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FUTILITY AND SHAMEFUL FAILURE OF
OVER 5,000 MILITARY OPERATIONS IN PAKISTAN AGAINST TALIBAN
HISTORY IS REPLETE WITH THE
EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSES OF GUERRILLA WARS
AND THE FAILURES OF
MILITARY OPERATIONS
How and why the weak vanquish the
strong?
WHAT WERE THE RESULTS OF LAST 13 YEARS
OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN PAKISTAN?
WHILE BRITISH, SOVIET RUSSIA AND
AMERICA FAILED IN AFGHANISTAN, DID OUR OVER 5,000 MILITARY OPERATIONS
SUCCEEDED IN ELIMINATING TALIBAN?
~SOME EXAMPLARY ANSWERS
FROM PAST DAWN, EXPRESS TRIBUNE & WASHINGTON TIMES
REPORTS
DO WE NEED MORE MILITARY
OPERATIONS TO ELIMINATE TALIBAN?
WARNING FOR THOSE WHO WANT MORE
MILITARY OPERATIONS INSTEAD OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH
TALIBAN.
READ A QUTOATION FROM A BOOK AND
FOUR REPORTS FROM WASHINGTON TIMES & DAWN ON THE HARMFUL
CONSEQUENCES
OF SOME OF THE LAST
13 YEARS OF MILITARY OPERATIONS IN OUR COUNTRY.
Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla
Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present. By Max Boot. Liveright;
750 pages; $35. To be published in Britain in February by W.W.
Norton; £25. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
LIKE the poor, guerrilla armies have, it seems, always been with
us. From the nomadic rebels who brought down the Roman empire to the
internet-savvy, plane-exploding jihadists who triggered America’s ill-conceived
“global war on terror”, irregular forces are a constant factor in the history of
warfare. And fighting them has become tougher than ever.
In this section
-
How the weak vanquish the
strong
-
Plenty of literature gives advice on how to beat such
maddening foes. Max Boot, a neoconservative American military historian, has
done something different. “Invisible Armies” is a narrative history of
guerrilla warfare and terrorism (its less effective cousin), ranging from what
he describes as its origins, in bringing down the Akkadian empire in
Mesopotamia in the 22nd century BC, to the present day. The author moves quite
quickly over the first 4,000 years or so and only really gets going in the
18th century, with its revolutionary wars of independence.
-
Among the many “liberal” insurgencies he considers are the
American revolution; the struggle against Napoleon in the Iberian peninsula;
Greece’s war for independence against the Ottomans; the wars of unification in
Italy and various uprisings against colonial powers, such as the slave revolt
against the French that led to the foundation of the Republic of Haiti. In the
20th century Mr Boot examines the impact of irregular forces in the two world
wars (among them those led by the eccentric English officers T.E. Lawrence and
Orde Wingate); the contribution to insurgent theory of Mao Zedong’s seminal
work “On Guerrilla Warfare”, gleaned from his experiences in the Chinese civil
war; the very different French and British responses to rebellions against
their fading empires; the “radical chic” revolutionaries of the 1960s and the
rise of radical Islamism.
If this sounds a bit like a list, it is because of the way the
book is organised. Mr Boot picks a theme, for example, “The End of Empire”,
and then hoovers up into that section all the conflicts that can be made to
fit that description. Each one gets a few pages of lively narrative and a
brief analysis of why one side prevailed over the other. The formula works
rather well. Even when the author is rattling through fairly familiar
territory, such as the failures of the French against the Vietminh, he usually
finds something fresh or pithy to say.
Take, for example, Vo Nguyen Giap, the brilliant Communist
general who succeeded in expelling first the French and then the Americans
from Vietnam. Giap closely followed the teachings of Mao in planning a
three-stage struggle—first “localised guerrilla war”, then “war of movement”
and finally “general uprising”—which he waged with a three-tier force of
village militias, full-time guerrillas and a regular army. But where Mao was
always cautious to avoid confrontations with more powerful forces, Giap’s
tendency to “roll the dice on premature offensives” in 1951, 1968 and again in
1972 could have proved fatal each time had it not been for the psychological
and political frailties of the other side. In guerrilla warfare, what matters
most is the ability to shape the story, not the facts on the ground. This is
how guerrillas are able to win wars even as they lose battles.
The first principle is to abandon conventional military
tactics. “Clear and hold” beats “search and destroy”. To defeat an insurgency
you must provide enough security for ordinary people to live their lives. The
second is that legitimacy is vital for both sides: corrupt or excessively
violent governments will always struggle, but so too will guerrillas who
terrorise their own people. The third is staying power. Firepower is no
substitute for patience and boots on the ground. The people you need on your
side must believe that you are in it for the long haul. The fourth is that
most counter-insurgency campaigns abroad are lost at home. Liberal democracies
have short attention spans, low tolerance for casualties and other calls on
their cash. Unless voters believe that an intervention is necessary for their
own security they will quickly withdraw support for it.
All of which explains why things are not going well in
Afghanistan. The population-centric approach—and the troop surge needed to
realise it—came late in the day and with a foolishly rigid deadline. The
Afghan government has some popular legitimacy, but not enough in the places
where the insurgency is resilient. Nor has it been possible for American
forces to deny the Taliban their sanctuary in Pakistan: insurgencies with
outside support are much harder to beat. Voters in America and Europe are not
prepared to spend any more blood or money on what most presume is a lost
cause. Few think that what happens in Afghanistan will affect their own
safety.
Counter-insurgency may be out of fashion again, but it remains
necessary to know how to do it. Mr Boot offers a timely reminder to
politicians and generals of the hard-earned lessons of history.
From the print edition
Heavy price: Pakistan says
war on terror has cost nearly 50,000 lives there since 9/11
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Enlarge Photo
Pakistani security officials and rescue workers examine the site of
bomb blast ... more >
Pakistan’s spy agencies told the country’s Supreme
Court that the war on terror there has cost 49,000 lives
since the Sept. 11 suicide hijacking attacks in 2001, Pakistani media reported
Wednesday.
The agencies’ report to the court, a rare on-the-record statement from
Islamabad’s usually ultrasecretive intelligence establishment, also accuses
Afghanistan of collaborating with the Pakistani Taliban, or TTP — the first time Islamabad has
leveled such charges, according to the Express-Tribune newspaper.
The report was provided to a three-judge panel of the court as part of the government’s defense against
a legal challenge to recent anti-terrorism legislation.
The Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulation of 2011 allows
administrative detention of suspected extremists in specially built internment
centers in the semiautonomous tribal areas on the Pakistan-Afghan
border.
The report says more than 24,000 people — both civilians and
troops — were killed in terrorist attacks between 2001 and 2008. The five years
since then have proved even costlier in human terms: 25,000-plus people have
died since military offensives against Taliban insurgents in the restive tribal regions
began in 2008.
Since 2008, more than 5,000 civilians have been killed and about
the the same number injured in suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks. In
the same period, the military killed more than 3,000 insurgents and injured more
than 1,200 in their security operations.
Pakistani armed forces have
suffered more than 15,000 casualties fighting Taliban extremists in the tribal areas since
operations began.
According to the report,
there have been 235 suicide bombings, 9,257 rocket
attacks and 4,256 other bombings in the past five
years.
DAWN REPORT 1:
Published Dec 09, 2013 07:56am
ISLAMABAD,
Dec 8: Military operations often result in collateral damage, and in some
instances, the loss has lasting impact on the affected
population.
This is what transpired in the Federally Administered Tribal
Areas (Fata), where for the past decade, the military is fighting militants. In
addition to the displacement of the local population, the education sector has
suffered the most.
According to the latest figures compiled by the Ministry of
States and Frontier Regions (Safron) headed by Federal Minister Lt-Gen (retired)
Qadir Baloch, a total of 1,029 educational institutions were lying nonfunctional
in Fata largely due to the poor security situation there.
Of these, 947 educational institutions, including schools and
colleges, were closed or damaged because of the fights between the army and
militants over the past many years.
The ministry estimates that for the reconstruction of fully
damaged schools and colleges, it needed Rs1,858 million while another Rs684
million were required to rebuild the partially damaged educational
institutions.
The ministry’s record shows 122 educational institutions which
have been reconstructed and rehabilitated during the financial year 2012-13. The
government has now set the target to restore 74 institutions in the ongoing
financial year.
Safron has also listed five leading causes for the destruction
or closing down of schools and colleges in Fata.
These causes are shown in the table along with the number of
institutions affected.
Military operations have been termed the
leading cause for the collapse of the educational infrastructure in the region.
A total of 947 institutions have become nonfunctional because of the
clashes.
Sectarian strife has also a fair share in the closing down of
schools and colleges.
According to the ministry, the third major cause is the
non-availability of teachers due to which 27 schools and colleges are not being
run in the affected region.
Similarly, regular floods in the past three years in the region
have also affected the infrastructure, and Safron statistics show that 16
schools have been damaged as a result.
Local disputes between various tribes have compounded the
problem as armed clashes between rival tribes have led to closure of some
institutions.
In total, Bajaur Agency has suffered the most as 94 educational
institutions have become dysfunctional there.
Mohmand Agency follows with 92 institutions, Kurram Agency 61,
Khyber Agency 59, South Waziristan 36, Orakzai Agency 34 and finally North
Waziristan with 33 damaged institutions.
“Of course, when there is a full-fledged fight, such damages do
occur,” the official said.
DAWN REPORT
2:
ISI and MI
fear spike in terrorism
Updated Mar 27, 2013 05:03am
ISLAMABAD, March 26: The country’s premier intelligence
agencies fear increased terrorist activities in the border agencies of Mohmand
and Bajaur and Dir, Swat and Chitral because of a recent nexus between the
Tehreek-i-Taliban Swat (TTS) and the Afghan government.
A report on military operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and
the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) submitted to the Supreme Court on
Tuesday by Advocate Raja Mohammad Irshad on behalf of Inter-Services
Intelligence and Military Intelligence suggested that after having been
dislodged from the area, the TTS had resorted to IED (improvised explosive
devices) attacks on law enforcement personnel and volunteers of Aman
Lashkar.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad
Chaudhry hearing a challenge to the Action in Aid of Civil Power Regulations
2011 (AACPR) had asked for the report on internment centres set up in
KP.
The report carried graphic pictures of decapitated victims along
with compact discs (CDs) and annexure showing statistics of casualties, suicide
attacks, targeted killings and schools and colleges destroyed between 2008 and
this year.
The government set up an internment centre in Parachinar, Kurram
Agency, under the AACPR 2011 which allows it to confine persons accused of
terrorism.
Advocate Ghulam Nabi, representing Prof Ibrahim of the
Jamaat-i-Islami who had challenged the regulations, informed the court that he
would file a reply to the report on Wednesday.
Read out by Advocate Raja Irshad in the court, the report
suggested that sectarian outfits had taken a leading role in victimising the
Shia community, especially in Quetta and Karachi, and the message conveyed was
that the war on terrorism was not yet over, rather the profile had changed and
the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had merged itself with the sectarian
outfits.
The TTP and its allied groups have again adopted the
conventional method of gathering funds -- chanda (donation), bank robberies and
kidnappings for ransom.
The report explained that the AACPR 2011 had been enacted to
provide legal umbrella to the military and to deal with the unprecedented ground
realities. Furthermore, it said, continuous stationing of the armed forces in
the territories secured from the miscreants in Fata/Pata was necessary and,
therefore, it was imperative that a proper authorisation be given to the armed
forces to take certain measures to incapacitate the miscreants by interning them
during the continuation of actions in aid of civil power. The AACPR is also
necessary to ensure that the armed forces carry out operations in accordance
with the law. The apprehended militants, the report said, had been shifted to
the internment centres.
On Jan 24, Attorney General Irfan Qadir had
conceded for the first time before the Supreme Court that 700 suspected
terrorists were in custody under the regulations.
The report said the AACPR would not apply once the operation was
over or the notification under article 245 of the constitution to call the army
in aid of civil power was withdrawn.
“Military operations are conducted only to create an enabling
environment wherein political and development strategies are also being
applied,” the report said, adding that the army had designed a concept of quick
impact projects to enable peace-loving tribesmen to see tangible dividends of
peace at a fast pace and started the process of
rehabilitation.
EXPRESS
TRIBUNE REPORT:
We fail to
realise the economic costs of someone else’s war on terror that
we have been fighting.
Published: July 11, 2010
How the country getting $0.8b for a $10b operation
is a common occurrence
We fail to realise
the economic costs of someone else’s war on terror that we have been fighting
because of how our leaders tend to focus on petty political gains. We do not
realise how expensive suicide bombs, militant-rule and a military campaign
against them can be.
We had one of the biggest internal displacements in the history
of world with nearly 2.3 million migrating to other areas,
being taken care of and then finally being repatriated and rehabilitated to
their homes.
The country received around $0.8 billion for an operation that
cost Pakistan approximately $10 billion. We are talking about the
Malakand operation that was staged during the summer of 2009.
It is easy to blame
the government for not being able to control budgetary deficits, but the
government cannot be blamed for costs that cannot be envisaged in a
budget.
No one should expect
policy makers to make budgetary estimates that would take dealing with 2.3 million internally displaced people into
account.
The International
Monetary Fund’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper identifies the “government
spending in excess of revenue” to be the country’s main problem. The report
talks about the recent political, economic and social events, both domestic and
international, which have put an adverse impact on Pakistan. To emphasize the
impact on the economy, the role in war on terror finds its place in the very
beginning of the report.
There are other problems that can
easily be blamed for Pakistan’s macroeconomic instability including
domestic law and order, an unprecedented global increase in prices
of oil, food and other essential commodities, instability in international
financial markets.
But the fact remains that the
most important factor is Pakistan bearing the direct and indirect costs being
the frontline state in the first worlds War on
Terror.
As a result of these issues, Pakistan
is currently facing major challenges including growing fiscal and current
account deficits; rising inflation; growth deterioration; and depleting foreign
exchange reserves.
The IMF
has highlighted the economic cost of the war by looking at the direct
cost of resource movement and indirect cost of loss of exports, foreign
investment, privatization, industrial output, and tax
collection.
The findings are staggering and should
give enough thought to detractors of our involvement in a war of our own
existence. They calculate the economic costs of the war to be $30 billion, using the actual foreign exchange
rates prevalent in those years.
The report goes on to
say that Pakistan’s role in the war on terror severely dented the development
work in the country. “Pakistan has sustained immense socioeconomic costs of
being a partner in the international counterterrorism campaign,” the report
said.
Since the start of the anti-terrorism
campaign, an overall sense of uncertainty has contributed to the capital flight,
as well as, slowed down domestic economic activity making foreign investors
jittery despite all these challenges Pakistan has not defaulted on any of
its obligations and successfully paid back the entire amount of a Sovereign Euro
Bond in January 2010.
At the same time it is
also important to highlight the importance of relief that we can get from
International Community. If the likes of IMF acknowledge the role we are playing
and also suffering because of it economy wise, then why can’t we lobby
effectively and get ourselves some relief?
We should try to get our bilateral debt
written off. It is pertinent to note that during the 9 months of July 2009 to
March 2010, Pakistan serviced $1.72 billion of foreign debt (according to SBP
figures) or approximately PKR 150 billion.
Our total foreign debt is $54.235 billion as of March
2010. Out of that approximately $14.1 billion is with the Paris
Club in which there are 18 nations who rescheduled our debt in December 2001.
These countries include the US, UK, Canada, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway,
France and Germany.
We should demand from
the world that we need this relief as it will allow us to plug the holes in our
budget and also allow for spending more on development which is a foremost
strategy to shun extremism.
For example, if the interest and debt service cost over
the next 3 years from these loans of around $18 billion come to Rs400
billion, then the government can freeze its expenditures by the same
amount. Imagine the trickledown effect on our economy.
We will be saving
servicing cost and also reducing our expenditure. It will be a saving of Rs800
billion over three years of time. With this saving, we can reduce our fiscal
deficit and at the same time increase our development programs. All it requires
is for all of parties in the parliament to join hands and stand
together.
The PPP will not be in
power for ever but Pakistan has to be there forever and that we can only achieve
by setting aside our petty differences and working towards a consensus that can
actually help Pakistan.
Published in The
Express Tribune, July 12th, 2010.
Regards,
Hussain Khan, M. A. Tokyo
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