Marines on diplomatic mission

US troops are spreading into Helmand, tasked with clearing the area of Taliban insurgents and supporters, which translates in that province roughly to wiping out a large chunk of its native tribal Pashtun population. At the same time as US forces by the thousands are being helicoptered into remote Afghanistan, Afghan politicians are traveling the country far and wide in the lead up to August’s elections.

As U.S. Marines launched a major offensive against Taliban insurgents in southern Helmand Province, the presidential campaign unfolding in more peaceful parts of northern and eastern Afghanistan last week seemed to be taking place on another planet.

Whether addressing rallies, chatting with voters in the street or receiving delegations of tribal leaders, candidates barely mentioned the violent insurgency that international experts fear could sabotage the Aug. 20 polling.

Instead, the presidential hopefuls stuck to themes they knew would resonate with Afghan audiences. They denounced civilian casualties by foreign forces and called for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban.

So, going by this article we can safely assume that Afghans in general are pissed off about the many civilian casualties and would prefer to come peacefully to some arrangement with the Taliban. What they will get instead is The Surge. Obama delivers the exact opposite of what the Afghan people are hoping for. How come I am not the least surprised?

McCrystal is said to be emphasizing the “protective” nature of the Marines mission, but who is he kidding? The Taliban are everywhere, they are everyone, they bloody well live there.

[...] They [US Troops] will have to overcome deeply entrenched suspicions of American aims in the region, and resentment over civilian casualties inflicted during previous U.S. operations. "This operation will cause even more insecurity," says Joma Khan, a 32-year old unemployed man in Lashkar Gah. "Because when people lose their family members or their houses gets destroyed, then they join Taliban."

Aware of the danger, McChrystal has made the protection of civilians the central tenet of his new approach to fighting the Taliban, even going so far as to limit the use of aerial bombardment to the most extreme circumstances - a turnabout for U.S. ground forces that have grown dependent on air support. McChrystal has also declared in a soon-to-be-released tactical directive that soldiers should hold their fire if there is even the slightest risk of a civilian presence in the target zone. "Suppose the insurgent occupies an enemy home or village and engages you from there, with the clear idea that when you respond you are going to create collateral damage," explains McChrystal. "He's going to blame that on you. Even if you kill the insurgents, what happens is you have made the insurgency wider. You are going to run into more IEDs. You are going to run into more insurgents, [and] at the end of the day you are going to suffer more casualties." [...]

Presumably the same people who believe this “we’ve come in peace” crap will also fall hook, line and sinker for Brig. Gen. Lawrence Nicholson’s feel good spiel:

[...] "We’re doing this very differently," Nicholson said, according to the Washington Post. "We’re going to be with the people. We’re not going to drive to work. We’re going to walk to work."

Nicholson emphasised this dual capacity of the Marines’ mission in Helmand: "We’re not going to measure your success by the number of times your ammunition is resupplied," he told officers. "You’re going to drink lots of tea. You’re going to eat lots of goat. Get to know the people." [...]

Marines without air support embedded in the Pashtun population, walking to work and on orders to drink tea with the locals, which planet is that guy living on? They are neither trained/programmed to be diplomats nor are they known to be nice people one can easily walk up to and have a leisurely chat with. These are schooled killers armed to their teeth good at intimidating and snuffing out lives. James Cogan’s view is imho the closest estimate I came across on how this ramp up in troop presence will play out.

The Obama administration has ordered the 2^nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade (2 MEB) into a potentially bloody offensive in the southern province of Helmand. The objective is the suppression of the ethnic Pashtun population, which is overwhelmingly hostile to the seven-and-a-half year US and NATO occupation of the country and rejects the legitimacy of the Afghan puppet government headed by President Hamid Karzai.

Early Thursday morning, 2 MEB began what has been described as the biggest airlift of marines since the Vietnam War. Code-named “Khanjar”—Pashtun for “strike of the sword”—the operation is the largest undertaken by the Marine Corp since it led the assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in November 2004. In all, some 4,000 marines and a 600-strong battalion of the Afghan Army are involved, supported by an array of jet fighters, unmanned drones and helicopter gunships.

An article in Friday’s New York Times by veteran war correspondent Carlotta Gall, who has worked in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001, made clear why Helmand has been targeted for the first major operation in Obama’s Afghan “surge”.

She wrote that the “mood of the Afghan people has tipped into a popular revolt in some parts of southern Afghanistan”. People have “taken up arms against the foreign troops to protect their homes or in anger at losing relatives in airstrikes”.

Gall noted: “The southern provinces have suffered the worst civilian casualties since NATO’s deployment into the region in 2006. Thousands of people have been displaced by fighting and taken refuge in the towns. ‘Now there are more people siding with the Taliban than with the government’, said Abdul Qadir Noorzai, head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission...”

One man interviewed by Gall in June declared: “Who are the Taliban? They are the local people.” Another, whose house was bombed by US jets two months ago, said: “We Muslims don’t like them [the foreign troops]. They are the source of danger.” […]

The offensive has been timed to coincide with the initial stages of an assault by the Pakistani military into the tribal agency of South Waziristan. The ethnic Pashtun tribal agencies are largely controlled by Islamist movements with close links to the Taliban, who provide Afghan guerillas with safe haven and contribute their own fighters to the anti-occupation insurgency. […]

The marines in Helmand will duplicate the methods used by the US military in Iraq and they are well qualified to do so. Most of the 2 MEB units, and many of the officers and enlisted men, served one or multiple tours in Iraq’s western province of Anbar. The surge tactics were first tested in Anbar, a centre of Sunni Arab resistance to the US invasion. Over two years, the marines honed their counter-insurgency methods at the cost of thousands of Iraqi lives and the repression of the entire population.

Everyone in the newly occupied areas of Helmand—men, women and children—will be treated as potential insurgents. Bases will be established in towns and villages, from which US troops will use intimidation to identify resistance fighters. Afghans will face constant road-blocks, identity checks and searches. Men of fighting age will have to endure the most humiliating treatment. Local tribal leaders will be offered cash bribes to order their clans to collaborate with the occupation. If they refuse, they will be marked as Taliban sympathisers [...]…. Read the full text here.

For the people living there it’s a lose/lose situation, and I have a feeling that when US troops will be leaving Afghanistan at some point in the future, they’ll be just as popular amongst “the liberated” as they were in Vietnam on their day of departure or now in Iraq.

Turn on the megaphones

Although the following article concerns itself with civilian deaths in Afghanistan, I thought it is befitting the mass murder unfolding in Gaza.

Killing of 17 Afghan Civilians in US-led operation

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday condemned the reported killing of 17 civilians, including women and children, in a US-led coalition operation in eastern Afghanistan, the presidential palace said in a statement....

Unable to seek revenge independently, many Afghan men in southern and eastern Afghanistan have joined the Taliban ranks after losing members of their families in international military operations, according to Afghan officials.

At least 1,500 civilians were among the 4,000 people killed in the first eight months of 2008, according to United Nations officials in Afghanistan.

Just like Afghani men in many cases are joining the Taliban, not due to their firm believe in the Taliban's extreme Islamic dogma, but to enlist with the only force out there that is fighting the invaders that killed their loved ones, so will Hamas be strengthened by USrael's despicable attacks on Gaza's civilian population.

The way those fanatic Zionist assholes see it, the more civilians die in the onslaught the better, it means more enraged Palestinians, more olive groves and houses that can be annexed while whimpering about the raging Palestinians.

However, with all our focus on Gaza, it's also worth remembering that our troops, US and allied forces around the world are just as barbaric as the IDF's henchmen. Looking at the numbers quoted in the Uruknet article, 1500 civilians killed in 8 mths in Afghanistan, pretty much in the same fashion as their Muslim brothers in Palestine, leaves one in no doubt that our own governments, people we elected, are just as guilty as Livni or say, Shaul Mofaz, the Israeli Minister for Palestinian Deaths. One has to wonder if the Allies' strategic planning in Afghanistan isn't in line with Israel's strategy - antagonize the civilian population in order to create the conflict needed to justify ones presence.

So whilst I understand that people could do with a stiff drink in times like these, it should not be to help us forget our frustrations and to numb the anger, but to warm us up for the cold outside, where we will have to march till our feet start bleeding. Lets not succumb to the feeling of hopelessness and our insignificance. We are not powerless, quite the opposite, WE are the power, we are the people. Should enough of us make a stand, putting for a change our money where our mouths and keyboards are, marching hand in hand by the tens of millions against the system, show enough courage to engage in civil disobedience and withholding war taxes, we will make a difference. 10 million people giving $100 ea, and there is a billion dollars to fight this insanity. And when the money runs out in three months time, we do it all over again, until those fuckers learn that we are serious.

We, not Rudd or Obama, have to get the snowball rolling. Them two soggy face washers won’t, that much is clear from their telltale silence on the war crimes committed by our alleged ally. But how? I hear you ask. How can us plebs make a difference? Easy, all it takes is a conscience and a few spare minutes every so often.

Short from traveling to Palestine ourselves to oppose in Rachel Corrie’s spirit the atrocious crimes committed against nearly helpless people, we can do our bit from wherever we are, in multiple different ways. Donate to any organization that is dedicated to easing the Palestinian suffering, whilst at the same time boycotting any goods and services coming from Israel, or firms associated and in business with Israel.

Let’s not kid ourselves, we all bear in one way or another some responsibility for the misery that exists across the developing world. Our consumer choices play an intrinsic role in the lives of many desperate people. They remain faceless to us, and yet we influence their livelihoods every day we go shopping.

As we blindly spend our monies, it escapes us that by buying thoughtless we are squandering our enormous power. Not as one lone shopper who tries to make a difference, but collectively, as an ever growing number of people who are fed up with the way the system churns out victims.

There are ways you and me can convey our message of disgust to the Israeli government slash establishment. Changing our consumer habits, making sure that no hard earned cent of ours is making its way to this in large parts morally corrupt nation. Let your wallets and purses do the talking, speak out with your cheque books and credit cards.

If we want our voices to be heard, we must first stop whispering, turn on our megaphones. So, to start up, send your English-language article or letter to the editor of as many media outlets as fit in your e-mail composer's To: field.

Once you’ve send your letter to the editors, join the global Consumer BDS movement and Boycott, Divest and Sanction for Palestine.

Find out about which companies to boycott, such as the Arsenal Football Club and Johnson & Johnson. Next time you buy shampoo or baby products, read the label. Anything produced in Israel will have a barcode on it that starts with the three digits 729.

Read about which western brands and labels not to buy, like Maggi, Coca Cola or Nestle products. I know its hard, but it can be done. We all can do it. Write a letter to those firms Customer Care departments and let them know that you have stopped buying their products as they help to prop up or are in cahoots with the Israeli apartheid state.

Also, make sure you check out this list of products from illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. And most importantly, please give generously to

• The Plant an Olive Tree campaign
• The Free Gaza Movement

or any other worthwhile cause you identify. Should you be able to afford it, make it a regular donation, regardless of when a new ceasefire will be negotiated. Without ever having been there myself, the images available tell the story - the damage inflicted on Palestine's people and infrastructure is so severe, that aid of any kind will be needed for decades to come. The Palestinian suffering will eventually disappear again from the media radar, it always does, until the next shocking incident brings it all back into the headlines. But the suffering there is not temporary like our news cycles, or shall I say attention span, it is ever present and seemingly permanent. In order for us to really make a difference, we best make any efforts of ours a longer term commitment.

Write, march donate, sponsor, purchase, participate, just do something. Remember - people, united, can never be defeated.

Any old way, no more time to waste, the people in Gaza and Afghanistan are counting on us, desperately.

The George & Kevin Show

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin “Busy Beaver” Rudd is in Washington. He had a bit of a meeting with the US leader, George Bush Jr., and their mutual understanding was omnipresent. It came as no surprise then when both cowboys in their press conference seem to read from the same script. And true to his word, that his administration will be more “pro-active” in world politics, Kevin went straight for it:

Ahead of the NATO summit in Bucharest next week, Mr Rudd re-emphasised the need for the Europeans to play a bigger role in the more dangerous south of Afghanistan.

Let’s just get this straight. The Australian Prime Minister complains about the European troop commitment to the invasion / occupation of Afghanistan. I am not sure when it was the last time Kevin or his advisors had a glance at the troop numbers supplied by the 40 allied nations to ISAF, the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan, but here are some pretty recent figures:

To put these numbers in perspective, of the 39 countries contributing to ISAF, 75% are European who combined provide some 23’000 of the total of 43’000 allied soldiers that make up ISAF, that is more than half the boots on the ground. Looking at the 8 countries who contribute more personnel & resources than Australia, 6 are European. So why this constant blame game?

What is the aim of insinuating that if it weren’t for the lack of courage by the European contingent, there would have been more progress in NATO’s Afghan adventure?

Although it was the US administration which initiated the whole sorry affair that the war in Afghanistan has become, with 23’000 European troops their involvement exceeds the US contribution in terms of man power by 50%.

But then again, Kevin’s remark was not designed to mock the troop numbers of our European allies, but more likely to suggest that the ones that were there are underperforming. Something along the lines of Europeans are cowardly hiding in the “quiet North West” while the Mericans, Canadians & Australians have to do all the fighting in the “dangerous South East”.

According to a CNN count, as of March 28, 2008 there have been 777 coalition deaths – listed in order of casualty numbers:

Whilst the casualty numbers seem to imply indeed that US troops are paying a higher price than many of their European allies, European countries have lost more than 200 of their soldiers in the invasion / occupation of Afghanistan, which is more than a quarter of all allied casualties. Australia had to bemoan luckily only 4 thereof.

This ISAF map shows where the respective nations have deployed their troops. Should, as repeatedly requested by US officials and now not surprisingly Kevin Rudd, Europeans take on a greater role in the south eastern end of Afghanistan and move their units into those hard fought for areas, who would fill the void in the north west? With the Germans, Spaniards, Dutch, French & Italians all moving south, would the Mericans and Canadians move north, in effect swapping jobs with the Europeans? Sounds like rotating NATO troops along the lines of “Come on guys, you do the killing for a while, we’re due for a holiday.”

More from Kevin on that issue:

"We need to sign up a common script both military and civil on how we actually prosecute and succeed in this conflict," he said.

If I read that correctly then they don’t have yet a common strategy on how to succeed in Afghanistan. And that after 6 years!!! My o my, where will this end.

But then again, with two such mighty good leaders in place, I am almost certain we will have world peace in no time at all. Check out their credentials:

In what was often a jovial press conference, Mr Bush pegged Mr Rudd as a straight-shooter who was a strategic thinker and basically a decent guy.

And he was quick to agree that he too was befitting of the moniker "Man of Steel", a term he first bestowed on John Howard for his resolve in the war against terror.

Mr Rudd returned the favour by making the President an honorary Queenslander...

Queenslanders must be absolutely stoked with having George Bush as a fellow citizen. The man on whose orders some 100’000 Iraqis had to die will be proudly wearing the Maroons jumper Kevin has given him.

The Blues better watch out, George doesn't like loosing. Before you know it he'll spike NSW onto the axis of evil.

Finally, after all these numbers, sports & politics, and just to wrap this up, here a link to a site that cracked me up when I read it today, Vlads Daily Gloat, the radical Russian with a weakness for anything US American.

On wars, banks and love

For years I've been dreaming of going to war with some poor country rich in petroil, you know, making sure there will be enough juice for me and my fleet of cars, but with being stuck in our economic boom times, my work schedule simply didn't allow me to start one up. Now that I finally got to the point in my life where I could take some time off, I find out that I also need shit loads of money. According to latest developments, wars need to be paid for.

Iraq, Afghan wars costing $US3 trillion: experts

With the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war just days away, its cost is becoming clearer.

Ahead of that anniversary, two prominent US economists have come up with a new estimate on the cost to the economy of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. That figure is $US3 trillion ($3.22 trillion)….

The estimated cost so far of Australia's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is roughly $3 billion. But Robert Ayson, the director of studies at the Australian National University's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, says he expects that figure to rise significantly.

Damn, trillions.... thats how many zeros? I'd be mighty surprised should my master card allow me that much. Not with the current global lending crisis anyway, so I guess my war/invasion of target country X has to wait a while, at least until I manage to save up enough dough for a deposit.

I hope you understand that I can't give you exact details about which nation I have in mind. Chances are the country's spies would find out about my invasion plans, their armed forces then propping up their defenses, which would make my job so much harder when its finally time to strike. I can reveal though that it is on an axis of sort, which makes it a very dangerous country.

Lucky here in Australia we had 11 consecutive years of Liberal Party rule, and as every privately schooled kid knows, a Lib government means fat times. So saving up the necessary deposit for my war should be a breeze, with business roaring and interest rates as high as they are. The Australian consumers are loaded, cashed up with real estate equity to a degree that they need to be restraint with rising interest rates. Rivers of honey and milk flowing everywhere.

We don't have no bubble, we won't get no trouble, oh yeah yeah yeah
Let the good times roll, Resources 'R Us
From aluminum to zinc, we got every thing, oh yeah yeah yeah

Wouldn't want to save up for my war chest anywhere else but in Oz, least of all places in the USA. Across the ocean the cogs in the economic wheels are creaking, creating this distinct grinding sound investors dread. It comes therefore as no surprise that Lady Prosperity decided she'll move out for a while.

The other noise thats starting to deafen US Americans is that of chicken coming home to roost. No point in pretending that their dilemma isn't home made, pissing against the wind requires that one changes pants from time to time. In the case of the US this means the entire financial system needs a new outfit, probably even a nappy change.

From riches to rags, the ol' classic. Once the most affluent nation in the known universe, today a banana republic where the Federal Reserve Bank has to resort to having helicopters hovering above Wall Street dropping cash on the nearly bankrupt. Providing massive loans to troubled financial institutions in return for nearly worthless mortgage securities.

Economist Professor Steve Keen, from the University of Western Sydney, made the following observations in an interview on the ABC's World Today:

ELEANOR HALL: What's your view? Is the United States already in recession?

STEVE KEEN: I'm sure it's in recession right now. It's a question of how deep it goes down, and I expect an extremely deep recession. And I'm noticing that quite a few commentators are now coming around to their view. They also suspect a severe recession to occur in America, and we have similar forces afoot in Australia.

We are benefiting from the highest terms of trade in our history at the moment. We're simultaneously running an enormous current account deficit, which is really a crazy combination.

So, we're very heavily reliant upon those prices remaining at unprecedented levels, and they will fall if there... actually there'll have to be a fall in those prices if America goes into recession, and then feeds through to China's demand for our resources and so on. That'll be very problematic for our currency and for our economy.

ELEANOR HALL: When will that hit, do you think?

STEVE KEEN: It's got to be in the next two years. Timing that's any more accurately than that is simply impossible because the whole timing depends upon when we turn around from accepting more debt to trying to pay our debt levels down.

Uhh Lordy, if I understand him right then Keen suggests that Australia will face a similar carnage to what the US is experiencing at the moment, all within the next two years. A world wide economic downturn, triggered by the unfolding US economic collapse, will reduce global demand enough to send commodity prices to lows not seen for quite some time, hitting Australia right in the export eye.

But lucky Australian families were smart enough to stash away their hard earned cash during the fat years, handing it over to people they didn't really know, but who have slick haircuts so expensive looking that who ever sported one had to be a financial mastermind. They tend to work in multi-story high rises, the biggest buildings in town, Australian banks and finance companies.

The really smart bank employees, who not just have expensive haircuts but also wear posh suits and swishy shoes, who have proper titles on their office doors, are normally found from the fourth floor up. They need to be high enough above ground to escape the blaring masses, coz when you make difficult financial decisions - like how to invest your clients’ money – you want to be able to concentrate as much as possible.

Those men and women are pedigree financial planners, making sure Australian retirement eggs and people’s savings are safe and sound. Just how secure Australian banks and their investments really are was illustrated in The Australian last week, when Adele Ferguson wrote a noteworthy assessment titled “Gambles in the balance”. Here an excerpt:

All the banks play the derivatives market. The latest Reserve Bank bulletin reveals that the banks' derivative exposure has more than doubled from $5.4 trillion in 2002 to $13.2trillion in December last year. Given the banks' total shareholder value is less than $100 billion, if even 1 per cent of these $13.2trillion derivatives contracts default because third parties get into trouble, the whole shareholder wealth would be wiped out and our banks could be broke.

To put it into perspective, Australia's annual gross domestic product is just more than $1 trillion and the total budget estimate for federal government expenditure in 2006-07 is $200 billion. Remember the Reserve Bank in its quarterly bulletin estimates that the total risk is $140 billion which, again, is more than the banks' total shareholder value.

What do you say to that? The global economy tanking and Australian banks up to their eyeballs exposed to risky debts. Great, a lose/lose situation. With banks leveraged to the degree they are, fat chance of them giving me the credit I need to pull off my planned invasion. On top of that, should the nation's economy really go as pear shaped as the author of the above article assumes it will, I wouldn't even be able to save up the needed deposit. How on earth am I ever meant to pay for my war?

The new Joint Fighter F-35 Lightning II costs around $200 million a piece, and my military adviser told me I need at least three of them. Plus plenty of cash for rockets, guns and bribery. All these figures confuse the hell out of me, so I made an appointment with my accountant.

We met last week in his office and discussed the plans and strategy. He was quite fond of my idea to kick of the invasion with a big bang, followed by more bangs, and promised me he would have a look into the costings of such an operation. Today he e-mailed me an excel spreadsheet with a recommended budget.

Far out brussels sprout, my jaw dropped to knee height when I opened it. The bottom figure, the one that is double underlined, had so many zeros I have to assume it is a trillion. And then, the comedian he is, he left me a footnote telling me that he reckons that with the current liquidity crisis and all I will have a hard time financing my war. As if I wouldn't know.

Where is Prescott Bush when you need him? He'd love to help me out, I am sure.

Pakistan, Taliban & Iran v. USA

Today, as I was reading my daily dose of blogs, I came across a post by Henry on Crocked Timber , in which he quotes a Financial Times story on Pakistan and the precarious situation the country finds itself in at the moment. Dictating President General Musharraf just dismissed the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhary, a move which sparked widespread opposition and protests. The reason for his suspension are most likely some of the judge's recent court rulings, which have the potential to turn out uncomfortable for Musharraf. This was a political hatchet job, and the press / people smelled the roast.

The political climate in Pakistan has been shaky at best since General Musharraf's coup 8 years ago, pitching the pro-democracy civilians against the country's military rulers. This article on Asia Times Online tries to analyse the recent history in Pakistan and comes to the following conclusion:

The military establishment faces the choice of clamping down hard on opposition or allowing the protests to run their course.

"There is undoubtedly a political eruption after a prolonged political lull in the country, and if it is sustained it could go a long way. However, there is always a threat from the establishment that it will make some moves to divide the politicians and lawyers," commented retired Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul, a former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence.

"Musharraf created the situation where a clash of the military establishment and civil society seems to be imminent. There is .... anger among the masses towards the present military rulers," Gul said.

Militants feed off such anger, so once again Washington is pondering whether Musharraf may be more the problem than the solution.

From what I can gather, Musharraf has been walking on rather thin ice for quite a while. He was lucky to survive three assassination/coup attempts since taking over in 1999, the last one just recently was foiled and has shown that his own military is infiltrated by Al-Quaida supporters. Which sort of explains why he has no sympathy for them, catch 22 so to say, but demonstrates at the same time his weakness of being undermined from within his own supposed powerbase.

For the last 5 years Musharraf has found himself in a US - Taliban sandwich. It appears that he is trying to hedge his bets both ways.

With the Taliban as his proxy army he is trying to grind of the thorn of an India friendly Kabul. Pakistan is the vital logistics and hardware supplier the Taliban needs to have a fighting chance against the US & Nato forces in Afghanistan (which helps appeasing the Muslim Pakistani population at home). Afghanistan's mujaheddin have been receiving strong support from Pakistan during the Soviet days 20 years ago, an alliance which is still honored and deemed existing in sections of Pakistan's military and religious establishment.

At the same time he must continue to appease the US by giving Al-Quaida as hard a time as possible in its heartland in the Afghan/Pakistani border region. Since the relationships between Al-Quaida and the Taliban aren't as rosy anymore as they used to be, Musharraf seems to think he can solve the conundrum of how to support the force of Muslim guerilla warriors in Afghanistan whilst simultaneously keeping the US happy by fulfilling his role as reliable ally of the US administration's WoT, by sending his own army after their common foe, the Al-Quaida gang.

For instance, the alleged chief operations manager of AQ, who is currently in the news with his astounding admissions of having orchestrated if not even executed most of AQ's terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was hunted down and arrested in Pakistan 4 years ago.

Since Pakistan has also a border with Iran, its role as a US ally becomes even more important. With Pakistan being largely Sunni, one would think that not a great deal of sympathy exists between the people of these two countries, but quite contrary, according to this story from Asia Times large portions of the Pakistani population would not support any US attacks on its Shia neighbors. Unlike the man at the helm, General Musharraf, who sees Pakistan in matters Iran firmly on the West's side, in line with other Sunni leaders eg. the House Saud or Mubarak et al.

But Tehran probably has fresh grounds to reassess Musharraf's intentions. Or, it is running out of patience. Last month, terrorists killed 13 officials of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan. Last week, in another incident in the town of Negor in Sistan-Balochistan, four Iranian policemen were killed, one abducted and another wounded. The perpetrators fled across the border into Pakistan.

Iran last week announced its intention to erect a 3-meter-high concrete wall reinforced with steel rods along its border with Pakistan. Islamabad put on a brave face, with the Foreign Ministry maintaining, "The fence is on the Iranian side of the border, and we have no problem with that." But Tehran calculates that the sheer humiliation of being treated as an infectious gangrene by all its neighbors - Afghanistan, India and Iran - should eventually begin to tell on the Musharraf regime...

What I found most interesting though in the above quoted AT article were the the last 4 paragraphs, where the author, M K Bhadrakumar, a former Indian Foreign Service diplomat, is suggesting that the real issue for America in the US-Iran-Pakistan politics triangle is, surprise surprise, natural resources and their distribution, as in pipelines and US access to them:

...there is a sideshow to these happenings that is no less profound. US intelligence operatives must be laughing all the way to Washington that they could manage with such ease what their suave diplomats (and wily Congress members) have had a hard time achieving in recent years - arresting Islamabad and New Delhi from finalizing the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas-pipeline project. In geopolitical terms, the project holds the definite potential to forge a unified Asian energy market, with deep implications for US energy security.

Washington was increasingly finding it counterproductive to resort to arm-twisting New Delhi and Islamabad into putting the project on the back burner until such time as US-Iran relations were normalized and Washington, too, could dip into Iran's energy reserves.

Now, just as it was becoming clear that the three regional capitals were inching toward finalization of the project at a trilateral meeting in Tehran in June, the high volatility in the security situation in the Iran-Pakistan border region puts question marks on their energy dialogue. To be sure, the pipeline project is predicated on a climate of trust and confidence prevailing among the three parties.

There was much merit in US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent fulsome praise that "this has been a stalwart fighter, Pakistan's Musharraf, in this fight". Those in Washington who insinuated that he deserved "an unusually tough message" over the "war on terror" have since hastily beaten a retreat. They didn't know what they were saying.

Should Musharraf be ousted and Pakistan find its way back to a democratic system, the US would probably loose in the medium to long-term an important ally in the region. 90% of todays 165 million Pakistanis are Muslims (20 Shia, 70 Sunni), of whom many would certainly vote for parties which express the anti-western views many muslims hold.

The US can't afford to loose Pakistan's cooperation, thus any US plans to influence events and outcomes there are probably based on the switch module, replacing one dictator with another, one who'll be grateful for any assistance in overthrowing Musharraf. Straight after the motto "He might be a bastard, but he is our bastard."
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