Comments on: Afghanistan/Pakistan Border - Pashtun Power http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/ American Foreign Policy Analysis in Central Asia Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:38:59 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=wordpress-mu-1.0 by: Central Asia » Blog Archive » CIA, ISI: Paranoia Party http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/#comment-3319 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:38:07 +0000 http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/#comment-3319 [...] Last week I went over two articles from journal International Security which both discussed the deteriorating security and governance situation along the Afghan/Pakistan border. Both articles emphasized Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, as being either too weak, lacking decent effort, or of actually being a partner in some of the Taliban’s insurgent efforts against NATO and the Afghan government. In fact, both papers’ accusations were rather damning against the ISI. Combine this analysis and evidence along with a report by the New York Times today regarding a high level visit by the CIA and Joint Chief of Staff Adm. Mullen with Pakistan’s government leaders, where the US side outlined accusations against the ISI’s role in the insurgency. The CIA and US military specifically accused the ISI of having continual links with the militant network lead by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is known to have direct links to members of Al Qaeda. The article also discusses how Pakistan’s nascent civilian government was having a hard time asserting control over the intelligence agency. [...] […] Last week I went over two articles from journal International Security which both discussed the deteriorating security and governance situation along the Afghan/Pakistan border. Both articles emphasized Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, as being either too weak, lacking decent effort, or of actually being a partner in some of the Taliban’s insurgent efforts against NATO and the Afghan government. In fact, both papers’ accusations were rather damning against the ISI. Combine this analysis and evidence along with a report by the New York Times today regarding a high level visit by the CIA and Joint Chief of Staff Adm. Mullen with Pakistan’s government leaders, where the US side outlined accusations against the ISI’s role in the insurgency. The CIA and US military specifically accused the ISI of having continual links with the militant network lead by Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is known to have direct links to members of Al Qaeda. The article also discusses how Pakistan’s nascent civilian government was having a hard time asserting control over the intelligence agency. […]

]]> by: Central Asia » Blog Archive » Afghanistan: Obama, troops, and poppies http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/#comment-3199 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:51:27 +0000 http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/#comment-3199 [...] I’m a couple days late, actually with the saturated media coverage it seems much longer, but Presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Afghanistan, meeting with US troops and the Afghan leadership. Reports stated that he made the trip to highlight the nation as the main front as the war on terror, more so than Iraq. I was pleased to hear that Obama visited, or at least flew over, the Pakistan-Afghan border where the insurgency is the strongest and where most NATO/US soldiers are dying. As I wrote last week this strategic area is of vital importance to US, regional, and international security and has been widely misunderstood by US officials and the media at large, so hopefully Obama was able to provide himself a clearer picture of the conflict by his visit (which I must say is about time, why did it take him this long to checkout the war-torn/vital nation? Well I’m at in this parantheses opinion piece, I have been also less than thrilled with Presidential candidate John McCain’s emphasis on Afghanistan, the public needs to know what the US/NATO/Afghan government is up against.) In positive news, Obama is reportedly going to ask Europe to ’shoulder more of the burden to help deal with global security threats’ in his upcoming Berlin speech. The global security threats definitely include Afghanistan and hopefully a fresh dialogue of NATO’s role can be opened. [...] […] I’m a couple days late, actually with the saturated media coverage it seems much longer, but Presidential candidate Barack Obama visited Afghanistan, meeting with US troops and the Afghan leadership. Reports stated that he made the trip to highlight the nation as the main front as the war on terror, more so than Iraq. I was pleased to hear that Obama visited, or at least flew over, the Pakistan-Afghan border where the insurgency is the strongest and where most NATO/US soldiers are dying. As I wrote last week this strategic area is of vital importance to US, regional, and international security and has been widely misunderstood by US officials and the media at large, so hopefully Obama was able to provide himself a clearer picture of the conflict by his visit (which I must say is about time, why did it take him this long to checkout the war-torn/vital nation? Well I’m at in this parantheses opinion piece, I have been also less than thrilled with Presidential candidate John McCain’s emphasis on Afghanistan, the public needs to know what the US/NATO/Afghan government is up against.) In positive news, Obama is reportedly going to ask Europe to ’shoulder more of the burden to help deal with global security threats’ in his upcoming Berlin speech. The global security threats definitely include Afghanistan and hopefully a fresh dialogue of NATO’s role can be opened. […]

]]> by: Joshua Foust http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/#comment-3084 Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:24:22 +0000 http://centralasia.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2008/07/17/afghanistanpakistan-border-pashtun-power/#comment-3084 "Troy" at the blog Abu Muqawama already made this comparison: http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-do-you-solve-problem-like-pashtun.html He linked to someone named Stephen Pampinella trying to analyze these papers through "traditional social science approaches to violence and insurgency" and tries to tie it into Wendt's Social Theory: http://stephenpampinella.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/deconstructing-the-taliban/ What neither post mentions, what you don't either, is that there are serious logical and methodological problems to the Johnson & Mason paper, which I documented here: http://www.registan.net/index.php/2008/05/07/digging-deeper-into-the-pashtun-tribal-areas/ Also the Jones paper is essentially a shallow rehash of the same research into state failure in Afghanistan Rubin did in 1995. He's not saying anything really new. “Troy” at the blog Abu Muqawama already made this comparison:

http://abumuqawama.blogspot.com/2008/06/how-do-you-solve-problem-like-pashtun.html

He linked to someone named Stephen Pampinella trying to analyze these papers through “traditional social science approaches to violence and insurgency” and tries to tie it into Wendt’s Social Theory:

http://stephenpampinella.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/deconstructing-the-taliban/

What neither post mentions, what you don’t either, is that there are serious logical and methodological problems to the Johnson & Mason paper, which I documented here:

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2008/05/07/digging-deeper-into-the-pashtun-tribal-areas/

Also the Jones paper is essentially a shallow rehash of the same research into state failure in Afghanistan Rubin did in 1995. He’s not saying anything really new.

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