Conservation, infrastructure, economic planning -- and the awful sinking feeling that what used to be simple germs are getting the better of humanity

This evening I took refuge from the Afghan War by fleeing to Dave Schuler's Glittering Eye blog, and there found a bevy of essays I enjoyed reading, and three I found not only thought-provoking but also important for Americans to ponder:

More on Turning Japanese, which discusses whether and to what extent the American economy will repeat the worst mistakes of Japan's economic planners and includes a few of Dave's thoughts on how tax dollars are best spent:

[...] Two observations here. First, helping the economy reach full employment and reallocating assets away from finance and housing construction in the near term are, unfortunately, in conflict. The economic dislocation will, in the short term, result in more unemployment rather than less. That’s why the administration and the Federal Reserve have been so active in propping up the failing sectors rather than supporting sectors in which there are some prospects for future growth. Wishing for the status quo ante is an inherent quality of political institutions, not an accidental one.

Second, IMO we should be very careful about just what technology and infrastructure we invest in and how we do it. I believe that we’re enormously over-invested in biotechnololgy, for example. That may pay off enormously. Or it may be an utter waste.

If you define infrastructure as roads and bridges, do we have enough or far too much? I think the latter (building bridges to nowhere, anyone?) and that rather than diluting our resources by trying not only to maintain everything but even to expand it we should concentrate on what’s most important and most productive. Does that argue for the federal government doing these things? I’m not so sure.

Here in the Chicagoland area we have plenty of roads. Our problems are that many of our roads don’t go the right way and we have peak load problems. The reason for the former is political and I don’t think the solution to the latter is more roads.

Then there is a very unsettling discussion on The Post-Antibiotic Age but which unfortunately every country, not just the USA, needs to grapple with now, not a decade from now.

To round out the trio, there is Re-Thinking Conservation Strategies, which I consider a 'must read' in the wake of natural disasters that have hit the USA very hard just in this year -- and we're only half-way through the year.

Since 2009 there have been so many very expensive natural disasters in the USA, or disasters arising from accidents (e.g., the Gulf Oil spill) or disasters created by attempts to avert bigger disasters (e.g., opening floodgates in the Morganza Spillway) that they tend to make a mockery of economic planning and ideas that have come to stand for conservation strategy, such as carbon trading.

Well, I invite you to read Dave's essay and add your thoughts to the debate. My two cents' worth is that the defense budget shouldn't be cut back; the part slated to be chopped should be reoriented to treat natural disasters as national security threats -- at least until more Americans adopt sound forest management, sound water and wetlands management, and return to baseline intelligent actions such as never building houses in America's Tornado Alley that don't have tornado cellars.

For six years Amrullah Saleh was in the best position to understand the Taliban. It's time NATO began listening to his advice about dealing with them.

This is an example of U.S. sending mixed signals to Pakistan

Many Afghans believe that to get to a negotiated settlement, the Taliban leaders involved in talks should be relocated to Afghanistan from their current locations in Pakistan, where they are protected by Pakistan’s intelligence service.
-- Amrullah Saleh

Today Bloomberg news service has published an op-ed by Amrullah Saleh, which I republish in full below. But before turning over the floor to Saleh, I want to dispute a part of his advice that pertains to dealing with Pakistan. I think Pakistan's military and civilian leaders read the "carrot and stick" approach he advocates as deliberately mixed signals, which convey acceptance for their continued prosecution of what is in effect a proxy war in Afghanistan; this on the theory that the USA finds Pakistan so valuable as a client state/strategic asset it will tolerate its aggression toward Afghanistan and even NATO troops.

In other words, what NATO leaders consider inducements (carrots) the Pakistanis read as tacit acceptance of their course of action no matter how much NATO says it dislikes the course. This situation is mirrored in the way substance abusers read continued material support from family members as sympathy for their predicament, no matter how much the family members yell and scream at them to give up dope, and no matter how many times they threaten to throw the addict out of the house or turn him into the police.

Western psychologists have a term for that kind of family member: enabler; i.e., someone who enables a person who can't on his own continue a self-destructive course of action.

Psychologists know that often the greatest obstacle to an addict confronting his dire predicament is the enabler in his life, which can be a lover or friend or even employer in addition to family members. No matter the type of relationship, the enabler always provides just enough support -- material and/or emotional -- to allow the addict to continue his self-destructive behavior with the sense that he's able to manage the addiction.

I read the very same situation in the NATO-Pakistan relationship, and in particular the British and U.S. government's relations with Pakistan's government. This is an old story that goes back to Pakistan's inception and it's created a very sick, very toxic relationship that Western psychology terms co-dependent; i.e., a need developed on both sides for a relationship that's destructive to both parties, and often those nearest them as well.

However, the difference between a co-dependent relationship between individuals and between governments is that the latter can lead to the most horrific situations involving many thousands or even millions of people. And thus, the way the Afghan War has been prosecuted by ISAF since Operation Airlift of Evil, which set the course for the rest of the war and led to a situation whereby NATO and in particular the USA is in effect paying Pakistan's military to help murder NATO troops.

But when called out on this atrocity, U.S./NATO government officials engage in rationalizations that are textbook examples of the kind of excuses that enablers deploy to rationalize their continued support for a substance abuser! Textbook. Here are the top four excuses with the U.S. variation in parentheses:

If I stop helping him:

> He'll die (Pakistan will collapse)
> He'll kill himself (Pakistan will be overrun by extremists)
> He'll turn to crime (Pakistan will start a nuclear war)
> It will break up the family (Pakistan won't give any help to NATO)

Indeed, the rationalizations voiced by NATO officials are so similar to those used by enablers that I've often wondered if the war could have been successfully concluded years ago, if psychologists who specialize in helping families stop being enablers had been brought in by CENTCOM to analyze the relationships between officials in major NATO governments and their counterparts in Pakistan's government.

Well, I've discussed this angle several times over the years on this blog, and once I went to some trouble to detail how it's possible to stop the enabling without breaking off the relationship. (See Stay out of the bazaar.) So I'll end here, with a final observation that I like Saleh's method of dealing with the Taliban because it helps distinguish those Talibs who are genuine insurgents from ones being used as proxies by Pakistan's military.

June 16, 2011, Bloomberg:

Afghan Role for Taliban, if They Play by Rules
By Amrullah Saleh

As the U.S. prepares to reduce its troop presence in Afghanistan next month, Afghans are seriously considering what will come next for our country. As Hamid Karzai’s government steers reconciliation talks with the Taliban aimed at creating enough quiet for the Americans and the rest of NATO to justify departing, Afghans like me increasingly worry that we will wind up in a situation worse than the civil war of past years.

This is avoidable. The opposition to Karzai isn’t just a rejection of the current government, as the media have emphasized. We provide an alternative vision to Karzai’s way out of the status quo. It entails a complete disarming of the Taliban, an end to Pakistan’s practice of giving sanctuary to Taliban militants and a truth-and-reconciliation process for Afghanistan.

As things are going, the future looks grim.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization expects that a negotiated settlement, eventually, will end the fighting between Afghan government forces, on one side, and the Taliban and its allies on the other. Before extending an olive branch to the Taliban leadership, however, NATO is pursuing a military strategy to weaken the enemy. This involves brilliant special operations inside Afghanistan that have killed perhaps many hundreds of Taliban mid-level commanders. The idea is to break the leadership of the Taliban in order to get the group’s second and third tier to come in from the cold. Whether this plan works will depend on whether NATO succeeds in pressuring Pakistan, which supports the Taliban, to go along. Insurgencies don’t end when they are given sanctuary in a neighboring country.

Taliban Wants Arms

But the Pakistan-Taliban-al-Qaeda alliance wants a deal that would allow the Taliban to remain armed and mobilized so that it could again have the capacity to dominate Afghanistan, as both a political and military force.

In such a scenario, real political competition in southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban is strongest, would be either difficult or impossible. The Taliban would gain access to major funds through illegal taxation, narcotics trafficking, extortion, the sale of natural resources and the black market. These funds would enable them to sustain their organization and provide some services to their constituents. Pakistan would feel safe having its proxy control the border areas, limiting or blocking India’s access, and would use its influence with the Taliban to gain maximum concessions from the government in Kabul.

Abuse of Power

That government, today, is a conglomerate of small and big interest groups surviving through manipulation, abuse of power and criminal commerce. Its overt outreach wing for the reconciliation talks is the so-called High Peace Council. The council is largely a platform to keep the big names within the Karzai government under one tent and to give the outreach an artificial multi-ethnic face.

The council’s chief spokesman is Karzai, who has caused deep division within Afghan society by his constant, unconditional offer of alliance to the Taliban. For those who have fought for a vision of a pluralistic Afghanistan, a Karzai-Taliban alliance is a recipe for disaster. The Taliban’s return to positions of authority would raise the horrific specter of their previous time in power.

It is for fear of that outcome that voices for justice and permanent peace have been raised in Afghanistan. Many Afghans believe that to get to a negotiated settlement, the Taliban leaders involved in talks should be relocated to Afghanistan from their current locations in Pakistan, where they are protected by Pakistan’s intelligence service.

Monopoly of Force

In any agreement, the Taliban must be disarmed, demobilized and reintegrated into society. The Taliban should be allowed to become a political force and be given every chance to play according to the script of democracy. But the Afghan state alone must have a monopoly on force. It isn’t permissible to allow the Taliban to become a Hezbollah-type entity within Afghanistan -- an armed state within a state. If they agree to just a cease-fire with Karzai or his replacement, it will only bring a deceptive stability that will prove short-lived.

Many years of war have wounded the psyche of the Afghan nation. Burying the facts will not help us heal those wounds. An internationally funded truth-finding commission should investigate human-rights violations, massacres and major crimes of the past 20 years. Knowing the facts would help the Afghan people reconcile with themselves. A full report may take years to compile, but the process would create hope.

In this scenario, Pakistan must stop its support of the Taliban. The U.S., which supplied Pakistan with $4.5 billion in economic and security aid last fiscal year, would need to offer carrots and sticks to ensure that country’s compliance. Pakistan and Afghanistan would sign an agreement guaranteeing the cessation of interference in each other’s affairs, both directly and indirectly.

This is the way out for Afghanistan, the Taliban, Pakistan, as well as U.S. and other NATO forces. A settlement that falls short of these minimums will only prolong Afghanistan’s agony.

(Amrullah Saleh was the head of the National Directorate of Security in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Pak military cuts off food and water to Americans at drone base; U.S. companies still selling war equipment to Pakistan

June 15, The New York Times:

The Pakistanis have already blocked the supply of food and water to the base used for the drones, a senior American official said, adding that they were gradually "strangling the alliance" by making things difficult for the Americans in Pakistan.

June 15, The Washington Post:

[T]he U.S. military still supplies the Pakistani military with new, sophisticated intelligence collection and communications equipment.

The Army Communications and Electronics Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground recently put out a notice signaling that it may need contractors to train members of the Pakistani military on how to use a new "Ground Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (GISR) system."

Developed by DRS Technologies, a high-tech military contractor based in New Jersey, the system intercepts and locates the sources of enemy communications and then permits continued monitoring of them. It also allows users to quickly analyze the collected data, including visual material, "to provide mission-critical intelligence to the warfighter."

Anatomy of a debacle: ISI arrest of Pakistani CIA informants in Abbottabad raid causes Pakistan and USA further loss of face (UPDATED 2X)

UPDATE 6:05 AM EDT
Oh boy. Here we go. According to Pakistan's The News, Inter Services Public Relations is denying that anyone was arrested:

RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan Army has rejected claims in the US media that the country's top intelligence agency ISI arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. A statement released by the ISPR read that no arrests were made and no major was being investigated in reference to the Abbottabad raid.

That does it for me; I'm not going to play this game. This is the last update.
UPDATE 5:25 AM EDT
A spokesman for Pakistan's army has denied the New York Times report that an army major was arrested in the sweep. “I can say with authority that all arrests were non-military.” Well, that pits the spokesman against the unnamed American officials who were sources for the NYT report. The sources are surely high-level. So for now I'm going to leave the rest of this post as I wrote it; even if Pakistan's version of the story turns out to be right, that wouldn't overturn my points.
**************
See my 1:05 AM EDT post for background. The brave and patriotic Pakistani Army major who secretly helped the CIA gather information about doings at the mysterious Abbottabad compound has been arrested by the ISI, and probably on treason charges.

That's surely the case for the brave Pakistani civilians who also helped the U.S. government gather information on the compound.

Given the grave threat that al Qaeda poses to the Pakistani people and in particular the country's military installations the Pakistani informants deserve a medal, not arrest. However, that would be impossible given the incredibly stupid decisions made on both the U.S. and Pakistani sides in the wake of the Abbottabad raid. The die was cast with a phone call from President Obama to his Pakistani counterpart:

Analysis: The Silence of the States
by Myra MacDonald in London
May 24, 2011
Reuters

When President Barack Obama telephoned Pakistan's president to tell him U.S. forces had found and killed Osama bin Laden, he offered him a choice.

Pakistan could say it had helped find bin Laden or that it knew nothing. President Asif Ali Zardari chose the former.

The exchange, recounted by a senior Western official briefed on the May 2 raid in the town of Abbottabad, illustrates the sometimes deliberate confusion over how far Pakistan is co-operating with the United States in fighting Islamist militants.

Unwilling to be seen as working too closely with a country which is deeply unpopular at home, Pakistan veers uncomfortably between trying to claim credit overseas while reassuring domestic critics it has not sold out to the United States.

Those two irreconcilable public positions, combined with a real and deep underlying distrust between Pakistan and the United States, mean that three weeks after bin Laden was killed, almost nobody knows for sure exactly what happened and why.

They may also be creating such strains within Pakistan that it is becoming harder to contain militants [terrorists, Myra!] who on Sunday [May 22] were able to overrun its naval aviation base [PNS Mehran] in the city of Karachi.

After telephoning Zardari, Obama announced bin Laden's death in a televised address and added that "it's important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding."

A Pakistani official, asked about the exchange between Obama and Zardari, said Pakistan's military leadership had also been on board initially in saying they had helped find bin Laden -- a position reflected in early public and private statements.

But with emotions running high in both the United States and Pakistan, that early emphasis on cooperation disintegrated.

In Washington, CIA director Leon Panetta insisted the United States had acted alone because it did not trust Pakistan.

And in Pakistan, the second official said, the military leadership backed off its initial position after feedback from garrisons highlighted deep anger in the ranks about the breach of sovereignty involved in the U.S. helicopter raid.

Worried about a backlash from Islamist militants if it were seen to have helped the United States find and kill bin Laden, and insulted by Panetta's comments, Pakistan hit back.

Its political and military leadership, which official sources say initially welcomed bin Laden's death, began instead to criticize the United States.

Pakistan's parliament condemned the violation of sovereignty and called for an end to strikes by U.S. Predator drones in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
[...]

The choice Obama gave Zardari put Pakistan's military and Pakistan's civilian government behind the eight ball; it was surely (and correctly) read as an attempt at extortion because no matter which choice they took, if they didn't cooperate enough in the future with the USA an unnamed US official could always leak the information that they'd been given the offer -- which came to pass!

So the intelligent approach would have been for Obama to explain to Zardari that his initial announcement about the raid would not address whether Pakistan's military had been involved and then say to Zardari, 'After conferring, let me know you want us to handle this.'

Obama should also have instructed everyone in the Cabinet to say nothing to the press about the raid until the message could be coordinated.

But the Pakistani side acted in no more intelligent fashion than the American one. There was no way "the garrisons" could have registered anger at the violation of Pakistani sovereignty if they didn't know the sovereignty had been violated. So, somebody in the information chain on the Pakistani side had loose lips. This might not have happened if Obama had done something brilliant and told Admiral Mike Mullen to phone Kayani and in confidence break the news to him first. But even without that move, the Pakistani military and civilian leadership would have been in a position to swear to the sky that they'd been involved all along in planning for the raid, and that they'd given the U.S. top-secret permission to enter Pakistan's air space.

Of course Kayani couldn't see around corners, so he didn't know the attack on PNS Mehran was imminent and that it was most probably orchestrated by al Qaeda. And he couldn't know then that the PML-N, Pakistan's most powerful opposition political party, would suddenly do a 180-degree turn and announce it was fully supporting a war on terrorism in Pakistan, which it did just a few days ago.

What does the latter turn of events mean? Depending on how you want to look at it, it means former Pakistani PM and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif kicked the struts out from under Rawalpindi's pet excuse that it couldn't wage an all-out war on terrorism because so many Pakistanis were against it -- or that Gen. Kayani finally managed to twist some arms in the PML-N leadership. See the report at the end of this post.

But as soon as Kayani and the civilian leaders learned of the Abbottabad raid, they would have known that by saying they'd cooperated with the U.S. government, they could have fully shared in the triumph of catching the world's Number One terrorist. They should have stuck to that line come hell or high water. That would have given them a priceless public relations victory with the world's major governments and more importantly the world's major international banks, which by then were looking at Pakistan as Terrorism, Inc.

And once they tracked down the CIA informants who helped the USA nail bin Laden, they could have paraded that Army major as a great hero of the people and a sterling example of how dedicated Pakistan's military is to combating terrorism.

Too late now for the smart move. But at least the PML-N is wising up, at least for the time being:

PML-N for full-scale war on terror, at last

By Muhammad Akram
June 13, 2011
(Pakistan) Daily Times

LAHORE: With the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) now seeking a full-fledged war against the menace of terrorism and the eradication of terrorists from the country, the murky political atmosphere on this all-important issue is getting clearer.

It took one full year to bring about this change in the mind of the PML-N as Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who last year on the occasion of first death anniversary of Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, who was killed in a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan-claimed suicide blast in 2009, urged Taliban to spare Punjab province since the government here shared their perception about America.

However, on the second death anniversary of Dr Naeemi on Sunday, the Punjab chief minister sought to eradicate the menace of terrorism in the country, only a day after his one-on-one meeting with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani on the sidelines of a reception hosted by the prime minister in honour of visiting Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

Among other important events that took place from June 2010-2011 besides dozens of terrorist attacks across Pakistan include the successful hunt down of world’s most wanted man Osama bin Laden, who was killed by the US SEALs in a covert operation on May 2, 2011, in Abbottabad and a terrorist attack on PNS Mehran allegedly carried out with inside support.

The PML-N has been the major centre-of-the-right-party in the country that has been shying away from demanding a war against terrorism alongside the religious parties like Jamaat-i-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI). However, the JUI started seeking a U-turn on its policy vis-à-vis TTP and other militant offsprings when its chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman was attacked twice couple of months back forcing him to confine his political activities indoor and make an unusual statement that ‘even the bearded are not safe from terrorists in Pakistan.’

PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif who had been riding high on the popularity graph among the followers of constitutionalism in the country following his principled demand on the constitution of an independent probe commission on the events of May 2 covert US operation in Abbottabad and terrorists attack on PNS Mehran in Karachi, had been avoiding till recently a direct tirade on the forces responsible for terrorism in Pakistan.

Nawaz Sharif during his address to a reference in memory of slain journalist Saleem Shahzad the other day though called a spade a spade on questions pertaining to decade-old issue of civil-military relations yet he was conscious and crafty enough to take position as far as the question of war against terrorism.

The welcoming words of his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif that defines well the PML-N position on war against terrorism only after less than 24 hour of his meeting with the army chief is enough to speculate that the murkier atmosphere is perhaps getting clearer on all the fronts.

Keeping in view the words of PML-N Nawaz Sharif that he and his party are on the same page on the issue of defining once for all the civil-military relations as envisaged in the constitution, it would be safe to infer that the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and his party would be on the same page also on his declaring war on terrorism in the country.

The PML-N’s taking a clear position on war against terrorism and the forces of darkness would be a great morale booster not only for the PPP-led coalition government which had been waging this war for the last four years that has killed over 35,000 innocent citizens and more than 3000 soldiers. A defined PML-N position on war against terrorism would also be of great help for the armed forces who may have been rendered confused by a conservative section of society with the notion that the war on terrorism is a war of America and not of Pakistan.

With the PML-N getting on a just path on the issue that poses existential threat to the country, the political forces that are left on the other side of the divide would definitely get weaker, particularly the political landscape of the Punjab province.

The likes of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Tehrik-e-Insaf of Imran Khan who are not ready to accept the war on terrorism as a war of survival of the country would get weaker with the PML-N getting out of the phase of not stating thing clearly and keeping the issue on the backburner.

The JI, in fact, has got more clearer on the issue keeping in view the private discussions its leader made that of course are contradictory to the public stance of TI which appeared to be seeking religio-political inspiration from the former.

The political pundits predict a marked improvement in the working relationships between the PML-N and the PPP and subsequently the federal and the Punjab governments following Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s public statement on war against at terrorism at an all-important venue of Jamia Naeemia where Dr Sarfraz Naeemi was targeted two years ago on sectarian grounds. The political observers view as result-oriented and productive the meeting between Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Army Chief Gen Kayani after a break of over a month as the two last met on May 2, when the US SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden in a covert operation.

The political observers are of the view that though the PML-N though has belatedly taken a clear position on war against terrorism yet it is important that it has come out of a mirage it has created for itself as being a representatives of conservative sections of Punjab province.

The political observers are confident that the PML-N would pursue its policy on war against terrorism as vigorously as it has been pursuing the principled stand on civil-military relations. And since the two are intertwined the success on one front would yield result on the other too, said the observer.

Pakistan's ISI arrests Pakistani informants who helped CIA gather intell for US raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad (UPDATED 3X)

UPDATE 6:05 AM EDT
According to Pakistan's The News, Inter Services Public Relations is denying that anyone was arrested:

RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan Army has rejected claims in the US media that the country's top intelligence agency ISI arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden. A statement released by the ISPR read that no arrests were made and no major was being investigated in reference to the Abbottabad raid.

I am not going to sit here for the rest of the morning and add more updates on denials and corrections to denials, so this is the last update.

UPDATE 5:00 AM EDT
The number of those arrested has gone up from the number cited in the NYT report, which broke the story (see below):

Pakistan Arrests 30 Civilians in Probe of U.S. Raid That Killed Bin Laden
By Haris Anwar - Jun 15, 2011 4:14 AM EDT

Pakistan arrested 30 to 40 civilians as it investigates the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month, an army spokesman said, denying a report that an army major was among those detained.

Some of those arrested have already been released, Brigadier Azmat Ali, director of public relations at the army’s media arm in Rawalpindi, said in a phone interview.

A report in the New York Times that an army officer is being held is “totally wrong,” Ali said. “I can say with authority that all arrests were non-military.”

Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested five Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that killed bin Laden on May 2, the Times reported today, citing American officials it didn’t name.

Those arrested include a Pakistani army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, the report said.

UPDATE 1:54 AM EDT
From Reuters about 50 minutes ago: "Asked about the Times report [see below], a CIA spokeswoman neither confirmed nor denied it and said she had no further comment."
*********

Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants in Bin Laden Raid

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: June 14, 2011 [published online at approx. 11 PM EDT]
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s top military spy agency [ISI] has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.

Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan.
[...]
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
[...]

The rest of the Times report doesn't throw more light on the situation so here I'll switch to the Associated Press, which unearthed another factoid connected with the situation:

AP sources: Pakistan nabs CIA informants

By KATHY GANNON [reporting from Islamabad]
[Published approx. midnight EDT]
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pakistan's intelligence service has arrested the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe Osama bin Laden's compound before the U.S. raid that killed the al-Qaida leader, as well as a "handful" of other Pakistanis, a U.S. official said late Tuesday.

In Pakistan, a Western official confirmed a New York Times report [see above] that five of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the CIA before the May 2 raid were arrested by Pakistan's top military spy agency.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.[...]

"Hollowed out" Mexico and hollowed-out USA

The Republic of International Community as seen from satellite

CNN and FNC -- America's two national cable TV all-news channels -- have been too busy during the past week reporting on the murder trial of Casey Anthony and the antics of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner to squeeze in reporting on Mexico (actually they're always too busy to do more than glance at Mexico) so in the manner of a public service I present links to the following recent reports on Mexico. All the reports are important but I think the Reuters one is the 'must read' and biggest shocker.

June 1 - Reuters, Special Report: If Monterrey falls, Mexico falls.

June 2 - The Los Angeles Times, How many have died in Mexico's drug war?

June 5 - Christian Science Monitor, Mexico peace tour: How the drug war changed once-calm Cuernavaca

June 7 - Christian Science Monitor, Mexican drug traffickers' latest weapon: 'monster' narco-tanks

June 8 - Wall Street Journal, Mexico Tourism Feels Chill of Ongoing Drug Violence

A companion read is Zenpundit Mark Safranski's April 5 review of Narcos Over the Border: Gangs, Cartels and Mercenaries, a series of monographs edited by Dr. Robert J. Bunker. Before I quote Mark's summary of the book, in which he mentions the need for better U.S. policy on Mexico, an aside:

I hate to be the one to break this news to Mark but there can no longer be an American policy on Mexico because there is no longer a United States of America. He doesn't know this because he doesn't watch much television news, but a few weeks of watching CNN will clue him that the USA is no more. In its place is a country called The Whole World (aka RIC - Republic of International Community), which for reasons known only to the rascals who run CNN excludes every world region where CNN is not in hot competition with al Jazeera.

I myself speak of the "country" of the USA, which I think is what seems to be a box of cookies or a milk carton in the foreground of the above satellite photo of the RIC, only as a matter of convention.

As for FNC (Fox News Channel): currently too busy taking pot-shots at other TV news outlets for initially covering up the Weiner story and otherwise too busy trying to find a Republican who can win the White House to notice that a U.S. government is a memory.

(Memo to FNC: The other TV media were initially quiet about Weiner's texting problem not because he's a Leftist but because his wife is Hillary Clinton's closest aide and they didn't want to have to tell the American public that the person closest to the U.S. Secretary of State is an American Muslim of Indian-Pakistani heritage who was raised in Saudi Arabia, you nitwits.)

So before we try to upgrade U.S. policy on the hollowed-out state of Mexico, as the Narcos book terms it, I say let's examine how the U.S. got hollowed out.

One more point before I cede the floor to Mark: His summary doesn't indicate whether the book addresses racism and apartheid in Mexico. I know that Mark is aware of the subject so I think he would have mentioned it, if any of the monographs dealt specifically with racism; frankly I'd be surprised if any did because the topics of Mexican racism and apartheid are taboo in both the USA and Mexico.

Later this week or the next I'll try to rip myself away from the Afghan War long enough to return to those issues, which I touched on in an earlier post. For now, I'll just say that I think Mexico's type of racism is the true "virus" that Dr Bunker talks about.

Now to Mark's summary (see the article at Zenpundit for links to topics and sources):

[...] Narcos Over the Border. ... is one of the more disturbing academic works recently published in the national security field, not excluding even those monographs dealing with Islamist terrorism and Pakistan. If the authors of this granular examination of Mexico’s immense problems with warring narco-cartels, mercenary assassins, systemic corruption, 3rd generation gangs and emerging “Narcocultas”of Santa Muerte are correct - and I suspect they are - Mexico’s creeping path toward state failure reprsents a threat to American national security of the first order.
[...]
Some impressions I gained from reading Narcos Over the Border include:

> The Narco-Cartels and the Zetas, which fight each other as well as Mexico’s military (Mexican police generally are infiltrated, intimidated, outgunned and seriously outclassed by the Cartel gunmen, Zetas and Guatemalan Kaibiles) are better armed and better trained than are the Taliban. The deadly and efficient Zetas and Kaibiles are superior to regular Mexican military forces and have established safe haven training camps in Central America.

> Narco-cartels are properly speaking, no longer narco-cartels but transnational criminal syndicates involved in a wider array of revenue generating activities, but with professional intelligence and military capabilities, and increasingly, political, social and religious agendas that are functionally reminiscient of Hezbollah and HAMAS.

> The Mexican state is severely hampered in its response to the threat presented by the cartels by its own strategic use of corruption as a cost-saving measure and a tool for sustaining elite control of Mexican politics, as well as a method of personal enrichment by members of Mexico’s ruling class.

> The eschewing of the extreme violence by the cartels North of the border appears to be more of a sign of a strategic policy by cartel and Zeta bosses than a lack of capacity or evidence of a lack of infiltration into American society. To the contrary, Mexican cartel links to acutely dangerous American prison and street gangs such as the Mexican Mafia and MS-13 are significant and well documented.

> The cartels are global, not regional or local operators.

> The culture of the Narco-cartels, which draws on some romantic Mexican social and religious underground traditions, particularly the hybrid cartel La Familia, is morphing into a very dangerous “Narcocultas”, a neo-pagan, folk religion featuring ritualistic violence, beheadings and torture-murders carried out for reasons other than economic competition.

[See also Zenpundit's summary , Skulls and Human Sacrifice: Bunker and Sullivan on Societal Warfare at Small Wars Journal]

> Mexico has departed the realm of having a serious law enforcement problem and has graduated to a significant counterinsurgency war against the cartels in which the Mexican state is treading water or making progress against some cartels (possibly displacing their activities to weaker states in Central America).

The authors do not assume the worst-case scenario for Mexico; i.e., state collapse, but rather an insidious “hollowing out” of the state by the cartels and a mutation of Mexico’s native culture to host a 4GW nightmare. As Robert Bunker writes:

What is proposed here is that Mexico is not on its way to becoming a “rotting corpse” but potentially something far worse - akin to a body infected by a malicious virus.

Already, wide swaths of Mexico have been lost to the corrupting forces and violence generated by local gangs, cartels and mercenaries. Such narco-corruption faced few bariers given the fertile ground already existing in Mexico derived from endemic governmental corruption at all levels of society and in some ways, it even further aided the ‘virus’ spreading through Mexican society from this new infection. Among its other symptoms, it spreads values at variance with traditional society, including those:

... conceivably derived from norms based on slaveholding, illicit drug use, sexual activity with minors and their exploitation in prostitution, torture and beheadings, the farming of humans for body parts, the killing of innocents for political gain and personal gratification and the desecration of the dead.

While meticulous, Narcos Over the Border is not all-encompassing in scope. A fundamentally Mexico-centric collection of scholarly articles, it does not deal extensively with American policymakers involved in Mexico’s narco-insurgency, the intricacies of cartel financial operations or undertake case studies of narco activities in Mexican-American communities, though the authors do track narco-cartel and gang presence in cyberspace.

Narcos Over the Border represents a starting point for deeper investigation of narco-insurgency and for a national security community that has thus far treated Mexico as a third-tier problem, a policy call to arms. Strongly recommended.

LOL -- Bad Pundita! Don't laugh it's not funny! ROFL I'll give you a cookie if you stop laughing hahahaha stop it!

Bernard-Henri Lévy once even produced a damning time line showing that every Pakistani “capture” of a wanted jihadist had occurred the week immediately preceding a vote in [US] Congress on subventions to the government in Islamabad.

From Christopher Hitchens's slam on Pakistan for the July issue of Vanity Fair. I haven't even gotten halfway through the piece I'm laughing so hard snort don't snort Pundita it's not ladylike.

Oh gosh [wiping tears of laughter] this is what they mean by trench humor, or maybe it's called going insane after almost ten years of closely following the war on terror.

How U.S. can win the Afghan War, in eight steps

1. Set aside all talk of an 'insurgency' in Afghanistan. Proceed on the forest-thinning principle; i.e., first clear out all the Taliban fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan on behalf of Pakistan's military, then see how much of a genuine insurgency is left to deal with.

2. Recognize that the greatest obstacle to winning the war isn't the Taliban or even Pakistan's regime; the obstacle is that Washington has reasoned itself into a false dilemma regarding Pakistan's sheltering of Taliban that wreak murder and mayhem in Afghanistan.

3. State the dilemma in plain English to see how silly it is: EITHER start a war with Pakistan OR continue to put up with the protection its military affords Taliban groups it finds useful.

4. Reflect on how the Taliban came into being, and how certain among them became useful to Pakistan's military, to understand that Washington has made a mountain out of a molehill and called this a dilemma.

5. Admit the dilemma is an illusion after considering this simple example:

Say I provide much of your material support, then I see you engaging in behavior I consider not only destructive but also an attack on me. I repeatedly warn you to stop the behavior but each time I do so, I give you $1,000.

How, then, how would you read my words? As a warning to stop the behavior? Or as encouragement to continue the behavior -- encouragement that for some reason I don't wish to clearly articulate?

6. So much for the dilemma. As to why official Washington ignores the obvious, I think there's more than one reason. But Washington continues to find support for its refusal to confront the obvious by taking refuge in the pronouncements of opinion experts it consults on Pakistan. This is an old story, by the way, not limited to Pakistan and the Afghan War.

The same old story is that Washington decides that people in X country are from another planet and thus, it will take experts with very specialized knowledge to explain how the aliens think; e.g., Christine "I can translate Urdu into English" Fair.

From listening to these experts, who have no moorings whatsoever in common sense, Washington gets so confused that the next thing the world knows Americans are once again wrestling with a huge dilemma. Recognize that this approach to problem-solving has created chaos in Afghanistan.

7. To wrest order from chaos recall that human nature is the same for all, including Pakistanis; ergo, Washington should try something new and act human in its relations with Islamabad and Rawalpindi. Do this first, then see how much of threat remains from Pakistan.

Acting human includes not repeatedly sending mixed signals and not grandstanding for the press; conveying seriousness to Pakistan's leaders is best done behind closed doors.

I should add that always sending mixed signals greatly angers not only humans but every kind of mammalian creature that must endure the mixed signals; that's because mixed signals are perceived as a ploy to establish complete control by sowing constant confusion.

8. The catch is that even after Pakistan's military sets to work rolling up the Taliban, it's waited so long to do so that a veritable army of Frankensteins has spawned in Pakistan and many of these aren't Taliban.

However, there is a workaround. The military can explain to Pakistan's media that it's now their job to explain to the Pakistani public that it's a new day, which means among other things that the military is inviting the USA to work under their direction in helping them clean up Dodge City.

If you tell me it can't be that simple -- only if Pakistanis are from another planet is it not that simple. But I didn't say it was easy because Washington finds it very hard to be consistent for more than 15 minutes in a row. Consistency is what's needed to convey to Pakistan's military that the USA is deadly serious about no longer supporting a government that supports the killing of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But then if it is that simple, things would resolve themselves so quickly in Afghanistan that NATO would have little excuse to remain there in force for decades on end. This means NATO couldn't continue to use Afghans as experimental subjects for every development idea that legions of contractors and subcontractors can think up and bill for.

From that point of view some might argue it's better for Washington to go on seeing Pakistanis -- and Afghans, for that matter -- as aliens. That tack certainly keeps legions of opinion experts gainfully employed, but a better tack for the United States is to pull off a decisive victory in Afghanistan.

Amazing but true there are times I like MI6. This is one of those times.

From Gates of Vienna News Feed for Friday, June 3:

In other news, MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence service, successfully hacked an Al Qaeda website and substituted a cupcake recipe for what were supposed to be downloadable instructions for building bombs from household materials.

See this link at GOV for more on the story of MI6 being naughty.

Police find body of Syed Saleem Shahzad; say he was tortured, killed

See this May 31 TIME report, published while there was still hope Shahzad was alive, for extensive background; report was updated at 10:00 AM EDT to reflect reports of his death.

June 1, Asia Times Online:

[HONG KONG] Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan Bureau Chief for Asia Times Online who went missing on Sunday evening, has been killed, according to police. ...

Police reported that his body was found in a canal in Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab province about 150 kilometers southeast of Islamabad and about 10 kilometers from where his car was found. They said that his body bore marks of torture.

He leaves a wife, two sons aged 14 and seven, and a daughter aged 12. ...

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani expressed his "deep grief and sorrow" over Shahzad's death and ordered an immediate inquiry into his kidnapping and murder, according to Associated Press of Pakistan. ...

Shahzad, who has been writing for Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online for nearly 10 years, failed to show up for a scheduled appearance on a television talk show in the capital Islamabad.

Earlier, the International Federation of Journalists released a statement saying it "urgently appeals to the Government of Pakistan to order its security and police agencies to respond immediately to find a senior journalist who disappeared in Islamabad on May 29".

Shahzad, 40, had on several occasions been warned by officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) over articles they deemed to be detrimental to Pakistan's national interests or image.

Human Rights Watch researcher Ali Dayan Hasan earlier said he suspected ISI officials abducted Shahzad, possibly because of a recent story he wrote on al-Qaeda infiltration in the Pakistani navy. Authorities haven't commented. (Al-Qaeda had warned of Pakistan strike.)

Tony Allison, the Editor of Asia Times Online, expressed his deep concern for one of the most fearless journalists with whom he had ever worked. "We will bring the utmost pressure to bear on the authorities over this case. We at Asia Times Online express our deepest sympathies for Saleem's family."

Human Rights Watch claims Syed Saleem Shahzad in ISI custody (UPDATED 1:30 PM EDT)

UPDATE
10:00 AM update to TIME report I cited below:

Pakistan's main news channels are reporting that Shahzad's dead body has been found. One news channel broadcast what appeared to be a black and white image of Shahzad's face. There were visible signs of torture.

Asia Times Online is also reporting that Shahzad's body has been found by police and that it bears marks of torture.
***********

Missing Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad
with Giuseppe Marra, chief of AdnKronos International news agency

The Asia Times Online still hasn't commented on their bureau chief's disappearance; a note on the website says that due to the holiday they won't be uploading reports until May 31; perhaps the uploaders are still getting their beauty sleep because the uploads aren't there yet.

Ifnan Khan at Pakistan's Daily Times got the scoop by several hours on the news that Human Rights Watch (HRW) has, through "credible sources," learned Shahzad is in the custody of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). But I'm going to run with the report from TIME, which has much more detail and background than the Daily Times report. See TIME's website for source links in the report:

A Pakistani Journalist Vanishes: Is the I.S.I. Involved?
By Omar Waraich
Islamabad; Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Fears are growing for the safety of a well-known Pakistani journalist who has been missing for 39 hours now and, according to an international advocacy group, is believed to be in the custody of the Pakistan's controversial Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Human Rights Watch declared that Saleem Shahzad, a reporter working for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and Adnkronos International, the Italian news agency, could be subject to mistreatment and even torture while in custody.

While the ISI was said to have bristled at previous reports by Shahzad, his disappearance happened two days after he wrote a story for Asia Times Online that said that al-Qaeda had attacked a naval base in the port city of Karachi on May 22 after talks had broken down between the Pakistan navy and the global terror organization. In his report, Shahzad claimed that al-Qaeda had carried out the attack in retaliation for the arrest of naval officials suspected of links with the terror group.

The 17-hour attack on the Karachi naval base by at least four attackers led to the destruction of two Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion aircraft that had been enhanced with counterterrorism capabilities. An investigation is currently underway. At the time of the attack, former military officers and analysts speculated that it could not have been mounted without some help from the inside.

On Monday, Pakistani intelligence officials told journalists that they had picked up Kamran Ahmed Malik, a former navy commando, in Lahore on Friday. Malik and his brother have been detained in connection with the investigation. While Malik has not been formally charged, it is widely reported that he is being held for questioning about his links to both the terrorists and former colleagues inside the Navy.

Shahzad, the missing journalist, is believed to have been abducted by intelligence agents from the well-heeled F-6/2 area of Islamabad at around 5:45 p.m. At the time, he was on his way to the studios of Pakistan's Dunya News channel to discuss the contents of his latest report about the naval base attack. He had driven there from his house in central Islamabad's leafy F-8/4 neighborhood, some four kilometers away. At quarter to six, Shahzad had responded to a call from a producer at Dunya News and said that he was on his way, says Nasim Zehra, director of current affairs at the channel. No one has heard from him since.

The following morning, Ali Dayan Hasan, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, received a call from Shahzad's wife.

"He had told her that I was one of the people that should be called in case anything happens to him," says Hasan.

"He had feared for sometime that something like this would happen to him."

Later, Human Rights Watch was able to establish that Shahzad was being held by the ISI.

"We were informed through reliable interlocutors that he was detained by the ISI," says Hasan.

Those interlocutors, he adds, had received direct confirmation from the agency that it was detaining Shahzad. In any case, Hasan says, "in a high security zone like Islamabad, it is only the ISI that can effect the disappearance of man and his car without a trace."

Human Rights Watch was also told that Shahzad was supposed to return home on Monday night.

"The relevant people were informed that his telephone would be switched on first, enabling him to communicate with his family," says Hasan.

"They were told that he would return home soon after."

But by 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, Shahzad had still not been heard from. At that point, Hasan recalled that Shahzad had sent him an email on Oct. 18, 2010 that was to be released in the event of his disappearance. At the time, says Hasan, he was "fairly sure that sooner or later something was going to happen."

Human Rights Watch says that it has made repeated attempts to contact the Pakistan government and establish Shahzad's whereabouts, but has received no response.

On Oct. 17, Shahzad had been summoned to the ISI's headquarters to discuss the contents of an article published the day before with two officials from the agency's media wing. That report, published in Asia Times Online, alleged that Pakistan had quietly released Afghan Taliban commander Mullah Baradar, Mullah Omar's deputy, to take part in talks through the Pakistan Army.

According to the email, labeled "For future reference" and seen by TIME, one of the officials said the following words to Shahzad: "I must give you a favor. We have recently arrested a terrorist and recovered a lot of data, diaries and other material during the interrogation. The terrorist had a list with him. If I find your name in the list, I will certainly let you know."

Incidentally, the two ISI officials present at the meeting, Rear Admiral Adnan Nawaz and Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, are both from the Navy. Pervaiz has just been appointed the new commander of the Karachi naval base that was attacked.

Hasan of Human Rights Watch says that statement can be read as a threat. "The tone and the manner in which it was issued did constitute a threat," he says. "Shahzad described it to me."

The rest of the meeting, as Shahzad described it in the email, was held in "an extremely polite and friendly atmosphere," but no words were minced. In the email, the ISI official was said to have asked for the source of his story. Shahzad writes that he would not name the source, but said that he had been told the information by an intelligence official and later confirmed the story from "the most credible Taliban source." According to Shahzad's account, he was asked to "write a denial of the story" but "refused to comply with the [ISI] demand."

Many of Shahzad's media colleagues speculate that the ISI is holding him to extract the identities of his sources. "It is very difficult to say what they want from him," says Hasan.

"But when the ISI picks up journalists in this manner, they are often subjected to mistreatment and torture. The longer he stays in their custody, the greater the likelihood is that he will be tortured."

Last September, Umar Cheema, an investigative reporter for The News, an influential Pakistani daily, was kidnapped, blindfolded, stripped naked, had his head and eyebrows shaved, beaten, filmed in humiliating positions, and dumped on the side of the road six hours later.

"If you can't avoid rape," one of his interrogators jeered during the ordeal, "enjoy it."

The perpetrators were never found, but when asked about his suspicions, Cheema told the New York Times: "I have suspicions and every journalist has suspicions that all fingers point to the ISI."

The disappearance of Shahzad is a reminder of the multiple hazards faced by journalists working in Pakistan. In January, Wali Khan Babar, a respected reporter for Geo News, was gunned down in Karachi. [1]

Last month, reporter Abdullah Bhittani cheated death after being shot three times in Rawalpindi, while a radio station in the northwest town of Charsadda was bombed. Bhittani has recovered, but with 10 slain journalists last year, the Washington DC-based Newseum called Pakistan "the deadliest country in the world for journalists." Reporters Without Borders ranked it 151st out of 178 countries when it comes to press freedom.

The principal threats, human rights campaigners say, come from military intelligence agencies and Islamist militants.

"As a consequence, it is becoming difficult for journalists to perform their basic professional duties in the context of a war between the Pakistani state and the militants," Hasan says.

"Both parties target journalists, arbitrarily and with brutality."

Human Rights Watch has called on the Pakistan government to locate Shahzad, return him safely to his home, and hold those who held him "illegally" accountable. "To date, no intelligence personnel have been held accountable for frequently perpetrated abuses against journalists," laments Hasan. "Tolerance for these practices has to end, now."

The International Federation of Journalists has also issued an appeal to Pakistan's government on Shahzad's behalf (press release via New Zealand Scoop news site:

Tuesday, 31 May 2011, 3:11 pm
Press Release: International Federation of Journalists
Appeal to Pakistan Government to Find Missing Journalist

May 31, 2011 - The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) urgently appeals to the Government of Pakistan to order its security and police agencies to respond immediately to find a senior journalist who disappeared in Islamabad on May 29.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan bureau chief for Asia Times Online , went missing in the early evening [around 5 PM Pakistan time] while heading to the office of Dunya TV [a private TV station] to record a program.

The IFJ and its affiliate, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), hold grave fears for the welfare of Shahzad, who published the first of a two-part investigative series into alleged links between Al-Qaeda and Pakistani naval officials on Asia Times Online on May 26.

“The IFJ is deeply worried for the safety of Syed Saleem Shahzad,” IFJ Asia -Pacific Director Jacqueline Park said.

“We appeal as a matter of urgency for Pakistan ’s Government to do all it can to find Shahzad quickly, and to prove a commitment to reverse Pakistan ’s poor track record in investigating abuses against journalists.”

See Shahzad's website for more information about him.

Regarding the controversy generated by his most recent investigative report for Asia Times Online, which is supposed to be a two-parter (the second part hasn't been published yet), his May 27 report opened with this paragraph

Al-Qaeda carried out the brazen attack on PNS Mehran naval air station in Karachi on May 22 after talks failed between the navy and al-Qaeda over the release of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al-Qaeda links ...

Pakistan's regime had chalked up the attack to the so-called Taliban, and a so-called Taliban group had claimed responsibility for it.

As to how much stock I'm putting in Shahzad's report, I've discussed this kind of question before. He belongs to that category of reporter who specializes in cultivating high-level sources in civilian government/military, many of which are anonymous. (In this case, sources in Pakistan's regime.)

Such sources are a double-edged sword: very useful for gaining inside information but they can also use the reporter as a conduit; i.e., to get into the public domain a point of view among a particular faction in government/military for reasons that are not always clear to the public -- or the reporter. So such reportage is a high-wire act, both for the reporter and the news consumer.

Right now I'm reading Shahzad's report as pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle called 'the present thinking inside Pakistan's military.' But my overriding concern at this time is his safety. Shahzad also cultivated sources among terrorist groups. HRW could have been misled by the informant, or the informant could have been misled. Pea-soup fog.

1) Sultan Hijazi, a TIME reader, asserted in the report's comment section "Wali Khan Babar was killed by his colleague at Geo News; the author should get his facts right." I have not followed the issue and so have no idea whether Hijazi is correct.

OMG Asia Times Pakistan Bureau Chief Saleem Shahzad has gone missing after report he filed alleging ties between al Qaeda and Pakistani navy officials

UPDATE May 31, 1:30 PM EDT
From a 10:00 AM update to May 31 TIME report on Shahzad's disappearance:

Pakistan's main news channels are reporting that Shahzad's dead body has been found. One news channel broadcast what appeared to be a black and white image of Shahzad's face. There were visible signs of torture.

Asia Times Online is also reporting today (June 1 HK time) that police claim to have found Shahzad's body and that it bears marks of torture.
***********
UPDATE
Human Rights Watch source reports that Shahzad is being detained by the ISI. See my May 31 post for the latest details on the story.
**********

May 30, 2011 from Pakistan's Dawn:

ISLAMABAD: Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Pakistan bureau chief of Asia Times Online, went missing Sunday evening, DawnNews reported.

Days before his disappearance, Shahzad had authored an article that alleged links between navy officials and al Qaeda.

Ali Imran, a Coordinator at the South Asia Free Media Association (Safma) in an email stated that Mr Shahbaz had left his house in Islamabad to participate in a television program but that he did not reach the TV station.

He did not contact his family and friends either, Mr Imran said, adding that Mr Shahzad’s mobile phone and car had not been traced yet.

A little more from a journalist for India's The Hindu who is stationed in Islamabad:

A journalist, Syed Saleem Shahzad, has been reported missing from the federal capital since Sunday, leading to speculation of him having been picked up by intelligence agencies for his article suggesting that last week's terrorist attack on the naval airbase, PNS Mehran, was retaliation to the Navy's crackdown on al-Qaeda operatives and sympathisers within the service.

The first of Mr. Shahzad's two-part article appeared on May 27 in the Asia Times Online, of which he is the Pakistan bureau chief. He has been missing since 5 p.m. on Sunday, when he left his home in Islamabad to participate in a programme of the Dunya news channel.

A parallel narrative on Mr. Shahzad's disappearance was he had been picked up by the intelligence agencies on suspicion of writing for the al-Qaeda and would be released by Monday night. Meanwhile, Twitter was abuzz with “Free Saleem Shahzad” messages though there was accompanying scepticism on whether he had been detained by the intelligence agencies.

In the PNS Mehran case, a former naval commando who had been court martialled has been taken into custody along with two others from Lahore as part of ongoing efforts to get to the bottom of the 17-hour-long siege that is widely believed to have been conducted with inside information.

Here is the May 27 report:

AN ASIA TIMES ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Al-Qaeda had warned of Pakistan strike

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

This is the first article in a two-part report.

ISLAMABAD - Al-Qaeda carried out the brazen attack on PNS Mehran naval air station in Karachi on May 22 after talks failed between the navy and al-Qaeda over the release of naval officials arrested on suspicion of al-Qaeda links, an Asia Times Online investigation reveals.

Pakistani security forces battled for 15 hours to clear the naval base after it had been stormed by a handful of well-armed militants.

At least 10 people were killed and two United States-made P3-C

Orion surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft worth US$36 million each were destroyed before some of the attackers escaped through a cordon of thousands of armed forces.

An official statement placed the number of militants at six, with four killed and two escaping. Unofficial sources, though, claim there were 10 militants with six getting free. Asia Times Online contacts confirm that the attackers were from Ilyas Kashmiri's 313 Brigade, the operational arm of al-Qaeda.

Three attacks on navy buses in which at least nine people were killed last month were warning shots for navy officials to accept al-Qaeda's demands over the detained suspects.

The May 2 killing in Pakistan of Osama bin Laden spurred al-Qaeda groups into developing a consensus for the attack in Karachi, in part as revenge for the death of their leader and also to deal a blow to Pakistan's surveillance capacity against the Indian navy.

The deeper underlying motive, though, was a reaction to massive internal crackdowns on al-Qaeda affiliates within the navy.

Volcano of militancy

Several weeks ago, naval intelligence traced an al-Qaeda cell operating inside several navy bases in Karachi, the country's largest city and key port.

"Islamic sentiments are common in the armed forces," a senior navy official told Asia Times Online on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

"We never felt threatened by that. All armed forces around the world, whether American, British or Indian, take some inspiration from religion to motivate their cadre against the enemy. Pakistan came into existence on the two-nation theory that Hindus and Muslims are two separate nations and therefore no one can separate Islam and Islamic sentiment from the armed forces of Pakistan," the official said.

"Nonetheless, we observed an uneasy grouping on different naval bases in Karachi. While nobody can obstruct armed forces personnel for rendering religious rituals or studying Islam, the grouping [we observed] was against the discipline of the armed forces. That was the beginning of an intelligence operation in the navy to check for unscrupulous activities."

The official explained the grouping was against the leadership of the armed forces and opposed to its nexus with the United States against Islamic militancy. When some messages were intercepted hinting at attacks on visiting American officials, intelligence had good reason to take action and after careful evaluation at least 10 people - mostly from the lower cadre - were arrested in a series of operations.

"That was the beginning of huge trouble," the official said.

Those arrested were held in a naval intelligence office behind the chief minister's residence in Karachi, but before proper interrogation could begin, the in-charge of the investigation received direct threats from militants who made it clear they knew where the men were being detained.

The detainees were promptly moved to a safer location, but the threats continued. Officials involved in the case believe the militants feared interrogation would lead to the arrest of more of their loyalists in the navy. The militants therefore made it clear that if those detained were not released, naval installations would be attacked.

It was clear the militants were receiving good inside information as they always knew where the suspects were being detained, indicating sizeable al-Qaeda infiltration within the navy's ranks. A senior-level naval conference was called at which an intelligence official insisted that the matter be handled with great care, otherwise the consequences could be disastrous. Everybody present agreed, and it was decided to open a line of communication with al-Qaeda.

Abdul Samad Mansoori, a former student union activist and now part of 313 brigade, who originally hailed from Karachi but now lives in the North Waziristan tribal area was approached and talks begun. Al-Qaeda demanded the immediate release of the officials without further interrogation. This was rejected.

The detainees were allowed to speak to their families and were well treated, but officials were desperate to interrogate them fully to get an idea of the strength of al-Qaeda's penetration. The militants were told that once interrogation was completed, the men would be discharged from the service and freed.

Al-Qaeda rejected these terms and expressed its displeasure with the attacks on the navy buses in April.

These incidents pointed to more than the one al-Qaeda cell intelligence had tracked in the navy. The fear now was that if the problem was not addressed, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supply lines could face a new threat. NATO convoys are routinely attacked once they begin the journey from Karachi to Afghanistan; now they could be at risk in Karachi port. Americans who often visit naval facilities in the city would also be in danger.

Therefore, another crackdown was conducted and more people were arrested. Those seized had different ethnic backgrounds. One naval commando came from South Waziristan's Mehsud tribe and was believed to have received direct instructions from Hakeemullah Mehsud, the chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban). Others were from Punjab province and Karachi, the capital of Sindh province.

After Bin Laden was killed by American Navy Seals in Abbottabad, 60 kilometers north of Islamabad, militants decided the time was ripe for major action.

Within a week, insiders at PNS Mehran provided maps, pictures of different exit and entry routes taken in daylight and at night, the location of hangers and details of likely reaction from external security forces.

As a result, the militants were able to enter the heavily guarded facility where one group targeted the aircraft, a second group took on the first strike force and a third finally escaped with the others providing covering fire. Those who stayed behind were killed.

Next: Recruitment and training of militants

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of Inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11 published by Pluto Press, UK. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Will a Pakistani military operation in N. Waziristan amount to more than a hill of beans?

The Reuters report I linked to in the last hour suggests that an unconfirmed report earlier today from Pakistan's The News of a planned Pakistani military offensive in North Waziristan is in substance correct. Long War Journal has also linked to The News report but with clear-eyed cautions from Bill Roggio.

I take all Bill's warnings to heart and understand that given the history, irrational exuberance is unwarranted but things might be different this time around. For now I'm going to be a little mysterious about why I think this might be the case -- we don't even have official confirmation yet that the offensive is planned. However, one might be able to read my reason between the lines of my recent warning to Pakistan's government that it shouldn't assume Beijing is going to back to the hilt what is perceived by the international community as a terror-sponsoring regime.

(For more on Beijing's trials playing the role of Islamabad's BFF, see Peter Lee's May 27 analysis, China Drops the Gwadar Hot Potato for Asia Times Online.)

And I note that the Pakistani military had no choice but to "telegraph," as Bill called it, the planned offensive -- particularly if this turns out to be a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation -- if it didn't want every international humanitarian agency working in Pakistan's Northwest to try and haul them into the International Criminal Court for war crimes against civilians. This is warfare in the 21st Century, folks, at least as it's conducted by governments that want to stay on the good side of the 'international community.' Remember the humanitarian disaster in Swat because of all the DPs from the Pakistani military operation there.

Also reference the first paragraph of the Reuters report:

Humanitarian agencies active in Pakistan's northwest have been quietly told to prepare for up to 365,000 displaced people in advance of a military offensive against North Waziristan, a senior official with an international humanitarian agency said Monday.

And the international community aside, the last thing the Pakistani military needs is to get non-combatants in Northwest Pakistan even angrier at them than they already are.

If the operation is well-planned and coordinated, "telegraphing" shouldn't limit its success and could even help it, just because the warning of an impending offensive will flush many terrorists out of hiding as they flee N. Waziristan.

With all that out of the way, here are Bill's points:

[...] If the Pakistani military is indeed planning an operation in North Waziristan (and again, we've all heard this one before), it will be, according to The News, extremely limited in scope. Here are some things to keep in mind, at least based on the report:

1. The primary target is the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. This does not include Taliban groups such as the Haqqani Network and Bahadar's Taliban faction. This would be similar to the limited operation in South Waziristan in the fall of 2009, when the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan was targeted but Mullah Nazir's forces were left intact (Nazir, who recently affirmed he is an al Qaeda commander, openly controls half of South Waziristan to this day, and continues to shelter al Qaeda and other terror groups).

2. The location appears to be limited to Mir Ali, one of two main towns in North Waziristan. Abu Kasha (or Abu Akash) al Iraqi, an al Qaeda commander and vital link to the Taliban, is based in Mir Ali.

3. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan is known to operate three major suicide training camps in the Mir Ali area.

4. Mir Ali is one of three major hubs for terror groups, the two others being Miramshah and Datta Khel. Al Qaeda and terror groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are also based in Mir Ali.

5. The military is telegraphing this operation, giving the top leadership of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, al Qaeda, the IMU, and other groups ample time to flee. The report notes that the operation will begin with airstrikes. The same thing happened in South Waziristan in the fall of 2009; the blockade and airstrikes gave the top leaders time to leave, and a rearguard was left behind to attempt to blunt the Pakistani military assault. No senior Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan leaders were killed during the South Waziristan operation.

6. As noted above, the Haqqani Network and Bahadar's Taliban faction, both of which are viewed by Pakistan's military and intelligence services as "good Taliban," will be spared, despite the fact that these two groups have violated a two-year-old peace agreement with the military that prohibited them from hosting the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, al Qaeda, and other allied terror groups. The Haqqanis and Bahadar's Taliban faction have violated this agreement from the very beginning, but the Pakistani state has refused to hold the groups accountable.

One other point: Remember when the Pakistani military made the false claim it was conducting a "surgical" operation in North Waziristan? This claim was even repeated by top US commanders. So is the Pakistani military now admitting that the previous "operation" failed, or are Pakistani officials admitting it never occurred in the first place? Don't expect anyone else to ask that question.

Reuters: Aid agencies in Pakistan's NW told to prepare for Pak military offensive in North Waziristan

May 30, 2011; 11:02 AM EDT:

Reporter: Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Humanitarian agencies active in Pakistan's northwest have been quietly told to prepare for up to 365,000 displaced people in advance of a military offensive against North Waziristan, a senior official with an international humanitarian agency said Monday.

The official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, was responding to a media report in a local newspaper that Pakistan will launch a military offensive against al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in the Afghan border regions.


"Humanitarian agencies operating in FATA and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were given the heads up two weeks ago by the authorities of a possible displacement of up to 50,000 families," he said, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the northwest province.

A similar tip-off in 2009 preceded a military offensive in neighboring South Waziristan by about five months, he said.

Other aid agencies were not immediately available for comment.

The report In Pakistan's the News newspaper comes just days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated a U.S. demand to tackle sanctuaries for al Qaeda and the Taliban on the Afghan border.

An understanding for an offensive in North Waziristan, the main sanctuary in Pakistan for militants fighting in Afghanistan, was reached when Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen visited Pakistan last week, the News reported.

The United States has long demanded that Pakistan attack the region to eliminate the Haqqani network, one of the deadliest Afghan militant factions fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been reluctant to do so, but it has come under more pressure and its performance in fighting militancy is under scrutiny again after it was discovered that Osama bin Laden had been living in the country.

The News quoted unidentified "highly placed sources" as saying Pakistan's air force would soften up militant targets under the "targeted military offensive" before ground operations were launched.

The newspaper cited the sources as saying that a strategy for action in North Waziristan had been drawn up some time ago and an "understanding for carrying out the operation was developed" during the Clinton visit.

The target of any North Waziristan operation would be the most violent factions of the Pakistani Taliban, which has strong ties to al Qaeda, the report said.

But the United States would almost certainly push for a move against Haqqani, too.

Pakistani officials were not immediately available for comment. A U.S. embassy official had no immediate comment.

The newspaper said a "joint operation" with allies had been discussed but no decision had been taken because of sensitivities.

"In case the two sides agreed to go for a joint action, it would be the first time in the present war (on militancy) that foreign boots will get a chance to be on Pakistani soil with the consent of the host country."

That could be highly risky for Pakistan's generals.

SENSITIVITIES OF U.S.-PAKISTAN COOPERATION

The military, long regarded as the most effective institution in a country with a history of corrupt, inept civilian governments, suffered a major blow to its image when U.S. special forces killed bin Laden deep inside Pakistan.

It was further humiliated on May 22-23 when a group of between four and six militants besieged a naval base for 16 hours and destroyed two P-3C Orion aircraft from the Unites States, crucial for Pakistan's maritime surveillance capabilities.

The assault raised fresh doubts about the military's ability to protect its bases after a similar raid on the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi in 2009.


Pakistani security officials detained a former navy commando and his brother Friday in connection with the attack, intelligence officials and relatives said.

Some analysts say any joint U.S.-Pakistani operation would subject the army to even more public criticism in a country where anti-U.S. feeling runs deep.

"The reaction could be even more vociferous, just because everybody is so suspicious -- as well as dismissive -- of American interference," said Imtiaz Gul, author of "The Most Dangerous Place," a book about Pakistan's militant strongholds.

"People already feel so humiliated because of this Osama bin Laden thing and now they will have another reason to react."

But the South Asian nation, dependent on billions of dollars in U.S. aid, is under more pressure than ever to show it is serious about tackling militancy.

Attacking U.S. enemies in North Waziristan may be one way of repairing ties with Washington which were badly damaged by the bin Laden affair.

Pakistan maintains about 140,000 troops in the northwest, including about 34,000 in North Waziristan, but says they are too stretched fighting Pakistani Taliban insurgents in other parts of the region to tackle North Waziristan.

Aside from strategic concerns, an attack on the Haqqani network could further threaten Pakistan's security as it faces a new wave of attacks by the Pakistani Taliban to avenge the killing of bin Laden by U.S. special forces on May 2.

Highlighting the dangers in North Waziristan, a blast at a restaurant in its main town Miranshah wounded 12 people on Monday, government officials and residents said.

(Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton, Rebecca Conway, Haji Mujtaba and Augustine Anthony; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Chris Allbritton and Sanjeev Miglani)

Unconfirmed report: Pakistani military to launch offensive in North Waziristan

UPDATE 11:45 EDT
Unofficial confirmation of sorts. See this Reuters report filed 11:02 EDT today.
----

Because the report is unconfirmed I have no comment at this time beyond noting that Reuters picked up on the same report and is trying to get confirmation. "A U.S. embassy official said he was checking into the report. Pakistani officials were not immediately available for comment."

From the Pakistani online newspaper The News

Pakistan to launch operation in North Waziristan
Muhammad Saleh Zaafir
May 30, 2011
Updated 45 minutes ago

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has decided to commence a careful and meticulous military offensive in North Waziristan Agency (NWA), the tribal area adjacent to Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, where military operation was not earlier conducted.

Pakistan has never refused to undertake the operation but had been insisting that it would first consolidate its position in other parts of the tribal areas where it has carried out military action and achieved tremendous successes.

The government on Friday opened the Razmak military college after its closure for two years and removed all the barricades in the area. It was an indication that things had eased up in the most volatile area in the tribal region. The decision pertaining to the mode of action and its scale has been left with the command of the armed forces. Interestingly, Nato leaders, especially Washington, had been insisting since long to initiate the operation in the tribal areas adjacent to the Taliban stronghold of Khost province.

The understanding for carrying out the operation was developed during the recently-concluded visit of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. Pakistan has always maintained that any such operation would be at its own time of choosing. It argues that its 140,000 troops committed to the northwest are too stretched fighting militants who pose a domestic threat.

Highly-placed sources told that the strategy drawn up for action in North Waziristan had been worked out long ago and accordingly the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) will be put in operation in first place. It will be softening the targets already determined and pointed out by the intelligence network and that would be followed by the ground action. A joint operation with the allies has also been discussed but no decision has yet been made for it since it involves numerous sensitivities. In case the two sides agreed to go for a joint action, it would be for the first time in the present war that foreign boots will get a chance to be on Pakistan’s soil with the consent of the host country. It will be done after a careful assessment of the situation and deliberations by the armed forces’ command in Pakistan.

The sources reminded that the armed forces are already present in North Waziristan. The target of such an operation in North Waziristan would be the most violent factions within the so-called Pakistani Taliban. Their leader, Hakimullah Mahsud, is believed to be increasingly isolated after executing a prominent former Pakistani official over the objections of senior militant leaders.

Although, Hakimullah Mahsud has been linked to attacks in tribal areas and Afghanistan, his main focus appears to be in plotting carnage elsewhere in Pakistan. And that makes him a prime target for the Army. Washington has long urged the Pakistanis to launch an operation in North Waziristan, a region overrun by an assortment of militant groups, including al-Qaeda. Most US drone strikes in Pakistan take place in North Waziristan.

The sources pointed out that more than 30,000 soldiers are already present in North Waziristan, and some analysts say the Pakistan Army could quickly redeploy to the area. The Army has 140,000 soldiers in the tribal region that borders Afghanistan.

The fissures among the militants were laid bare in February, when Mahsud released a gruesome video that confirmed the killing of former Pakistani Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar. Mahsud’s group had held Imam for 10 months. The killing confounded Pakistani military officials. The divisions that Imam’s death revealed among the militant groups could provide an opportunity for the Army to hit hard at insurgents in the North Waziristan town of Mir Ali, where Mahsud set up bases after fleeing last year’s military assault on his headquarters in neighbouring South Waziristan. Mir Ali is about 32 kilometres from the town of Miramshah, where the Haqqanis are based.

In recent years, the United States has identified Mir Ali as the site of a reconstituted al-Qaeda. Also on the run in Mir Ali is Ilyas Kashmiri, a confidante of Mahsud’s. The United States this month put a $5 million bounty on Kashmiri’s head.

Incidentally, DG ISPR and spokesperson for the PAF were not available to offer comment on the development. The sources said that the PAF has put in place all precautionary measures to thwart any retaliatory action from North Waziristani elements. The PAF has already started reducing unnecessary non-operational staff at its bases considered possible target of retaliatory attacks by the militants, the sources said.

The sources, on the other hand, had insisted that Pakistani leadership, civilian and military, had in unison given the undertaking to operate against the militants in North Waziristan in barter for the clean chit Clinton had granted to them in Osama bin Laden’s case.

It is also pertinent to note here that American drones have been focusing at targets in North Waziristan during past many months despite protests registered by Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. According to sources, the civilian as well as military leadership believes that surgical strikes in North Waziristan would possibly minimise the drone attacks that fuel anti-American sentiments across the country.