I’m so fascinated by the whole sidestory about US troops doin’ some GWOT Biz inside of Pakistan. As an IR geek, there’s just so much drama when you mix up semi-failed states, egg shell diplomacy, tenuously legitimate state leadership, semi-autonomous regions, nukes, and age-old rivalries…. Stir and you get something like this –
MIRAMSHAH (North Waziristan), July 16: Thousands of emotionally charged tribesmen, raising anti-US slogans, buried on Saturday 24 suspected militants killed inside Pakistan by US forces operating from across the border in Afghanistan.
And, of course, the standard retort / backlash –
…“These 24 people are martyrs and our entire Waziristan region is ready for jihad (holy war),” Maulana Abdur Rehman, a local prayer leader, said at the funeral of two suspects.
Open, combat ops within a non-combatant state. What a world. Stratpage gives us an idea of what this this looks like from the front line –
July 18, 2005: Heavy losses have caused most Taliban fighters to flee into Pakistan, where Pakistani troops are becoming more active in going after them. But the Taliban refuges in Pakistan are still largely intact. Once the Taliban reach their camps, which are usually under the protection of local tribes, they are still safe. But if the Pakistani troops catch the Taliban in transit, it’s another story.
I was in Afganistan during the overthrow of the Taliban. I was with the Indian government at the time and we (Governments of India, Russia and Iran) were supporting the Northern Alliance led by the late general Massod.
India now has FIVE consulates in Afganistan, which is, I think, as much diplomatic representation we have in the US. All the top leadership of the Afganistan did their education in India and most of their families are looked after by the Indian government in Delhi.
We (India) have an air base and hospital on the Afgan-Uzbek border to provide support to the NA forces. We also have build close to a hundred schools and clinics along with aid in the form of wheat, Tata buses, scholarship and telecom infrastructure equipment. We are building highways, power stations and factories.
The point of all this? Afganistan is today one of our strongest allies. We achived all this without a single Indian jawan on Afgan soil.
One wonders why greater diplomatic care is not devoted to communities that are displaced by war and then react subversively. This was a major strategic error in Iraq and it looks like it’s happening again in Afghanistan.
Gujjubhai, it’s all good, you’re Gujarati. Whew, that’s totally different from being, like, on the subcontinent.
What time?
Um, why amnt I jumping for joy??
By ally, do you mean ‘grateful recepient of aid’? In a crunch, you think the puppet regime will side with us against whom? The US? (ha!) Pakistan? (HA!). I guess they wouldnt mind deploying sound bytes if we were to go up against, say, Bhutan. WHat an awesome ROI for all those Tata buses.
Isnt that sad?? Says a lot about India’s competence in diplomacy/international lobbying, eh?
RoI from Allies? Hmmm.. thats a very American way of thinking. Remember the Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar for 7 days? The number of ‘will kill for food’ men trainned and sent to India from there? Our allies are our friends, a concept those in America will eventually understand……. after they have made another Osama/Saddam out of Musharaf.
Our diplomacy is not restricted to those who have oil wealth, we are glad to have Afganistan, Bhutan, Iran, Sudan, Russia, Singapore and several others as our allies.