to China”.

Then to India’s chagrin came a call made through the joint statement on conclusion of Obama’s visit to China, in which Obama suggested that Beijing mediate between India and Pakistan. The statement said,

“China and the United States are ready to strengthen communication, dialogue and cooperation on issues related to South Asia and work together to promote peace, stability and development in that region.”

“A third-country role cannot be envisaged nor is it necessary” to solve disputes between India and Pakistan, was the retort by Indian Foreign Ministry. The influential Times of India headline read “Obama’s China [credit] card casts shadow on PM’s US visit,” referring to the $800 billion in U.S. Treasury securities held by China.

Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment said he detected in India “a sense of exclusion that’s been gnawing at them since the Tokyo speech.” He added: “The joint statement prompted new fears that somehow the United States and China would collude to manage events in South Asia.”

Tellis said this has caused particular neuralgia in India because tensions between Beijing and New Delhi have risen recently over competing border claims. India is also upset over Chinese plans to divert waters of Brahmaputra River that originates in Tibet and flows into Northeastern India, without whose water its plains would lay waste. In addition, Indians are concerned that the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, views India as part of the South Asian problem, which includes the instability in Pakistan.

China’s interest in South Asia, a natural outcome of its regional security concerns in its sensitive underbelly and its very close relations with Pakistan, is unpalatable for India which considers South Asia as its exclusive domain.

These Indian sensitivities will keep the US on the edge. To assure them that India was in its own league in South Asia and of America’s growing closeness, Secretary Clinton spent four days in India in July but refrained from a stopover in neighboring Pakistan.

In a geopolitically sensitive region, where the US has to cater to important bilateral interests with China, even handedly deal with a Pakistan whose cooperation in Afghanistan is key to its success and which is increasingly angry over repeated American betrayals, and to keep the Taliban and Pashtun sensitivities in mind while negotiating a exit deal with them, the tendency to throw tantrums on the part of Indian leadership could make the new partnership difficult to sustain.

Therefore, before rushing into a collaborative arrangement with India and offering highly sensitive nuclear technologies, the US will be well-advised to first test out the prickly world of relations with New Delhi.

Despite tall claims about being the biggest democracy, India remains high on the list of human rights violations and has a long way to go in ensuring equal social status to Dalits (also called the untouchables) who form 20 percent of the population. It has been repeatedly accused of ethnic and religious cleansing of minorities.

If the US could make a political issue out of Tiananmen Square and Obama could refer to human rights issues during his China visit, why should not India be held to the same standard during Singh’s visit.

As for the Indian request for a permanent seat on the Security Council, it is important to bear in mind that India itself is involved in Kashmir dispute pending before the Security Council and whose Resolutions it has refused to implement. At the bottom of the dispute is the issue of exercise of the people’s will in determining Kashmir’s final dispensation. The dispute has led India to fight three wars with Pakistan and one with China. India has stationed several army divisions in Kashmir to subjugate the people and independent sources have confirmed killings of thousands of unarmed Kashmiris and sexual abuse perpetrated on thousands of women by these security forces.

In response to a similar bid earlier, India was advised to first settle the Kashmir dispute. Then the U.S.-India relationship had just begun to take shape with limited US influence over India. But now that the US enjoys greater clout, it could more effectively pressure India for a negotiated settlement, which is in every one’s interest, as well as in the interest of peace.

© Copyright 2009 by AxisofLogic.com

By: RupeeNews

Peace is impossible to be attained in the region unless India stop its support to terrorism in Pakistan, foreign minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi said. In an interview to German news agency Qureshi said, “India is supporting the terrorists in the tribal areas and Balochistan.” “Pakistan is collecting concrete evidences against the Indian intervention in the Pakistani tribal areas and Balochistan,” said Qureshi. He also said that peace and security is impossible to be attained in South Asia unless India changes its hostile behaviour towards Pakistan. India igniting terrorism in Pak: Qureshi. The Nation.

We repeatedly reported the destructive and negative role of the 4 “Indian Consulates” and the 13 Indian “Information Centers”in Afghanistan. Several news stores about the Indian base in Tajikistan shed light on the nefarious Indian designs in building Chahbahar, the support for BLA terrorists in Baluchistan, the infiltration of Indian agents in anti-Pakistan groups like the TTP, and the direct role of the Indian RAW in sending suicide bombers into Pakistan. Rupee News has now once again been corroborated by the statements of one of the most powerful advisers to Mr. Zardari himself. As the level of frustration grows in ISAF, Indian RAW tried to pawn itself off as the stabilizing factor. here is an effort to send massive Indian forces to Kabul. A growing number of Think Tanks and journalists have seen through the facade of India as a world power? and are now looking at dramatically new solutions.

The Rand Corporation in a recent study as well as the Zibig Brezinski and others are now openly opposing the old Indian version of events. Of course RAW activities are not limited to Pakistan.

FINALLY, the US Administration is being told some home truths about the realities on the ground in Pakistan, especially relating to the “war on terror” and the Pakistan-US relationship. It has been evident for some time that the US and its intelligence agency the CIA have had a major falling out with the Pakistan military and especially the ISI. This occurred, it is believed, when the CIA sought direct intervention into ISI dealings in FATA and sought to take out some valuable operatives. But at a macro level, that was simply a reflection of a far larger distrust which was aggravated by the mounting US failures in Afghanistan. Unable to correct course, the easiest option was to target Pakistan and the ISI. Meanwhile, all evidence pointing to Indian covert activities in Balochistan and FATA from Afghanistan were simply being ignored by the US, despite the Pakistan government pointing this out. Some would say the US itself allowed the free flow of weapons from Afghanistan into FATA and Balochistan.

The Pakistani leadership also, despite publicly accusing India and providing evidence to that effect, has tended to downplay it in its interactions with US officials. Now with the visit of the CIA chief to Pakistan, the military through the ISI has directly raised the issue with its US counterpart, the CIA, and given evidence of Indian shenanigans in Afghanistan and possible US involvement in and support of these covert activities. This position has also been reiterated by the Prime Minister, who not only strongly took up these issues with the CIA Chief, but also pointed out the necessity of involving Pakistan in any Afghan strategy being devised by the US.