Serena Hotel Video Shows Security Screening

The news media have obtained several minutes of security video from the Serena Hotel which shows the four attackers in yesterday's assault being screened and searched as they entered the hotel. They were patted down when they first entered the perimeter of the hotel grounds, then they were passed through a metal detector, after which they were patted down again.

The video was first released by Ariana TV news a few hours ago. However, it seems to have since disappeared from their website.

The physical pat-downs looked like they were performed competently, and included a search of the lower legs and ankle region. That would not have been enough to discover pistols concealed inside the shoes the four wore, so the big question remains whether or not the hotel's walk-through metal detector was working. Unfortunately, the video tells us nothing about that.

Little Pistols, Big Shoes, and Kabul's Expat Community

Afghanistan Ministry of Interior press conference (AP)

After the attack on the Taverna du Liban last January, the diplomatic, NGO, and foreign journalist communities certainly would have reviewed the security measures at all of Kabul's foreigner-catering establishments. I assume they found the Serena Hotel's security acceptable, since it was heavily patronized by members of those same communities at the time of the attack yesterday.

According to AP's story:

The latest attack was particularly brazen because it was considered one of the best-protected sites for civilians in Kabul. Sheltered behind a nondescript wall, entrants must pass through a security room at the gate where they are patted down and go through a metal detector as bags are put through an X-ray machine and sometimes searched.

The attackers hid their small pistols and ammunition in their shoes and socks, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told reporters, but he could not say how the weapons went undetected. The hotel security has been known in the past not always to act when the metal detector beeps.

Based on my own experience over a lot of years and in a lot of places, it is pretty typical for security screeners not to act when the metal detector beeps. That's a human problem brought on by doing a mind-numbing routine for long hours at a time, often made worse by the technical problem of an uncalibrated metal detector (maybe the detector nuisance-alarmed on everything? maybe the guards turned the sensitivity down until it didn't alarm at all? either way, it was ignored), both of which are wrapped up in the cultural problem of low-wage, low-status, guards who are supposed to search the wealthy and powerful patrons of an elite establishment.

In a social and psychological sense - and probably literally, as well - a guard at the Serena Hotel uses the servant's entrance. It is unrealistic to expect him to be willing to jack up a local or foreign big-shot just because a metal detector beeps. Guard orders notwithstanding, he knows better than to do that.

Still, it's remarkable that the four attackers were able to bring in six pistols plus what I'd guess was upwards of 200 rounds of ammunition, all of it reportedly hidden in their shoes.

[Pro Tip: continuously verify that your walk-through metal detector is actually detecting metal at all levels of the archway, and for all possible sizes and orientations of metal objects.]

The best details I've seen about the attack come from the UK Guardian story:

The attackers were armed only with six tiny handguns, barely bigger than cigarette packets, but shooting went on for over two hours as security forces hunted down the last attacker, who hid inside toilets at the sprawling hotel complex. Hundreds of staff and guests took refuge in a cavernous bunker, while others were evacuated from the building.

The last person rescued, [MOI Spokesman] Sediqqi said, was the gunmen's first target. A senator who had been dining with three other legislators hurled glasses at the young attackers and escaped into a nearby garden where he hid for four hours, injured but alive. The other three all survived the attack unharmed.

The Serena had been one of the few places in Afghanistan where both foreigners and the country's elite could relax and enjoy rare luxuries such as a swimming pool and 24-hour electricity. Tight layers of security including armed guards, multiple steel gates, metal detectors and x-ray machines made the five-star hotel feel safe even though it had been hit by an attack in 2008 that killed seven people.

Thursday's attackers apparently hid handguns and bullets, wrapped in blue tissue paper and hidden under in [sic] the soles of their chunky shoes.

-- snip --

They had told guards on the door that they were going to the restaurant for dinner, the interior ministry spokesman said, although the government is investigating why their guns were not discovered during security checks.

Smuggling guns through the hotel's security screening was a bold tactic. Was it really that simple?

AP photo from MOI press conference

After looking at all the publicly available photos, I'd say the pistols were .25 caliber, or the Russian 6.35×16mm semi-rimless cartridge equivalent. They look comparable to the old 'Baby Browning' pistol, and indeed could be an arms bazaar knock-off of the Browning. That would put their dimensions at about 4 inches long by almost 3 inches high, and less than one inch wide. Their weight would be under ten ounces.

I count six pistols that were shown to the press, along with nine ammo magazines and a pile of up to maybe 100 loose rounds. If the shooting went on for four hours, and there were that many unexpended rounds left after it was over, how many rounds did the attackers bring in? Those shoes look big, but are they that big?

Did four men really carry in all that material hidden in their shoes? I can believe the shoe-smuggling technique would work, but I suspect there was more to it than that. Such as another security failure, perhaps one that can't be easily blamed on the guards in the screening room.

Maybe we'll find out more after an investigation. Whether we do or not, I think we can assume the foreign communities in Kabul will now be more locked-down than ever before as Afghanistan approaches the Presidential election two weeks from now.       
 

Kabul's Taverna du Liban Attack Was A Tripwire Crossed

Outside the Taverna yesterday

Last Friday's attack by the Taliban on a Kabul restaurant that catered to the international community is just about a perfect example of terrorism, as it is defined by the U.S. government: politically-motivated violence against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups to influence an audience.

The Taliban are influencing that target audience in a big way. They have an achievable strategy - making ISAF and the rest of the international community leave Afghanistan - and that attack was perfectly executed to advance their aims without causing unintended casualties that might have spoiled the political message it delivered. 

The Taliban released a statement describing the attack's political message as revenge for a U.S. airstrike that killed civilians:

The attack was in retaliation to the massacre carried out by foreign invaders 2 days earlier in Parwan province's Siyah Gerd district where the enemy airstrikes destroyed up to 10 homes, razed several orchards as well as killing and wounding up to 30 innocent civilians mostly defenseless women and children.

The day before the Taverna attack, President Karzai himself condemned that airstrike for the same reasons, and noted: "The Afghan government has been asking for a complete end to operations in Afghan villages for years, but American forces acting against all mutual agreements ... have once again bombarded a residential area and killed civilians." According to press reports, there were indeed civilian casualties.

The statement by ISAF Commander General Dunford condemning the Taverna attack did a great job of missing the point, especially this sentence: "The Taliban must stop premeditated and indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, especially on those who are working to bring stability and prosperity to the Afghan people.”

That is an extremely odd choice of words, considering that there was nothing at all indiscriminate in the Taliban's attack. They killed every foreigner inside the restaurant, but none of the local employees. On the contrary, it was indiscriminate slaughter of civilians by ISAF that was the Taliban's stated justification.

The WaPo had this description of the Taverna:

For years, the bistro was a rare haven of relaxation for foreign diplomats, aid workers and Afghan officials in a gray city full of blast barriers and beggars. Hookahs bubbled in an alcove equipped with low couches, and Arabic pop music played in the background. Wine and beer were served discreetly, in china teapots, along with savory Lebanese appetizers of kebab, falafel, tabbouleh and stuffed grape leaves.

In the past year, as international missions began to downsize or leave the capital in anticipation of Western troop withdrawals, the number of ­foreigner-friendly establishments shrank, but La Taverna thrived.

-- snip --

In 2011, the restaurant added armed guards and triple-door steel barricades at its entrance to protect customers and win continued approval from foreign embassies and missions for their employees to eat there.

Those precautions were no match for the suicide team that attacked Friday night.

The Taverna was a soft target despite those steel entry doors and an anteroom for inspection of visitors. According to press reports, one bomber detonated inside the inspection area, clearing the way for two more attackers to enter the restaurant and fire at the guests, who were evidently trapped without a way to get out quickly. It probably isn't feasible for a 'foreigner-friendly establishment' in Kabul to have a large building with setback from the street, architectural blast hardening, and control of internal circulation, but short of such measures there really isn't a way to counter that kind of attack. 

The attack killed nationals of many ISAF coalition members and international organizations, including three UN civilian staff from Russia, the U.S., and Pakistan, plus the Lebanese IMF Representative, two Britons, a Dane, two Canadians, and two American from the private sector, as well as 13 Afghan nationals. The impact will be felt immediately as foreign embassies and missions in Kabul will now further restrict their staffs to secure compounds, and will reconsider how many staffers and contract employees they need to keep in Kabul, as well as how soon they can close up shop in Afghanistan and go home.
   

Peshawar - U.S. Consulate Employees Attacked By Suicide Bomber

Consumer Notice: This post is certified 100% free of Matters of Official Concern that are not referenced from publicly available sources of information.

Once again, U.S. government employees overseas have survived a terrorist attack thanks to the heavily-armored vehicle in which they were riding. Dollar for dollar, the State Department's armored car program may have prevented more deaths and injuries than any other physical countermeasure out there.

Note the vehicle frame is largely intact, although burned-out

Also note the distance between bomb crater and vehicle

The most complete news story on today's attack that I've seen so far is from the New York Times (here):

There were conflicting reports about the number and nationality of the casualties. Pakistani officials said that at least two people were killed and at least 13 were injured, including two police officers. The United States Embassy in Islamabad confirmed the attack and said in a statement that two Americans and two Pakistani employees of the consulate were injured. It denied early reports that an American had been killed.

A senior Pakistani government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that an American backup vehicle immediately retrieved the four who were wounded inside the S.U.V. and took them to the consulate. The official said two Pakistanis were killed outside the vehicle.

-- snip --

The American vehicle had left the heavily guarded and fortified consulate building and was passing a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees guest house on Abdara Road when it was rammed by a vehicle containing at least 200 pounds of explosives, according to police officials. A thick plume of smoke rose over the site after the explosion that could be seen a mile away. The blast left a five-foot-wide crater in the road.

The last time a U.S. consulate vehicle in Peshawar was bombed was May of 2011 (here), and all employees survived that one, too. In that incident, the bomb was planted along the side of the road and detonated remotely when the consulate vehicle passed by.

Today's attack used a suicide bomber to drive an improvised explosive device directly at our vehicle and detonate against it while both vehicles were moving. That escalation in tactics indicates that the Taliban - who are the most likely culprits, although no one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack - are capable of learning lessons and adapting to what they perceive of U.S. government countermeasures.

Various Pakistani reports have added interesting nuggets of information beyond what was in the NYT's story:

-- The attack took place at about 9 AM this morning
-- The consulate vehicle was being escorted by three police vehicles
-- The vehicle was en route from the consulate to the nearby American club, according to one of the escorting police drivers
-- An official of the police bomb disposal squad was quoted saying the vehicle bomb was assembled out of military munitions (mortar shells); if so, then it had much higher explosive force than a typical improvised device
-- The bomb was reported to be 100 kilos (220 pounds) in size; such estimates are highly speculative, however, I can believe it was that big by the distance that the U.S. vehicle appears to have been blown off the road
-- The Pakistani driver of the consulate vehicle told local news media that he was knocked unconscious by the blast, but recovered in a few minutes

The tactic of using a suicide bomber against a vehicle in motion is not new. It was used in Karachi in 2006 to attack a U.S. consulate vehicle, killing a U.S. citizen employee, David Foy, who was transiting from his home to the office, as well as a locally engaged employee who was driving, and a Pakistani Army Ranger who was manning a checkpoint outside the consulate. That was the last fatal attack on a U.S. government employee in Pakistan.

The same tactic was used in 2002, again in Karachi, to kill eleven French naval engineers who were in transit from their hotel to their workplace.

More details about today's attack will eventually be released, I'm sure. But for now this looks like a favorable outcome, and one that we can credit to the RSO's security programs, as well as to the Department's huge investment in armored vehicles.

Note: If you are looking for local news coverage of today's incident, this Pakistani Geo TV clip has the most comprehensive video coverage of the immediate aftermath of the bombing:

HRC To Pakistan: Please Accept My Apology $1.2 Billion

So the story goes that Hillary has finally apologized to Pakistan's Foreign Minister for our errant airstrike of last November that killed 24 Pakistani troops, and Pakistan's leadership, now sufficiently placated, has in return allowed our convoys to resume transiting their country to support our troops in Afghanistan.

The apology was delicately worded to avoid using the word "apology."

“We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military ... We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”

That was all it took to get Pakistan to end its blockade of our convoys? Yes, that plus our resumption of annual payments to Pakistan of 1.2 billion.

Yesterday's The Cable broke down the back story of Hillary's apology, which is considerably more complex than a matter of polite manners:

Tuesday's announcement came after months of protracted and often excruciating negotiations between the two governments. On the U.S. side of the table, the process was led by Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides, who was in Pakistan Monday, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Peter Lavoy, and Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman. ISAF Commander Gen. John Allen also traveled to Pakistan twice over the past two weeks, once at the invitation of Pakistani Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and again as part of larger discussions regarding the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

The internal U.S. process that led to today's remarks by Clinton was extensive -- and rocky at times. It has been well reported that the State Department, especially soon-to-be-former U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter, urged the White House to apologize long ago but was overruled due to objections from the Defense Department, where officials were angered by the fact that the Pakstani military accused the U.S. military of killing the soldiers intentionally.

Three administration sources confirmed to The Cable that between December and early spring, the National Security Council convened at least 8 separate high-level meetings to debate the apology, and ultimately, the White House earlier this year decided to issue one.

The Pakistani government in early Spring asked the White House not to issue the apology because the Pakistani parliament was in the middle of its comprehensive review of the bilateral relationship. Then, following deadly attacks in Kabul on NATO forces in April, which were traced back to the Pakistan-based Haqqani network, the White House took the apology off the table.

That's why today's comments by Clinton came as a huge surprise to many Pakistan-watchers. But experts saw in her comments a careful dance that the administration thinks represents a compromise, because Clinton never actually said the word "apology" or "apologize."

"It allows the administration to say to Congress, we didn't ‘apologize,' we said we were ‘sorry,'" said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council. He emphasized that discussions about several thorny issues in the relationship are still ongoing.

Asked directly at today's press briefing if the "sorry" comment constituted an "apology," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland wouldn't say that it did. In conjunction with Tuesday's announcement, the Obama administration has agreed to hand over about $1.2 billion to the Pakistanis in Coalition Support Funds (CSF) that were owed but delayed as part of the overall unhappiness between the two governments, two administration sources confirmed. Pakistan, which views the funds as reimbursements the United Sates agreed to pay in exchange for Pakistan's help in fighting the war on terror, argues that America owes it a larger sum.

-- snip --

Getting the CSF funding was always the real goal of the negotiations as far as the Pakistanis were concerned, according to [a former U.S. official who spoke to The Cable]. 

Pakistani Official Harassment of U.S. Mission Has "Reached New Levels Of Intensity"

U.S. Embassy employee at roadblock in Peshawar, Pakistani news photo

Late this afternoon the State Department released the report of the Office of Inspector General's Compliance Follow-Up Review for Embassy Islamabad and constituent posts in Pakistan. The big take-away is the unprecedented levels of Pakistani official harassment of our mission and its employees.

U.S. official entities operating in Pakistan have long been subjected to unusual, government-initiated obstructionism and harassment. That harassment has reached new levels of intensity, however, after the events of 2011. The embassy describes the harassment as deliberate, willful, and systematic. While other diplomatic missions have experienced similar treatment, the United States is clearly the principal target. The harassment takes many forms: delayed visa issuances; blocked shipments for both assistance programs and construction projects; denials of requests for in-country travel; and surveillance of and interference with mission employees and contractors.

Details of that harassment were redacted before the report was released.

That's a lot of black ink, and it continues for another page and a half. So many details to obscure!

But the OIG report is perfectly clear about another matter: 

Based on its visit, the OIG team would not dispute the characterization of Peshawar in the 2010 inspection report as the most dangerous post in the world.

They have that right.

U.S. Consulate Herat Officially Opens

Deputy Secretary William J. Burns delivered the remarks at today's ceremony to open the new U.S. Consulate in Herat, Afghanistan:

And so we are here to celebrate the opening of the consulate -- this remarkable refurbished facility, leased from the Municipality of Herat. This was truly a community effort – we purchased local products to use in the refurbishment, some of which you can see on display in the waiting room next door. World-class quality, Chesht-e-Sharif marble now graces some of the floors. Every week, on average, more than 70 Afghans contributed their time and skills to the consulate’s construction. One expert carpenter turned plain packing crates into beautifully carved room dividers. And artwork produced by students from Herat University is displayed on the walls of the consulate.

That "remarkable refurbished facility" is not bad. Kudos to OBO.

As for the other remarkable refurbished facility in Afghanistan, the less said, the better.

Is Uzbekistan The New Pakistan?

- Google Earth map marked with the Northern Distribution Network, from CSIS.

After breaking up with Pakistan, it looks like we are rushing into a new relationship with Uzbekistan on the rebound. Isn't that always the way?

Both Hillary and Obama chatted up their Uzbek counterparts this week, and Congress is considering increasing our military assistance to Uzbekistan provided that it can find a way to overlook the regime's egregious human rights abuses and corruption.

The UK Telegraph has a story today on this bad romance:

The past fortnight has seen relations between Islamabad and Washington sink to new lows over allegations that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency was working with the Haqqani network to direct attacks on American targets in Afghanistan.

The crisis, the latest in a turbulent year, has seen both countries scrambling to build up alternative regional alliances.

However, more than a third of supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan pass through Pakistan, giving Islamabad a strong bargaining position.

A White House official said President Obama had discussed sending more supplies through the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan during a phone call with the country's president, Islam Karimov.

At the same time, Hillary Clinton met her Uzbek counterpart on Thursday, and Congress is considering legislative changes that would allow more military aid to the Central Asian despite its poor human rights record.

"We value our relationship with Uzbekistan. They have been very helpful to us with respect to the Northern Distribution Network," said Mrs Clinton.

That route winds its way through Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia to Afghanistan and has already become more important in the past year as the US began switching supplies from Pakistan's roads.

But closer ties will anger human rights organisations which have protested proposed plans to send military aid to Uzbekistan for the first time since 2004, when funds were choked off as penalty for the country's poor human rights record.

Twenty groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group, signed a letter of protest sent to Mrs Clinton before her meeting with Mr Ganiev.

"We call on you to stand behind your strong past statements regarding human rights abuses in Uzbekistan," the letter said.

"We strongly urge you to oppose passage of the law and not to invoke this waiver."

As bad as the Uzbekistan human rights situation may be, Congress seems to be at least as concerned about corruption. According to Eurasianet:

Capitol Hill wants the Pentagon to be more transparent in the way it manages the Northern Distribution Network ... The US Senate in particular has voiced alarm that a lack of oversight over the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) has turned it into a gravy train of graft for Uzbekistan’s ruling elite.

“The [U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations] is concerned with reports of pervasive corruption in Uzbekistan and therefore expects to be informed of public and private entities that receive support, directly or indirectly, from United States Government funds used to pay the costs of Northern Distribution Network supply routes through that country,” a Senate report on foreign aid bill S. 1601 states.

-- snip --

A well-placed source in Washington, DC, indicated to EurasiaNet.org that the use of subcontracted local firms on DoD contracts is an area of intense interest within some branches of the US government. Some officials worry that Uzbek political and security elites may be profiting from below-the-radar partnerships with international firms.

Another source familiar with Pentagon contracting practices in Central Asia alleges that Defense Department planners are aware that some US military contractors have cultivated relationships with companies that have been linked to friends and relatives of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

“Pentagon logistics certainly knew some contractors were using companies controlled by the Karimov family to perform aspects of their contracts in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. But it's very clear they didn't view this as a negative, just the opposite," the source said.

Maybe we shouldn't rush into this. Do these rebound relationships ever work out?

White House Issues Af/Pak Situation Report; Best Described As "Grim"

H/T to Foreign Policy's Af/Pak Channel blog for noting White House issues stark report on Pakistan:

The Obama administration yesterday submitted its twice-annual report [here] on the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Congress, grimly stating that there is "no clear path toward defeating the insurgency in Pakistan, despite the unprecedented and sustained deployment of over 147,000 [Pakistani] forces" (McClatchy, Post, Reuters, FT, BBC). The report expressed concern about Pakistan's failure to sustain counterinsurgency operations against militants in the country's northwest, noting that Pakistani forces have had to conduct three major operations in Mohmand agency in the last two years, though the unclassified report made no explicit calls for further operations, especially in troubled North Waziristan (WSJ, AFP). The report also called Pakistan's worsening economic situation "the greatest threat to Pakistan's stability over the medium term" (NYT).

State Cables From 2001 re: Af/Pak (And What We Can Learn From 'Blazing Saddles')

The National Security Archive has been publishing declassified documents about the origins of our current involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and this week it released a batch of State Department cables from 2001 that depict how we engaged Pakistan's leadership in the days and weeks after 9/11.

Here's a bit of NSA's introduction to this week's material:

Pakistani tribal areas where Osama bin Laden found refuge were momentarily open to the Pakistani Army when "the tribes were overawed by U.S. firepower" after 9/11, but quickly again became "no-go areas" where the Taliban could reorganize and plan their resurgence in Afghanistan, according to previously secret U.S. documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive and posted today at www.nsarchive.org.

The declassified documents describe the consequences of these events. According to U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann, the 2005 Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan was a direct product of the “four years that the Taliban has had to reorganize and think about their approach in a sanctuary beyond the reach of either government." This had exponentially increased casualties as the Taliban adopted insurgency tactics successful in Iraq, including suicide bombings and the use of IEDs. Ambassador Neumann warned Washington that if the sanctuary in Pakistan were not addressed it would "lead to the re-emergence of the same strategic threat to the United States that prompted our OEF [Operation Enduring Freedom] intervention" in 2001.

That warning came in a February 2006 cable from Kabul (read it here) four years before the U.S. government was prompted to send a surge of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and raise our commitment there to new peaks in people, money and casualties.

Ambassador Neumann is now the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, and he is no doubt far too polite to issue a massive I Told You So. But, he told them so.

Speaking of Ambassador Neumann, I notice that he consistently has extremely pertinent thing to say about Pakistan and Afghanistan - like this article and this book - and that he says them with pithy phrases. Example: when asked by the New York Times to comment on how much leverage President Obama has over Afghanistan's President Karzai vis-a-vis U.S. demands that Karzai crack down on corruption, Neumann offered a movie analogy:

“You know that scene in the movie ‘Blazing Saddles,’ when Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and threatens to shoot himself?”

That answer is so good, and works on so many different levels, that I can't even talk about it.

Neumann has also said something equally as good about Fortress Embassies, which I often have cause to quote in the course of my day job:

"If you're going to have people live in a car bomb-prone place, you are driven to not have a light footprint."

Exactly so. I would love to read an oral history account of the quotable Ambassador Neumann's career, but it seems that he has so far not participated in the Library of Congress's oral history collection on U.S. foreign policy. Too bad.

To get back to NSA's document release, it's highlights include:

* September 13, 2001 – U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage gives Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) Chief Mahmoud a list of seven demands [snip]

* September 14, 2001 – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf accepts U.S. demands “without conditions.”

* September 13 - 24, 2001 – Pakistan advocates negotiating with the Taliban to get Osama bin Laden. Wendy Chamberlin tells President Musharraf “There was absolutely no inclination in Washington to enter into a dialogue with the Taliban.”

* September 14 – November 16, 2001 – Pakistan asks the U.S. to clarify if its counterterrorism mission is against the Taliban or just al-Qaeda and repeatedly asks the U.S. not to let the Northern Alliance take over Kabul. Throughout the 1990s the Northern Alliance was supported by foreign states opposed to the Taliban, including India.

* September 17 – September 24, 2001 – Pakistani Intelligence (ISI) Chief Mahmoud flies to Afghanistan twice to meet Taliban leader Mullah Omar and discuss U.S. demands, al-Qaeda, and the future of Afghanistan. It is unclear if anything comes of these talks. President Musharraf replaces Mahmoud as ISI Chief in October 2001 and Pakistan and the U.S. move forward with military action against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

* Both Pakistani and American officials have doubts whether Pakistan has enough control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas [FATA] to combat Taliban and al-Qaeda-allied forces active in the region. A Pakistani military official calls certain sections of FATA “no-go areas” for the Pakistani Army.

* Pakistan denies anti-American forces are active within its territory, while the U.S. is certain “some Taliban leaders operate with relative impunity in some Pakistani cities, and may still enjoy support from the lower echelons of Pakistan’s ISI.”

This is good stuff. I have to wonder whether all those Big Brains who are currently agonizing over U.S. policy toward Afghanistan would not be better served by closing their PowerPoint briefings for a couple hours and reading these old cables.

Don't Fear the Reaper (Unless You're in Waziristan)

These charts on US air strikes in Pakistan, courtesy of The Long War Journal, really show you where the action is happening in our remote-control air campaign against al Qaeda and the several Taliban factions in Pakistan. Of the 144 strikes conducted since 2004, 62% have hit targets in North Waziristan, and 32% have hit targets in South Waziristan.

The rest of Pakistan is almost entirely uninvolved. We should just call it the Waziristan War.

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Stanley McChrystal's War on Poverty

History News Network has linked to this critique from the left of General McChrystal's strategy in Afghanistan. I'm not a leftist myself - I'm more like a Whig - but I think there is undeniable merit in points such as these:

The biggest obstacle to [McChystal's new counterinsurgency strategy as stated in his leaked interim assessment for the White House] isn’t the supposed invincibility of the Taliban or an American liberal failure of nerve; it is achieving McChrystal’s ambition to do in Kabul what Americans couldn’t or wouldn’t do in New Orleans.

-- snip --

McChrystal hopes to transcend the policies of both the militarist right and the social-welfare left by expanding the war to “embrace the people,” be “a positive force in the community,” and “use local economic initiatives” to displace the insurgency. With massive new resources, his new doctrine would integrate “military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions taken by a government to defeat insurgency." ... But whose government? Hamid Karzai’s has proven too corrupt as well as feckless.”

-- snip --

For half a century conservatives have derided and defunded such strategies except when they could be billed to “national defense,” like the U.S. Interstate Highway System and the first federal student loans. Small wonder, then, that people who so recently scorned “nation-building,” “community organizing,” community policing, and public jobs are now rhapsodizing them in the name of national defense.

-- snip --

The general also requests massive new resources to “fight corruption and improve the delivery of basic services such as clean water, paved roads, electricity, education, and a functioning legal system.” He wants to raise Afghan government salaries because “the notoriously low wages...are a major inducement for corruption.”... War on Poverty strategists wanted all this, too. So do American local and state governments. Right now.

The complete article, by Jim Sleeper, is in Dissent Magazine.

When Generals Disagree

Both the Washington Post and the New York Times are reporting tonight that the U.S. Ambassador in Afghanistan, ex-Lt. General Eikenberry, does not support General McChrystal's request for more troops.

From the WaPo story:

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the last week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, said senior U.S. officials.

From the NYT:

Mr. Obama asked General Eikenberry about his concerns during the meeting on Wednesday, officials said, and raised questions about each of the four military options and how they might be tinkered with or changed ... [Senior] officials, who requested anonymity in order to discuss delicate White House deliberations, did not describe General Eikenberry’s reasons for opposing additional American forces, although he has recently expressed strong concerns about President Hamid Karzai’s reliability as a partner and corruption in his government.

I presume that Ambassador Eikenberry's concerns today are more or less the same as the ones he expressed during testimony before Congress in 2007:

Army Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the outgoing top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, also warned that an even greater threat than the resurgent Taliban is the possibility that the government of President Hamid Karzai will suffer an irreversible loss of legitimacy among the Afghan population.

-- snip --

"The long-term threat to campaign success . . . is the potential irretrievable loss of legitimacy of the government of Afghanistan," he said.

"The accumulated effects of violent terrorist insurgent attacks, corruption, insufficient social resources and growing income disparities, all overlaid by a major international presence, are taking their toll on Afghan government legitimacy," he said. "A point could be reached at which the government of Afghanistan becomes irrelevant to its people, and the goal of establishing a democratic, moderate, self-sustaining state could be lost forever."

Af/Pak: They Don't Call It "The Long War" For Nothing

We seem to have had a tactical success in Waziristan yesterday, but let's not forget that one of our coalition partners was conducting punitive actions in those same hills more than 100 years ago to no lasting effect. The firepower gets better over time, but does anything else change?