Not Since Mazar-i-Sharif, or why the story of the Koran burning incident at Bagram Airfield is improbable

I'll preface this post with a question to American readers: Do you think there's anyone in U.S. law enforcement, from the Department of Justice and FBI all the way down to the local police forces, who doesn't know about the incident Americans refer to simply as "Waco?"(1)

The answer, of course, is "Of course not." Even if police memories about details of the siege and disastrous storming of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco got a little hazy over the years, the bombing in Oklahoma City -- the worst terrorist incident in American history up to that time -- done in part to avenge Waco, refreshed them.

The fallout from Waco arguably changed the entire American culture and very definitely changed the culture of U.S. law enforcement. One consequence is that even the most stupid American law enforcement official knows one thing about Waco: Never do that again.

Agreed?

All right. Now I'll proceed to the February 22, 2012 Koran burning incident at Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Prior to the incident, if there was one thing even the most stupid ISAF officer in Afghanistan knew, it was never burn a Koran within sight or earshot of a Muslim. This knowledge reached all the way down to the grunt level, and in particular the American grunt level.

Why?

Because before and after deployment to Afghanistan, everyone in the NATO forces is given 'sensitivity' training about the handling of Islamic religious materials -- training that was stepped up last year.

Why last year?

Because on April 1, 2011 a mob of thousands of Afghans overwhelmed guards at a lightly guarded United Nations compound in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif and murdered seven UN workers -- four Nepali guards and three Europeans -- and according to UN officials beheaded two of the victims, although the Afghan government later denied that the beheadings had occurred. (2)

The mob was particularly enraged because it couldn't find any Americans to kill; at that time Mazar-i-Sharif was the 'safest' city in Afghanistan, so safe that U.S. troops no longer patrolled there in any significant number.

The Afghan rioters didn't stop with murder; they tried to destroy the compound, burning down part of it and trying to dismantle the rest, cement block by cement block, with their bare hands.

Now why did thousands of Afghans in a city that was probably less anti-American than other in Afghanistan suddenly set out to kill Americans?

Because they'd been whipped up by three conservative Muslim clerics in the pay of the Afghan government, who called in sermons at a large mosque to avenge the burning of a Koran in the USA by American pastor named Terry Jones.(3)

How did the clerics learn about the Koran burning incident in the USA?

Because Afghan President Hamid Karzai told them. To be sure that as many Afghans as possible knew about the Koran burning incident, on March 31 -- the day before the UN compound was stormed -- he made a public declaration about it and denounced it as an affront to Islam. Prior to that very few Afghans knew about the incident, which had occurred on March 20, 2011.(2)

There's a reason very few Afghans knew of the incident but I'm telling you just enough at this point to get across that the NATO command in Afghanistan was traumatized by the incidents that those who closely follow the war refer to simply as "Mazar-i-Sharif" even though the rioting spread to another city, Kandahar.

If my memory serves, in all 24 people across Afghanistan were killed in the rioting over the burned Koran. If the number doesn't sound very alarming, Mazar-i-Sharif was the first time that rioting on that scale against the United States was carried out in an urban setting in Afghanistan and in an area where the Taliban didn't have sway. According to one Afghan official the mob in Mazar-i-Sharif was as large as 20,000. If the number wasn't quite that large, it was definitely several thousand.

The rioting in Kandahar, where the riots were nowhere near as large as in Mazar-i-Sharif, wasn't so alarming because the Taliban there had clearly decided to make hay from the storming of the UN compound. For more than a year prior Taliban had been making inroads in the city, traditionally the stronghold of the 'Northern Alliance,' but the attack on the UN compound was not instigated by Taliban.

The Mazar-i-Sharif incident and its implications were so serious that General David Petraeus, at that time commander of ISAF, made a rather extraordinary public appeal to Americans, which the Wall Street Journal discussed in an April 4, 2011 report headlined, Petraeus says Quran burning endangers war effort.(4) He said in part:

"Every security force leader's worst nightmare is being confronted by essentially a mob, if you will, especially one that can be influenced by individuals that want to incite violence, who want to try to hijack passions ...

Yes. That was the nightmare, and that is why NATO stepped up its sensitivity training last year.

I've touched on incidents surrounding the Mazar-i-Sharif attack to focus on the fact that the Koran burning incident at Bagram was highly improbable. This is particularly the case given how the incident was described to a Reuters correspondent by alleged eyewitnesses. This doesn't mean the eyewitnesses were lying or wholly or in part mistaken about what they saw; it means that it's almost outside the bounds of possibility that three U.S. soldiers at Bagram would burn copies of the Koran within sight of Muslims. Yet according to the eyewitnesses, that's what happened:

BAGRAM - In a small room near NATO's sprawling Bagram Airbase, Sayed Jamil fumes as he remembers how three U.S. soldiers ignored the pleas of fellow laborers not to burn dozens of copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

Jamil, 22, was with other workers at a disposal centre inside the base when a woman and two men, wearing U.S. military uniforms, arrived on Monday in a truck piled with religious material and books.

While the vehicle was stopped at the centre gate, another laborer named Wali glanced in the back and saw the Korans, which the Americans dumped into an oven.
[...]
"I was ready to shed my blood and kill them or be killed," Jamil told Reuters, sitting in a heavy winter jacket, a checked scarf tied tight around his neck.

The laborers, after learning from Wali what was in the truck, rushed to the oven to stop what NATO has called a tragic blunder. Their account could not be independently verified, but was backed by local Afghan police and officials.

"We told the driver they were all religious materials and asked why they were burning them. The Americans said they were materials from prisons and they had orders to dispose of them," Jamil said.

The men plunged their hands into the oven to try to save the texts, some burning their fingers and hands as they pulled eight Koran copies from the fire, he said.

"The boys gathered and started shouting 'Allah u Akbar' (God is Greatest), clutching fragments of burning text to their chests," he said. "The truck fled the site with almost half the books still inside."
[...]

At the end of this writing I'm posting the entire Reuters report, which contains several interesting details. For now, the fallout from Mazar-i-Sharif virtually rules out that the Koran burning incident at Bagram was a "blunder." Even at a small, remote base in Afghanistan the incident is improbable but at Bagram, which houses not only U.S. troops but also NATO/ISAF command posts as well as civilian U.S. government personnel and a prison, the incident verges on the impossible.(5)

Even if a certifiably insane officer had signed off on the order, or even if the soldiers had somehow misunderstood the order, are we expected to assume that no less than three U.S. soldiers at Bagram -- Gossip Central for the U.S. command in Afghanistan -- were unaware of Mazar-i-Sharif and Gen. Petraeus's plea?

Even if the soldiers were at first unaware that the material loaded into the truck was copies of the Koran, from the laborer's account they were made aware by the Afghans who were party to the incident. So the soldiers would have known they were burning Korans within eyesight of Muslims -- again, a highly improbable act.

In fact, the act as described to the Reuters correspondent, was so improbable that from his report, the Afghans who spoke with him clearly didn't believe it was a blunder; they believed American soldiers were always trying to test the faith of Afghan Muslims. In consideration of Mazar-i-Sharif and the fact that at the time all of Afghanistan was bone-dry tinder just waiting for a match, the soldiers wouldn't have chosen that particular means to test the Afghan laborers' faith.

Bagram and every U.S. base in Afghanistan would have been on high alert at that time because the video of U.S. soldiers urinating on Afghan corpses had been widely circulated in the country. And Afghans who hadn't actually seen the video knew about it. The ensuing uproar hadn't even settled down by the time U.S. soldiers pulled up to an incineration facility at Bagram with copies of the Koran in tow.

The sprawling complex at Bagram has been the site of many terrorist incidents and rocket attacks since the U.S. invasion, few of which receive much if any press. So even if the soldiers weren't up on all the details of Mazar-i-Sharif and General Petraeus's public plea, and even if they'd dozed off during sensitivity training and skipped the part in the manual that read NEVER BURN A KORAN IN FRONT OF AFGHANS, they would have thought of the video after being confronted by hysterical Afghans and told each other, 'Maybe we better clarify our orders.'

But the video incident wasn't why Afghanistan was set to explode at that time. In the cities the rush to the exits, which had started when President Obama announced 2014 as the pullout date for U.S. combat troops and increased in pace after news of secret U.S. negotiations with Taliban in Qatar circulated in the country, had morphed into a stampede in the wake of SecDef Leon Panetta's February 1 announcement that the pullout date had been moved up by a year.

Any Afghan who had big money to protect was shipping it out of the country, officials in the Karzai were making frantic preparations to relocate to Dubai or other destinations, and a nation that depended for most its GDP on business generated by the NATO presence was facing the now very real prospect of imminent mass starvation and a civil war.

As for the American assurance that the USA would hang out in Afghanistan beyond 2014 -- Americans and their other NATO buddies had already stabbed Afghans in the back, and more than once. To assume they wouldn't do it again -- well, by the middle of this February Afghans had given up on assumptions other than one: Assume Americans are lying in their teeth about staying on in Afghanistan beyond next week.

On top of this was layered the consternation that once again Karzai had been circumvented in Western forces' secret negotiations with the Taliban; this time first in Germany then in Qatar.

No matter how many Afghans dislike Karzai and his regime, the lack of transparency about the negotiations told Afghans that they would have no decision about how far down the river NATO was going to sell them to Pakistan. And Karzai's attempt to persuade the public that he'd been a party to the negotiations had, by the eve of his departure for a trilateral summit in Pakistan, fizzled.

Worse, Karzai's attempt to save face by publicly confronting Pakistan's leaders at the summit about their support for the Taliban was treated with the diplomatic version of snickering in Washington and Islamabad. Karzai was considered so powerless that the officials who deigned to comment on his outburst could afford to be patronizing.

Layered on top of this was the 'urination video' uproar.

Layered on top of it all was the dressing down that Karzai received from a delegation of U.S. members of Congress because he was blocking finalization of the U.S.-Afghanistan strategic partnership over the issues of NATO night raids and U.S. control of prisons in Afghanistan. Doubtful the congress members would have perceived their little talk with Karzai as a dressing down, but that's how he would have seen it.

That brings us up to three days before the Koran burning incident at Bagram.

That was the situation in Afghanistan, a situation well known at Bagram, as it existed on the day of the Koran burning incident.

In light of the situation, I find it next to impossible that no less than three U.S. soldiers at Bagram would have ignored the pleas of Afghan laborers not to burn the Koran copies. Maybe a year earlier it could have happened, although even that would have been improbable, but not since Mazar-i-Sharif.

True, incidents considered impossible or near the edge of impossibility do happen. But as we know from The Hound of the Baskervilles, when faced with the highly improbable we need to attempt to rule out more probable explanations before we accept the seemingly impossible to be true.

In this case ruling out more probable explanations might prove to be extremely difficult even though two and possibly three official investigations of the Koran burning incident are underway. NATO launched an investigation; according to the Reuters report Karzai's government has launched one, and according to a televised news report I saw Friday, the U.S. military has "offered" to launch its own investigation.

One possible problem with these investigations is that key forensic evidence was given to the Karzai regime for its investigation before ISAF could examine it. See the Reuters report, below.

Another problem, if I read the Reuters report correctly, is that much of the evidence was removed from the scene before any investigator or even the three U.S. soldiers had a chance to examine it. The report doesn't specifically say but the wording suggests that the Afghan driver of the truck containing the bulk of the burn materials sped off when he saw the uproar, leaving the U.S. soldiers to radio for backup, including translators; the driver, it seems, being the only party to the incident who could translate for the laborers.

Then there is the problem with examining the accounts of the laborers. From the Reuters report, if looks as if the Karzai administration got to them first. And they are ostensibly so frightened of what ISAF or Afghan Army investigators might do to them that it would be unlikely anyone from the NATO investigation team could talk to them without a gaggle of "local officials," clerics, and a few people from the Interior Ministry present -- not the ideal circumstances for questioning a witness.

Here I interject that if my readers in Kabul are irritated that I seem to be casting unnecessary aspersions on the word of Afghans, I'm not letting anyone off the hook.

Right now, who controls Afghanistan is the highest-stakes poker game on the planet. That's even without the opium factor. There are several players at the table who want the USA out of the country right away, and who would pay any amount of money to see this happen.

So there's the possibility that one or more of the three American soldiers took a bribe to set off a firestorm, or that their commanding officer did -- or that someone or more than one person at ISAF who's connected with the disposal of sensitive materials did; if so, it wouldn't be the first bribery scandal to hit Bagram.(5) But the emphasis in the Reuters report is on the account given by the Afghan parties to the incident, so that is where I'm focusing questions in my little foray as armchair detective.

Another question may be nothing more than an inconsequential detail that could be dismissed with knowledge of garbage-disposal procedures at the Bagram complex. I referred to the burn site as a 'burn pit' when I first wrote about the incident; in this I was following how news reports referred to the site; even today I saw a report in a British paper that referred to the site as a burn pit. But from the Reuters report, the Korans were placed in an "incinerator oven."

I'd assume there are burn pits at Bagram, given the large amount of garbage the complex generates. But it would make sense if classified or other highly sensitive materials are disposed of in an incinerator, where it can be assured that scraps of paper don't escape the flames of a burn pit.

In that case, I'd assume that papers prepared for the incinerator had covers or in some other way the materials were hidden so that civilians, such as Afghan trash disposal experts, shall we call them, couldn't see the material they loaded into the ovens. I'd assume the same could apply to even to U.S. soldiers tasked with burning sensitive material. But from the Reuters account, the nature of the materials on the truck was plainly visible -- no covers on the Korans, nothing.

Also, I note that Jamil referred in the plural to prisons; if the translator didn't hear wrong, that could suggest Bagram is a site for disposal of sensitive material taken from all U.S.-controlled prisons in Afghanistan. I'd assume in that case that an order for disposal of such material is subject to closer scrutiny than one signing off on disposal of regular garbage.

Then I have questions about the incinerator oven itself. I am not the expert on incinerators but I think they work on a different principle than a burn pit, and that you wouldn't have a hand left to suffer burns if you stuck one in an incinerator after its process had started -- if you could even open the incinerator door at that point. Don't they come outfitted with safety locks that prevent the door from being opened once the incinerator has started? At least, the modern ones?

I'm just asking; I haven't had time to research incinerators and don't know the year and model of the one at Bagram. Maybe it was left over from the Soviet occupation and works on the bellows principle.

Again, such questions might easily be answered by a knowledge of procedures at the airfield, but I broach them to illustrate how fine the tooth comb must be when examining an incident that on the surface is improbable. Before turning over the platform to Reuters, one more quote from the report:

German Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson, the spokesman for coalition forces, said on Wednesday that after 10 years of NATO experience in Afghanistan, soldiers should have known to check with cultural advisers attached to their units on how to properly dispose of religious material.

I'm betting they did know; i.e., given the reasons I've laid out in this post I think Jacobson is right -- they should have known and followed proper procedure. Of course this doesn't make it definite that they did know and follow; "tragic blunders" can happen. But I've brought up for review information that I think should raise a reasonable doubt about the Koran burning story, as it's been described to the press by officialdom and the Afghan laborers who spoke to Reuters.

I've done this because I'm concerned that NATO (and/or the Karzai administration) might be so eager to put the issue to bed that they won't dwell on inconsistencies in the evidence or testimony that could drag out an inquiry, on the theory this could further inflame Afghan passions.

Yet at least 30 people have already died because of the Koran burning story, including four U.S. soldiers, and many more have been wounded, including seven Special Forces troops. And right now America's name is mud in Afghanistan, and many Afghans are calling for the trial and hanging of the American soldiers alleged to have burned copies of the Koran.

So what I've tried to do in this post is make a case for a transparent forensic investigation of an incident that as described is very unlikely. Both the Afghans and Americans are entitled to such an investigation.

Afghan laborer recalls rage as he tried to save charred Korans

By Hamid Shalizi
February 23, 2012
Reuters

BAGRAM - In a small room near NATO's sprawling Bagram Airbase, Sayed Jamil fumes as he remembers how three U.S. soldiers ignored the pleas of fellow laborers not to burn dozens of copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

Jamil, 22, was with other workers at a disposal centre inside the base when a woman and two men, wearing U.S. military uniforms, arrived on Monday in a truck piled with religious material and books.

While the vehicle was stopped at the centre gate, another laborer named Wali glanced in the back and saw the Korans, which the Americans dumped into an oven.

The burning of the holy books lasted just five minutes, but that short action could complicate U.S.-led efforts to pacify Afghanistan before NATO combat troops leave at the end of 2014.

"I was ready to shed my blood and kill them or be killed," Jamil told Reuters, sitting in a heavy winter jacket, a checked scarf tied tight around his neck.

The laborers, after learning from Wali what was in the truck, rushed to the oven to stop what NATO has called a tragic blunder. Their account could not be independently verified, but was backed by local Afghan police and officials.

"We told the driver they were all religious materials and asked why they were burning them. The Americans said they were materials from prisons and they had orders to dispose of them," Jamil said.

The men plunged their hands into the oven to try to save the texts, some burning their fingers and hands as they pulled eight Koran copies from the fire, he said.

"The boys gathered and started shouting 'Allah u Akbar' (God is Greatest), clutching fragments of burning text to their chests," he said. "The truck fled the site with almost half the books still inside."

VIOLENT PROTESTS

Thousands of Afghans have staged violent protests for three days over an incident that highlights the deep cultural divide that still exists ten years after U.S. troops invaded to oust the Taliban.

Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence. Desecration is considered one of the worst forms of blasphemy.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has launched an investigation into the incident, for which U.S. President Barack Obama and NATO commanders have offered apologies, blaming a lack of religious and cultural understanding.

NATO's top commander in the country, U.S. Marine General John Allen, ordered his troops to complete additional training by March 3 on the identification, significance and proper handling of religious materials.

Jamil said U.S. soldiers were at first willing to allow them to take away the charred remains of the Korans, explaining how some parts made their way outside the base, but said arriving Afghan interpreters immediately realized the material could incite rage on the streets.

"The Americans first told us through the translators 'we don't want your Korans, take them away'. The Afghan "dog washers" intervened and told the Americans, 'If you let them take these books out, there will be a disaster'," he said.

Eventually freed with the material, the men ran out into the streets, waking people up and shouting about the transgression, which added fresh fuel to widespread anger that already exists over civilian deaths and intrusive NATO night raids.

Now sitting under a picture of one of Afghanistan's most famous heroes, the anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Masood, Jamil said he and the other laborers were afraid of retaliation by NATO or Afghan security forces.

"We have done a heroic job of saving and serving our religion. But we are also afraid of being taken and disappearing," he said. Others nearby offered support, including Afghan local officials and police, and a mullah who said they were heroes "whose faces should be famous."

"No one can touch you guys. All the people of Afghanistan stand by you. Don't be afraid," one government official said. Their material was handed to Afghan government officials for evidence, while their actions were praised by Karzai.

CULTURAL, RELIGIOUS SENSITIVITIES

German Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson, the spokesman for coalition forces, said on Wednesday that after 10 years of NATO experience in Afghanistan, soldiers should have known to check with cultural advisers attached to their units on how to properly dispose of religious material.

All members of 50-nation coalition provided cultural and religious sensitivity training to troops before and after they deployed to the country, Jacobson said.

He declined to confirm comments to Reuters by a senior U.S. official that the material had been removed from a library at Parwan detention center at the base because of concerns that some was extremist in nature and being used to pass messages among prisoners.

Jamil said he believed the actions of the soldiers had been "intentional and stupid," while the Taliban urged Afghans to kill and beat Western soldiers.

Bagram Police Chief Abdul Hafiz Mutawakkil said the Americans in the country had little awareness of Afghanistan's complex tribal and religious currents.

"Otherwise no one would do such stupidity," he said, watching over elite Afghan police securing deserted shops and streets where thousands rioted on Tuesday, as NATO helicopters fired flares in a bid to halt the quickly-spreading violence.

"Those who are aware and committed to religious values never commit such actions, but those not aware of other religions ... do such things out of ignorance," Mutawakkil said.

Jawad, one of the laborers, said he no longer wanted to work at the base, despite relatively good wages of $650 a month in a country where more than a third live under the poverty line.

"The Americans always do such blasphemy to test how strong our Muslim faith is. It is best for us that the government provide us with another job," Jawad said.

(Writing by Rob Taylor, editing by Michael Georgy)

1) Waco Siege, Wikipedia

2) Afghans Avenge Florida Koran Burning, Killing 12; April 1, 2011, The New York Times

3) Dove World Quran burning controversy, Wikipedia

4) Petraeus says Quran burning endangers war effort; April 4, 2011, The Wall Street Journal

5) Bagram Airfield, Wikipedia

Koran burning riots, Day 5: Two US officers murdered at Afghan ministry; Allen recalls all Nato staff from ministries

Qur'an burning protests: Nato recalls staff after two officers are shot dead
Damien Pearse and agencies
February 25, 2012, 8:53 AM EST
The Guardian

Two American officers are killed at Afghanistan interior ministry as death toll in riots reaches at least 28

Nato has recalled all staff from government ministries in Afghanistan after two officers were shot dead in Kabul amid riots over the burning of Qur'ans at a US military base.

Two Americans – believed to be a major and a colonel – were killed at the heavily guarded interior ministry in the capital, where they worked.

General John Allen, the commander of Nato and US forces in Afghanistan, said he was recalling Nato personnel from the ministries in the capital Kabul "for obvious force protection reasons".

He said Nato was investigating the latest shooting and would pursue all leads to find the person responsible.

"The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered," the general added.

The shootings came as the death toll in anti-western riots across the east of Afghanistan rose to at least 28.

A spokeswoman for Nato's International Security Assistance Force confirmed two of its servicemen had been shot dead but declined to say if the killer was a member of the Afghan military or police.

Afghanistan's Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the shootings, which it said were in retaliation for the desecration of the Qur'ans at Bagram airfield, north of Kabul.

In a statement, the Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the gunman was an insurgent named Abdul Rahman. He said that an accomplice in the ministry helped the gunman to get inside the compound.

The interior ministry is responsible for Afghanistan's police and security forces.

Early reports suggested that the two officers were shot in the ministry's command and control centre.

The British embassy in Kabul has withdrawn civilian mentors and advisers from the 20 government ministries and other institutions in the city as a temporary measure, the Foreign Office said on Saturday.

Elsewhere, protesters threw rocks at police, government buildings and a UN office following news that Qur'ans had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn rubbish at the Bagram base.

Four Afghans were killed in Kunduz province on Saturday and three in Logar, police said.

The US president, Barack Obama, said the burning was a terrible mistake, but the incident has sent thousands into the streets in this deeply religious country.

Hundreds of demonstrators staged peaceful protests in Nangarhar and Paktia provinces, but ones in Laghman, Kunduz and Logar provinces turned violent.

Laghman's police chief, Abdul Rahman Sarjang, said about 1,000 protesters threw stones at Afghan security forces, smashed windows of government buildings and tried to attack the governor's house in the provincial capital of Mehterlam. He said gunmen were among the protesters, but police did not fire their weapons into the crowd or the air because they did not want to incite the crowd further.

Mohammad Jawad, a university student who helped transport injured protesters to the hospital, said at least 20 people were wounded, mostly by bullets.

"Security forces opened fire on the crowd," he said.

In Kunduz, the capital of Kunduz province in north-east Afghanistan, more than 1,000 people protested, throwing stones at government buildings and a UN office, said the police spokesman Sarwer Hussaini. Officers fired guns into the air to try to disperse the crowd, he said.

Dr Saad Mukhtar, the health department director in Kunduz, said a number of protesters had died and 50 were injured during the demonstration.

Koran burning riots: Afghan security forces brace for Day 4 (UPDATED 2:15 PM)

UPDATE
Oh, fooey. The pix at Reuters showing a line of Afghan police in riot gear I linked to in the wee hours this morning has been replaced by a slide show of pix from the rioting. Of course Reuters would have kept updating the report and pix throughout the day; I just didn't think of that at the time I saw the pix of the Afghan police ready for the day's events. Oh well; the pix is probably still there somewhere. From the last Reuters update (1:47 PM ET), it looks as if the Kabul police did a pretty good job under the circumstances. Although the death tally for the day is 12, only two rioters were killed in Kabul -- and one of them, according to the police on the scene, was killed by armed rioters, who're taking refuge in shops after firing off their weapons. The police are unsure who shot the other rioter, but this is just why I'm not bothering with the pretense of referring to the unrest as 'protests.' The cats among the pigeons brought guns to the party. Okay; here's the Reuters link again' go there for the slide show and the latest rundown on major incidents across Afghanistan (and Pakistan) as the unrest happened on Day 4.
******************
BTW Kabul is 9 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Eastern U.S. time (EST). The picture of Afghan security forces in riot gear that accompanies this Reuters report (see below) has a strikingly modern look, even if the surroundings in the pix are a bit -- er, quaint. Bracing for large scale protests that include rioting in an urban setting is part of the shape of the modern world. Who would've thought 10 years ago that cities in Afghanistan would be in the thick of that world. An odd way to measure progress but a measure nonetheless.

So. Afghan security forces are getting a chance to test out their Western training in modern riot control techniques. Good luck, guys.

Afghanistan braces for fourth day of Koran protests
Reuters
Feb 24, 2012 2:48am EST

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan riot police and soldiers were on guard across Kabul and other cities in a bid to stop a fourth day of violent protests, with authorities worried about incendiary Friday mosque sermons over the burning of Korans at a NATO base.

Friday is a holy day and the official weekly holiday and large crowds were expected at major mosques in the capital, with police in armed pick-up trucks guarding surrounding streets and buildings.

"Although peaceful demonstrations are the right of people, we strongly urge our countrymen to fully avoid turning them into violent ones," said Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

"Police are fully prepared to respond to situations," Sediqqi told Reuters.
[...]
In central Kabul, elite anti-riot officers in protective jackets and helmets secured intersections after complaints that security force numbers had been insufficient in protests so far that have left 11 people dead, including two American soldiers.

Troops and intelligence officials stood by in support, although most Westerners have been confined to their heavily fortified compounds, including at the sprawling U.S. embassy complex and other diplomatic missions.

The embassy in a message on the microblogging site Twitter urged U.S. citizens to "please be safe out there" and expanded movement restrictions to relatively peaceful northern provinces, where large demonstrations also occurred on Thursday, including the attempted storming of a Norwegian military base.

Demonstrations in the last three days drew thousands of angry Afghans to the streets, chanting "Death to America!," smashing shops and windows.

A large protest has already been planned for the eastern city of Jalalabad, where violent demonstrations have taken place in the last few days.

The Taliban urged Afghan security forces to "turn their guns on the foreign infidel invaders" and repeatedly urged Afghans to kill, beat and capture NATO soldiers.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Afghan Koran burnings: Aw, put a sock in it, Newt

I'm writing this post in the attempt to correct the wrong impression that Newt Gingrich's criticism of President Obama's apology regarding the Afghan Koran burnings has sowed in the American and international news media:

The reason Obama had to issue an apology, and a hasty one, is that the Nato command announced that it would have the findings of the investigation into the Koran burning incident ready by Thursday -- that being yesterday. Yesterday being the day before Friday prayers at the mosques in Afghanistan. So all of Afghanistan was waiting on Thursday for the Nato announcement about the findings of the investigation, which didn't materialize.

With no findings forthcoming on Thursday, and with only hours to attempt to avert a bloodbath, President Karzai needed something, anything, that might take the edge off the anger of Afghans prior to the Friday prayer meets. Thus, a rare apology from an American president.

So this isn't the kind of situation that led to Nato's knee-jerk apology to Pakistan in the immediate aftermath of the November 2011 cross-border shooting of Pakistani soldiers before Nato and the American command even had a chance to investigate the incident to learn what had happened.

Obama's decision in this case was in the manner of a triage decision, made in the attempt to save American civilians working in Afghanistan under minimal security, as well as the lives of other foreign nationals there, as well as Afghan lives, from mob rampages.

Newt's public statements about the Koran burning incident also make clear something else he didn't understand: he didn't take into account the Nato investigation, which was launched only three days ago. The Koran incident is complex and in several ways mysterious. Just one of the many questions that need to be answered is whether the prison at Bagram had been disposing of worn or otherwise unusable Islamic-related materials for years, and without burning them. If that's the case, just exactly how did such materials end up in a burn pit on one occasion?

In short, it needs to be ruled out whether an act of sabotage had been committed against the American and/or Nato command in Afghanistan or against the Afghan government in an attempt to further destabilize Karzai's regime.

The Nato spokesman who announced the investigation on Wednesday made an oblique reference to the above angle when he listed in a televised appearance the surprisingly large number of factors that the investigators had to examine.

Just one item on the list involved going up and down the entire chain of command to learn exactly who decided what in relation to the books at the prison.

So he was talking about casting a wide net. I wondered at the time I heard him speak how such a thorough investigation could be completed by the next day. Perhaps he also wondered. It could be that the announcement of a Thursday deadline was another example of Nato's infamous communication breakdowns during the Afghan expedition, which have often found one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

And it could be the same with Nato hastily terming the incident an "accident" and a "mistake" -- perhaps a politically correct statement in the effort to placate public opinion in Afghanistan. If so, the attempt placated no one.

In any event, the seriousness of the Koran burning incident warrants a very detailed forensic investigation, which can take considerable time -- time being the thing the Karzai regime is fresh out of, as it's watched the clock approach Friday prayers.

I do appreciate Newt's outrage, if the families of the two American soldiers have not yet received an apology from Karzai. And yet doing the 'right' thing in the face of an approaching lynch mob is often not the top priority.

The top priority at this time is to prevent more deaths and disperse the mobs, several of which are being incited and directed by Taliban operatives and other anti-American factions. This effort is particularly critical so that the rioting doesn't spread to other countries.

In short, President Obama and his advisors at the State Department are trying to stop a runaway freight train; his apology has to be seen in that light.

Several Afghans have been killed and wounded in the rioting during the past three days. So when calm has been restored, when cool heads in Afghanistan (and there are many such) have prevailed, then will be the time for a formal public apology from Karzai to the families of the slain Americans, and perhaps even a memorial service for all those killed during the rioting including the American soldiers.

Finally, Newt Gingrich's knee-jerk criticism of Barack Obama's apology is part and parcel of the American domestic political scene, and understood by the most informed Americans as such. But American domestic political jousting has no place in high-stakes U.S. diplomatic and security initiatives -- and they're all high stakes initiatives during a time of war.

Afghan Koran burning riots, Day 3: New York Times report

Ms. Aziz, along with many educated Afghans, some of whom registered their views on Facebook, said she was dismayed by the exploitation of the [Koran burning] incident for political gain and accused Iran and Pakistan of behind-the-scenes manipulation. Both countries would like to see the American military under pressure, and the reaction to the Koran burning has accomplished that.

Mohammed Salih Suljoqi, a lawmaker from Herat, said the episode “has been used as a tool of propaganda.”

“The noble and pure emotions of our fellow countrymen are being misused by the intelligence agencies of neighboring countries,” he said, adding that some groups “are trying to destabilize the situation and lead the country into chaos.”
**********
I want take this opportunity to give a shout out and prayer for Alissa J. Rubin and all the Times reporters and their Afghan colleagues who routinely risk their lives to report on crucial situations. And my prayers to the families of the two American soldiers who were murdered because of the Koran burning situation.

I was troubled to learn from the following Times report that Nato has not completed its investigation of the burning of the Korans. They'd led the public to believe the investigation would be complete and the findings announced by Thursday -- a hastily set deadline that's now backfiring. The original idea was that the report would be available before Friday's mosque prayers in Afghanistan.

Now Friday's rioting will dwarf what's happened so far if Afghan forces don't find some way to get a handle on the situation.

Obama sends apology as Afghan Koran riots spread for third day
Alissa J. Rubin
February 23-24, 2012
The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — The potential scope of the fallout from the burning of several copies of the Koran by American military personnel this week became chillingly clear on Thursday as a man in an Afghan Army uniform shot and killed two American soldiers, while a crowd nearby protested the desecration of the Muslim holy book.

In the third successive day of deadly violence over the Koran burning, seven Afghans were killed in three provinces on Thursday and many more were injured, most in skirmishes with Afghan security forces. The Afghan government, which had responded slowly on the first day of protests, was in high gear on Thursday as officials tried to tamp down emotions ahead of the Friday day of prayer. Western and Afghan authorities feared that there could be emotional demonstrations after the prayer that the Taliban and extremist elements would try to exploit.

Afghan officials quoted from a letter from President Obama in which he, among other things, apologized for the Koran burning. For President Hamid Karzai, the episode has fast become a political thicket. He and other government officials share with the Afghan populace a visceral disgust for the way American soldiers treated the holy book, but they recognize that violent protests could draw lethal responses from the police or soldiers, setting off a cycle of violence.

Complicating matters is that some of Mr. Karzai’s allies in Parliament and elsewhere, including former mujahedeen leaders, have openly encouraged people to take to the streets and attack NATO forces. Mr. Karzai has not spoken out against them publicly, but his government’s overall message on Thursday suggested that he did not want more violence.

Mr. Karzai met with members of both houses of Parliament at the presidential palace and urged them to help to try to contain the protests.

“The president said that ‘according to our investigation we have found that American soldiers mistakenly insulted the Koran and we will accept their apology,’ ” said Fatima Aziz, a lawmaker from Kunduz who attended the meeting.

“He said, ‘Whoever did this should be punished, and they should avoid its repetition. Insulting holy books and religion is not acceptable at all.’ ”

Mr. Aziz, who said she wept when told of the Koran burning, also said Mr. Karzai told Parliament members that the protesters’ violent response was “‘not proper.’ ”

Ms. Aziz, along with many educated Afghans, some of whom registered their views on Facebook, said she was dismayed by the exploitation of the incident for political gain and accused Iran and Pakistan of behind-the-scenes manipulation. Both countries would like to see the American military under pressure, and the reaction to the Koran burning has accomplished that.

The Taliban released two statements on Thursday: one urged Afghans to attack foreign troops and installations as well as Afghan forces who are defending them, and the second urged Afghan security forces to turn their guns on their NATO colleagues.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan calls on all the youth present in the security apparatus of the Kabul regime to fulfill their religious and national duty,” the statement said, “to repent for their past sins and to record their names with gold in the history books of Islam and Afghanistan by turning their guns on the foreign infidel invaders instead of their own people.”

Mohammed Salih Suljoqi, a lawmaker from Herat, said the episode “has been used as a tool of propaganda.”

“The noble and pure emotions of our fellow countrymen are being misused by the intelligence agencies of neighboring countries,” he said, adding that some groups “are trying to destabilize the situation and lead the country into chaos.”

“All these tragic incidents can spread a dark shadow and negatively impact the relationship of Afghanistan and the United States,” Mr. Suljoqi said.

President Karzai’s office quoted from what it called a letter of apology from Mr. Obama that was delivered Thursday by Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to signal to the Afghan public that the United States understood the distress the episode had caused.

In the letter, according to Mr. Karzai’s press office, Mr. Obama wrote: “I wish to express my deep regret for the reported incident. I extend to you and the Afghan people my sincere apologies.” Mr. Obama’s office would not release the text of what it called a three-page letter on a “host of issues” between the two countries, “several sentences of which relate to this issue.”

One of the Republican candidates for president, Newt Gingrich, issued a statement that lambasted Mr. Obama for his apology, calling it an “outrage.”

“It is Hamid Karzai who owes the American people an apology, not the other way around,” the statement said.

Five Afghans were killed in confrontations with the police, four in Oruzgan Province and one in Baghlan Province. In Nangarhar Province, two Afghans who were protesting the Koran burning, were shot to death outside an American base in Khogyani District, according to Mujib Rahman, the doctor on duty at the hospital in the district center.

It was unclear whether they were shot by Afghan soldiers or NATO troops, but a NATO spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. James Williams, said that NATO troops would shoot only if they were in mortal danger, and that they were not in mortal danger from the protesters.

About the same time as the protest and the shootings outside the base, an Afghan Army soldier turned his gun on NATO soldiers at the base, according to other protesters and elders. Two American soldiers were killed.Mr. Karzai and his team of religious leaders and elders whom he had assigned to investigate how the Koran burning came about, released a statement calling for restraint by the Afghan people and demanding that those responsible be tried swiftly.

“In view of the particular security situation in the country, we call on all our Muslim citizens of Afghanistan to exercise self-restraint and extra vigilance in dealing with the issue and avoid resorting to protests and demonstrations,” that could be used by extremist groups to incite violence, the statement said, adding that NATO officials had “agreed that the perpetrators of the crime be brought to justice as soon as possible” in an open trial.

A NATO spokesman said he could not comment; a NATO inquiry into the burning continues.

Reporting was contributed by Sangar Rahimi, Sharifullah Sahak and Jawad Sukhanyar from Kabul, and an employee of The New York Times from Nangarhar Province.

Koran burning at Bagram: Um, is some government trying to sabotage Obama's plans for US combat operations in Afghanistan beyond 2014?

UPDATE
See my February 26 post, Not Since Mazar-i-Sharif, or why the story of the Koran burning incident at Bagram Airfield is improbable

**************
I might regret publishing my thoughts on this matter but my intuition seems to have been running my show for more than 24 hours. I just hope it doesn't leave me with egg on my face because I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories; over the years on this blog I've done my share to quash false news stories and rumor-mongering.

Besides, I've already taken one flyer this month by guessing that someone in the German Nato command had leaked a secret Nato report (The State of the Taliban) to the press. Then I learned that the only two press outlets that had seen the report were British. That doesn't rule out Germany and it doesn't necessarily mean someone in the British command leaked the report; he could have showed it to MI6 and said, 'Don't breathe a word of this to anyone.' (As to whether anyone in the Afghan government had seen the Nato report, dunno.)

But if I'm going to choose this month to make a fool of myself I might as well go the whole hog. To pick up from where I left off yesterday morning. You may recall I as much accused my brain of laziness because it balked at finishing an essay, which was written to answer the rest of B. Doran's questions and comments about the Afghan War. Doran's main point was that the United States should bail on the war, simply walk away -- a sentiment shared I think by many Americans. Even the editorial staff at Bloomberg asked on February 21 whether the USA should consider leaving Afghanistan much earlier than President Obama has mapped out.

My view is that the United States should stay in Afghanistan as long as possible but with a different policy toward Pakistan. But just before I could present my view, my brain suddenly wanted a blanket and a drink of water. Then after my business meeting it wanted to go outside and play. So it was too tired to finish the essay but not too tired to cavort in 62 degree weather. (It was a beautiful day yesterday in Washington.)

At 7:19 in the evening I finally walk into the house. I turn on the TV looking for news and there's Shepard Smith intoning, "The U.S. embassy in Kabul is on lockdown."

This is Fox News Cable we're talking about so I immediately seek verification from the wire services; I can't find it although McClatchy and Bloomberg had just broken reports that the embassy was taking precautions and had recalled staff. But even without a technical lockdown the news reports were grim. All hell had broken loose in Afghanistan earlier in the day, Afghan time.

What had started on Tuesday as protests outside Bagram air base about some copies of the Koran that had been found burned or charred at Bagram air base had by Wednesday exploded into galloping riots across Afghanistan. NATO and the U.S. government had been kept busy on Wednesday giving apologies to any Afghan official who would listen and promising a full investigation of the burning incident.

Of course the Afghan Taliban were having a field day with the story and doing whatever they could to help stoke outrage against the U.S. for what U.S. and NATO plaintively insisted was a mistake.

My first reaction was that the crisis couldn't have come at a worse time for the Obama administration. Obama and Hamid Karzai are just about to finalize a security partnership agreement. The sticking points are Nato night raids and whether the U.S. should transfer prisons it runs in Afghanistan to the Afghan government. And dang! that's where the burned copies of the Koran supposedly came from -- a U.S.-run prison at Bagram.

How did the Korans get in the position to be burned? The question is still under investigation but from Bloomberg's report (filed 7:39 PM ET February 22):

The Korans were damaged after soldiers culled them, with other books, from a library at a prison for alleged Taliban and allied Islamic militant fighters, ISAF said in a statement. The volumes were thrown into a pile of debris for burning and pulled out by Afghan employees at the base.

My second reaction was to cook shrimp and rice and watch Survivor. (I try to stay with fish and rice on Survivor nights; I always feel guilty eating steak while I watch half-starved contestants stagger through the challenges the show's sadistic game coordinators think up.) I'd had my fill of Afghan War news for the day.

But before turning in I checked on the internet for news from Pakistan, and saw the following report; it's undated but it must have been published within the past 24-48 hours; before then I think I would have seen it. The report is unconfirmed but if it's true it takes the prize as the strangest news of the month:

US presses Pakistan to allow bases near Iran: Report
Online News (Pakistan)

New Delhi: The United States is reportedly putting pressure on Pakistan to allow Washington to establish intelligence bases in the country’s Balochistan province to gather intelligence on Iran, Indian media reported on Wednesday.

According to a report published by The Times of India, the US Congress has been discussing a resolution to recognize the right of Baloch people to self-determination as a means of putting pressure on Islamabad to give in to the US demands.

The move elicited angry reactions from Pakistan’s top leaders including Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who described it as an attack on the country’s sovereignty. Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, also said though the resolution was an isolated move by a few individuals, it “is contrary to the principles of the UN Charter and international law.”

The report said that three officials, two from the security agencies and one from diplomatic circles, confirmed that American diplomats and military leaders have been requesting for permission to allow their agents to operate near the Iranian border in Balochistan.

Now the Obama administration would hotly deny that it's playing the Balochistan independence card to pressure Islamabad about anything; in fact, Obama has distanced himself from the resolution, as has almost everyone in official Washington. Although I think in light of news from Reuters that his administration protested a little too much when it officially announced, in response to the Balochistan resolution flap, that the US respected Pakistan’s sovereignty. As to how much the US respects it, Reuters India reported this morning:

US pushed ahead with drone strikes despite Pakistani resistance
by Missy Ryan and Mark Hosenball
February 23, 2012 5:04am IST

Washington (Reuters): Shortly before the United States ended a two-month pause in missile strikes on militants in Pakistan last month, senior US officials telephoned their Pakistani counterparts and told them Washington would be resuming its covert drone program despite mounting objections in Islamabad.

Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were among those who spoke with Pakistani officials shortly before the eight-week pause in the drone program ended, sources familiar with the issue said.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to his Pakistani counterpart General Ashfaq Kayani around the same time, the sources said, but a US defense official said the two men did not discuss drone strikes.

The strike that followed on 10 January, when US aircraft fired missiles at a home in the North Waziristan tribal area, was the first such attack since US aircraft, in a mishap that plunged bilateral ties into a tailspin, killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along remote border with Afghanistan.

The 26 November border incident infuriated a vulnerable government in Islamabad and prompted Pakistani officials to signal that they would no longer accept US drone strikes.

So if you've been wondering how it was that the drone strikes resumed even though Islamabad was still blocking NATO supply shipments to Afghanistan, now you know.

But there you have it; a strange claim hanging out there, like a hanging chad, that the U.S. wants to set up an Iran monitoring base in Balochistan.

So my last thought before I fell asleep was, 'What a strange month this has been.'

I awakened this morning with the same thought. I guess my intuition noticed that coincidences have been piling up since February 1, when it just so happened that the secret Nato report was leaked on the eve of an important meeting in Brussels about the Afghan War.

By the way have you ever read any of the statements that the British press pulled from that report? They're dynamite -- although after the leak the U.S., Nato and Pakistan tried to downplay the statements as merely anecdotal. Yes they are anecdotal but together the thousands of statements are the first exhaustively detailed compilation of claims that Pakistan's military/ISI controls the Taliban -- the same Taliban who've been killing Nato troops. And when that small mountain of claims is taken with all the evidence and intell that's surfaced since 2006 about the Pakistani military's ongoing involvement with the Taliban and al Qaeda, the implications are damning -- damning of Nato.

When was the Nato report made available to Nato commanders? January of this year, from a news report; it didn't give the day so I don't know whether that was before or after the assassination of four French troops on January 20 (or reported on that date), which provoked Nicolas Sarkozy to threaten to pull all French troops out of Afghanistan.

Allegedly the Afghan soldier who opened fire on the troops wasn't a Taliban operative; the claim was that he was a nutter who was simply angry about a video of U.S. soldiers urinating on corpses of alleged Taliban.

Whatever the truth of the matter on the heels of the fallout came the leaked Nato report, on the morning (U.K. time) of February 1.

By the afternoon of the same day, SecDef Leon Panetta had announced to reporters on a plane flight to the Brussels meeting that the U.S. was moving up by a year its plan to draw down U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan. The surprise announcement and the uproar that followed it took the media's mind off the leaked Nato report.

On February 3 a British military journal attempted to tamp down news reports that the British Nato command was now following the new U.S. plan. I don't have the link at my fingertips but paraphrasing the spokesperson said that the 'new' plan was actually one that the British command had intended to follow all along. Not true, commented a British newspaper (Daily Mail or Telegraph); it dug up a quote from an earlier date showing that the command had agreed at the time to stay with the 2014 drawdown timeframe.

In the days that followed, the media reported that the Obama administration was engaged in 'frantic' behind-the-scenes efforts to mend fences with Pakistan's government/military. I wonder how frantic the efforts were, if Obama restarted the drone strikes by informing the Pakistanis to suck it up if they had objections -- and, if that strange report is true, by telling Islamabad that he wanted to set up an Iran monitoring post in Balochistan, of all places. The report is strange because the province is engaged in a veritable insurgency against Islamabad, which is trying like heck to stay on the good side of Tehran.

Then, when Karzai balked over two points in the strategic partnership agreement (Nato night raids and Afghan control of U.S.-run prisons) a delegation from the U.S. Congress, led by Senator John McCain went to Afghanistan to talk turkey with him. That was on Sunday, February 19.

Let me see; what happened next? Oh yes -- on Tuesday, February 21, burned Korans were found at Bagram air base. Which placed the strategic pact in jeopardy, which brings us to today:

Taliban urge Afghans to kill "invaders" amid new Koran burning protests

By Mirwais Harooni
February 23, 2012 12:58pm IST

KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban urged Afghans on Thursday to target foreign military bases and kill Westerners in retaliation for burnings of copies of the Koran at NATO's main base in the country as a third day of violent protests began.

Thousands of demonstrators rallied across the country, some chanting "Death to America!", Reuters witnesses and officials said. In eastern Kabul, hundreds of youths threw rocks at police, who fired shots into the air to try disperse the crowds.

"Our brave people must target the military bases of invader forces, their military convoys and their invader bases," read an e-mailed Taliban statement released by spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.

"They have to kill them (Westerners), beat them and capture them to give them a lesson to never dare desecrate the holy Koran again."

The Koran burnings could make it even more difficult for U.S.-led NATO forces to win the hearts and minds of Afghans and bring the Taliban to the negotiating table ahead of the withdrawal of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.

Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence. Desecration is considered one of the worst forms of blasphemy.

Large protests erupted in eastern Laghman province and the eastern city of Jalalabad, despite an appeal by President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday for calm after officials said six people were shot dead and dozens wounded in demonstrations.

Protests also kicked off in the relatively stable northern provinces of Badakhshan and Takhar on the border with Tajikistan, as well as nearby Baghlan province.

The fury could complicate efforts by U.S. and NATO forces to reach agreement on a strategic pact currently under consideration with the Afghan government that would allow a sharply reduced number of western troops in the country well beyond their combat exit deadline of end-2014.

Underscoring these concerns, hundreds of students in Jalalabad rejected any strategic pact with the United States, saying they would "take up jihad" if one were sealed.

The U.S. government and the American commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan apologised for "unintentional" burnings after Afghan labourers found charred copies of the Koran while collecting rubbish at the huge Bagram Airbase, about an hour's drive north of Kabul.

There were quite a number of other events in February relating to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nato that I haven't listed, such as the uproar that was set off when an Afghan ministry (I forget which one) plopped out with a plan to remove from the Afghan military any soldiers with family in Pakistan. This, in an effort to flummox soldiers who were working under orders from 'Taliban' (read, 'ISI'). This move is long overdue, if the army is to cut down on infiltrators.

As to what the NDS -- Afghanistan's version of MI5 -- is going to do to eject infiltrators, gee maybe rehire Amrullah Saleh and the team that walked out of NDS with him when he resigned? According to one analyst, the NDS is now rife with ISI spies and spies from other governments. I will find the link to the report but right now I'm beginning to worry that if I don't get this post out the door fast, my brain is going to start asking for a blankey and glass of water. I'm already hearing,'The radio is saying it's gonna be 70 degrees today.'

Okay; so what's on the burner today, besides a lot of hopping mad Afghans, and an expected announcement from Nato about the results of their investigation into the burned Korans? From the Express Tribune (Pakistan)

US State Department spokesperson Mark Toner confirmed that the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will meet Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar on Thursday on the sidelines of the 2012 London Somalia Conference.

Speaking to reporters at the daily press briefing, Toner said that both leaders had many things to discuss. “Our goal remains to put this relationship back on track, you know, to try to put some of the problems that we have had in the relationship, some of the challenges behind us and move productively forward.”

In response to a story by Reuters on Afghan officials meeting with members of the Taliban in Quetta, Toner said that he did not have any information about these meetings.

When asked if President Karzai was taking an active role in response to being reportedly bypassed on earlier reconciliation talks between the Taliban and the US, Toner denied it and said that the meetings between US Special Representative for Af-Pak Marc Grossman and Afghan President Hamid Karzai were an indication that the US was consulting with him.

He added that President Karzai was supportive of the process, and said that at some point the US would like to step away and “have it be an Afghan-to-Afghan reconciliation process.”

The State Department spokesperson was also asked about Secretary Clinton’s earlier statements about Pakistan taking action against certain groups present in Pakistan, to which he said, “We’ve been very clear about our red lines and, indeed, the Afghan government’s red lines for those Taliban who would participate in any reconciliation process.
[...]

Nice to know a little clarity is emerging, isn't it? This way we don't have to read 'deny deny deny' all the time. Maybe Khar will give Clinton a head's up on how the Pakistani Parliament is getting along with its review of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. The results of the review were expected last week. (See update below for summary of the Clinton-Khar meeting.)

As to whether I really think my intuition has seized on anything -- if it has then I might owe my brain an apology if it wasn't being lazy yesterday, only trying to delay my publishing an opinion before I'd mulled over more facts.

Probably there is no conspiracy; probably it's a bunch of officials and brass going off in 20 different directions as they scramble to get out of the Afghan War yesterday. Just so long as they aren't scrambling to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan before it's ready to go.

*****************
UPDATE 1:15 PM ET
Associated Press via WSJ has a short report on the Clinton-Khar meeting in London:

LONDON—U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Thursday for the resumption of a full range of formal contacts with Pakistan after its parliament completes a review of strained ties between the two countries.

At a meeting on the sidelines of an international conference on Somalia in London, Mrs. Clinton outlined to Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar a series of steps the U.S. would like to see once the review has been completed.

A senior U.S. official said those steps include visits by top American diplomats, including the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides and the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Rajiv Shah, along with a return to three-way talks between the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Pakistan declined a visit by Mr. Grossman earlier this year.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private meeting, said the U.S. would respect the parliamentary review but wanted to prepare for a return to "structured conversations" once the review is complete. Mrs. Clinton, the official said, wanted "to get ready to get back into business with Pakistan." A vote on the review is expected in mid-March.

U.S.-Pakistan ties have been troubled for some time, mainly over alleged Pakistani support for Islamist extremists, but deteriorated badly in November when U.S. airstrikes accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two Afghan border posts, fueling an already pervasive anti-American sentiment throughout the country.

That incident sparked the parliamentary review, which is aimed at producing a new set of guidelines for the bilateral relationship that could pave the way for repairing relations.

Note

I'm inching my way toward the end of the next Pundita essay to be published. I estimate another 15 to 30 minutes not counting proofing. But now as so often happens to me when the end is in sight, I need a break. Why does my brain do this? Why does it sit down so often just before crossing the finish line and say, 'Waaaaah. Me tired. Me can't take another step.'

Never mind; it's a rhetorical question. Anyhow, then I must take care of some business. Giving myself a cushion of a few hours I'll say ETA would be 4:00 PM ET. No, better still, make it 7:00 PM and I'll hope for 5. Until whenever,

Best regards to all,
Pundita

.

U.S. military commanders, intelligence officials differ in interpretation of state of Afghan War

“Classically, intelligence is supposedly in the portion of the glass that's half empty, and operational commanders and policymakers, for that matter, are often in the portion of the glass that's half full. Probably the truth is somewhere at the water line."

U.S. intelligence officials offer grim words on Afghanistan
By Richard Leiby and Karen DeYoung
February 17, 2012
The Los Angles Times

WASHINGTON - Senior U.S. intelligence officials offered a bleak view of the war in Afghanistan in testimony to Congress on Thursday, an assessment they acknowledged was more pessimistic than that of the military commanders in charge.

“I would like to begin with current military operations in Afghanistan, where we assess that endemic corruption and persistent qualitative deficiencies in the army and police forces undermine efforts to extend effective governance and security,” Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at its annual worldwide threat hearing.

The Afghan army remains reliant on U.S. and international forces for logistics, intelligence and transport, he said. And “despite successful coalition targeting, the Taliban remains resilient and able to replace leadership losses while also competing to provide governance at the local level. From its Pakistani safe havens, the Taliban leadership remains confident of eventual victory.”

Burgess testified alongside James Clapper, director of national intelligence, who said that the Taliban lost ground in the last year, “but that was mainly in places where the International Security Assistance Forces, or ISAF, were concentrated, and Taliban senior leaders continued to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan.” Clapper was asked by committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) about reports in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere describing a recent National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan that questioned whether the Afghan government would survive as the U.S. steadily pulls out its troops and reduces military and civilian assistance.

The gloomy findings prompted a sharp one-page dissent by Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the commander of Western forces in the war, and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. The comment was also signed by Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, commander of U.S. Central Command, and Adm. James Stavridis, supreme allied commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Without going into the specifics of classified National Intelligence Estimates, I can certainly confirm that they took issue with the NIE on three counts, having to do with the assumptions that were made about force structure -- didn't feel that we gave sufficient weight to Pakistan and its impact as a safe haven, and generally felt that the NIE was pessimistic,” Clapper said.

Levin asked, “Pessimistic about that or about other matters as well?”

Clapper replied, “Just generally it was pessimistic” about the situation in Afghanistan and the prospects for a U.S. drawdown in 2014.

Clapper, who has served nearly half a century around U.S. intelligence, argued that it was only natural for intelligence analysts to see things differently than ground commanders in a war.

“If you'll forgive a little history, sir,” he said, “I served as an analyst briefer for Gen. [William] Westmoreland in Vietnam in 1966. I kind of lost my professional innocence a little bit then when I found out that operational commanders sometimes don't agree with their view of the success of their campaign as compared to and contrasted with that perspective displayed by intelligence.

"Fast-forward about 25 years or so and I served as the chief of Air Force intelligence during Desert Storm," he said. "Gen. Schwarzkopf protested long and loud all during the war and after the war about the accuracy of the intelligence. In fact, it didn't comport with his view.”

“Classically, intelligence is supposedly in the portion of the glass that's half empty, and operational commanders and policymakers, for that matter, are often in the portion of the glass that's half full," he said. "Probably the truth is somewhere at the water line. So I don't find it a bad thing. In fact, I think it's healthy that there is contrast between what the operational commanders believe and what the intelligence community assesses.”

Reductio ad absurdum

"Pundita, [Re February 10 Pundita post, Amrullah Saleh on Afghanistan's neglected majority] please explain what majority [Amrullah] refers to, in terms other than a poll. I'm not an A'stan vet, I'm an Iraq vet, but I don't see any government or country worth mentioning. My counsel is GTFO ['Get the fuck out']; if we must return it is as Jackson not Wilson. Do I have it wrong?
B Doran"

B Doran:
I'm not clear on exactly what you mean by your question about Afghanistan's majority. So this might not be the kind of answer you're looking for, but for the record:

You don't have to take the word of pollsters to be assured that the majority of Afghans don't want Taliban to have a say in running the country. All you need do is note that the majority of Afghans insist that Pakistan controls the Afghan Taliban, and stack this against the persistent efforts of NATO and Pakistan's military to discredit the widely held belief. I can't recall offhand whether NATO spokesmen have ever specifically referred to the belief as 'paranoid' but they've consistently and clearly implied that's the case, as has Pakistan's military.

"The Afghans see us behind every rock," said one Pak brass -- or maybe he said "every tree," but the point is that Afghans do see Pakistanis behind every rock and tree. So whether or not these sightings are imaginary, the majority of Afghans believe that Pakistan has been using the Afghan Taliban to wreak mayhem on their country with the aim of controlling it.

Ergo, the majority of Afghans, to include the Afghan Pashtun, don't want the Taliban to have a say, if for no other reason than the belief that Afghan Taliban are Rawalpindi's puppets. NATO and its various member regimes should remember that, the next time they argue that most Pashtuns sympathize with the Taliban.

They should recall the same point whenever they field the argument that NATO can't win the war in Afghanistan because historically Afghans have never stop fighting foreign occupiers in their country. I'm not sure this view of Afghanistan's history is entirely correct. But following the logic of the argument, we're left to conclude that Afghans will never stop fighting Pakistan's occupation of their country, real or imagined as the case may be.

I think I completely understand the second part of your question, which I'll answer in the next post. I'll sign off by posing you a question. If Pakistan does indeed occupy Afghanistan via Taliban proxies, then who are the true insurgents?

US military mission in Afghanistan beyond 2014 begins to take shape

February 14, 2012 - 1:50 PM ET:

US, Afghans near deal on post-2014 mission: Panetta
AFP [via e-Ariana.com]

WASHINGTON — US and Afghan officials are weeks away from clinching a security pact allowing an American military mission to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2014, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday.

The two sides still had to resolve disagreements over controversial night raids by US troops, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other officials say have claimed too many civilian lives, and the transfer of US-run prisons in the country, the Pentagon chief said.

"As you know, there are two areas that we still have difficulties with, one of which involves the transfer of detention facilities, the other involves night-time raids," Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"And we continue to try to see if we can work out some kind of compromise on those issues," he said.

But he said most of the elements of a security pact were in place.

"So I'm confident that hopefully, within the next few weeks, we'll be able to reach some kind of agreement."

Top Afghan officials and American commanders have suggested the United States will likely retain a military presence in Afghanistan after 2014, when Afghan army and police are due to take over security for the whole country. But the precise size and role of a post-2014 mission have remained unclear.

Panetta told senators a post-2014 mission would likely include counter-terrorism operations against Al-Qaeda and other militants along with providing US air power, intelligence and logistical support for Afghan forces.

At the hearing, Senator Lindsey Graham called for a US force of about 15,000-20,000 troops after 2014.

Afghanistan last month forged strategic agreements with Britain, France and Italy to govern security ties after NATO combat troops exit by the end of 2014.

Nearly 90,000 US troops are now deployed in Afghanistan amid plans for the force to decline to 68,000 by the end of September.

President Barack Obama, who sent a "surge" of reinforcements after entering office in 2009, is pursuing a gradual troop drawdown in Afghanistan, with the bulk of the American force expected to withdraw after Afghan army and police take the lead by the end of 2014.

But analysts have urged the administration to publicly commit to a long-term military presence to prevent the Taliban from seizing back power and to head off a possible civil war with proxies backed by neighboring countries.

American Raj

MICHAEL WRIGHT: You wrote in one of your recent essays that Americans shouldn't try to help Pakistan, that they're the wrong people to try and help, and that Indians are the only people who could really help because they're family. You know that nobody in Washington is going to listen to your advice. So is there any insight you could give Americans on how to do the least harm in their relations with Pakistan? I know you've given lots of insights and recommendations over the years but if you could get across only one thing what would it be?

PUNDITA: Try and look at things on the Indian subcontinent from the top down, from the viewpoint of the rulers, during the British Raj at the height of its power. From that view, the Indians weren't living in subjugation to a foreign power, a colonialist power, they were an integral reason for the success of the British Raj -- they were the Raj, co-ruling with the British a vast swath of humanity. They sat at the right hand of the most powerful ruler on earth, in a manner of speaking, and that's how they saw themselves.

The British sought their help and advice, and in tribute to the Indian rulers they built and maintained roads, railroads, postal and telegraph systems, flood management systems, and many other infrastructure modernizations and improvements.

Then the unthinkable happened; it all came to an abrupt end. The British could no longer afford to keep up appearances on the subcontinent. They could no longer afford to maintain the infrastructures they built.

Then came Independence. The rulers who stayed on the Indian side, even though soon stripped of the legal power to rule, were better able for a variety of reasons to adjust to the death of the British Raj than the rulers who were on the Pakistan side at the time of Partition.

It's very hard to convey even to today's young generation of Indians, let alone Americans, how traumatic the situation was because Indians tend to focus on the trauma and horror of Partition -- and as with Americans, Indians are steeped in the harshly critical postcolonial views of the subcontinent's rulers, which are mixed with views on democracy and a rejection of monarchism. But the Pakistani rulers had assumed the British Raj would go on forever and that their special relationship with the British would also go on. Then it was all swept away.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: You once mentioned the flooded ballroom in Cameron's Titanic when you were trying to get across what it was like, with all those bodies in evening finery floating in the ocean waters.

PUNDITA: It was the best analogy I could think of at the time. But the point for Americans is that a big part of the special relationship was that the British paid what the Indian rulers considered tribute, in exchange for help from the rulers, and that the tribute included maintaining the subcontinent's infrastructure systems. That's the way things were done, that's the way they were always done. That was the way of the world.

If left to their own devices, as the Indians were after Independence, the Pakistani rulers might have gotten away from the idea of tribute and adjusted to the fact that nobody was going maintain their nation's infrastructures unless they did it.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: I get it; then along came the American Raj.

PUNDITA: Yup. The British maharaja was dead, long live the American maharaja.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: But the American Raj didn't perform to expectations.

PUNDITA: Yes and no. The great difference was that instead of wanting to rule over a vast swath of humanity the American Raj wanted to beat the Soviets. So the Pakistani rulers adjusted the kind of help they gave to this new raj. The trouble was that American aims meant that tribute -- what the Pakistani rulers considered tribute -- flowed more and more to Pakistan's military, which gave the military more and more power. This left the country's traditional rulers, who were soon demoted to the status of feudal landlords by the thinking of the West, in an increasingly desperate position.

And who was going to maintain the infrastructures built by the British Raj? Who was going to finance the building of new infrastructure systems while the rulers were busy with their traditional role of getting a decent day's work out of people who oversaw the laborers and settling the endless disputes that arose between them?

Then, just when it seemed the world was going to end -- drumroll, please.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: [laughing] Along came the World Bank.

PUNDITA: Yup. The Bank was already in existence by then but along came its International Development Association and the accounting practices that for some bizarre reason, from the viewpoint of Pakistan's rulers, the Americans considered corrupt. What corruption? It was simply the modern way for the American Raj to keep up tribute payments.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: [laughing] So much for development philosophy.

PUNDITA: Heck, the Pakistanis practically invented development philosophy. But Americans and Pakistanis had two very different interpretations of what development meant. Americans looked at development as a stepwise process toward modernization: we loan you the money to develop, then you build on that development and progress to more and more development, until voilà! you reach self sufficiency.

From the Pakistani view, the view of the rulers, the point of development was toward closer and closer relations with the American Raj with commensurate increases in tributes.

Fast forward to the present era, which sees Washington tearing its hair out over all the development aid and loans that the West poured into the bottomless hole of Pakistan, and asking what the Pakistanis did with all that money. Everywhere Washington looks, it sees infrastructures built more than a century ago by the British, and left to fall into disrepair.

There's the Pakistani flood management crisis, the water crisis -- which is largely a water management crisis -- education crisis, energy crisis, roads and bridges crises, and on and on.

Whose fault is that? The fault of the American Raj for not keeping things in better repair.

A secondary problem with this attitude is that it trickled down in the society, so people who don't earn any kind of tribute still have the sense of entitlement that goes with earning it.

When Pakistan's mango growers wanted a larger share of the global market, they expected someone else, the Americans it turned out, to build them modern facilities for processing the mangos and giving them training in getting the mangos ready for markets that wanted cleaner mangos.

It's like that with everything. If you want us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps you make the bootstraps, put us in them, then pull. That attitude drives the Chinese up a wall, I might add.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: The really crazy part is that while we were pouring aid into underdeveloped countries, our own infrastructures fell into despair.

PUNDITA: The American Raj turned out to ignore its flanks as much as the British did theirs. But so much of the aid and loans got misused in Pakistan because it actually was a form of tribute. Americans were buying help in fighting the Soviets so if the aid money and IDA loans weren't used correctly, well, there was always more where that came from.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: That view wasn't limited to dealing with Pakistan. But to put it in one sentence, what Washington needs to know is that what it considers to be aid, Pakistani's ruling class still thinks of as tribute.

PUNDITA: I don't like putting things in one sentence but that's close enough, except I'd say that they prefer to think of it as tribute. They're not primitives, Michael. They know the way the modern world works.

But the end of the British Raj was relatively abrupt and so traumatic for Pakistan's leaders that another analogy is an amputation made on the battlefield. The legs are there one minute and then they're gone. Even under the best of conditions, where the person has had some time to adjust to the idea of amputation, there can be the 'ghost limb' phenomenon, where the amputee still thinks he can feel the lost limb.

In the same manner, a way of life was unceremoniously uprooted and with it a sense of order that the American Raj was not able to restore. This sense that 'something is missing but should still be there' percolates down through all levels of the society.

For a time the Pakistani military was able to backfill some of the lost order but at a very high price -- a debilitating cold war with India that exploded into hot war a few times with humiliating defeats. And a brutally enforced military rule that further eroded the sense of order. Neither could Pakistan's place in the world as an Islamic state restore the sense of order.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Because the sense of order isn't rooted in Islam.

PUNDITA: Right. The Muslims who conquered parts of India took on the traditions they found on the subcontinent, where rulers were seen as living gods and expected in act in that manner.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Do you think it would help if Pakistanis confronted more about their eras of kings?

PUNDITA: Well in many ways they've never stopped thinking of their kings. But by the mid-twentieth century the democracy advocates, socialists and anti-colonialist philosophers had demonized those eras. In doing so, they stripped away the pride that the peoples of the subcontinent should have about being part of those eras. It's like the British, who've spent the modern era beating themselves up about their colonial rules, whereas in fact there's much to be proud of about those.

You can't demonize or reject a big part of your past without incurring a big psychological cost. So, yes, at some point in the future it might be a help if they confronted the fact that the British Raj was a pretty glorious affair and that they were a big part of that. Seen from up close, the raj had an awful aspect, a very cruel one, but so did all other rules. It was just the way things were.

But you see I don't like to use the word 'help' anymore within earshot of Washington. There are times to attempt to be helpful and times to pull back, and this is one of those times when Washington needs to pull back.

If Washington wants to help, help itself. Going back my entire lifetime, it's misread one situation after another around the globe because it was always blind to how a monarchist past influences many crises.

I understand why the blindness exists. But if you want a better informed foreign policy and even defense policy, you've got to set aside your theories and try to overcome your blind spots, so you can see the way things are and how they were.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: It was never really about the money, was it?

PUNDITA: In British India? Of course not. Many of the subcontinent's rulers were fabulously wealthy. It was about what the tributes meant.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: An acknowledgment from the lord of the modern era, in that time, that the rulers had tremendous importance.

PUNDITA: An important place in that era. And, they thought, an important place in this era with the American Raj.

Recently State had to inform Pakistan that it couldn't have a Most Favored Nation trade agreement with the United States because those were only for major economies. The Pakistanis knew that, but still they wanted special treatment. And yet Pakistan's leaders had been talking for months about putting their relationship with the USA on a purely transactional basis.

MICHAEL WRIGHT: Old attitudes die hard. Maybe more of Pakistan's ruling class should read Gone with the Wind. But as long as they keep spawning terrorism we can't leave them alone to work out their present.

PUNDITA: With all due respect, that is the typical view of the enabler.

Amrullah Saleh on Afghanistan's neglected majority

Readers who've followed my blog for years would understand why I interrupted my weekend to post the following op-ed at the Wall Street Journal.

My mother once told me that I was a sunny, even-tempered toddler, but that every so often I lost my temper. She said that at those times I expressed outrage by going to the kitchen cabinet where the pot and pans were stored -- the cabinet was at my eye level -- then with all my might hurling every pot and pan out of the cabinet, which of course made a huge racket. Having made my editorial statement I'd then return all the cookware to the cabinet, neatly stacking each one in its proper place.

Reading through Amrullah's latest attempt to talk to reason to Washington, for the first time I understand exactly how I felt when I headed for the kitchen cabinet. For years I've kept my nose to the grindstone of the Afghan War by telling myself that if Amrullah Saleh can see all he's seen and still remain calm and reasonable in his discussions with Washington I have no right to scream and yell on this blog. But sometimes.....

Why Negotiate With the Taliban?

By AMRULLAH SALEH
February 9, 2012 - 8:03 P.M. ET
The Wall Street Journal

Washington's olive branch to the Taliban -- no matter the excuses or justifications -- amounts to the management of failure, not the mark of victory. Negotiating with the Taliban after more than 10 years of fighting means giving legitimacy and space to militant extremism.

The objective of NATO's post-9/11 intervention in Afghanistan was to starve militant extremism by defeating the nexus of al Qaeda and the Pakistan-backed Taliban. That now seems like a dream.

With support from Pakistan, the Taliban has managed to protract the fighting and create a strategic deadlock. The U.S. military surge in 2010 weakened the Taliban, but it hardly pressured their strategic support across the Durand line in Pakistan. So the deadlock remains -— chiefly because of Pakistan's unwillingness to cooperate fully with NATO, coupled with the fractured state of Afghan politics since the fraud-marred 2009 presidential elections.

Pakistan and the Taliban have no interest in producing quick positive results from talks. The Taliban has already gained certain advantages, including the possible transfer or release of their commanders from U.S. custody, the opening of an office in Qatar, and the legitimacy to enter into mainstream politics at the time of their choosing. They will definitely use these preliminary gains to further their psychological influence over the Afghan populace. And they won't likely bargain away the gains they have earned by suicide bombings, ambushes and the marginalization of civil society. Now that the Taliban has guaranteed its basic survival, it will fight for domination.

Washington's talks with the Taliban -- taking place, on and off, in Qatar -- come at a time when most anti-Taliban Afghan civil society leaders have deserted President Karzai. He is head of a heavily subsidized state whose pay master (Washington) is now largely bypassing his government to negotiate with the enemy. This raises the question: Who and what does President Karzai represent?

In a bid to make himself relevant, President Karzai has adopted a strategy of meddling. He has demanded that NATO halt night raids, hand over the Bagram detention facility, and place strict restrictions on security companies. He has also refused to echo NATO's mission goals and justifications, and he wanted the Taliban to open an office in Saudi Arabia, not Qatar.

In return, NATO has accused Mr. Karzai of corruption, of committing abuses of human rights, and of being detached from reality. Successful counterinsurgency work requires international troops and the host nation to be seen as unified; that is simply not the case here.

Pakistan and the Taliban are more coordinated in their approaches than are NATO and Afghanistan. This is one of the key reasons why concerned anti-Taliban Afghans are creating a third force to ensure their rights and interests are represented and protected. They no longer see either President Karzai or NATO committed to those rights and interests. Though fragmented in their approach, these forces share a common goal: to counterbalance the growing influence of the Taliban and to fill the vacuum created by the declining relevance of Afghanistan's democratic institutions.

Certainly no Afghan political coalition can stop Washington from talking to the Taliban -- but those talks won't bring stability. Talks and a potential ceasefire may provide the U.S. and its NATO allies their justification for a speedy withdrawal, but it won't change the fundamentals of the problem in Afghanistan. Striking a deal with the Taliban without disarming them will shatter the hope of a strong, viable, pluralistic Afghan state.

The absolute majority of the Afghan people are against the Taliban and the domination of our country by militant extremism. They have wholeheartedly supported and participated in the democratic process, but they are now marginalized both by President Karzai, who controls massive resources with no accountability, and the international community, which is focused disproportionately on transition, withdrawal and the Taliban.

Afghanistan's neglected majority can provide a political alternative for the military mission in Afghanistan. Its inclusion, which the U.S. could secure by pursuing reconciliation in a way that pressures President Karzai to respect the role of parliament and independent judges, would contain or push back the Taliban, increase the cost of war for Pakistan, and provide hope for post-transition Afghanistan. By contrast, should that majority remain outside the strategic calculus, we'll see further fragmentation of political power and legitimacy in Afghanistan. That will weaken Washington's position and endanger the entire mission.

Mr. Saleh, who directed Afghanistan's national security directorate from 2004 to 2010, is now an opposition political activist.

Madame Ambassador, regimes that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

February 10, The News Tribe (Pakistan):

Washington: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman has conveyed the reservations of Pakistan to the US administration on the US Congress Comittee debate on Balochistan was tantamount to helping terrorists operating in the province.
[...]
Ambassador Rehman, in her meetings with the congressmen and senior officials of the US administration, said that the Congress hearing was marked by a blatant disregard for history and inflammatory use of selective facts.

“It is deeply regrettable that the legislature of a country that calls itself a friend of Pakistan should allow itself to be used as a platform by those advocating the dismemberment of Pakistan and provide justification to terrorists attempting to hold Balochistan, and Pakistan, hostage,” she said.

The subcommittee on oversights and investigations of the House Foreign Affairs Committee had held the hearing on 8th February with testimonies from human rights organizations and policy analysts on the human rights violations and target-killings in Balochistan.

”Pakistan views this hearing with serious concern and considers it unacceptable in no uncertain terms,” she stated adding that this kind of an exercise constituted interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs. The hearing, she observed, would be detrimental to building mutual trust and confidence and “will add to suspicions in Pakistan about the American motives in the region and concerning Pakistan.”
[...]

She was just getting warmed up; News Tribe has her full statement. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the ISI is under judicial fire in Pakistan for the first time in its existence. Does this mean the spy agency is indeed Gen. Kayani's sacrificial goat? We'll find out soon enough.

Meanwhile, back at the indoor putting green, the White House announced yesterday that President Obama and his national security team had undertaken a review of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. From (Pakistan's) Dawn, dateline today:

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has reviewed efforts to improve ties with Pakistan with his national security team, the White House said on Thursday as media reports indicated that both countries were trying vigorously to reduce tensions that have bedevilled their relations for more than a year now.

At Wednesday’s meeting, President Obama “received an update on our engagement with the Pakistani government on a range of issues of mutual interest, including efforts to strengthen cooperation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” the White House said.

US sources told Dawn that the White House had been regularly consulting Pakistan’s new ambassador in Washington, Sherry Rehman, on these issues.

Last week, Ambassador Rehman and a Pakistani defence team met the head of the US Central Command, General James N. Mattis, at the embassy. Soon after the meeting, The New York Times reported that Gen Mattis would visit Islamabad later this month for talks with Pakistani military chief and other officials and he might also convey an official apology on the Nov 26 Nato attack on a Pakistani post that killed 24 soldiers.

Pakistan has long demanded such an apology as an important step towards improving ties.

Another sign that both sides are making serious efforts to overcome their differences came earlier Thursday when US ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter hinted that Nato supplies might have resumed through Pakistani airspace. Pakistan had blocked the supplies after the Nov 26 attack and Washington wanted Islamabad to open both land and air routes as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Ms Rehman is having another important meeting with senior White House officials on apparently accelerated attempts by both sides to rebuild a relationship that has gone sour.

She also met Senator John Kerry, who is considered the Obama administration’s unofficial envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan on Capitol Hill and is often sent to Islamabad for dealing with contentious issues.

Asked for comments on these meetings, Ms Rehman said she could not discuss ongoing negotiations but both sides were eager to leave behind the bitterness of the past year and move ahead with a new zeal.

“Pakistan is still reviewing the full spectrum of its relations with the US in a historic parliamentary review, which will anchor forthcoming decisions in the solid background of public consent,” she said.

So. I gather from Dawn that the good news to emerge from the review is that Obama decided not to give Kayani the shirt off his back. Did he decide to give Kayani the shirt off your back? This is Dawn we're talking about; the glass is always half full on Pakistan's side of the table. I assume we'll have more definite news of Obama's decisions when Gen. Mattis returns from his trip to Pakistan.

All right; I'm outta here until next week. Have fun reading last night's two posts. Oh, one more thing: last week I guessed that the German command at NATO leaked the top secret NATO report titled, The State of the Taliban, which fingered the ISI as aiding and abetting the Afghan Taliban. I also half-joked that the one time I was willing not to blame the British for something was probably the one time I was wrong about them.

It turns out that the only journalists to read the report prior to its leak worked for two British media outlets: the BBC and the (London) Times; this, according to the Economist.

Heh.

That doesn't make it definite that the leaker was with the British command but it is suggestive. The report was leaked on the eve of a NATO foreign ministers' meeting. The next day the Telegraph reported that a substantial cut in British combat troops would occur in 2013 -- a claim that a defense ministry spokesperson denied but in such a way as to make it seem that the troop cuts were always planned for that year. Not. According to the Telegraph.

Well, if it was the British, I don't hold it against them. The public had a right and a need to know about the report.

Okay, my weekend is now officially underway; I'm off to down a thimblefull of sherry, for medicinal purposes only, of course. Cheers!

What comes around goes around

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood has suddenly decided that it's not the Egyptian military's new best friend, after all. See the NPR report from earlier tonight, which quotes AP and AFP on the story. During the protests that led to Mubarak's ouster the generals looked on the Brothers as a useful idiot. It will be interesting to see who turned out to be the idiot. For readers who enjoy 3D chess (I don't), the U.S. government has the Muslim Brotherhood on speed dial.

Be less helpful or be less squeamish

The British air command did play a role with Germany but the basic story is that after the United States bombed Germany and Japan to rubble, the American conquerors told what was left of those nations that they were going to have the kind of democracy Americans could live with, then dictated how their governments were to be run. That bought a beleaguered world more than a half century of peace and stability in Western Europe and Japan.

That's how it's done; that's how to establish democracy in lands where the concept of sovereignty is built not on the Westphalian ideal but on the monarchist one. Yet if Americans are too squeamish to do it right, then they must to learn to rein in the urge to be helpful, as headlines from Egypt underscore.

The Wall Street Journal's Matt Bradley reported in the wee hours today from Cairo that America's top military commander, JOC Chairman Martin Dempsey, was on his way to Egypt to negotiate with Egypt's military "over the fate" of the American NGO workers now facing imminent criminal charges relating to "ill-defined political subterfuge" but which could include the charge of espionage.

The problem for General Dempsey is that the Egyptian authorities found maps among the papers they confiscated at those NGOs that could be read as intelligence-gathering as part of a covert U.S. plan to balkanize Egypt. (See Matt's report for details.)

The NGOs have what they consider to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for the maps. They used the maps, Matt reports,

... to plan monitoring missions during parliamentary elections late last year.

So the NGOs were just trying to be helpful, as State underscored:

In Washington on Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. is concerned that the investigation "could have implications for the whole relationship, including our ability to deliver the assistance that we have planned…to support Egypt in its democratic transition and the traditional assistance that we provide for security purposes. We do not want that to happen."

The problem for State is that the organizations those Americans now holed up in the U.S. embassy in Cairo work for are NGOs -- nongovernmental organizations -- only in the most technical legal sense of the term, as Matt's report indicates:

The targeted Americans work for four NGOs, all of which have close connections to Capitol Hill and operate almost entirely on congressional financing. In addition to Mr. LaHood's IRI, Egyptian prosecutors are investigating the National Democratic Institute, Freedom House and the International Center for Journalists.

That last one is new to me, but the others, as I've mentioned several times on this blog, are notorious GONGOs -- governmental nongovernmental organizations, which of course is a contradiction in terms. They're also INGOs -- international nongovernmental organizations.

It was just such bizarre hybrids that Vladimir Putin was aiming at, when he threw all foreign NGOs out of Russia some years back, even though the NGOs protested that they were just trying to be helpful.

As Moisés Naím indicated, one problem with institutionalizing at the government level the urge to help outside one's borders is the copycat syndrome. That's why authoritarian regimes took a page from the USA and set up their own GONGOs, all in the name of being helpful to peoples in foreign lands.

(For readers unfamiliar with Naím's discussion and the entire issue of GONGOs see my 2007 post, Of Ingos, Gongos, and Rogue Aid: three pieces of the 21st Century puzzle.)

The other big problem is that the election monitoring and other help given by American GONGOs in foreign lands is that these activities are often followed by peoples' revolutions that no matter how nonviolent in the technical sense topple regimes not to America's liking.

To state the problem with greater precision, Gene Sharp, unwittingly perhaps, opened Pandora's Box. He did this by cataloguing, codifying and publishing all the tactics that have been used successfully to mount civil protests against an authoritarian regime. It was a great idea, but the downside is that the tactics can do double duty as a blueprint for staging a soft coup.

That wasn't such a big problem in the era of fax machines and snail mail. But in this era, every authoritarian regime on the planet has downloaded Gene Sharp's rules for nonviolent protest from the Internet. So, now they know every trick in the book about how to pass off a soft coup as a nonviolent revolution.

I'd be surprised to learn that the Obama administration is trying to balkanize Egypt but given the history of GONGOs and the successful soft coups in the post-Soviet era, it's not unreasonable for Egypt's generals to suspect the worst of the American NGOs in Egypt -- particularly because the generals know the Gene Sharp-NGO drill backward and forward.

That's because they were tacitly supporting the organizers of the Tahrir Square 'nonviolent' protests, who were admittedly working from Sharp's playbook -- although the admission didn't reach the American public until after Hosni Mubarak was driven from office. The New York Times broke the story a day or two after Hosni decamped; this was followed about 10 days later by Frontline's documentary, Revolution in Cairo, aired on PBS.

Watch the documentary, and read all the supplemental material available on the PBS Frontline website and through links it provides, to understand more of this part of the story of Egypt's revolution.

What the reporters for Frontline didn't emphasize was that Egypt's military rulers found the Tahrir Square democracy activists, including the self-described "youth wing" of the Muslim Brotherhood (see the Frontline documentary), to be very useful, which is why they stood down during the protests. I think at all costs they needed to get rid of Gamal Mubarak and the Gamalists, who were methodically stripping the military of its power and who gave every indication that they meant to escalate their efforts in an upcoming election. The mass protests against Hosni Mubarak and his regime were the way to neuter the Gamalists without staging assassinations.

And, I might add, there is no instance of Sharp's tactics bringing about a soft coup without tacit cooperation from a country's security apparatus. For readers who believe in the power of nonviolent protest and Tinkerbell, I repeat: no instance.

In short, the generals cooperated with the democracy activists during the Tahrir Square protests because they saw a way to turn Gene Sharp's tactics for promoting civil rights and democracy into a tactic to reinforce their authoritarian rule.

This curious inversion is one of the many oddities of post-Mubarak Egypt, which finds the country's ultraconservative Salafist party defending the democracy-building efforts of American NGOs now facing criminal charges, and the absolute monarch Saudi King Abdullah still angry at the democratically elected Barack Obama for betraying the Gamalists -- who were trying to prepare Egypt for real democracy by breaking the military's power!

This tangled Egyptian tale is just one of the many tangled tales that Americans got tangled up with in their effort to be helpful to the cause of democracy without actually conquering other countries.

The irony is that the more America has tiptoed around in the name of being helpful, the more it's been accused of being an expansionist empire. But if Americans don't want to impose democracy through conquest, they're wise to take the present situation in Egypt -- and in Pakistan, where the generals there are also maneuvering to hold onto their power -- as a lesson. A lesson on the limits to being helpful when you don't have the power to manage unintended consequences.

The same observation holds for staging bombing raids in the name of being helpful. Last August, Mark Safranski, in a discussion with me in his blog's comment section about the militarized 'Right to Protect' doctrine, observed :

[...] Moreover, the Libyan intervention was an astrategic mess carried out in a half-baked, amateur manner that harms US long-term interests in talking states off the nuclear non-proliferation-state sponsor of terrorism ledge. What dictator in his right mind will believe our diplomatic assurances of reconciliation if they give up WMDs or change their policies after what happened to Gaddafi? We have just incentivized every potential rogue state into adopting a posture of maximum intransigence, mutual aid to fellow dictators and strategic courtship of Beijing.

Gaddafi is odious but he served a use, like Ceaucescu did, in demonstrating that America would negotiate a deal with enemies and stick to it. That card is now lost, or if not lost, seriously devalued to a short term, low-trust, expediency.

Mark hit the mark so squarely that he might as well have been reading from Rawalpindi's playbook ever since Pakistan's generals saw what happened to Gaddafi.

What the proponents of the Right to Protect doctrine don't come right out and say is how they plan to impose order in a country after they've bombed its wicked regime to smithereens. But of course they plan to send in a veritable army of NGOs (actually, GONGOs) to monitor free and fair elections and in other ways help establish a genuine democracy.

The glitch in the plan is evident in today's Egypt -- where the generals have popular support for their accusation that Americans are meddling their country -- and in today's Libya. Earlier this week a BBC correspondent gave an eyewitness report that the nation's capital was now blanketed by armed militias roaming around the streets and representing various and presumably opposing factions in Libya.

You want to send election monitors into that? Hand out pamphlets on how stage a genuine democratic election? (Here; hold my AK-47 for a minute while I read.) Not without a contingent of U.S. Marines at your back, which the European Parliament very well knows.

So what to do, if the half-baked militarized approach to being helpful and the NGO approach carry such serious downsides that they're counterproductive? Well, there's always the combination militarized-NGO approach: send in Special Forces to sneak around and be helpful to the cause of democracy. (Kid, don't touch that box marked "Pamphlets" if you don't want to blow up half your village.)

Not a new approach, to be sure, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn it's being deployed in Libya or will be soon. But in this era, when it seems half the world's nations are selling weapons to the other half, and when it's easy to order enough light arms from the Internet to start a civil war, the combo approach presents the same fundamental problem as the other two half-baked approaches: again, Americans don't have the power to manage the inevitable unintended and often completely unforeseen consequences.

So in Libya, as in Afghanistan and other countries, the bloodbath your intervention was meant stop or avert easily touches off a bloodbath that can be harder to stop than the first because it's more diffuse than the one launched by the central governing authority you toppled, or flimflammed out of office.

(I suppose I should note here that the United States didn't actually conquer Iraq; it conquered the Iranian military and Baghdad. Then because it didn't want to deploy enough troops to pacify the rest of the country it left a British command in charge of the key city of Basra. That turned out to be a tragic mistake.)

Then what's the solution, if my fellow Americans blanch at the thought of the United States becoming an expansionist empire? In my view there is no solution, although I think the globalized labor union movement would argue with me. My reply would be that switching out GONGOs for U.S. government-supported labor unions is simply putting a new face on the same downside that exists for GONGOs.

But it's possible to kick the can of armed conquest down the road by revising the approach to being helpful that became standard procedure for the U.S. government during the latter part of the Cold War. The approach was never updated for the present era, during which every authoritarian regime has a library of Gene Sharp books and has learned to play the IMF like a fiddle.

Before revision, though, must come thinking. Toward this end, it's helpful to review the Westphalian concept of sovereignty, the history of the United Arab Republic, and the British Raj. (You're not looking to become historians here; just get in the ballpark and for that, Wikipedia has prefectly serviceable articles on all three topics.)

The review can produce an understanding in Americans that our government's pro forma way of promoting democracy, which focuses on free and fair elections and civil rights, misses a crucial step.

The real battle of ideas today is not in the arena of democratically electing leaders. It's in the arena of sovereignty. Get that part down pat, and Americans don't need GONGOs in the era when a terrorist spokesman, hiding out in the boonies in Waziristan or wherever, emailed Long War Journal's Bill Roggio to inform him that he was right to be suspicious of government announcements that Hakimullah Mehsud was dead.

And in an era when villages in Afghanistan are Tweeting each other like mad on their cell phones to share stories of Taliban misdeeds. (Huh. And here we thought we were the only ones the Taliban were taxing to death.)

I add that Twittermania is a recent twist in the tangled tale of Afghanistan that's putting the Afghan Taliban, and I imagine Pakistan's military, on the back foot. Money says that's why those two are now scrambling to negotiate a power-sharing deal in Afghanistan -- before the Obama administration wakes up and realizes it's not necessary to negotiate.

Where was I? To wrap it up: if Americans really want to be helpful in this era, they can focus on making their own story hang together. The rest of the world will be all ears.

As to how to dismantle the American INGO industry that's sprouted up, get a hammerlock on American CEOs with transnational corporations who see themselves as Gandhi reborn, and elbow U.S. weapons merchants back across the line -- well, that's all part of getting our story straight.

Vanishing Act

Leon Panetta set off such an uproar on Wednesday afternoon with his mention of (maybe) a 2013 exit from Afghanistan for U.S. combat troops that -- well, you'll never guess what. By Thursday the topic of the leaked NATO report (leaked Wednesday morning) fingering Pakistan's support for the Afghan Taliban and other groups fighting NATO troops in Afghanistan was nowhere to be found on American TV!

Wait, I take that back -- maybe the BBC (U.S. version on PBS) spoke a sentence about it in passing or maybe I was hallucinating. Anyhow, with regard to the Afghan war, newscasts last night on both cable and broadcast TV stations were fixed on, nay welded to, discussions revolving around Panetta's remarks. These of course generated debates between talking heads about whether it was a good idea to end combat operations in 2013.

The problem was that after materializing a three-ring circus out of thin air, Panetta then had to explain to a bunch of confused defense ministers from NATO countries what he meant by his remarks:

(Reuters) - U.S. forces will cede the lead role in combat operations in Afghanistan next year, but will keep fighting alongside Afghan troops, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, as the Obama administration struggled to clear up confusion over its Afghan exit strategy. Panetta surprised allies on Wednesday by suggesting the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan would end in 2013, the first time Washington had floated such a deadline.
[...]

Did Panetta or Obama or both of them stage a magic show, or were Panetta's remarks simply a panic reaction to the leadking of NATO report? The crystal ball is out for repairs again so I have no idea what really happened. One thing is clear, though: if the motive for leaking the NATO report was to raise public awareness about Pakistan's role in attacks on NATO troops, news of it vanished too quickly from the public sphere to make an impression. The report will be studied by defense analysts and country experts specializing in South Asian affairs, but its news value was overtaken by bigger news of the day.