By Shaheen Sehbai
More 'madness' coming out of 'Obama's Wars'
WASHINGTON: President Asif Ali Zardari seriously believes that the US was "
arranging" the (suicide) attacks by Pakistani Taliban inside Pakistan, a
claim he made before Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US envoy to Afghanistan,
who thought it was 'madness'.
The account of this claim by Zardari has been elaborately reproduced by
Bob Woodward, on Page 116 of his famous book 'Obama's Wars'. The revelation
could throw a lot of light on the complex relations between the Zardari-led
PPP government which US officials believe is incompetent and the
disillusioned US diplomats.
Zardari received this information from President Karzai and passed it on
to Khalilzad which also reveals how important the Pakistani president thinks
Karzai's views are, though the Americans consider him a liability.
These views of Karzai and Zardari were considered by the US side as
maverick and strengthened their impression that both these leaders and their
governments were non-serious players and according to Khalilzad "dysfunctional"
.
The Woodward account goes like this: "One evening during the trilateral
summit (in Washington, between Obama, Karzai and Zardari) Zardari had dinner
with Zalmay Khalilzad, the 58-year-old former US ambassador to Afghanistan,
Iraq and the UN, during the Bush presidency.
"Zardari dropped his diplomatic guard. He suggested that one of the two
countries was arranging the attacks by the Pakistani Taliban inside his
country: India or the US. Zardari didn't think India could be that clever, but
the US could. Karzai had told him the US was behind the attacks, confirming
the claims made by the Pakistani ISI.
"Mr President," Khalilzad said, "what would we gain from doing this? You
explain the logic to me." "This was a plot to destabilize Pakistan,
Zardari hypothesized, so that the US could invade and seize its
nuclear weapons.
He could not explain the rapid expansion in violence otherwise. And the CIA
had not pursued the leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, a group known as
Tehrik-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan or TTP that had attacked the government. TTP was
also blamed for the assassination of Zardari's wife, Benazir Bhutto."
"We give you targets of Taliban people you don't go after," Zardari said.
"You go after other areas. We're puzzled," Woodward quoted him. But the
drones were primarily meant to hunt down members of al Qaeda and Afghan
insurgents, not the Pakistan Taliban, Khalilzad responded.
"But the Taliban movement is tied to al Qaeda, Zardari said, so by not
attacking the targets recommended by Pakistan the US had revealed its support
of the TTP. The CIA at one time had even worked with the group's leader,
Baitullah Mehsud, Zardari asserted."
Woodward reports: "Khalilzad listened calmly, even though the claims
struck him as madness. The US was using the Taliban to topple the Pakistani
government? Ridiculous. But Khalilzad knew Afghanistan's President Karzai also
believed in this conspiracy theory, more evidence that this region of the
world and its leaders were dysfunctional."
"Despite Zardari's claims, Pakistani government officials had received
top secret CIA briefings about drone attacks against Baitullah Mehsud's TTP.
A March 12, 2009 attack against a Mehsud compound killed more than two
dozen militants, who quickly retrieved the remains of their fallen comrades.
And on April 1, another five militants linked to Mehsud, including an al
Qaeda trainer, died in a drone strike, according to a CIA briefing given to
Pakistan in April."
This account by Bob Woodward, although old, reveals how initially Zardari
and his strategists viewed and tackled the suicide attacks inside Pakistan.
Woodward does not mention, at least in this particular account on pages
116 and 117 that Baitullah Mehsud was later killed by US drone attacks and
the theory of Zardari that US was arranging the Taliban attacks inside
Pakistan was nothing but hot air. But it is also not clear whether Zardari's
strong conspiracy theory forced the US strategists and CIA to start attacking
the Pakistan Taliban and prove him wrong.
--
K. Bajwa
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Now: If Pakistan survives, it will be a miracle but He who believes in
miracles is a fool & He who disbelieves in miracles is an infidel.
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--
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death." --
Albert Einstein !!!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22151765/History-of-Pakistan-Army-from-1757-to-1971
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21686885/TALIBAN-WAR-IN-AFGHANISTAN
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22455178/Letters-to-Command-and-Staff-College-Quetta-Citadel-Journal
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23150027/Pakistan-Army-through-eyes-of-Pakistani-Generals
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23701412/War-of-Independence-of-1857
http://www.scribd.com/doc/22457862/Pakistan-Army-Journal-The-Citadel
http://www.scribd.com/doc/21952758/1971-India-Pakistan-War
http://www.scribd.com/doc/25171703/BOOK-REVIEWS-BY-AGHA-H-AMIN
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