Spies Gone Wild
April 12, 2011: Pakistan's leaders are losing their war with Islamic terrorists. Not because the security forces can't hunt down and kill Islamic terrorists, but because the continued corruption and incompetent government has kept most Pakistanis unhappy with their government. This makes it possible to keep recruiting new Islamic terrorists, who keep seeking to kill the people who run the country. Thus the Taliban threat to come after senior military and civilian leaders if the government did not halt the American CIA use of UAVs to kill terrorist leaders. Officially, the government has refused to comply. But it appears that the intelligence agency, ISI, has backed down to the Taliban threat. Cooperation between the CIA and ISI has been much reduced in the last four months, As a result, the number of CIA missile attacks on terrorist leaders are down as well. The U.S. has been forced to pull dozens of intelligence operatives out of Pakistan. Since ISI is a largely autonomous part of the Pakistani government, it has resisted the efforts of politicians to bring it under civilian control. Thus American demands that the Pakistani government do something about ISI siding with the terrorists, has had little impact. The ISI believes this pro-Taliban policy will protect their leaders from terror attacks. While most Pakistani politicians publically oppose the CIA UAV campaign, the government (except, as of this year, the ISI) supports it. Thus the Taliban will continue trying to kill Pakistani politicians until the CIA is forced to stop killing terrorist leaders. The U.S. is threatening Pakistan with a cut in military and economic aid if there less help in fighting the Taliban. The ISI is demanding more control over what the CIA does in Pakistan.
Pakistani leaders don't like to admit that parts of their government are out of control. But that's nothing new. For years, Pakistani politicians have spouted all manner of fantasies about what is going on in the country. In that sense, nothing has changed. Nor has there been much change in the widespread government corruption and incompetent government. This can most clearly be seen in the tribal territories, where the Taliban were chased out of areas they had taken over. But as soon as government officials came back, along with their corrupt ways, so did support for the Taliban, especially if the Islamic terrorists attacked those government officials.
Foreign aid groups are noting the growing power and influence of Islamic radicals. Not just the Taliban, but Islamic radical groups that have been around for decades, and have grown steadily stronger since the Pakistani government endorsed Islamic radicalism in the 1970s. Despite the fact that Islamic radical politicians have also been found to be corrupt, they have a certain moral advantage over their more moderate (and often more corrupt) colleagues.
One of the decisive weapons against the Islamic radicals in the tribal territories has been the American CIA UAVs and missiles used to attack key (leaders and technical experts) personnel in the Taliban and other terrorist groups. In 2010 there were 120 such attacks, compared to 52 in 2009. There have been over 200 of these attacks since 2004, and the Islamic terror groups are terrified and unable to do anything to halt the attacks, or avoid them. Officially, the Pakistani government opposes the UAV attacks, but actually supports them. The CIA do the most damage to the terrorist groups that carry out bombings and assassination attempts (against senior Pakistani officials). The Pakistanis admit that the CIA attacks are the best way to disrupt the Islamic terrorism directed at Pakistani targets. So the politicians have it both ways. They condemn the attacks as a violation of national sovereignty, but secretly facilitate the attacks in order to preserve national sovereignty (and prevent the Islamic radicals from taking over.)
India Army leaders are asserting that Chinese troops are now operating on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control in Kashmir. China and Pakistan deny it, and India will not, or cannot, provide proof. Claims have been made by Indians that the U.S. has proof, but no American officials will confirm this. The "Chinese troops" may be engineering and construction personnel helping the Pakistani's build roads in remote areas (which is what much of Kashmir is.) |
