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* "Put a bra and panties on this guy's head" * His "Do This" List for Abu Ghraib * Driving Jose Padilla Insane
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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! HOW RUMSFELD MICROMANAGED TORTURE! * Real-time grilling of Lindh by satellite
* "Put a bra and panties on this guy's head"
* His "Do This" List for Abu Ghraib
* Driving Jose Padilla InsaneRead Andrew Cockburn's devastating report in Our New CounterPunch Newsletter. PLUS: Robert Bryce on Frank Gaffney, Halliburton and Iran. Still available: WHAT DID ISRAEL KNOW IN ADVANCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS? At last, the answers. Read Christopher Ketcham's exclusive expose in CounterPunch special double-issue February newsletter. Plus, Cockburn and St. Clair on how this story was suppressed and ultimately found its home in CounterPunch. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year Landau at UC Santa Cruz; Linebaugh in LA; Cockburn in San Francisco
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Today's Stories March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen
February 28, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Tao Ruspoli China Hand Marjorie Cohn Sarah Olson Susan Van Haitsma Nicole Colson Harvey Wasserman William S. Lind Nicola Nasser Website of the Day
February 27, 2007 Tariq Ali Tom Barry Uri Avnery Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar Jeff Nygaard Hugh O'Shaughnessy Mitchell Kaidy Carl Finamore Anne McElroy
Dachel Ramzy Baroud Andrew Rouse Website of the Day
February 26, 2007 Franklin Lamb Bill Quigley Greg Moses Col. Dan Smith Ralph Nader Paul Buchheit Jeff Leys Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 24 / 25, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair R. T. Naylor Gary Leupp Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Jeffrey Blankfort Chris Sands Gary Freeman Larry Portis P. Sainath Lee Sustar Kevin Wehr Ken Couesbouc Soffiyah Elijah Kathlyn Stone Dave Lindorff Jason Kunin Kevin Zeese Remi Kanazi Missy Beattie Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 23, 2007 Franklin Spinney Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Chris Dols Evelyn Pringle Stephen Pearcy Dan Brook Yifat Susskind Website of
the Day
February 22, 2007 Robert Fantina Tariq Ali Michael Shank John Ross Christopher Brauchli Cindy Litman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Aseem Shrivastava Reza Fiyouzat Illinois Students Against the
War Website of
the Day
February 21, 2007 Maass / St.
Clair Sharon Smith Greg Moses Margaret Kimberly Ralph Nader Nicola Nasser Mike Whitney Tao Ruspoli Byeong Jeongpil Corporate Crime
Reporter Josh Mahan Website of
the Day
February 20, 2007 Sgt. Martin
Smith Werther Corporate Crime Reporter Carl G. Estabrook China Hand Joshua Frank Megan Boler John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Alan Gregory Website of the Day
February 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Michael F.
Brown Robert Jensen Roger Burbach Monica Benderman Sonja Karkar John Walsh Talli Nauman Website of the Day
Feburary 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Gary Leupp Jeffrey St.
Clair Roger Morris Uri Avnery James Brooks Sen. Russell
Feingold Linn Washington, Jr. Michele Brand Fred Gardner Mitchel Cohen Mike Ferner David Swanson P. Sainath Mike Stark Missy Beattie Jonathan Franklin Website of the Weekend
Marc Levy Andrew Cockburn Glen Ford Greg Moses Ron Jacobs John W. Farley James Marc Leas Tim Rinne Albert Wan Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Stephen Lendman Evelyn Pringle Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese Dave Lindorff Pete Shanks Peter Rost Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
February 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Dick J. Reavis Margaret Kimberly Christopher Brauchli Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross Michael F.
Brown Dave Lindorff J.L. Chestunut,
Jr. Don Fitz Michael Donnelly Dr. Susan Block Website of
the Day
February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
February
10 /11, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Gabriel Kolko Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Kevin Alexander Gray M. Shahid Alam Greg Moses Paul Craig
Roberts George Ciccariello-Maher Kevin Zeese Turner / Kim George Duke Walter Brasch Shepherd Bliss Missy Beattie Peter Harley Pat Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Conn Hallinan Gary Leupp Lee Sustar Nikolas Kozloff Newton Garver Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff David Swanson Website of the Day
February 8, 2007 John V. Walsh Marjorie Cohn Trish Schuh Ron Jacobs Laura Carlsen Ramzy Baroud Brenda Norrell Bryan Farrell Judith Scherr Website of
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February 7, 2007 Daniel Wolff Tao Ruspoli Tony Swindell Sharon Smith Ken Couesbouc Jeff Cohen Col. Dan Smith Tom Kerr Joshua Frank Adam Elkus Stephen Fleischman Website of
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February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff William Blum Mike Ferner CP News Service Evelyn Pringle Christopher Brauchli Alan Cabal Website of the Day
Dave Zirin Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts Newton Garver Bruce Anderson Saul Landau Ralph Nader James T. Phillips Mike Whitney Kenneth Rexroth Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Jeffrey St.
Clair Patrick Cockburn P. Sainath Sen. Russell Feingold Diane Christian Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Timothy J. Freeman Conn Hallinan John Ross Greg Moses Missy Beattie Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Stephen Fleischman Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Chris Kutalik R. Gibson /
E. W. Ross Pam Martens John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Ronald Bruce
St. John Mitchel Cohen Website of
the Day
Diane Farsetta Marjorie Cohn Mark Scaramella Ranni Amiri Christopher Ketcham Winston Warfield Corporate Crime Reporter Thomas P. Healy Website of the Dau
January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Jean Bricmont Tao Ruspoli James T. Phillips William Johnson Tim Wilkinson Evelyn Pringle Joshua Frank Ramzy Baroud Mickey Z. Website of the Day
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March 1, 2007 Flawed Assumptions and Military MiscalculationsAmerica's Musharraf DilemmaBy NAJUM MUSTAQ Stung by a spree of suicide attacks, Pakistan's military junta this week had to take in an unannounced guest bearing ill tidings. The United States wants General Musharraf to do more to crush al-Qaida, Vice President Dick Cheney told his host during a surprise secretive trip to Islamabad. After being defeated in Afghanistan, America's bin Laden-led enemies are regrouping in Pakistan's tribal region, said Cheney. He is reported to have warned Musharraf that if Pakistan does not produce more results, the Democrat-dominated Congress may review and revoke the American military assistance program resumed after September 11, 2001. The military's status as a major non-Nato ally of the United States could also be in danger. Pakistan, the fifth-largest recipient of American aid, is set to get $785 million in President Bush's next budget. That includes $300 million in direct military aid, a sop to Musharraf's domestic power base in the armed forces. More than just military aid is at stake. Worse could come to pass if the United States decided to take out al-Qaida targets in Pakistan with unilateral air strikes. Although White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to soften Cheney's message, the Pakistani general is clearly looking down the barrel if not yet in the line of fire. A visit by Dick Cheney, who is not exactly a gun control advocate, serves as perhaps the last warning.
Washington's Pakistan policy is based on two dubious and misplaced assumptions. One, that Pakistan's military -- and therefore General Musharraf -- is the only viable option to govern the country. Musharraf and the military remain indispensable in the Bush administration's war on terror. Two, American policymakers tend to put an excessive emphasis on al-Qaida and the Taliban: capture and kill so-called al-Qaida operatives and Taliban leaders, and the war on terrorism will have been half won. This simplistic approach ignores other strands of religious extremism in Pakistan that run parallel to, and often in concert with, the international network of terrorism. The Bush administration says it does not doubt Musharraf's intentions or his regime's commitment to the anti-terror cause. Pakistan, after all, is itself hit hard by terrorists. No other country has shipped more al-Qaida suspects to the United States than Pakistan. More than 70,000 of its troops are stationed in the tribal region along the Afghan border. The military has absorbed significant human and material losses in its campaign against the militants. Yet both at home and abroad Pakistan continues to be viewed with suspicion. The military regime suffers from a crisis of credibility. Islamic militants of all hues remain powerful in many parts of the country. They frequently show their destructive prowess within Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. Doubters like Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and think tanks like the International Crisis Group believe that the Musharraf government is, at best, ambiguous and ambivalent in its approach and a reluctant partner in the war on Islamic extremism. At worst, they accuse the military government of allowing the Taliban, al-Qaida, and other militant groups to "regroup, reorganize, and rearm" themselves. The gap between Musharraf's policy pronouncements and his government's failure to achieve those policy objectives is jarring but not inexplicable. There are three sets of limitations on the Musharraf government that impede and undermine its anti-terrorism effort: conceptual fallacies, domestic political expediencies, and operational miscalculations.
The basic flaw in the anti-extremism policies of General Musharraf is conceptual. His government officials regularly describe the Taliban as an "Afghan problem"; make spurious distinctions between Islamic freedom fighters, especially those active in Kashmir, and international al-Qaida-type terrorists; and yet, in the same breath, they berate domestic sectarian terrorists. These categorizations are facile. Three strands of jihad converge and feed off one another in Pakistan's radicalized Sunni mosques, madrasas and other religious institutions like the Jamaat-e-Islami. The three operate at different levels: domestic, regional, and global. The most active are domestic jihadis and anti-Shia sectarian militants (Sipahe Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi). Jihadi groups for regional Muslim causes (Hizbul Mujahideen, Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Kashmir, Hezb-e-Islami of Afghanistan) not only share the same sectarian ideology but also have organizational links with the local Sunni political parties and militant groups. And terrorists with an international, anti-West agenda -- the al-Qaida genre -- have sought refuge in Pakistan's tribal areas since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and have been the focus of Pakistani military's anti-terrorism drive. This rather arbitrary division of jihadists into the good (regional), the bad (domestic), and the ugly (global) has led the Musharraf government to adopt incoherent, conflicting policies. It has also meant that the crackdown on militant groups is selective, reactive, and sporadic. Whereas the "ugly" -- al-Qaida and the Taliban -- are pitched against the 70,000 or so troops stationed in the tribal areas, their ancillary domestic outfits have only faced cosmetic bans and partial, on-off police action. The leaders of the "good" jihad meanwhile lead an active and highly visible public life, appearing in the electronic media, running radical madrasas, and regularly issuing calls for jihad from the pulpit. Their organizations, too, remain as active as ever. Almost all the jihadi organizations banned by the government are plying the trade by other names. Many of them appear in the guise of charitable organizations and have earned praise from the highest functionaries of state for their relief work after the 2005 earthquake. Since normal political activity remains dormant under Musharraf's rules of the game, militant organizations like Sipahe Sahaba and Taliban-like groups in the tribal areas are even trying to occupy the vacant political ground. The Musharraf government's dilemma of legitimacy is another stumbling block in its anti-terrorism policy. Much of the ambiguity found in the government's anti-terrorism policy emanates from its reliance on the religious political parties to sustain the tenuous trappings of democracy. On paper the government and its principal opposition party --an alliance of religious parties known as Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) -- have unbridgeable ideological differences. In practice, they work together in pursuit of a common political agenda, such as keeping out moderate political leaders like former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif and opposing Baloch and Pashtun nationalists. In return, Musharraf has been unable to move forward on madrasa reforms, the cornerstone of his anti-extremism policy, and has extended a slew of other concessions to the religious lobby. This untenable position compounds the military government's credibility deficit. Little surprise then that the government's international commitments of running off the Taliban and al-Qaida are falling short of the promised mark as it makes ungainly and often inexplicable retreats in the face of pressure from the MMA. One of the MMA's coalition partners, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is a traditional and longstanding ally of the military, but it is no less vocal in its opposition to the government's anti-extremism policies. The JI regards Musharraf as a passing phenomenon and deems the core of the military to be sympathetic to its Islamic agenda. This view may not be much wide of the mark.
Pakistan's military operations in South and North Waziristan since 2004 --demanded by the United States to target al-Qaida and Taliban militants -- have been marred by a blatant misreading of the social and political climates in the tribal areas. These ill-conceived military operations have alienated the local population and, by default, strengthened the very forces the government had planned to defeat. It is not only the Taliban who have made gains in the ongoing operation. The Hezb-e-Islami of Hekmatyar, the Afghan ally of the Pakistani Jamaat-e-Islami, has also resurfaced with a vengeance. The most telling but least publicized factor, however, has been the reluctant attitude of the Pakistani troops to wage war against those whom not many years ago they had supported, encouraged, and trained to fight against the communists on behalf of the U.S.-led Free World. Many retired and serving soldiers betray intense emotions and resentment about fighting a war they neither bargained for nor want. Indeed, stress levels and casualty rates among the troops remain high. Their morale has been one of the major reasons why the government has been making hasty peace pacts with the militants. Pakistani troops in the tribal areas have achieved the very opposite effect of what was intended. Rather than being defeated or marginalized, the Pakistani Taliban have gained unprecedented power. In some areas, they run a parallel administration. Islamic vigilante groups are even replacing the traditional Pashtun tribal structures with strict Sharia laws. So, even if one were to give the Musharraf government the benefit of the doubt and take its pious policy declarations at face value, it cannot be absolved of gross incompetence and myopic politics. Power -- rather, the illusion of enjoying power -- is its prime objective. In order to maintain and expand this power, General Musharraf has made pacts with the devil in both camps of the war on terrorism. Support from the United States has facilitated his authoritarian rule and exposed the reality of its much-hyped agenda of bringing democracy to the Muslim world. Support from religious parties like the MMA --to achieve domestic goals --comes at the expense of Musharraf's anti-extremism campaign. Caught between Cheney and jihad, Pervez Musharraf ought to rethink his -- and his military's -- role in domestic and international politics. At this crucial juncture in its history, Pakistan needs an elected representative civilian government not a self-perpetuating dictator and his puppet politicians. The cause of defeating extremism will be best served by a Pakistan where the military is a professional institution, subservient to civilian rule, and not a preeminent political actor. Washington would do well to help General Musharraf dismount from the tiger he's been riding since staging a military coup in 1999. A timeline for the military's withdrawal from the realm of power is long overdue. The disastrous result of propping up a seemingly moderate and liberal dictator is evident in the content as well as the context of Cheney's Pakistan sojourn. Relying solely on military means to defeat an enemy whose ideological influence and operational reach go far beyond Pakistan's narrow tribal belt is self-defeating. And relying solely on a military to find a sustainable solution to the complex political problem of religious extremism and militancy, as Pakistan's case graphically illustrates, is more likely to exacerbate the turmoil. Like all wars, this war is too serious a business to be left to generals --or to one general in Pakistan. Najum Mushtaq is a journalist and contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus.
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