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How India-Pak peace can bring stability in Afghanistan

Jul 4, 2010
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This is one of the most pragmatic views I come across solving the Afgan-Pak dilemma... Beneficial to all the countries in the region and can bring stability in the region.


Admiral William J Fallon, a former commander of the United States Central Command and a key player in Afghanistan, tells Business Standard the crucial India can play to bring stability in Afghanistan.

How do you look back at Afghanistan since you resigned nearly three years ago?

It is particularly important to recognise that in the last ten years the US has been in Afghanistan, there has not been a continuum of focus, activity and objectives. There has been an interesting mix of missions, in the business of nation-building, training and helping establish Afghan security forces in counter-terrorism, and as things began to get more and more unsettled, a third mission responsible for counter-insurgency.

Slowly, we began to have cooperation between the Pakistanis, the Afghans and US troops. But if Afghanistan has to become a viable entity, it needs to have a functioning economy.

Unfortunately, it continues to live on donations. In my experience, you have to get off that as soon as you can.
Afghanistan would not do particularly well if there was a large troop infusion, the history isn't good in this regard. Unlike in Iraq, there aren't many big urban areas except Kabul, and the problem is that putting a heavy footprint in terms of security forces has not sat very well with the local population.

On the other hand, we have to work with people to create trust and stability. This is not science, this is an art, and it is art in a dangerous situation. When you have more people, you have more people who can be attacked. It's no surprise that the casualty rates went up.

What role does India play in the Afghan puzzle?

In recent years, even as several insurgent leaders have shifted base to Pakistan, the country has been through a lot of turmoil, which has distracted it from the efforts to fight the Al Qaeda and the Taliban. India can play a much more positive role in this situation than Pakistan, for a number of reasons.

First, the turmoil within Pakistan is exacerbated by a weak government and supposedly democratic institutions. The security threat today, I believe, is not the Pakistan army, however large it is, but the continued insurgent, terrorist activity, where you have different groups with different agendas, but the same connections. They help each other. This is the biggest problem for Pakistan, and it is the biggest threat to India.

To really have a change in Pakistan, you need the Pakistanis to believe that there really is no threat from India, no intention from India to attack Pakistan or the insurgents in Pakistan. And the upshot of the history of massing forces on the border is that it perpetuates a mindset of preparing for war tomorrow, and that is not helpful in the current situation. Second, it is extremely wasteful in resources.

The point is that the threat is from terrorist, insidious activity, small, agile groups who can infiltrate into India. You have to deal with them differently than putting a million men on the border with armour. This is not the easiest thing to accept, not only by populations who have come to accept this over the decades, but by the armies themselves.
Image: Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh with his Pakistani counterpart Yousuf Raza Gilani

What would you suggest, especially in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks?

I would say, try thinning out the army from your border. Some of it has been done of course, but not enough. You need to convey the message that we believe that we have no intention of attacking you across the border, you have to inspire trust in Pakistan.

The problem is, somebody has to take the first step, and as I look at conflicts around the world, there are some typical positions, and the most common is, I know my position and I'm sticking to it, you know yours and you're sticking to it.

People who arrived in a rubber dinghy in Mumbai, well, they're not going to be stopped by forces on the border. You can flip a coin all day long, and say you should go first, but it is the bigger dog, the bigger country, the one that is better resourced, that should go first.

Some years ago, I was invited to Kashmir to take a look at the situation, there was some "de-tensioning," small steps that were welcomed by the people. But that's not enough, I believe you have to do the big things too.

The Indian government believes that the Pakistani army is also mixed up with these terrorists.

Even if this is true, how do you deal with it? Not by half a million men on the border! My experience is that the best way to deal with terrorists and insurgents is through human intelligence and information, by building trust and confidence with the people and exchanging that information in the right way. That would enable you to react in real time.

So how does Afghanistan become a piece of the India-Pakistan puzzle?

As I look at India-Pakistan, there is no comparison in population, size, economic prowess, and military prowess. India has all these advantages. So in any kind of conflict, you're going to be very dominant. So take the first step.

Now how will this be helpful?

This could encourage the Pakistanis to see that they are not in imminent danger of being over-run by the Indian army, so with all the problems that they have within the country why would they need to keep the army on the eastern border? The problems are out there, on the western side on the Afghan border. And by the way, there are going to be people like me reminding them, constantly, hey look guys, the problem is not in the east, but in the west.

The problem is that the Pakistani army is running the show in Pakistan. Indians and Pakistanis are the same people; the cultures are the same. India has to show leadership, take the first step.

If Afghanistan has to be settled down, it cannot have more terrorists, more insurgents, more arms and more money coming through the open border with Pakistan, and nobody is doing anything about it. Everything is related, there is no independent variable here.

The Pakistanis are paranoid about India, as if it is just waiting for the whole thing to collapse the country and take them over. So how do you get rid of this paranoia? Not easy, India has to take small steps, show them it's not interested in a fight.

You get involved in the economics of the region, connecting all the way from India to Central Asia.

But what about today? What about the US, which leans towards Pakistan and doesn't want India to play a role in Afghanistan?

We do and we don't. Personally, I would be delighted if India could play a major, long-term role, but in the near term every increase in your visibility creates more paranoia in Pakistan. The challenge is to help Afghanistan without appearing to be a threat to Pakistan. So my sense is that you should go quietly and slowly, while you try and change the mindset. Get more and more involved in improving infrastructure, building electricity lines and power stations.

But training security forces? No, I don't think so.
 
This is one of the most pragmatic views I come across solving the Afgan-Pak dilemma... Beneficial to all the countries in the region and can bring stability in the region.
The problem with USA and its official is that they speak half truth and half lies like Yudisthara of mahabharat in "Ashwathama mara gaya par nar nahi kunjar (Ashwathama is dead not man but elephant)" incident.Look at the following........


How US glosses over the truth

January 28, 2011 6:23:06 PM

Claude Arpi

In January 2000 Congressman Frank Pallone introduced a House Resolution seeking to designate Pakistan as state sponsor of terrorism. The Resolution listed specific charges against Pakistan and its promotion of cross-border terrorism. The draft was sent to a sub-committee where it died. The State Department marked its copy ‘What a bunch of crap!’

On January 27, 2000, Congressman Frank Pallone introduced Resolution 406 “expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Pakistan should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism” in the US Congress. A few years later when the Department of State released the document, there was a box blackening out the top right of the page.

Perhaps out of curiosity, Ms Barbara Elias, the Director for the Afghanistan, Pakistan, Taliban Documentation Project at the National Security Archive of the George Washington University, filed an appeal with the Department of State’s Appeals Review Panel. She asked what American diplomacy had to hide. Two years later, Ms Elias finally won her appeal. To her surprise, she found the words: “What a bunch of crap!”

Ms Elias commented in her blog at the National Security Archives: “I had a hearty chuckle, finding it quite funny that a person employed by the Department of State (I don’t know who) would write ‘bunch of crap!!’ on a copy of a House resolution, and that the Department of State had tried so hard to prevent the public from knowing it had ever happened.”

Well, the episode is telling of the US State Department’s attitude towards Pakistan and terrorism.

Nineteen months before 9/11, the Resolution tabled by Democrat Pallone and one of his Republican colleagues was quite visionary. It is worth quoting some of their points:

Whereas reliable reports from Western media sources have cited Pakistan as a base and training ground for terrorist groups, and the Pakistani Government’s demonstrated reluctance to halt the use of its soil for terrorist organisations;

Whereas media reports have implicated Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directly in terrorist activities, as well as the international drug trade;

Whereas a large number of terrorist organisations, such as the Harkat-ul-Ansar (later re-named Harkat-ul-Mujahideen), Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, Hizbul Mujahideen, Hizbe Wahdat, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Sipah-e-Mohammad Pakistan, and Al Badr are based and receive support from Pakistan;

Whereas Pakistan has hindered US and international efforts to apprehend Osama bin Laden;

Whereas in November 1979, according to the US Department of State, the Government of Pakistan allowed for the US Embassy and the American Cultural Center in Pakistan to be destroyed by fire, which led to the death of two Americans;

Whereas Pakistan has acknowledged its ‘political and moral’ support of the separatist movement in Kashmir...

This is what someone in the US State Department called “crap”!

The conclusion of the Pallone Resolution, which was eventually referred to a sub-committee of the House where it was ‘politically killed’, was that “given the shared threat that the US and other countries face from international terrorist organisations, the State Department is urged to explore ways to keep up US cooperation with those countries in the struggle against terrorism.”

For Congressman Pallone, the US should have collaborated with India to fight terror. But of course, terror did not exist before the Twin Towers tragedy!

The blog of the National Security Archives says: “Why was so much time, effort, and money spent to redact this harmless bit of chicken scratch? Merely to prevent Government embarrassment?…Which other Government secrets remain incorrectly hidden under black ink? Are we really safer in the dark?” Certainly not and it is why, though limited in scope, the WikiLeaks disclosures are healthy.

The “bunch of crap” episode raises another serious issue. Why is US diplomacy always siding with Pakistan?

The same National Security Archives recently published a series of US documents on how Pakistan acquired the bomb in the 1970s (most of the documents date back to 1978-1979). They show that though the Carter Administration was deeply upset with Gen Zia-ul-Haq’s regime tirelessly working to acquire a bomb, the arrival of the Soviets in Afghanistan at the end of the 1970s made the US officials ‘forget’ that Pakistan had one. Later, it was too late to stop the nuclear train.

The National Security Archives documents confirm that from the start, Gen Zia’s main objective was the consolidation of the nuclear programme initiated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who had bragged “we are ready to eat grass” to possess the coveted weapon.

Thanks to AQ Khan who managed to steal the blueprints for a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in The Netherlands, the Pakistani dream became a reality right under the eyes of the Americans who “wanted to maintain good relations with that country, a moderate state in an unstable region”.

The Carter Administration would have been even more worried, had they known that Khan and his team were spreading nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea with the help of China. But would the State Department have acted differently? We can’t be sure.

In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, improving relations with Islamabad became top priority for Washington, DC. According to CIA documents, Pakistani officials knew that Washington was “reconciled to a Pakistani nuclear weapons capability”.

Another briefing of National Security Archives points out: “China’s role as a leading provider of sensitive technology to Pakistan has repeatedly strained US-China relations, and has complicated efforts to expand US-China trade.” Business may have been more ‘complicated’ for the Americans, but the fact remains that China has been Pakistan’s main support to acquire the bomb.

Another declassified document admits that during the 1980s, “the US was criticised for providing massive levels of aid to Pakistan, its military ally, despite laws barring assistance to any country that imported certain technology related to nuclear weapons. President Ronald Reagan waived the legislation, arguing that cutting off aid would harm US national interests”.

On January 8, 2011, The Washington Post reported: “US to offer more support to Pakistan”; the Obama Administration will increase its military and economic aid to Pakistan.

According to a newly updated tabulation from the Congressional Research Service, nearly $20 billion in civilian and military support has been provided to Pakistan between Fiscal Years 2002 and 2010 (please note, this sum does not include covert aid). And it continues. Since June 2010, 17 new F-16 combat aircraft have been delivered to Pakistan along with several armored personnel carriers. These planes are obviously not needed in the fight against terrorism; but they can be used to deter India, believes Islamabad. According to another CRS Fact Sheet, “major US arms sales and grants to Pakistan since 2001, have included items useful for counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations, along with a number of ‘big ticket’ platforms more suited to conventional warfare.
 
This is similar to the theory of "Road to Kabul runs through Srinagar".

Infact they are two different high ways and Pakistan tries to link them to bring US onto India.
 
I sincerely hope that such peace articles are not posted for discussion here as they obviously lead to trolling of the worst order. Atleast on this forum there can never be peace.
 
The thing is usa and india's interests never converge on south asian geopolitics and terrorism.rather they always diverges. USA creates the trash in the region and when things go out of hand it leave it to india to pay the price and clear the trash.
 
It should be like:

"How Afghanistan's India alignment destabilizes peace between Pakistan and India"...

"The no security threat from India" argument is utterly ridiculous.
 

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