There are reasons to believe that Pakistan after having turned to act as US Ally in the war against terrorism is being coerced in to a —use, as scapegoat in order to advance US agenda in the area.
One can find that how conveniently the war fought in Afghanistan has been shifted to Pakistan by arming and supporting of TTP (Pakistani Taliban) in order to keep this country destabilize. How strong this monster called TTP has become; the very resistance, cache of weapon, ammo and the abundance of money, the establishment of training camps and long tunnels to store ammo, ration and store as well as to use it as their command posts against the advancing army is phenomenal. To keep and maintain a pay roll army of thousands which is paid some five times the Regular army is most astonishing.
Duplicity is no option here. If not US then who is funding them?
It is time for naming and shaming of the culprits.

Surely the first culprit are people who accept monies and are carrying out all the subversive activities to undermine the peace and security of society but why someone must pay them and support them and for what?

The weapons and the support and monies it all comes from Afghanistan which is in full occupation by a super power and other NATO forces; if they can’t have a check on the movement of arms and ammo and monies with in Afghanistan then one thing is very certain that they are doing themselves.

I have to tell you a story, a little anecdote;

There was a man in a village. He brought about 2 Kilos of meat and asked the wife to prepare a meat dish for the dinner in the evening when he returns. In between there came some brothers of his wife. She has to serve them with food and eventually the meat dish prepared was totally consumed. Having left nothing to serve her husband in the evening and at the same time not to tell her husband that she has served all the meat dish to her brothers she came out a funny answer. When the husband asked about the meat dish at dinner, she said that their cat has eaten up all the raw meat and that there was nothing left for me to cook.
The suspicious husband as he was— saw the lean cat and put the cat on the weighing scale; somehow the cat also weighed 2 kilos.

The man said: if this is cat which weighs 2 kilo then where is meat and if cat be said as meat then where is the cat?

Likewise either USA known as the terminator is supporting the subversive activities of TTP (Taliban) in Pakistan otherwise why US and all the NATO forces are not able to put a stop on TTP supply activities? If this not a cat then where where is the meat?

And why drones may not be directed to known target and help ally in his present war against her enemies. Matter of the fact is; USA is all out for anything which keeps the terror alive so that it gives them the pretext to stay on in the area. The satellite which can read the number plate of a car but is continuously missing Osama Bin laden or mark his presence for last so many years?

It is all surprising; isn’t it?

# 30-32
Thanks a lot of providing the link for the valuable information but regrettably
these are the old reports which are no longer effective and do not hold grounds for the present day Taliban fiasco in Pakistan, espacially in Swat -Dir area. Subject reports pertain to old batch of Taliban (Mujahideen) who happen to be the US mercenaries. They fought against Soviet Empire and made the Soviet empire fell. On the fall of Soviet Union, United States of America became the only super power of the world. US abruptly ceased the support of Taliban; taking it that this job was paid up job and it is done and dusted.

But after incident of 9/11; US came with the announcement that terrorist attack was carried out by certain dissident groups allegedly located in Afghanistan and thus US attacked Afghanistan and dislodged the Taliban government. US forces also moved in and occupied the land on. Taliban were forced to flee the country or to go in hidings. After fleeing Afghanistan, Taliban started using FATA area as their sanctuaries on which Pakistan did not hold any firm control. Taliban head by Al-Qaeda (the old deposed Taliban command group) started building their bases in FATA to use them as their training camps and for regrouping in order to go back in Afghanistan and fight the occupation forces

Pakistan also joined in as US ally and although after 9/11 Pakistan had committed to the US that Pakistan will do its best to dislodge Taliban in FATA but Pakistan’s geo-political set up along the border lines prevented it to do that. Pakistan took a u-turn against her own strategic stands vis-à-vis Pakistan interests along its western border and in Afghanistan .

Pakistan was given the money and resources to fight Taliban in their sanctuaries in order to eliminate them that we have so often been hearing the US perpetual rhetoric of ‘do more’ for years. But on finding the pathetic results of Pakistan willingness that they were not ready to kill and eliminate their own peoples in FATA; CIA hatched a different plan.

CIA raised TTP in Pakistan border area to stand parallel (counter) to original Taliban and also to fitful the US planned agenda to destabilize Pakistan, deplete it; Isolate it and make it vulnerable and also to build the international consensus against Pakistan and if need be make a move in UNO to declare Pakistan the most dangerous place in the region, in order to inflict a UNO powered debarment on Pakistan of its Nuclear assets and to take over.

It is a known secret that other regional powers like India are also in agreement of this Plan and is busy carrying out all possible moves where Pakistan can be made isolated and can add to declare it as the epicentre of Terrorism.

Rather than beating the old drums (bushes); it is essential that current supply of funds, arms and ammo being provided to the Tehrik Taliban in Pakistan be exposed and brought to light and all those who are involved in it; including the oppressor forces in Afghanistan, our neighbour in the east and also all the groups n forces and political parties found with in Pakistan indulged in this business of deceit and treason.

As for Obama’s actions, I think we might both concede that the question of how best to proceed is far from simple. Since the US lacks the power to simply overthrow all these governments that you dislike, and I assume you would not advocate that we should, even if we had the power, there is a legitimate question how best to persuade them to move forward. Will they be best persuaded trough insult and disgrace on the world stage, through unalloyed support, praise without any push to improve, or through a mix of respectful and frank dialogue that addresses them directly with respect while pointing out some of their problems, direct discussions, rather than a refusal to speak to anyone who does not meet your standards? I think the direct dialogue and frank but respectful discussion (even where that respect might not be altogether well-deserved) is most likely to achieve useful movement, however slow, in the desired direction, and I think that is just what Obama is doing. Yes, it would be far easier to just stay away, and mind the store at home, and never be blamed for associating with unsavory characters, but how much progress would that bring? Just to take the example of Saudi Arabia, it is very easy to criticize the relationship, and I recognize the very serious historical mistakes by the US, there, but what would you suggest Obama do? Should we boycott their oil? Would that hurt anyone but ourselves, as there are surely plenty of other buyers who would be happy to buy what we refuse? (And, do you suppose for a moment that Obama could win the necessary support from Congress to begin such a boycott? - the attempt would merely make him a powerless lame-duck president with no chance for re-election and no chance do do anything else on his agenda for the remainder of his term!) Should we engineer an overthrow of their regime? Are you really so confident that the alternative would not be even worse, something run *directly* by the most fanatical, anti-western Wahabists, or worse, and quite likely something openly at war with the West, with the economic *disaster* that would imply for the *entire* world economy?! Obama *did not make this mess*, but he must do his level best to deal with it *in the **real** world*!

That said, I agree that visits to Bangladesh and Indonesia would be a great idea, *as well*, and time will tell when or if these make his agenda.

Judgement #1) Supporting the Afghan fighters against the Soviet Union seemed like a good idea. This was arguably a very reasonable thing - the Soviets were certainly not in Afghanistan for any defensible reason, and they were brutal occupiers, and Afghanistan, and the world, had a right to resist. The failed occupation of Afghanistan did help bring down the Soviet Union, which is arguably a very good result. I think the part that no one can defend, least of all me, regarding US actions in this regard was that *following* the departure of the Soviet Union, the US took a very shortsighted, cheapskate approach and left Afghanistan pretty well twisting in the wind, in ruins following the amazing achievement of pushing out the Soviet Union, the result the US so craved, but failed to reward. With the benefit of hindsight, I think even the most self-centered of US politicians recognize that this was a terrible mistake, bad for the US, to say nothing of the disaster it spelled for Afghanistan. I offer no defense of this except to say that elected politicians find it difficult to spend government money to benefit non-voters in other nations, even when such cheapskate behavior is likely to come back and bite us. I should note, however, that the *rest* of the world’s governments (which admittedly had less moral obligation to Afghanistan that the US had, though we should remember that it was the *Soviet Union* that was *truly* responsible for ruining Afghanistan), which could see just as well as the US how much Afghanistan suffered, did not exactly fall over themselves in their eagerness to help Afghanistan, either, which I think reinforces my point about the difficulty of getting politicians to help other countries, especially other countries that are seen as relatively “non-strategic,” as Afghanistan was, mistakenly, seen at the time. Bush the latter repeated the mistake when he divided US attention and funds with the war of choice in Iraq, horribly neglecting Afghanistan’s recovery after pushing out the Taliban, and the aid sent to Afghanistan in the Bush years was pathetically low. I fervently hope we’ve learned from this mistake and do better going forward, for our own sakes as well as for Afghanistan’s, though it remains to be seen whether we will do what we should. I should make one additional point, though: it is far from easy to help a country in a lawless environment such as existed after the Soviets left - in such a chaotic environment, it is not enough to just vote to send them money, which is all too likely to end up in the pockets of warlords, spent largely on weapons, making the problem worse, not better. Helping the people in a country that does not yet have an effective and honest government is a very hard problem, calling for very carefully administered aid, and this sometimes makes even the best-intentioned aid groups, willing and eager to help, throw up their arms in frustration.

Judgement #2) The Taliban, in the mid-1990s, looked to the US like the least-bad of the very bad alternatives in Afghanistan, offering, it appeared, some semblance of order, though it promoted very poor human rights ideas, when it took power in the mid-nineties, and therefore the Taliban had mild, early US support. This mistake ended in 1998 with Bin Laden embassy bombings while Bin Laden was under Taliban shelter. In hindsight this was clearly a mistake, but we should acknowledge that at the time (pre-1998) it was unlear just how bad the Taliban would prove to be. Here, I think, the choices really were between bad and worse. To consider an invasion of Afghanistan in the 90s, by the US, to *force* a really good government there, was no option at all for reasons I hope are obvious, so the only options were to support one or another of the highly imperfect native groups that had some chance of succeeding mainly on its own, or to ignore the fight, altogether, and just let the strongest win, someday, perhaps after decades of brutal anarchy, without any semblance of our support. This “Hobson’s Choice,” a choice between terrible alternatives, was arguably the inevitable result of the desperate conditions that resulted from the earlier mistake, the lack of help rebuilding Afghanistan when the Soviets left.

I submit that the moral responsibility for the Taliban mess lies *primarily* with the old Soviet Union and with the brutal leaders of the Taliban, itself, if we must find blame, but I acknowledge that the US made serious mistakes, as well, mistakes of well-intentioned but poor judgement, and mistakes of cheapskate shortsighted failure to spend money in aid that would prevent far-higher spending in future fighting, to say nothing of relieving the suffering of innocents. I think Obama is doing his sincere best to relieve the consequences of these mistakes, under the constraints of limited presidential power (see my recent article on this subject of limits to his power). I hope the US and the world have learned, and will learn, from these mistakes, but I also hope that a preoccupation with past foreign mistakes does not distract from constructive local action to correct the situation *today*, nor should these past mistakes be an excuse for inaction today.

Please believe me that I intend no insult to the people of the tragically inflicted Swat valley, nor any blame to them or to the people of Pakistan in general for how things are developing, any more than I blame my own family member for our own experience of cancer. I am not posing this as a matter of blame, but only as a matter of suggesting a framework for moving forward in a tragic circumstance based on current reality, if you agree that the ideas (not the people, who are also victims, with the possible exception of the leaders) behind the Taliban are cancer-like to your nation, whatever their origins in the more or less recent past. Of course if you believe that those ideas do not present a cancer-like danger, that is another matter altogether, and is worth discussion. I also agree as I mentioned to Johann that a discussion of origins has its place as well, although that was not my topic.