CIA Used Stealth Drones, Local Informants to Snoop on Bin Laden House

The CIA employed sophisticated new stealth drone aircraft in tandem with a safe house in the neighborhood to spy on the compound where Osama bin Laden was hiding, reports suggest. In particular, these two Washington Post stories are interesting reading:
1. CIA flew stealth drones into Pakistan to monitor bin Laden house
2. CIA spied on bin Laden from safe house - The Washington Post

Propoganda: Major Special Ops Tool?

"The Pentagon's latest project to win hearts and minds in the war on terrorism relies on two large defense contractors and a small start-up firm to craft messages appealing to people across the globe."

USATODAY.com - 3 groups have contracts for pro-U.S. propaganda

The U.S. Strategy Review & Pakistan's Overriding Concern

"Pakistan differentiates between the Afghan Taliban, the TTP and the Pashtuns because the problem is in Pashtun areas but the majority of Pashtuns want an end to the violence. Given the large Pashtun population in Pakistan and across Pakistan’s borders in southern Afghanistan, Pakistan does not want the present situation to turn into or be turned into an anti Pakistan struggle by the Pashtuns at any stage."

Highly insightful forum post from the Pakistani think tank Spearhead Research: The US Strategy Review

Appeasement? No, It's Wisdom

Kudos, Peter Bergen:

"Al-Qaeda and similar groups will, in time, collapse from irrelevance and non-support unless continually given new life by outside events. The war in Iraq was one such event. Guantánamo was another gift. Episodes such as the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy and the threatened burning of Korans by a church in Florida receive front-page treatment in the Muslim world—and are profoundly counterproductive. Raising the temperature only delays the day of reckoning; indeed, the temperature should be lowered as much as possible. This means pressing as best we can in an evenhanded way for a settlement of the conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians and between India and Pakistan—both of which inflame Muslim passions. We should also uphold American values about human rights and the rule of law. Some will loudly brand any effort to lower the temperature as “appeasement.” It is not. It is wisdom."

Complete article: Bin Laden's Lonely Crusade | Politics | Vanity Fair

The Alliance on Mi-17 Shopping Spree

The news of Canadian military in Afghanistan having leased some Russian Mi-17 helicopters is the latest to surface in a string of similar development. Says Ricks:

"My guess is that because both the Afghan and Pakistani militaries use the Mi-17, this makes it more convenient to fly NATO forces across the border and into the FATA as necessary, with lots of plausible deniability, especially if they are flown at night and no one gets around to painting a lot of markings on the aircraft. That would explain why, as the Canadian report puts it, 'details were kept off the MERX web-site, which formally lists government procurement competitions, and no news release was issued about the new choppers, which have been in use since the spring.'"

Report: Canadian military leasing Russian Mi-17 helos in Afghanistan - By Tom Ricks | The Best Defense:

Is the World Starting to Understand alQaeda?

At long last, the world starts to understand alQaeda:

"[Today's alQaeda is] a global, fluid, and adaptive amoeba: a kind of collectively self-aware organism, one that closely monitors what Western experts are saying about it -- and plots ways to turn those ideas against the United States."

Will this flash of comprehension go mainstream, or is it destined for oblivion? Only time will tell. Complete article: Watching the Watchers - By Jarret Brachman | Foreign Policy

Al-Adel Spearheading bin Laden's War on West?

"[I]n April this year, [Saif al-Adel] was released from Iranian custody along with Saad bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's son, and top al-Qaeda operatives Suleiman al-Gaith and Mahfouz al-Walid.

"Iran swapped the terrorists for Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, a Pakistan-based diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda last year.

"Little is known about the shadowy al-Adel, who is also known by the names Muhammad al-Makkawi and Ibrahim al-Madani. Born in Egypt, al-Adel is said to have served as a colonel in its Special Forces. He was, however, arrested in 1987 along with several jihadists.

"Egyptian prosecutors claimed that al-Adel's plans included crashing an aircraft into the Egypt's parliament, or driving a bomb-laden truck into the building – both tactics al-Qaeda later used to devastating effect."

Osama bin Laden appoints new commander to spearhead war on West - Telegraph.

Ahmed Rashid's Take on the Complex Regional Dynamics

"If Obama's generals have their way -- and in an eerie parallel of the way things work in Islamabad, they are increasingly calling the shots in the relationship -- the war in Afghanistan could drag on indefinitely. Pakistan will dig in its heels, as will other regional powers. Taliban attacks will multiply, and the U.S. military and the CIA will escalate their actions along (and maybe even across) the Pakistani border. We are at the cusp of either a broader peace in the region or an ever-widening chaos. It's Obama's choice."

The Road to Kabul Runs Through Kashmir - By Ahmed Rashid | Foreign Policy

Outrage Over Pakistan’s Apparent Lack of Strategy

Finally, some genuine outrage over the steady terror strikes that have been bleeding Pakistan for years now - and the unmistakable callousness of the official response. Thank you, Musharraf Zaidi.

"Three years since the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) launched this war into a different, much bloodier dimension, the official response to this mayhem seems only to show Pakistan still has no counter-terrorism strategy. As always, the only certainties in the aftermath of terror in Pakistan were two things. First, Pakistani leaders would fall over themselves to repeat platitudes about terrorism in Pakistan and how very strongly they condemn this kind of thing. Second, this will all happen again, very soon.

"How strongly did the terrorist attack in Darra Adam Khel register within the Pakistani discourse? The customary thing in Pakistan after a terrorist attack is a casual, 'oh-no-not-again.' It's casual because you simply cannot expend all your energy lamenting one terrorist attack, when you know there is another just around the corner. We have to conserve our outrage and our routine condemnations for these events, because, let's face it, there will never be a Pakistani 9/11. We've never built anything quite so magnificent and meaningful as the World Trade Center, or the Pentagon. So we stutter and stumble. From one kind of 9/11 to the next."

The piece, 'All calculus, no answers', contributed to the AfPak Channel is as readable as it is thought-provoking.

PakNatSec shares Zaidi's consternation over the fact that almost a decade into the war on terror and three years since the TTP's open declaration of war on Pakistan, the 'front-line state' is blundering about without any visible counter-terrorism strategy. In fact, the analysis of the 'pattern of attack' is itself missing - unless you take for analysis the wild conspiracy theories doing the rounds of the Internet and the Urdu press.

Consider, for instance, the November 5 attacks targeting two mosques in the northwest. Where is the analysis involving questions like how - if at all - are the two attacks linked together; how do they fit into the overall pattern (or patterns?) - if any - of terror hits; what can we learn from the pattern(s) about the perpetrators, their capacity, their strategy, their aims; and so forth? Or - if any or all of these questions are misplaced - analysis leading us to the right questions to ask?

Any eventual strategy to combat terrorism must be preceded by and based on sound, in-depth, exhaustive, sustained analysis; and much if not all of that analysis must come from, blend into, an filter through to public discourse. For, Pakistan's success in the war on terror will take not just all sorts of Pakistanis - it will take every last one of us.

Yes, Pashtunistan Does Have U.S. Takers - and They're Pentagon

'The Best Defense' is the Foreign Policy Magazine's national security blog. The author, Thomas E. Ricks, is a much-decorated defense reporter and author. In this blog post dated November 3, 2010, he gives us a long quote 'from a friend who can't be identified, but who is in a position to understand this'. To quote from the quote:

"Pakistan is an artificial construct whose legitimacy as an independent nation-state is increasingly called into question -- not only by some in the international community, but by increasing numbers of their own population. The largest Muslim nation in the subcontinent is not Pakistan, but India. Muslims live well -- indeed, on average, better -- in India than in Pakistan. This is not lost on the Pakistanis. Prognostications for India over the coming fifty years are pretty rosy from an economic perspective. That can hardly be said for Pakistan -- whose Punjabi elites control but a mere sliver of land between India and the FATA region to the north and west -- largely peopled by the Pashtuns. Further to the west are the Baluchis -- no friend of the Punjabis either and eager to go their own way.

"Given all of this, what if the U.S. finally decided to take into account the strategic culture of the region and decided to go over the heads of both the Pakistani and Afghan governments and make the following offer. The Durand Line is no more. We support the existence of a free and independent Pashtunistan and Baluchistan. Moreover, we could invite India to assist in this with Muslim Indian troops. It worked in Bangladesh. Why not here"

What is the significance of this? Chiefly this:

1. PakNatSec has been picking up for a while signs of a 'Pashtunistan Plan' brewing somewhere. This post by Tom Ricks makes it clear beyond an iota of doubt that someone somewhere is contemplating the bogeyman of Pashtunistan to push Pakistan to the wall;
2. For reasons that may not be elaborated here and now, PakNatSec is inclined to think this friend of Tom Ricks, 'who can't be identified, but who is in a position to understand [Counter Terrorism & Counter Insurgency]', is somebody fairly high in the U.S. military hierarchy. The 'Pashtunistan Plan', therefore, is a brainchild not of the U.S. political leadership or the CIA but of Pentagon; and
3. When the earlier pointers are re-evaluated in light of this revelation, is looks very likely that the plan is already in motion - and that securing White House approval is the next item on the Pentagon agenda.

The Ricks' post is here: What Joe Biden doesn't get: Why CT alone isn't the answer in Afghanistan.

Who Needs Pakistan’s National Security?

Given that the collective security of the world is a direct measure of the security of individual nations, every nation of the world has an interest in the national security of every other.

Allowing for varying stakes in global security for various nations commensurate to their commercial and economic interests, we inevitably reach the conclusion that the United States’ stake in global security – and by extension in any nation’s security – is the largest. The United States, therefore, has the largest interest in Pakistan’s national security.

Taking geographical proximity and cultural affinity into account, India and Afghanistan emerge as the greatest well-wishers of Pakistan. On the whole, however, every nation of the world needs Pakistan’s national security.

The Frenemy of My Frenemy is My Frenemy?

Ever since their landing in Afghanistan, our allies have badgered Pakistan to make no distinction between Pakistani and Afghan Taliban; and they have made every possible distinction between the two loosely affiliated groups - to the extent of pressing us hard and consistently to attack the Afghan Taliban at the expense of our own struggle with the domestic baddies in Swat, South Waziristan, Orakzai, and everywhere else.

More recently, their strategy in Afghanistan has apparently shifted. The Karzai government, they insist, is holding talks with them, purportedly with a view to reaching agreement over a future political dispensation. The Pentagon approves and the State Department appreciates this moment of truth. 

Happy ending, right? All parties embracing one another in an inclusive peace for the cameras, and all the accompanying nonsensical political oratory before the Afghan factions return to another round of mutual bloodletting? Wrong.

Our allies' obsession with Pakistan zapping the Afghan Taliban shows no signs of wearing away; they would (still) have Islamabad search and destroy the Afghan Taliban, although they highly appreciate the Karzai-led Kabul befriending them. 

Heck, this is getting far too disconcerting; what was that strategic saw again? The frenemy of my frenemy is my frenemy?

Michael D. Furlong: Overzealous Patriot or Fall Guy?

So was Michael D. Furlong, senior Pentagon official who set up a network of private contractors to spy in Afghanistan and Pakistan beginning last year, an overzealous patriot who overstepped the line - or is he being scapegoated to save more consequential personages or corporations? Only time will tell.

A Pentagon inquiry into the matter prompted by a March expose by NYT says he acted without authorization; he 'deliberately misled' senior generals; and that further investigation of his actions is warranted.

Says the new NYT report: "[W]hen Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the top commander in the region, signed off on Mr. Furlong’s operation in January 2009, there were specific prohibitions against intelligence-gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan."

Also, "Mr. Furlong’s network, composed of a group of small companies that used agents deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan to collect intelligence on militant groups, operated under a $22 million contract run by Lockheed Martin."

The NYTimes.com report is here: Inquiry Finds U.S. Official Set Up Spy Ring in Asia

Media Hawks Are the Best of 'Em All

Hawks inside the American media, think tanks, and policy circles have long advocated an openly hostile approach to Pakistan. Of late, this hawkish mindset is becoming more rampant by the hour. The NewsWeek article "Tortured Ties: Is Pakistan a U.S. Ally or Not?" is a must-read for Pakistani strategists. Says the piece, jointly authored by Nisid Hajari and Ron Moreau:

"According to a source involved in the discussions, administration officials have reluctantly begun to consider options for stepping up the campaign against the Haqqanis. These include sending U.S. Special Operations Forces across the border, and even launching a full-scale bombing campaign."

...and:

"[W]e have to pursue our interests as ruthlessly as we can, regardless of whether they damage Pakistan’s interests or its ego."

U.S. Preparing the Pakhtun Card?

Here is a rambling piece of propaganda masquerading as journalism without any solid premise or substance - but what would you expect of Radio Free Europe - a media outlet funded for a long time by the CIA and then the State Department?

The piece starts off with "Pashtuns straddling the Pakistani-Afghan border", but quickly deserts the Afghan Pashtuns and degenerates into Pakistan bashing. Interestingly, it does not criticize the U.S.-backed "negotiations between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban" - but roundly mauls Pakistan's push for "a greater voice for Afghanistan's Pashtuns".

All in all, the intent of the piece is totally in line with the U.S. policy priority of putting pressure on Pakistan for the real or perceived ills of the country's policies towards Afghanistan - and the strategy of stacking the Pashtuns against the government.

The article concludes:

"Now everyone is discussing reports of peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Afghan Taliban. Much to the bewilderment of Pakistan's Pashtuns, the government in Pakistan has been urging a greater voice for Afghanistan's Pashtuns vis-a-vis the country's ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks. And Pakistan's Pashtuns watch, wait, and wonder what will become of them if the Taliban returns to power in Kabul."

If one may ask, how will a greater voice for the Afghan Pashtuns in the affairs of that country hurt Pakistani Pashtuns? Why is the U.S.-backed Afghan initiative to include Pashtuns good, but Pakistan's long-standing support for that cause bad?

Washington Seeks CIA Paramilitary Presence in Pakistan

Reported American security presence in Pakistan includes a private spy network deployed by the Pengaton; J-SOC units (supported by contractors like Xe); and a clandestine CIA force made up of Afghan nationals - in addition of course to formal CIA presence. The WSJ now reports our friends in Washington DC are pressing for "Wider CIA Role". What kind of an expansion could they be seeking?

"The current efforts to expand CIA presence are meant to expand intelligence collection and facilitate more aggressive Pakistani-led actions on the ground. Some U.S. officials, however, remain hopeful that Islamabad will allow a greater covert presence that could include CIA paramilitary forces."

CIA vs. ISI: Friendly Sparring or Serious Dueling?

This HuffingtonPost piece includes nothing to warrant the sensational headline: CIA And Pakistan Locked In Aggressive Spy Battles. It could be that the editors deleted the revelations - but forgot to revise the headline? The intro hints at precisely that possibility.

"Publicly, the U.S. credits Pakistan with helping kill and capture many al-Qaida and Taliban leaders. Privately, the relationship is often marked by mistrust and double-dealing as Pakistan runs double agents against the CIA and the agency tries to penetrate Pakistan's closely guarded nuclear program."

Not a word beyond this about the CIA efforts to crack "Pakistan's closely guarded nuclear program"!

After Strategic Haggling, U.S. Agrees to Pay Up Some

"The new aid package, totaling $2 billion, is meant to replace one that expired Oct. 1. It would complement $7.5 billion in aid that the United States has already pledged to Pakistan for civilian projects, some have which have been directed toward helping the nation recover from the damaging floods."

NYT Report: U.S. Offers Pakistan Army $2 Billion Aid Package

A Psy-Op Outed

This McClatchy Newspapers story lays bare the features of a U.S. psychological operation unfolding in the region: "US Officials, Experts: No High-Level Afghan Peace Talks Under Way"

Says the report, carrying joint: byline of Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel:

'...experts said the reports, which appeared in a number of U.S. media outlets, could be part of a U.S. "information strategy" to divide and weaken the Taliban leadership. "This is a psychological operation, plain and simple," said a U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's outreach effort.'

A Concerted Effort to Push Pakistan Army into Politics?

This HuffPost piece may be read as an Indian analyst pushing her country's anti-Pakistan agenda by taking a swipe at Pakistan's army and democracy in one go; however, the context dictates that we see in the light of a concerted effort to push the Pakistan military into politics - which would be catastrophic not just for the military but also for the country.

For the record, Gen. Kayani is known as a thorough professional who has done a great deal to wean the military away from politics. That the Zardari-led civilian government is still in-charge is thanks in no small part to Kayani's rock-solid support for constitutionalism.