{"id":4160,"date":"2011-07-12T05:17:14","date_gmt":"2011-07-12T05:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=4160"},"modified":"2011-07-12T14:50:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-12T14:50:42","slug":"possible-shifts-in-afpak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=4160","title":{"rendered":"Possible Shifts in AfPak"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"afpak.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On Pakistan policy, credit where credit is due: the Obama administration<\/strong> has found the stones to respond to evidence of\u00a0systemic and brazen bad faith on the part of our Pakistani<\/strong> “allies”\u00a0and show their displeasure by\u00a0witholding $ 800 million dollars<\/strong> in aid from Islamabad<\/strong>. There are already squeals of Pakistani unhappiness<\/a> at this modest decrease of aid that all too frequently gets diverted to preparing to make war on India <\/strong>or, for that matter, on American soldiers and Marines. Former dictator General<\/strong> Pervez Musharraf<\/strong>, who cannot go back home to Rawalpindi\u00a0<\/strong>for fear his brother officers will assassinate him, told a well appointed crowd in Houston<\/strong> that the aid cut “will be disastrous….if Pakistan is weakened, how will it fight terrorism?<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

Cynics might note that we could replace “fight” with “fund<\/a>” in the former Pakistani ruler’s question and achieve greater historical\u00a0accuracy.<\/a><\/p>\n

On Afghanistan<\/strong>, it might be\u00a0advisable for the new American commander, Lieutenant General John Allen<\/a><\/strong>, in carrying out his extremely difficult mission of “Afghanization” and “punitive raiding” the Taliban<\/strong>, to first ponder history and \u00a0“Remember<\/strong> Herat<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

In 1979, before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the entire garrison\u00a0of Soviet advisers\u00a0in Herat was slaughtered, including the dependent\u00a0women and children, by an angry\u00a0mob that was aided by the local Afghan Communist Army units who, led by Ismail Khan<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0conveniently revolted and turned on their Russian allies. If British military history is more to Lt. General Allen’s taste, the Afghans massacred British garrisons in Kabul <\/strong>twice in the 19th century, Major Cavagnari’s<\/strong> in 1878 and that of Sir William McNaghten<\/strong> and Sir Alexander Burnes<\/strong> in 1841, though most of the British\u00a0died to all but the last man on the retreat to Jalalabad in 1842.<\/p>\n

The cape wearing, election-stealing,\u00a0lotus-eater whom we thanklessly prop up, may be more\u00a0incompetent than Nur Mohammed Taraki<\/strong> and less legitimate a client than Shah Shuja,<\/strong> but he has a demonstrated\u00a0talent for inciting anti-western <\/a>violence\u00a0exceeded only by his enterprise in\u00a0looting aid money. Is crazy Karzai <\/strong>above lighting a match to a tense situation the US military itself\u00a0has already described as a “rapidly growing systemic threat<\/a>“? Not in my view.<\/p>\n

When the American drawdown begins in earnest, General Allen will need to watch the backs of his troops<\/p>\n

ADDENDUM:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ahmed Wali Karzai<\/strong>, the notorious\u00a0fixer and feared\u00a0enforcer of the Afghan regime and the brother of President Hamid Karzai was assassinated today<\/a>. The Taliban claimed credit, but AWK has too many enemies to be certain yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Pakistan policy, credit where credit is due: the Obama administration has found the stones to respond to evidence of\u00a0systemic and brazen bad faith on the part of our Pakistani “allies”\u00a0and show their displeasure by\u00a0witholding $ 800 million dollars in aid from Islamabad. There are already squeals of Pakistani unhappiness at this modest decrease of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[365,232,360,527,361,46,531,20,126,471,586,102,132,483,574,87,178,425,51,560,199,125,499,210,39,367,167,502,626,187,263,85,10,211,312,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-19th-century","category-20th-century","category-21st-century","category-afghanistan","category-america","category-analytic","category-barack-obama","category-coin","category-counterinsurgency","category-cultural-intelligence","category-dime","category-diplomacy","category-dystopia","category-extremists","category-failed-state","category-foreign-policy","category-geopolitics","category-government","category-history","category-india","category-insurgency","category-islaminsurgency","category-islamic-world","category-islamist","category-military","category-military-history","category-mob","category-pakistan","category-patterns","category-politics","category-scenario","category-soviet-union","category-state-failure","category-terrorism","category-tribes","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}