StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

The War in Central Asia

This is a short post (uncharacteristically). I’ve beaten the "dead horse deader than a door nail." People who claim that Afghanistan is stable are somehow missing the mark…people who trust Pakistan, well, I won’t even write those words. And then there are those who actually think that the Taliban are "dead meat."

Bill Roggio has covered the topic of the Forgotten War in Central Asia quite in depth in his post at Fourth Rail.

I admit that my point of view may differ from Bill’s but what I don’t understand is how we have Hamid Karzai opening the anti-terrorism summit in Turkey by stating that "terrorism is a global menace, but warned that Muslims should not be viewed as terrorists."

Further, at a major gathering of politicians, scholars and military officers in Ankara, Karzai urged the world not to associate terrorism with Islam.

Then there is this from the Washington Post. "When President Bush lands in Islamabad later this week, it may be the closest he ever comes to being in the same neighborhood as Osama bin Laden. His nemesis is probably only a few hours drive away in Pakistan’s Pashtun belt, now considered to be al Qaeda Central and one of the world’s most dangerous regions.

During the past 12 months or so, CIA and Pentagon officials have quietly modified the line they employed for three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — that bin Laden was hiding out "in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border." Now the same officials say with some confidence that he is "not based in Afghanistan." Whatever ambiguity there was in the past is gone: Bin Laden is in Pakistan.

What’s left is the question: What are the United States and its ally, Pakistan, doing about it?

Not enough, according to high-ranking Afghan, Pakistani and Western officials I’ve spoken to here. Indeed, the disastrous policies of the United States and Pakistan, starting with the aftermath of the war in 2001, have only hastened the radicalization of northwest Pakistan and made it more hospitable to bin Laden and his Taliban allies. The region has become a haven for bin Laden and a base for Taliban raids across the border back into Afghanistan which they had fled…

…Bin Laden has fighters and sympathizers down the length and breadth of Pakistan’s Pashtun belt. No Pakistani Pashtun has reason to betray bin Laden, despite the $27 million reward for his head. Thanks to the drug trade in Afghanistan and the suitcases full of cash still arriving from backers in the Arabian Gulf, neither al Qaeda nor the local Pashtuns are short money. The Pakistani army’s failure to offer Pashtuns a greater political role in the national framework has not inspired any loyalty among the tribesmen. And misguided U.S. interventions, such as the January missile strike that killed women and children, do the rest.

Washington’s recent decison to start pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan this year has only reinforced al Qaeda’s belief that it is winning. After nearly five years of avoiding capture or death, every single day that bin Laden stays alive is a day that inspires the extremists who protect him and join his ranks…[and there is more] Pakistani Pashtuns indeed.

I’m sorry, I don’t get it.