Tunnel vision
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The News International, Pakistan
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The deconstruction of a briefing given by Major General Athar Abbas and its subsequent reporting in the media bears close study. The briefing was interesting in that for the first time it made reference to four tunnels constructed by the Taliban in Peochar, and the contents thereof. The Taliban have been busy looting not just the UN convoys but goods intended for the relief of IDPs as well. They had also collected pre-packed military rations (which are unlikely to be halal) and other comestibles not locally available. Additionally there was a large cache of sophisticated weapons – on which Major General Athar commented…"We are not surprised if these weapons slip out from Afghanistan and many of them are found in Swat and are being used against our troops." He later made the point that the outside world should stop worrying its silly little head about our nuclear assets and instead turn its attention to more pressing business – like how come all these modern weapons are finding their way over the border and who is it that is providing material and financial support to the insurgents we are currently fighting?
The weapons he was referring to were primarily American, and represented equipment considerably in advance of that used by our own forces. What he did not say was that this cross-border leakage was part of a long-established clandestine (but never really interdicted by our own agencies) trade in arms from the various Afghan conflicts over the last thirty years. This is neither new nor unexpected – and the Americans are in something of a double-bind. They are committed to arming and training the Afghan army. They arm them with modern American weapons. The Afghan army has, from time immemorial, traded-out a proportion of its weapons. Pas-de-probleme for Uncle Sam.
What Major General Athar Abbas was talking about was nothing more or less than the product of routine banditry. Banditry on a very large scale, perhaps, but banditry nonetheless. The Taliban are not fussy about where they get their supplies – but they prefer good quality reliable equipment. Neither would they be concerned at taking food from the mouths of the needy – the IDPs who are very much a by-product of Taliban activity in the first place. Stealing UN and NATO and American goods means that they are getting the best that thievery can get. That they then cache the proceeds of crime in tunnels where they have strategic bases is precisely what you would expect any organized and disciplined fighting force to do. Attempting to present this as a part of the activity of some hostile foreign agency is simply disingenuous. We cannot pretend that there is never any foreign hand in the tangled events now unfolding in our borderlands, because they have had foreign fingerprints all over them for centuries - but to try and lay off the whole sorry business into foreign laps smacks of the denial of reality that tumbles so glibly from the mouth of anybody speaking from a position of authority.
Source
Sunday, May 31, 2009
The deconstruction of a briefing given by Major General Athar Abbas and its subsequent reporting in the media bears close study. The briefing was interesting in that for the first time it made reference to four tunnels constructed by the Taliban in Peochar, and the contents thereof. The Taliban have been busy looting not just the UN convoys but goods intended for the relief of IDPs as well. They had also collected pre-packed military rations (which are unlikely to be halal) and other comestibles not locally available. Additionally there was a large cache of sophisticated weapons – on which Major General Athar commented…"We are not surprised if these weapons slip out from Afghanistan and many of them are found in Swat and are being used against our troops." He later made the point that the outside world should stop worrying its silly little head about our nuclear assets and instead turn its attention to more pressing business – like how come all these modern weapons are finding their way over the border and who is it that is providing material and financial support to the insurgents we are currently fighting?
The weapons he was referring to were primarily American, and represented equipment considerably in advance of that used by our own forces. What he did not say was that this cross-border leakage was part of a long-established clandestine (but never really interdicted by our own agencies) trade in arms from the various Afghan conflicts over the last thirty years. This is neither new nor unexpected – and the Americans are in something of a double-bind. They are committed to arming and training the Afghan army. They arm them with modern American weapons. The Afghan army has, from time immemorial, traded-out a proportion of its weapons. Pas-de-probleme for Uncle Sam.
What Major General Athar Abbas was talking about was nothing more or less than the product of routine banditry. Banditry on a very large scale, perhaps, but banditry nonetheless. The Taliban are not fussy about where they get their supplies – but they prefer good quality reliable equipment. Neither would they be concerned at taking food from the mouths of the needy – the IDPs who are very much a by-product of Taliban activity in the first place. Stealing UN and NATO and American goods means that they are getting the best that thievery can get. That they then cache the proceeds of crime in tunnels where they have strategic bases is precisely what you would expect any organized and disciplined fighting force to do. Attempting to present this as a part of the activity of some hostile foreign agency is simply disingenuous. We cannot pretend that there is never any foreign hand in the tangled events now unfolding in our borderlands, because they have had foreign fingerprints all over them for centuries - but to try and lay off the whole sorry business into foreign laps smacks of the denial of reality that tumbles so glibly from the mouth of anybody speaking from a position of authority.
Source
Labels: Afghanistan, Militancy, Swat Operation, Taliban, Terrorism
posted @ 10:39 AM,
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