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Focused on His Goal: Obama Got His Man at Abbottabad
In July 2007, then Senator Barack Obama’s top foreign policy advisers met in the modest two-room Massachusetts Avenue offices that served as his campaign’s Washington headquarters. There, they debated the incendiary language Obama would use in an upcoming speech on national security, according to a senior White House official.
Washington, DC – In a major national security address at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, U.S. Senator Barack Obama said that the war in Iraq and our failed leadership in Washington have made us less safe than we were before 9/11. Obama said that the U.S. has been fighting on the wrong battlefield, and outlined his comprehensive strategy to fight terrorism worldwide.
As President, Obama has put pressure on Pakistan’s leadership to meet its commitments in the battle against terror groups. The US upped its drone attacks in the North West Frontier areas and added troops in Afghanstan in the hunt for Taliban leaders. The CIA and contractors were deployed within Pakistan and the US government clashed repeatedly with the Pakistan Army and ISI. Obama laid bare the double role Pakistan’s security forces were playing. The ISI took revenge and outed the CIA station chief in Islamabad.
Raymond Davis’ Release: Another ‘Lal Masjid’ in the making?
Its was perhaps much to expect that the military’s public relations wing, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) would be able to avert the PR disaster that Davis’ release has become for the Army and ISI – they’ve been found asleep at the best of times. Just as the ‘Lal Masjid’ siege (Red Mosque attack) has for years provided justification to terrorists to target Pakistan Army and Intelligence installations and wage a murderous war against the Pakistani state and its citizens, the Raymond Davis affair further fuels the extremist sentiments just when things seemed to be getting under control.
The ISI is notorious for being tough negotiators. It is silly to think that the CIA would not have conceded ground while negotiating the release of Raymond Davis, contracted by the CIA to provide security to CIA personnel operating in Pakistan. Had the US allowed Davis to be convicted or punished in Pakistan by the court of law, it would have send chills through the US covert ops and intelligence community, many of them who are contracted to do the more dangerous tasks in return for a promise that they will be taken care of if caught by law-enforcement authorities of the countries they operate in. President Obama himself got involved to ensure Davis’ release to avoid any backlash within the large mercenery army that the CIA employs in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan.
US officials have publicly denied any concessions from the CIA, however Pakistani sources have confirmed that a large number of CIA operatives have been removed from Pakistan in recent days. The ISI and CIA are said to have renegotiated terms of engagement so that Pakistan’s role in reaching a settlement in Afghanistan will be increased and its concerns regarding Indian presence in that country taken on board. CIA has also been told to back off from monitoring Jama’at-ud-Dawa and Jaish-e-Mohammed, among other Kashmiri militant groups said to be close to the ISI.
Visas for Americans create rifts in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s civilian government issued visas to more than 400 Americans without army security clearances starting in early 2010, possibly enabling the CIA to boost its presence, in a move that angered the country’s powerful military.
The granting of the visas has also fueled tension between the military and the unstable nuclear-armed country’s civilian leaders, whose relations are uneasy at the best of times.
Terror Groups and Osama’s Pakistan
(Dawn) – It is still not past the time when the war against terrorism should be owned and called our own battle. Terrorism has killed and maimed more Pakistanis than any other nation anywhere in the world since 9/11, but there isn’t much we done about it. For instance, how many terrorists are apprehended by our law enforcement agencies and brought to justice?
Even in those rare cases when terrorists are apprehended, the police have failed to build a strong prosecution case against them and the courts have had to let them walk free for lack of evidence. Not only that, known and dreaded militants and hijackers wanted by India and others, the entire Islamabad Lal Masjid brigade and the likes, are free citizens who do not operate out of their mountain hideouts but are allowed to disseminate their hate-filled agenda in the cities and towns across the land.
Banning outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamaatud Dawa, Jundullah, Jaish-i-Mohammed, Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and so many others, which openly brook sympathy for al Qaeda and its global terrorist agenda, has not made their leadership run for cover. Far from it. They are free to preach, train and plan attacks across Pakistan, and perhaps elsewhere. Does any other country provide hate-mongers such an open platform from which to operate?
Then, there are tiers of extremist elements that are well tolerated by the state. A majority of these comprise homegrown militants and not runaway fugitives from their home countries. It starts right there in our parliament where MPs belonging to rightwing parties derail all and any debate on curbing extremism. The PML-Q leaders protected the Lal Masjid militants after Musharraf’s action against them, and even announced lifetime scholarships for their upkeep; Mullah Fazlullah of Swat and his Taliban commanders are at large. The PML-N leaders have known allies among extremist elements in southern Punjab, the hotbed of Punjabi Taliban and the like. Both the parties deny the existence of Punjabi Taliban, thereby protecting such elements and their identities from public scrutiny. Imran Khan’s PTI disowns the `war on terror’ altogether, calling the tribal jihadists patriotic Pakistanis who have made many sacrifices in the past.
The presence of the religious parties and their stance in parliament is blatant. There are no subtleties involved in deciphering their views on the raging extremism. The JUI and the Jamaat-i-Islami vehemently demand that Pakistan opt out of the partnership with America in its fight against terrorism. The JUI MPs condemned the killing of bin Laden in most unequivocal terms and led protest rallies. Others offered funeral prayers for him in the streets of this country.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
