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Pak acts on US carrot and stick policy.
By Chidanand Rajghatta Times of India.
Word from the White House that Washington’s multi-billion dollar largesse to Islamabad is ''directly related to military security and the ability to confront extremists'' had an immediate salutary effect on Friday with Pakistan announcing its willingness to take on Taliban and the extremists mysteriously withdrawing from Buner district north of Islamabad. ( Watch )
(According to other sources, HERE the Swat Taliban haven't really left Buner, and what we have here is a sly game by the Pakistani military to hold out until the pressure from Washington recedes....."we are going to do this, that, and the other against the Swat Taliban"..................the Swat Taliban are "Control Opposition" proxies of the Pakistani military, so they are treating the American administration as naive suckers)
The anger and agitation in Washington over Pakistan’s abject and inexplicable ''capitulation'' to Talibanist forces rippled through cables, phone calls, memos, briefings, and hearings on Wednesday and Thursday. But the most authoritative word on the subject came from White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who said the matter was deemed so serious that President Obama was personally involved in taking stock of the situation.
(The Swat Taliban are "Controlled Opposition" proxies of the Pakistani military, just like so many other armed Islamic groups based in Pakistan operating against Afghanistan, India, and against the nation of Pakistan itself, TTP.
Many of the rank and file of these groups are often filled with ex-military, AND the reason why a lot of the Swat Taliban hide their faces with masks.....
........All this started since 1947 when ex-military Pakistani nationals from the Punjab and Mehsudi Frontier tribals were used to attack Kashmir and make it part of Pakistan at the point of a gun under "Operation Gulmarg", and in the 1965 war under "Operation Gibralter" where again armed infiltrators were used support the Pakistani military's operations in that war. Then you had "Operation Searchlight" where the Pakistani military in East Pakistan used Razakers and al-Badr Islamic proxies as annex's of Pakistani military operations in the 1971 war. But in terms of sheer volume and time span with significant lingering after effects well past the time the operation was wound down in the late 1980's, "Operation Cyclone" 1979 onwards is the biggest of them all in terms of money spent, lives lost, and the political consequences of it afterwards........and finally "Operation Stop Nawaz Sharif Kargil"
The Pakistani military, more than any other military in the world, save the USA, have been obsessed and indoctrinated with the use of proxy irregular armed forces as an extension of Pakistani military operations. Such policy is strategically feasible possibly, and justified ONLY if in addition you have a first class conventional military to back up such irregular operations.....................The Pakistani military I am afraid is not first class, it is a post colonial shoddy Third class.
The current Swat Taliban operation by the Pakistan military is called "Operation reclaim power")
''The news over the past several days is very disturbing. You know that this President has called attention to the deterioration in this region for quite some time. We're extremely concerned about the situation and it's something that takes a lot of the President's time,'' Gibbs said at a White House briefing, endorsing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s ''candid'' remarks on the subject.
''That's why you've seen this administration propose increases in investments directly related to military security and the ability to confront extremists,'' he added pointedly, linking aid to action. Hours later, Pakistan got cracking.
(Giving more money to the Pakistan military is a waste of time, if we go by the experience of the last 55 years and how consistently the Pakistani military subsequently use that aid....against India; no good merely hoping otherwise)
The remarks were preceded by frantic action in Washington where there was palpable alarm over the prospect of Pakistan going under the extremist onslaught. President Obama convened a White House meeting on the subject with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the administration's Af-Pak special representative in attendance. The president also brought the subject up in a separate session with congressional leaders.
Holbrooke meanwhile spoke by telephone to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi to convey Washington's message, while cabinet principals Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates made strong public remarks urging Pakistan to recognize the danger and take appropriate action.
The message — that Pakistan risked losing credibility and U.S aid if it did not stand up to the Taliban — reached home immediately. In Islamabad, the government announced that a military operation against militants in Swat would begin within 48 hours.
Meanwhile, Army chief Pervez Ashraf Kiyani said the army ‘pause’ was aimed at giving reconciliation a chance and the militants must not take it as a concession. The army, he said, ''will not allow the militants to dictate terms to the government or impose their way of life on the civil society of Pakistan'' — a statement clearly aimed at contesting Hillary CLinton's charge that the Pakistani establishment was abdicating responsibility.
Soon after, a Taliban spokesman said militants had begun withdrawing from neighboring Buner district, whose occupation only 60 miles from Islamabad had caused panic stations in Washington. The scuttlebutt in the analysts’ community is that the Talibanists’ were withdrawing on the advice of the Pakistani military, whose proxies they are widely reported to be. Among regional experts, no discussion on the Pakistan army and its intelligence agency ISI is complete without mention of their historical ties with extremists.(See above)
There is been considerable speculation as to why the Pakistani military had ceded so much space to them and allowed them to come so dangerously close to the capital. One frequent explanation is that it is a deliberate ploy to alarm Washington into quickly loosening its purse-strings, and turn the heat on India to resume dialogue and make concessions.
(Or simply to reclaim power in Islamabad...."The Zardari government is ineffective, we the Pakistan military need to save the country again")
The tactic may have worked to some extent. Amid the flurry of crisis meetings, Special Representative Holbrooke and Deputy Secretary of State for Management and resources Jack Lew also met lawmakers to push forward with legislation that will allow the administration to funnel billions in civilian and military assistance to Pakistan, ostensibly to combat the extremists.
(The $7.6 billion IMF loan, the $7.5 billion USA economic aid, the $ 3 billion military aid, and the $5.28 billion international aid package will not save Pakistan from the corrupt Zardari administration or the worthless anti-state Pakistan military.......Vietnam 1963-75)
The India part may have to wait a little longer. At a Congressional hearing on Friday, Clinton told lawmakers that confidence building measures between New Delhi and Islamabad and Pakistan will not happen ''until the Indian elections are over'' and a new government is in place. There have already been a number of high-level discussions, she said, including between the U.S president and the Indian prime minister, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, in London, ''raising the issue of how India can do more to tamp down any reaction, on any front, like Mumbai could have provoked.''
''We worked very hard, as did the prior administration, to prevent India from reacting. But we know that the insurgents and al Qaeda and their syndicate partners are pretty smart. They are not going to cease their attacks, inside India, because they are looking for exactly the kind of reaction that we all hope to prevent,'' Clinton said.
''So we do have a lot of work to do, with the Indian government, to make sure that they continue to exercise the kind of restraint they showed after Mumbai, which was remarkable, especially given the fact that it was the political season,'' she added.
