It’s been many years since the 9/11 attacks and America’s favorite boogieman Osama bin Laden is apparently still out there…Or is he? Nobody seems to know for sure, it seems.

U.S. National Security Adviser, James Jones, says bin Laden, believed hiding mainly in a rugged area of western Pakistan, may be periodically slipping back into Afghanistan as well. At the same time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, says the U.S. has lacked good intelligence on bin Laden for a long time – “I think it has been years” – and did not confirm that he’d slipped into Afghanistan.

The failed hunt for bin Laden has been one of the signature elements of the global “war on terror” that George W. Bush launched after the Sept. 11 attacks. The principal explanations given by both the Bush and Obama administrations for not getting bin Laden is that they simply don’t know where he is.
“If we did, we’d go get him,” Gates said.

Jones, a retired Marine general, stressed the urgency of targeting bin Laden, and spoke of a renewed campaign to capture or kill him. Bin Laden had been allowed to operate in Afghanistan by his Taliban allies while allegedly plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. When U.S. forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001, bin Laden reportedly fled into Pakistan from what was generally described as a complex of caves in the Tora Bora area.

Asked whether the administration has reliable intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, James Jones replied, “The best estimate is that he is somewhere in North Waziristan, sometimes on the Pakistani side of the border, sometimes on the Afghan side of the border.” He did not elaborate on the intelligence behind that estimate, nor did he cite a time period or describe more specifically bin Laden’s apparent border crossings.

Robert Gates in turn, said: that “we don’t know for a fact where Osama bin Laden is,” although he agreed that his likely hideout is in North Waziristan.

The U.S. has targeted North Waziristan and other areas on the Pakistani side of the border with drone-launched missile strikes, killing a number of militants as well as Pakistani civilians. The Pakistani army has undertaken an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan but it has not expanded it into North Waziristan.

Obama administration officials have often asserted, as did the Bush administration, that they believe bin Laden is being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the border, along with other senior al-Qaida leaders. But Jones’s assertion that al-Qaida chief may have slipped back into Afghanistan puts a new twist on the issue.

Senator John McCain said: “that knowledgeable people have told him that bin Laden ‘moves back and forth.’”
McCain did not elaborate, except to say that although bin Laden is not currently able to establish bases for training and equipping terrorists who would attack the United States, “I think it’s important to get him.”

Gates said he does not blame a lack of Pakistani cooperation for the absence of intelligence on bin Laden. “No, I think it’s because if, as we suspect, he is in North Waziristan, it is an area that the Pakistani government has not had a presence in, in quite some time,” he said.

During a visit to Pakistan in October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton caused a stir by chiding Pakistani officials for failing to press the hunt for al-Qaida inside their borders. She said she found it “hard to believe” that no one in Islamabad knows where the al-Qaida leaders are hiding and couldn’t get them “if they really wanted to.”

A recent Senate report said bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora only three months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when American military leaders made the crucial decision not to pursue him with massive force.

Some Pakistanis believe that Osama bin Laden is actually a CIA agent.

Take a look at this video:

So, it appears that we are as much in the dark about bin Laden’s whereabouts, as we seem to be about what really and truly transpired on September 11, 2001. Lets just hope that our intelligence regarding both Afghan and Pakistani Taliban is more accurate, since nobody in his right mind wants the Afghan war to drag on forever.

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, al-qaida, bin laden, cia, clinton, gates, jones, Pakistan, Terrorism, US

While everybody is awaiting President Obama’s Tuesday evening speech on Afghanistan strategy to be broadcast out of the United Military Academy at West Point, we are still awaiting some definition of what it is that we are trying to achieve there. To the best of our knowledge nobody has defined either the Iraqi, nor the Afghan war’s mission objectives – not Bush and not Obama.

At least, the president is reportedly going to address his planned exit strategy. That’s better than nothing, but are we waiting for a few more ministers of the Karzai government to be indicted for corruption, before we withdraw the troops which – at a cost of $1 million per year, per soldier – are propping up his regime?

The mission objectives should of course be the absolute first thing to be addressed and that’s why we have decided to re-post this article, originally published here on November 3, 2009.

Since the original article was posted there have been some overtures by the Karzai government to engage “moderate elements” of the Taliban, so we stand corrected on that point.

______________________________________________________________________________________

While the Obama administration ponders whether to send tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, as General Stanley McChrystal proposed and as everybody is trying to figure out what impact the Afghan run-off election, which has never taken place will have on the overall situation there, we still haven’t really figured out what it is that we are trying to achieve there.

“A foreign army alone cannot beat an insurgency; the insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution,” wrote General McChrystal. In view of that probably sound assessment, why would we need an additional 40,000 U.S. troops?

Lets first of all decide what is it that we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan. Is it hunting down the remains of al-Qaida and maybe finally catching up with Osama bin-Laden? Or maybe something that sells in Washington, DC, but it doesn’t sell in Afghanistan – a stable Karzai government? Or maybe we are trying to defeat the resurgent Taliban? Or are we trying to transform the Afghan society? Are we including Pakistan in our grand plan?

Speaking of the Taliban, we haven’t heard any proposals to include this group in possible talks about forming a coalition government. No doubt that this omission is a really big mistake.

As things stand, eight years into an occupation of Afghanistan even the military are saying that we have not achieved anything, but that the situation on the ground has in fact deteriorated. What in fact appears to be the main problem is not the remains of al-Qaida, or the Taliban itself, or even the rampant corruption among the ruling clique, but rather the militarization of the Afghan conflict.

The military “solution” is obviously not working in an environment as complex as the one in Afghanistan and Pakistan for that matter.

One cannot expect the average U.S. serviceman to understand the very complicated tribal, ethnic, or language problems of the country he, or she has been shipped to.

The actual solution to the problem staring us in the eye appears to be getting the foreigners out of Afghanistan, rather than increasing their number.

When in 2001-2003 troops were truly needed in Afghanistan, they got diverted to the insane invasion and occupation of Iraq.

To make a long story short: we don’t even know what problem, or problems that we are trying to solve in Afghanistan are and we are still talking about changing our military strategy and increasing the number of troops. What are those troops supposed to do there? What do we expect from them? What is their mission? Nobody seems to have an answer to any of these questions.

Our advice to the White House team is to first come up with a mission statement, to nail down what it is that we are trying to achieve in Afghanistan and whether getting involved in that country is really in the U.S., or the world’s interest.

Throwing more troops into the Afghan quagmire, without even having a clear objective is clearly not the way to proceed.

Technorati Tags: Afghan, al-qaida, election, mission, obama, objectives, Pakistan, politics, Taliban, war

The claims and counterclaims in this case vary widely, but as it stands, Eric Williamson, of Springfield, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC is being accused of indecent exposure.

As a woman, who was walking her 7-year-old son to school tells the story; Williamson has shown himself butt-naked twice through the windows of the house he was living in.

Williamson, in turn says that he just got up and was preparing breakfast in his own house, totally unaware that anyone could see him.

It is also interesting to note that the accusing woman is a wife of a Fairfax County policeman.

Police showed up very quickly. One of the five cops who went into his house reportedly called Williamson a pervert and others looked through his belongings. They left but returned a short time later to take him to the magistrate.

A police spokeswoman would not comment on Williamson’s claim that officers entered his room without a warrant, but she did say “We don’t arrest people for being nude in their house.”

Williamson in turn, says Fairfax County police treated him “like an animal” at his home.

Considering the huge brouhaha about a sex-related show in Saudi Arabia and the sentences of lashes and prison for those involved (apparently now pardoned by King Abdullah), or the stoning and other punishment in Afghanistan and Pakistan, our domestic morals might not seem to be that strict. On the other hand, how does walking naked around one’s own house compare to miles and miles of nude people on many European beaches? Who could be considered more advanced from the cultural and moral point of view, we wonder…

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, Alive, lashes, man, Morals, naked, Pakistan, police, Puritanism, Saudi Arabia, US

OK, we got a Nobel Peace Prize, now what?

Despite what anyone could possibly say we turned Iraq into not only a mess, but also several hundred thousand people have died in the process and we managed to spend untold billions of dollars to do it.

Will Afghanistan/Pakistan turn into a similar – this time a nuclear-armed mess?

The shadows of Vietnam are almost unmistakable: More troops, changes of strategy, changes of generals – all for naught. It looks like still another quagmire.

Maybe it is time for our fearless leaders to dig up some history books and re-learn the experiences of others and finally realize that at this stage many Afghans prefer the bloody Taliban to the corrupt Karzai regime. Yes, folks, the Taliban might be severe in their religious beliefs, in their punishment and in their treatment and attitude towards women, but for the most part they are at least honest. To be sure their religious rules and methods are no worse that those of Saudi Arabia – a country with which we have pretty close relations.

Go ahead, visit some of the smaller Afghan towns and villages and ask the people, whom they would prefer out of the two lousy choices. The answers might surprise you.

In the meantime, we wonder if our two ongoing wars will bring about songs as good as the Vietnam War did…

Technorati Tags: Afghan, iraq, Pakistan, Vietnam, wars

Civilians always seem to suffer the most in war. Although the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur seem to have been going forever and although probably over a million civilians have died there over the last several years, those conflicts are still going on and the civilians continue to die, get hurt and displaced as well as often lose all of their meager possessions on an almost daily basis.

Besides reports on a particularly bloody, or gruesome event, such as another suicide, car, or air bombing somewhere we seem to hear less and less about the high human cost of those conflicts, almost as if they have become an every day event.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to merit solid reporting only when hundreds of civilians get killed in a matter of days. Otherwise, all we hear is a deafening silence.

Now that the media has gotten off the swine flu horse, there’s quite a bit more reporting on the horrific situations unfolding in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Once again, there are thousands of civilian casualties, for which, similarly like in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza and Darfur both sides are blaming each other.

The situation in both Sri Lanka and Pakistan are somewhat similar. In both cases an ethnic/religious minority (Tamils and Pashtuns respectively) is fighting against government forces.

In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tiger rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for the minority Tamils, who have suffered decades of marginalization at the hands of governments controlled by the Sinhalese majority.

In Pakistan we have the Pashtuns – composed of many tribes and clans, who do not recognize the British-drawn borders (the Durand Line) between Pakistan and Afghanistan and at over 40 million constitute one of the largest, or maybe even the largest ethnic group without their own homeland. The main problem in Pakistan is the fact that the once applauded and now dreaded Taliban is largely composed of Pashtuns. Instead of the traditional Pashtunwali, a traditional code of conduct and honor, the Taliban has embraced a very strict – some call it barbaric – version of Islam, along with an extra strict interpretation of the Sharia law.

The Taliban received valuable training, supplies and arms from the Pakistani government, particularly the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and many recruits from Madrasahs for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, primarily ones established by the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI).

The Punjabi majority has pretty much a stranglehold on Pakistan’s government. Some have even hinted that Pakistan as a whole is pretty much owned by the Punjabi military elite.

This could become a very long article on the Pakistani and Afghan ethnic groups and interrelations, but that is not our aim today.

The point is that the Pakistani government has finally realized with the help of an overwhelming U.S. and international pressure that they must face up to the Taliban – whose units have advanced to almost within sight of Islamabad – and launch a decisive offensive against their insurgency.

As usual, despite the real, or inflated Taliban body counts, the main victims of this whole mess is once again the civilian population. According to the UNHCR up to 500,000 desperate people are already believed to have left their homes in Swat and nearby Lower Dir and Buner districts crowding into hastily set up camps. Another 100,000, or more civilians were expected to flee Pakistan’s battle-torn northwest today, after the government eased a curfew so people could escape the war zone.

The fighting has sunk the controversial February deal between the government and an Islamist hardliner that aimed to put three million people under Sharia law in a bid to end the Taliban uprising.

That’s the developing situation in Pakistan. Let’s now move on to Sri Lanka, where the minority Tamils have been fighting the dominant Sinhalese since 1983, trying to establish a Tamil homeland on the northern tip of Sri Lanka.

The Tamil Tigers, or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been declared a terrorist organization by many countries. After years of relative stalemate, the Sri Lankan army recently made dramatic advances and now has the Tigers trapped in a 2-square-mile, or smaller area on the island’s northern coast surrounded by 50,000 troops. The civilian population of the area is in a terrible situation. Thousands have been killed, many more displaced, as of late crowding by the thousands on isolated beaches, waiting and hoping to be rescued.

Despite establishing a “safe zone” in the northern tip of the island, the Sri Lankan military has been shelling and bombing the area for some time now. Just today 378 bodies and more than 1,100 wounded have been found so far after a government forces’ shelling of a sliver of remaining Tamil territory. Some 2,000 civilians have reportedly died since Saturday. The Sri Lankan military is blaming the Tamils and the Tamils, along with most news organizations place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the government.

As a matter of fact Sri Lankan police arrested three journalists for London-based Channel-4 television news Saturday on charges of tarnishing the image of the government security forces. It is believed that the arrests were connected to a recent report the crew filed on conditions for war refugees and alleged sexual abuse in camps for those who fled the northern war zone.

One wonders what India – Sri Lanka’s closest neighbor – is doing in this situation, or the British – former colonial masters of former Ceylon, and of course our very own U.S. diplomacy…

Technorati Tags: afghanistan, civilians, darfur, gaza, iraq, Pakistan, palestinians, Sri Lanka, Taliban, Tamils, war