And he is still wrong about Pakistan. Musharraf has been fairly open that his fears of an American invasion informed his choices, many of which (Scheuer is right on this) were against what we see as Pakistan’s interest. Scheuer, of course was forgetting the one trump card: Musharraf’s hold on power. In his autobiography, (and even in his book tour interviews) he explicitly said that he was afraid of American attacks on his country. What Scheuer tries to spin as some kind of altruism (without saying so) is just plain wrong – aside from lacking historical context, seeing that on 9/10/01 Musharraf was actively funding, arming, and supporting the Taliban. It was still just self-interest.

But this isn’t about Musharraf, it is about Scheuer. And I just think it is wrong about Musharraf – so wrong that to pass himself off as a criminal is sort of disingenuous. My comment on his unsuccessful hunt of OBL is in a similar vein: if he was unable to do so for years and years, why do his insights on strategy carry extra weight? I’d rather say they should be discounted, since he has a proven track record of unsuccess.

It is those fundamental misunderstandings that I see as fatal to his credibility. Not, to address Nathan’s point, the arrogance that comes through. I sort of expect that.

As for his vast experience “unsuccessfully hunting OBL,” there’s a good number of folks with those kinds of credentials, esp since 2001. Just because they didn’t quite nab the guy, does that disqualify him from being a credible voice?

My comment was only meant to point out that this kind of quick dismissal of a voice you disagree with is a rarity, refreshingly, from you guys and I just hope that continues in the future.

But in this case, you’re being doubly unfair: read again that bit where Michael Scheuer says “America has probably never had a better ally than President Musharraf.” For a supposed expert to say such a thing with a straight face, knowing full well how complicit Pakistan has been in the insurgency and how open Musharraf was in his memoir that his decision to cooperate with Bush was done out of a fear of invasion, not any altruism, is simply mouth-dropping. Musharraf is looking out for Musharraf, and no one else — definitely not an immoral thing, but he’s not America’s BFF either. To say so is to deliberately cloud the very real problems in our relationship with Pakistan.

Scheuer also thinks rendition is just super. Despite his vast experience in unsuccessfully hunting OBL, the man is simply not credible. I’m sorry if it came across that as smug; I didn’t mean it to. But it isn’t a conclusion I came to on a whim, and though he hasn’t said so, I’d bet it’s the same for Nathan.

Guys, is this really the kind of smug snippiness that you want this blog to be known for?

Copyright © Ehsan Azari

There is a strategic difference between non-Anglo Europeans and the US over war in Afghanistan. The Europeans are wary about the aims of the US in the ongoing fight in this country between the Taliban and NATO, for the Bush administration has virtually failed to address the real cause of terrorism and violence in Afghanistan. Pursuit of military solution and indulgence in protracted guerrilla warfare in this central Asian country produced very dangerous conditions on the ground for both Afghan innocent civilians and Western forces.

Germany stationed its troops in the north of Afghanistan where about 35% of Afghans are living, and French troops play a peace-keeping role in the Afghan capital, Kabul, the Italian, Spanish, and Danish troops are also deployed in the non-Pashtun areas. Despite pressures from the US and NATO, many European countries refrain from killing and bombing civilians.

There can be seen wisdom and humanitarian concerns in European attitude. Firstly, there is a pathetic lack of transparency in US’s relation with Pakistan, which is the major factor in the growing violence and bloodshed in Afghanistan. Pakistani northern-western province which is virtually run by religious extremist groups, sympathizers of Al-Qaida and Taliban, has provided a safe haven to the insurgence and Islamic terrorist groups. Insurgency and terrorist operation of the Taliban is directly being planned, supervised, and run by Pakistani infamous Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan’s Waziristan is awashed with Taliban training camps and Al-Qaida centers. Still, the US and its allies see Pakistan as a valued ally and partner in war against terrorism. No one knows what is behind the US and Pakistan’s love affairs. The Europeans knows this very well, if the last Taliban be killed in Afghanistan, the US cannot win this war, because the Taliban is only a production a perverted ideology that was spawned and nurtured by Pakistani generals and mullahs. All relevant political analysts, journalists, the Afghan government, NATO’s officials, and Think-tank groups have been crying for years that Pakistan is the real source of both the ideology and physical infrastructure of terrorism and the Taliban, but the Bush administration turned blind eyes to this. The US must come clean with its policy. The US continues killing the Taliban and supporting its source, Pakistan, at the same time.

Secondly, foreign military presence with no end to it in sight brought about a condition most favorable for the insurgency, which manipulates Afghani proverbial xenophobia for escalating violence. The souring civilian casualties add to the dilemma. Thirdly, another dangerous trend is the rapid disintegration of political authority and legitimacy of Mr Karzai’s government. The government in Kabul is hold hostage by former communist and Islamic warlords, drug-lords, and a corrupt administration. Mr Karzai is only a cloak to the notorious gangs of the Northern Alliance. Last and fourthly, the US and Mr Karzai failed to initiate division among the Taliban, and isolate the heart of darkness, Mullah Omar and his perverted Islamic values. To be honest and fair, Pakistani generals and mullahs with their luciferous duplicity block the slightest reform among the Taliban. They left no stone unturned to keep the Taliban explosively radicalized. For the retrograde and the darkest core of the Taliban has been seen by Pakistani ISI as a strategic national asset that can be used for their regional claims in future.

In such conditions on the ground everyone see the futility of military solution and double-standard of the US. The Europeans are right to refrain from killing and bombing innocent civilians that will only give rise to the Taliban. The US’s various policy circles need to listen to the Europeans and Afghans, to bring war against terror to its source. Afghan war can only be won in Pakistan. The US must deal with Pakistani generals and mullahs that have been fooling the West into believing that it is its loyal ally. Pakistan has the key to the problem, it hides Taliban leaders in Quetta, Karachi, and Peshawar, to use them once the West washes its hands from Afghanistan and leave this unfortunate country.

The most critical element of a deal to end Afghanistan’s chaos is adoption of a broad and comprehensive strategy, which prioritizes the source of terrorism and perverted ideology that perpetuate it.