After more than 7½ years’ incarceration by the U.S.:

Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak al-Janko was tortured by al-Qaeda and imprisoned by the Taliban for 18 months because the groups’ leaders thought he was an American spy.

Abandoned by his captors in late 2001, he was picked up by U.S. authorities, who shipped him to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on suspicion that he was a member of the two groups.

[On Monday], a federal judge ordered Janko’s release, saying the government’s legal rationale for continuing to detain him “defies common sense.”

In a 13-page opinion that he read from the bench, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the government to engage in diplomatic efforts to find a country that would host the 30-year-old detainee.…

[snip]

…al-Qaeda leaders suspected him of spying for the United States and tortured him for three months until he confessed falsely to the charges, Leon said. Janko then spent 18 months in a Taliban prison in Kandahar, the judge said.

The Taliban fled the prison in late 2001, leaving Janko behind, Leon said. U.S. authorities then picked up Janko.…

[snip]

Leon ruled that the government’s case was too weak and illogical to justify the continued detention. He said the government failed to prove that Janko had been a member of the two groups.

[snip]

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by Janko under the centuries-old legal doctrine of habeas corpus, which allows prisoners to challenge their confinement before independent judges.… Source

Each and every such case serves to further taint the credibility and basis of the prosecution in all cases.

---

Update June 25 12:30 p.m.: Relevant and disturbing signing of law today, directly impacting the rights of the accused who have been cleared of charges and the boundaries of the courts system.

Shorter version of the official British policy regarding atrocities: ‘Avert your eyes.’

Tony Blair was aware of the ­existence of a secret interrogation policy which ­effectively led to British citizens, and others, being ­tortured during ­counter-terrorism investigations, the Guardian can reveal.

The policy, devised in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, offered ­guidance to MI5 and MI6 officers ­questioning detainees in Afghanistan whom they knew were being mistreated by the US military.

British intelligence officers were given written instructions that they could not “be seen to condone” torture and that they must not “engage in any activity yourself that involves inhumane or degrading treatment of prisoners”.

But they were also told they were not under any obligation to intervene to prevent detainees from being mistreated.

“Given that they are not within our ­custody or control, the law does not require you to intervene to prevent this,” the policy said.

The policy almost certainly breaches international human rights law, according to Philippe Sands QC, one of the world’s leading experts in the field, because it takes no account of Britain’s obligations to avoid complicity in torture under the UN convention against torture. Despite this, the secret policy went on to underpin British intelligence’s ­relationships with a number of foreign intelligence agencies which had become the UK’s allies in the “war against terror”.

The policy was set out in written instructions sent to MI5 and MI6 officers in January 2002, which told them they might consider complaining to US officials about the mistreatment of detainees “if circumstances allow”. Source

Look at that date. January 2002.

It naturally follows that, as the policy was developed in response to witnessed torture or other abuse, that those instances — clearly implicating and confirming U.S. personnel as being among those performing such acts — had to occur in 2001, at or near the very beginning of the war in October of that year.

Yet more reason to investigate the still secret Justice Department memos whose existence is known, particularly the one from Nov. 20, 2001, all the more so as so many of the DOJ memos have been demonstrated as being developed to provide cover for circumstances already undertaken.

Winds of hope?

Moderate leaders of the Taliban say they have quietly and steadily made progress in third-party talks between the active Taliban insurgency and representatives of the Afghan and U.S. governments.

Two Taliban leaders — who held high-ranking positions in the now-deposed Taliban government and who are directly involved in the talks — say they’ve recently established a framework of an agreement through the shuttle negotiations. They say the process has included contact with the spiritual leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The talks began last year under the auspices of Saudi Arabia and have involved a series of secret meetings in Mecca, including a gathering several months ago. Observers have for months maintained that the Saudi talks have produced more rumors than real progress.

But now, in extensive interviews with GlobalPost two former Taliban officials directly involved — Abdul Hakim Muhajid and Arsenal Rahmani — said negotiations have gained momentum and laid the groundwork for real movement.

Rahmani went so far as to say a deal could be reached before Afghanistan’s August presidential elections.

[snip]

All sides seem to agree a new diplomatic tone and military strategy set by Washington has contributed to the momentum. President Barack Obama earlier this year called for negotiations with moderate elements of the Taliban. CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus has discussed the need for a more complex approach to dealing with what he calls “reconcilables” within the insurgency. Source

With friends like these…

Among the countries congratulating Mr Ahmadinejad on his victory were Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela and North Korea. Source

More:

As European capitals appear to weigh their reaction to the Iranian poll against their desire to engage Tehran in constructive talks, most of Iran’s neighboring states have opted for simply congratulating the winner.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai was the first head of state to do so as he called Ahmadinejad on June 14. Karzai’s office said he congratulated the Iranian people “for making a decision about their destiny” and hoped Afghanistan’s ties with Iran would continue to strengthen during Ahmadinejad’s second four-year term in office.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani followed shortly after with a telegram to Ahmadinejad expressing confidence that their two countries “friendly and neighborly relations” will improve in the coming years.

Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, told Ahmadinejad the victory was “an acknowledgment of your outstanding services.”

[snip]

Arab League Secretary-General Amr Musa also congratulated Ahmadinejad….Source

’nuff said.

Other side of the coin: Unlike major capitals of the EU, Canada voices sharply stated outrage.

It’s coming to a boil, and bound to be nasty and brutish — but not short.

… the “army’s already in action” in Waziristan, though full-scale combat does not appear to have started. Military analysts believe NATO forces in Afghanistan are likely to launch a parallel operation to cut off the militants’ retreat.

The assault on Baitullah Mehsud comes after a challenger emerged from his own tribe, Qari Zainuddin, who is being secretly backed by the Pakistan state and is already believed to have weakened the fearsome warlord. [More on that here – voxd]

[snip]

Pakistan has fought Mehsud three times since 2004 but has lost each encounter and then been forced to cut a peace deal that only emboldened the Taliban. This time, locals living in towns on the edge of Mehsud’s South Waziristan lair report massive movement of military men and equipment, on a scale not seen in the past. Source

Awful bookends for this month of May.

End of the month — Maj. Gen. (ret.) Anthony Taguba (Source):

“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”

Start of the month — Gen. (ret.) Barry McCaffrey (Source):

“We should never, as a policy, maltreat people under our control, detainees. We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A.”

Waziristan bloodbath (emphasis added) next?

Or a semi-shrouded message to specific or ancillary factions to lay low or pull back?

Or a showpiece, transitory operation which will peter out as before?

And little to no mention anywhere of bustling Quetta (see again here and additional citations), where criminally-geared and terror-affiliated segments (that is to say, directly relevant to and revolving around operations in Afghanistan rather than the more local sovereignty movement or breakaway factions) yet plainly exist and operate visibly and with near impunity.

The high-profile convention of clerics in the Pakistani capital was the second in three days to condemn suicide attacks and beheadings, two of the Taliban’s favored tactics, as “haram,” or contrary to Islam.

Both conventions also supported the Pakistani military offensive against Taliban in Swat and two adjoining districts, although almost all the clerics share the militants’ goal of establishing Islamic law in Pakistan.

[snip]

The shift, coupled with intense pressure from Washington and a more sober assessment of the threat posed by the militants, appears to have roused the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Zardari has said that Pakistan would extend its military offensive to Waziristan, the area along the Afghan border that’s a base for Pakistani and Afghan Taliban, and also for al Qaida. That would trigger a major conflict, in which the support of the clergy could be vital.

[snip]

A deeply religious people, Pakistanis tend to take guidance from senior clerics, and their previous ambivalence and confusion about Islamic extremism rose in part from the clergy’s silence or from denials that Muslims could have perpetrated acts of violence against civilians.

At the two religious conventions, however, there was even criticism of the Pakistani military’s past patronage of jihadist groups.

“We are now harvesting the crop we sowed three decades ago,” Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman told a lively convention of some 4,000 clerics on Sunday, referring to the policy of backing Afghan “mujahedeen” guerrillas in the 1980s under U.S.-backed dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq.

[snip]

Sunday’s meeting was organized by clerics from the Barelvi sect, the dominant Islamic school in South Asia, a Sunni creed that preaches a tolerant brand of religion but whose voice is often drowned out by firebrands from more radical sects.

Tuesday’s conference was sponsored by the government and involved broader participation, including from Shiites, Pakistan’s other main Islamic denomination, and even some clerics from the Deobandi school, a branch of the Taliban that preaches a purist Islam akin to the Wahabi [sic] faith of Osama bin Laden.

While the majority of Pakistanis are Barelvi, the Deobandis run most of the madrassas — Islamic schools — that churn out religious scholars and foot soldiers for the Taliban and other extreme religious groups. Source

One meanwhile fervently hopes that there is strong and constant backchannel pressure coming from the U.S., the U.K., Russia and China, directed at India to put all and any moves regarding Kashmir, with the exception of negotiations, totally on ice for the duration.

Not good. Not good at all. And odd too, isn’t it, how any mention of the purported use of such banned materiel or similar munitions on civilians during the devastation of Fallujah escapes mention in the article.

Taleban fighters have been using deadly white phosphorus munitions, some of them manufactured in Britain, to attack Western forces in Afghanistan, according to previously classified United States documents released yesterday.

[snip]

Although a full investigation is under way, it is not yet clear how the Taleban and other insurgent forces using them had acquired the white phosphorus munitions from Britain. However, Major Willis said that Afghanistan was littered with ordnance of every kind and it was not a surprise that the insurgents had got their hands on white phosphorus.

[snip]

Major Willis said that the use of white phosphorus in IEDs was a relatively new development. The earliest report of the insurgents using white phosphorus was in February 2003, but the eight known IED cases, including one in the south, have all occurred since March 2007. Source

It should be noted that some previous reports of announcements of identified ordnance markings have been credibly disputed or entirely retracted. That is not to deny this report, but to qualify it within the context of both the Iraq and Afghanistan mayhem.

The fog of war is dense indeed, but not totally impenetrable if there exists the will and the drive to thoroughly investigate, and by that not meaning only an institutional or in-service investigation, such as have been accomplished before.

…a March 14, 2009, incident in which an 8-year-old girl in Kapisa province was burned by white phosphorus munitions, Human Rights Watch said…. A NATO spokesperson has denied allegations from the girl’s father that NATO forces had fired the rounds that caused her injuries.

[snip]

NATO officials have said that according to their records, no rounds were found to have landed near the house, though have not denied using white phosphorus during this engagement.… Source

Hints of a thin silver lining to an otherwise very, very dark cloud.

---

Always an author worth the time, Chalmers Johnson hits one out of the park in this must-read in full essay looking at the Pentagon’s unholy trinity of cost-benefit-utility (and identifying some of its all too frequent and all too common structural and inertial irrationality).

Inheriting a long-running debacle, a change of tack — actually using the prevailing winds rather than gallumphing headlong into them?

Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama’s new envoy for Afghanistan, General James Jones, the new White House national security adviser, and General David Petraeus, the new commander of the Afghan campaign, all stressed that the US president’s policy on the Taliban and al-Qaida would be governed by “attainable goals” matched by “adequate resources”.

[snip]

“Obama’s objectives will be much more moderate,” said a senior European policy-maker involved in discussions with the Obama team. A senior Nato official said Washington’s emphasis on Afghanistan was shifting to “being much more realistic”, adding: “It doesn’t need to be a democracy, just secure.”

“The new policy will be not just winning hearts and minds, but winning hearts, minds, and stomachs,” said another senior diplomat working in Kabul. “It’s realistic. Realism is good.”

[snip]

Holbrooke signalled a sharp change of tack on Afghanistan, saying: “We’ve inherited a situation of grand rhetoric and inadequate resources, both military and civilian. We need to understand what our goal is in Afghanistan.” Source

---

Added Feb. 9, 7:15 p.m.: Thoughtful summary, via Vanity Fair (all emphasis in original).

What about Obama versus Bush on handling this war? Does Obama have any advantages over Bush?

Well the advantage Obama has is his intellect. He’s going to ask somebody, “O.K., what are we going to accomplish here?” I don’t think that was asked when we went in 26 days after 9/11. I think we went in because we were angry and we had to do something. I don’t know that we had a plan. I think Obama will look at this and ask–unlike the Bush administration–”What are we trying to get out of this? Somebody tell me.”

If you had to counsel Obama, what would you say the goal should be?

My difficulty in answering that question is that I have such a problem with the fact that we’re already in there. That is such a big mistake that once you have made it, everything else seems to fail. We are there, so obviously we want to avoid the humiliation that everybody else has suffered in getting out, and we want to leave behind something that will walk back the damage already done by the fact that we have engaged in this war.

[snip]

Right now, it seems the U.S.-backed government and the U.S.-led coalition are in the same predicament that most other occupiers have found themselves in, eventually, which is controlling the main towns but having no control over the countryside. Is that accurate?

That’s a fair assessment. I mean, we spent huge amounts of money to build the Kabul to Kandahar Road, but nobody can travel it safely. Nobody is controlling all of Afghanistan from the center. And while we may not have reached that tipping point, in the overworn term, of a generalized resistance like the ones that forced out the Soviets, the British, the Moguls, and Alexander the Great–we’re close to that. And the policies that we come up with in this new administration will either move us over the tipping point, or back away from it.

So let’s talk about Obama and his plan. He’s talking about doubling the U.S. troop force, from about 34,000 to something like 60,000. Is that correct, as you understand it?

Well, the numbers are interpreted with a lot of leeway. [He wants to add] three brigades, which can run from 20,000 to 30,000 troops. I think that’s a nice campaign position, but once you’re president you’re going to say, “Are the numbers important, or is the mission–the redefinition of the mission–more important?” My sense is that if you send more gunfighters, you get into more gunfights. And I don’t think that’s ever worked out for anybody. There’s precious little experience that would point to the fact that we can kill enough Pashtuns to where they’d say, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

So far, the U.S. strategy has been to isolate the Taliban. Are you saying that’s not possible?

You know, you have to start with this question: What are the Taliban? You would be correct if you described the Taliban as a Pashtun movement. If you described all the people that you’re engaging in combat operations with as “Taliban,” you’re including a lot of criminal gangs, you’re describing a lot of kids being paid to carry guns, you’ve got a lot of local-interest Pashtuns, and you’ve got some of the fervent Muslim, faith-driven Taliban. I don’t know what the proportions are of each group. But the point is, we’re going to have to start-over and define who our adversary is and what our mission is. And then we have to ask, “What kind of deals can I possibly work out along the way if I’m not convinced that I can kill enough of these people to bring them to heel?”…

[snip]

…The problem we face in Afghanistan and Pakistan goes beyond Taliban and al-Qaeda. A big piece of Afghanistan and Pakistan are in total turmoil, if for no other reason than because we’re there.

[snip]

Do you think there’s a moderate Pashtun force that would be willing to say, “We’re not going to run our country in the way that the Taliban did”? Because it would be hard for the U.S. to turn things over to a Taliban-style government.

There may be some Taliban that are moderate. We call every pissed off Pashtun a Taliban, just like every pissed off Vietnamese was V.C. We’re going to have to consider providing enough security–not going out and doing kinetic operations–so that they can regenerate the traditional, tribal elder system and build their own security. We’re calling this “militias” now, [but we need indigenous forces that can say,] “O.K., this is our district. We’ve lived here for 20,000 years, and we’re going to pull ourselves together. All I want from you, America (or the Canadians, or the Dutch, or whatever, the Brits), is a little security. We’ll have our share, we’ll do our thing, and we’ll even accept some arms and money to police this area.” And it may be Taliban Pashtuns that were somehow associated with it that will do it, and then they put up their sign that says, in their own Pashto language, “Don’t mess with Texas.” Or, “Don’t come into this district if you want to behave badly.” And if that happens, maybe you can make some progress. But if we don’t look at that, then we end up with “kinetic operations” and sending more guns and fighters to the gunfights, and publishing more body counts. Source

For years now it has been torrentially raining cash, and too many shady, greedy, mercenary, malfeasant or just plain incompetent or compromised or clandestine people have had a near-infinite supply of buckets.

“Before we go pouring more money in, we really need to know what we’re trying to accomplish (in Afghanistan),” said Ginger Cruz, deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. “And at what point do you turn off the spigot so you’re not pouring money into a black hole?”

[snip]

Cruz, along with Stuart Bowen, the top U.S. official overseeing Iraq’s reconstruction, delivered a grim report to the Wartime Contracting Commission. Their assessment, along testimony from Thomas Gimble of the Defense Department inspector general’s office, laid out a history of poor planning, weak oversight and greed that soaked U.S. taxpayers and undermined American forces in Iraq.

[snip]

Congress created the bipartisan panel a year ago over the objections of the Bush White House, which complained the Justice Department might be forced to disclose sensitive information about investigations.

There are 154 open criminal investigations into allegations of bribery, conflicts of interest, defective products, bid rigging and theft in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, said Gimble, the Pentagon’s principal deputy inspector general. Source

Have mentioned the infusion of members filled with demented hate over the years here and in previous oncarnations of this blog.

The situation remains unaddressed, if not entirely sweept under the carpet. Small in gross numbers, perhaps, but it doesn’t take more than one or a very few professionally lethally trained, mentally irrational, venom-infused human time bombs to wreak great havoc.

…Military and Defense Department officials seem to have made no sustained effort to prevent active white supremacists from joining the armed forces or to weed out those already in uniform.

Furthermore, new evidence is emerging that not only supports the Intelligence Report’s original findings, but also indicates the problem may have worsened since the summer of 2006, as enlistment rates have continued to plummet, and the military has struggled to meet recruitment goals in a time of unpopular war. Asked about the latest developments, military officials this fall declined to comment.

A new FBI report confirms that white supremacists are infiltrating the military for several reasons. According to the unclassified FBI Intelligence Assessment, “White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11,” which was released to law enforcement agencies nationwide: “Sensitive and reliable source reporting indicates supremacist leaders are encouraging followers who lack documented histories of neo-Nazi activity and overt racist insignia such as tattoos to infiltrate the military as ‘ghost skins,’ in order to recruit and receive training for the benefit of the extremist movement.”

[snip]

Currently, 46 members of the white supremacist social networking website Newsaxon.com identify themselves as active-duty military personnel. Six of these individuals are members of “White Military Men,” a New Saxon sub-group.

Earlier this year, the founder of White Military Men identified himself in his New Saxon account as “Lance Corporal Burton” of the 2nd Battalion Fox Company Pit 2097, from Florida, according to a master’s thesis by graduate student Matthew Kennard. Under his “About Me” section, Burton writes: “Love to shoot my M16A2 service rifle effectively at the Hachies (Iraqis),” and, “Love to watch things blow up (Hachies House).”

[snip]

As part of the research for his thesis, “The New Nazi Army: How the U.S. military is allowing the far right to join its ranks,” Kennard used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain from the Army’s Criminal Investigative Division investigative reports concerning white supremacist activity in 2006 and 2007. They show that Army commanders repeatedly terminated investigations of suspected extremist activity in the military despite strong evidence it was occurring. This evidence was often provided by regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which are made up of FBI and state and local law enforcement officials. Source

The upshot: 2,000 wiped completely from the face of the Earth.

Those of you who have been here over the years already are well aware of ye old scribe’s views on the illiterate, vicious, tyrannical thug and despot Abdul Rashid Dostum, whom the woebegone G. Walker administration repeatedly, even into Year Eight of hostilities, counts a ‘friend and ally.’

Seven years ago, a convoy of container trucks rumbled across northern Afghanistan loaded with a human cargo of suspected Taliban and al Qaida members who’d surrendered to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord and a key U.S. ally in ousting the Taliban regime.

When the trucks arrived at a prison in the town of Sheberghan, near Dostum’s headquarters, they were filled with corpses. Most of the prisoners had suffocated, and others had been killed by bullets that Dostum’s militiamen had fired into the metal containers.

Dostum’s men hauled the bodies into the nearby desert and buried them in mass graves, according to Afghan human rights officials. By some estimates, 2,000 men were buried there.

Earlier this year, bulldozers returned to the scene, reportedly exhumed the bones of many of the dead men and removed evidence of the atrocity to sites unknown. In the area where the mass graves once were, there now are gaping pits in the sands of the Dasht-e-Leili desert.

A U.N.-sponsored team of experts first spotted two large excavations on a visit in June, one of them about 100 feet long and more than 9 feet deep in places. A McClatchy reporter visited the site last month and found three additional smaller pits, which apparently had been dug since June. Source

The bodies aren’t the only evidence buried and dispersed. Ditto for complicity and truth.

NATO — which has command authority over a team of troops less than three miles from the grave site — the United Nations and the United States have been silent about the destruction of evidence of Dostum’s alleged war crimes.

… and just go read it.

Please.

Don’t know what prompted the thought, but via quick and rough calculation, come this summer the U.S. will have been engaged in boots on the ground warfare for longer than it officially was in World Wars I and II, combined.

WWI: Declaration of war - early April 1917. Armistice Day - mid-November 1918. Approximately 19 months.

WWII: Declaration of war - early December 1941. VJ Day - mid-August 1945. Approximately 45 months.

Total: approximately 64 months.

Iraq: late March 2003 to today - coming up now on 61 months.

The operations in Afghanistan, of course, have long surpassed that length, currently being in month 78.

It is, frankly, distressing in extremis to realize that every single child here aged 6½ or younger has never lived in an America not actively waging war.

Afghanistan summary here.

Pakistan summaries here and here and here.

---

73½ months on…

The conflict in Afghanistan has reached “crisis proportions”, with the resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul, a report said on Wednesday.

[snip]…The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centres, and important road arteries.” Article

---

Noted FYI:

Switzerland announced on Wednesday that it would end its four years’ cooperation with the NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan by recalling its military personnel.

Two Swiss army officers, currently working with a German team in the northeastern Kunduz province, will return home by March next year, Swiss Defense Minister Samuel Schmid told a press conference in Bern, the Swissinfo website reported.

Schmid said he took the decision for security reasons. The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan has become a peace enforcement operation rather than a peacekeeping duty, he said.

According to Schmid, a continued Swiss military presence in Afghanistan - although “rather symbolic” - is impossible because it goes against the spirit of the constitution and is not in line with the law.

[snip]

According to the Swiss Defense Ministry, the nature of NATO’s engagement in Afghanistan has changed since 2005. But its mission has progressively turned into a campaign against insurgents.

Even in the regions where warlords and fighters only carry out sporadic activity, the mission has faced difficulties because of the need for troops to resort to self-protection measures.

In areas of the country where the Taliban have regained strength, reconstruction work has become practically impossible, the Swiss authorities said. Article

---

Turning the aphorism on its head, the chaotic whole is less than the sum of its parts.

National unity has always been a difficult concept in Afghanistan, a country with a bewildering array of ethnic and tribal groups, and language often serves as the lightening rod for controversy. The issue recently resurfaced with a government plan to dramatically increase the number of Pashto-language schools in Kabul, the predominantly Dari-speaking capital.

While some politicians applauded the education ministry’s initiative, it has prompted a strong backlash from others.

During a roundtable discussion on Tolo TV, Kabul member of parliament Najibullah Kabuli went as far as calling the initiative a “crime”, and accused Education Minister Hanif Atmar of seeking to sow disunity among schoolchildren.

[snip]

Dari and Pashto are by far the most widespread languages in Afghanistan, and very roughly speaking prevail in the north and south, respectively. Kabul parliamentary Fawzia Nasiryar pointed out that many other languages are spoken throughout Afghanistan, for instance Uzbek and Turkmen. If Kabul’s Pashtuns have access to education in their language, other linguistic minorities should be granted the same right, she argued.

“This action by the education minister is a tribal action,” she claimed. “If it isn’t tribal, why hasn’t he built schools for other languages? The minister is taking such action only for the sake of his tribe.”

Ministry spokesman Afghan defended the cabinet’s decision to create separate schools for Pashtuns, who are by far the largest group in Kabul using a language other than Dari in daily life.

There are about 200,000 Pashtun students in the city, according to ministry statistics. Of those, only 20,000 actually study in Pashto. Just five out of Kabul’s 175 schools are Pashto-only, while nine more provide classes in both Pashto and Dari. Article

---

Pakistan aboil.

#1:

Pakistan’s ousted chief justice remains under arrest, a day after officials said judges detained under emergency rule could move around freely.

Iftikhar Chaudhry tried to leave his Islamabad residence but was stopped from doing so by security forces.

Meanwhile, President Musharraf has amended the constitution to prevent future legal challenges to his actions.

[snip]

Mr Chaudhry tried to leave his residence on Wednesday but was stopped from going to the Supreme Court by large numbers of security forces ringing his residence.

Another judge, former presidential candidate Wajihuddin Ahmed, tried to visit Mr Chaudhry and was briefly detained along with a lawyer. Article

A bit more:

The capital police Wednesday arrested lawyers and members of civil society including the former presidential candidate, Justice (Retd.) Wajihuddin Ahmed and Advocate Athar Min-Allah here from Judges Colony and took them to an unknown location.

The administration intercepted the above persons by erecting barricades and deploying heavy security forces on the way leading to the Chief Justice House and later arrested them in front of an area hotel. Article

#2 — and it is damned past time for a voice in authority to squarely and robustly lay this on the table.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights [said] on Tuesday the restoration of the independence of Pakistan’s judiciary is as important as the holding of elections.

[snip]

The UN rights chief said Pakistan had turned down her request for a visit but she would be in transit in Islamabad Wednesday.

She said it was worrying that “nobody seems to be calling for a reversal on this attack on the judiciary,” adding it remained to be seen if the democratic process could “regain its momentum” after the recent events.

“I think a lot of judges have refused to pledge to take an oath of allegiance to the new regime, but because of the state of emergency we haven’t seen the level of protest that otherwise could have manifested itself,” she said. Article

---

Analysis du jour:

In 1999, after mounting a coup, General Pervez Musharraf spoke to the nation late at night. One of the reasons he attributed for the necessity of the coup was Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif disturbing the integrity of the Pakistan army by summarily replacing Musharraf with another general. That telling observation indicated the army’s perception of its role in Pakistan.

The integrity of the army was more important than the integrity of the country, and for that an elected government had to be removed. This perception has guided the Pakistan army through the country’s independent history. The past and future of Musharraf is better understood through the conviction of the Pakistan army’s image of itself.

The question being asked now is if, when and in what manner Musharraf would leave office. But the real question is: How would the Pakistan army respond to the possibility of Musharraf either continuing in or leaving the political scene?… Article

Afghanistan summary here and here.

Pakistan summary here and here.

---

Pakistan aboil.

#1:

Three defiant judges of the Supreme Court, who are presently under house arrest after imposition of emergency, have now declared in their detailed judgment submitted before the SC last Friday that General Musharraf could not be allowed to contest the presidential elections.

[snip]

These judges who had refused to take oath under the PCO, have also observed in their joint judgment, which has not been released to the media, that continuation of Musharraf as the army chief beyond December 31, 2004 was “illegal and unlawful”.

The judges, Justice Rana Bhagwandas, Justice Sardar Mohammad Raza Khan and Mian Shakirullah Jan, were part of the nine-member bench which had dismissed the petitions of Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Imran Khan on September 28, 2007 with regard to the question whether Musharraf could contest election from the present assemblies with or without uniform. Article

#2:

Thousands of people fled from a valley in northwest Pakistan as security forces stepped up an offensive against pro-Taliban militants, while fighting killed 19 people. Advancing ground troops killed 15 militants in the Shangla district in the scenic Swat valley, the site of fierce clashes with insurgents led by hardline Islamist cleric Maulana Fazlullah in recent weeks in which more than 300 people have died. Article

#3:

Police in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi on Tuesday baton-charged journalists protesting curbs on the media imposed by President Pervez Musharraf and arrested more 150 people, news reports said.

Several demonstrators were injured in the clashes, which occurred outside the city’s press club, Geo News reported on its website, the television channel’s only service still operating after it was shut down by the government at midnight Friday. Article

---

It’s not called critical mass for nothing.

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are already under American control even as analysts are working themselves into a lather on the subject, a well-regarded intelligence journal has said.

In a stunning disclosure certain to stir up things in Washington’s (and in Islamabad and New Delhi’s) strategic community, the journal Stratfor reported on Monday that the “United States delivered a very clear ultimatum to Musharraf in the wake of 9/11: Unless Pakistan allowed US forces to take control of Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States would be left with no choice but to destroy those facilities, possibly with India’s help.”

“This was a fait accompli that Musharraf, for credibility reasons, had every reason to cover up and pretend never happened, and Washington was fully willing to keep things quiet,” the journal, which is widely read among the intelligence community, said.

The Stratfor commentary came in response to an earlier New York Times story that reported that the Bush administration had spent around $100 million to help Pakistan safeguard its nuclear weapons, but left it unclear if Washington has a handle on the arsenal. Article

---

Contours of ceremonial chaos.

Hamid Karzai flew to Kandahar last month for a ceremony that later emerged as a key moment in the war against the Taliban, although many people here are still arguing about whether the Afghan president averted disaster or opened a new tribal conflict with his visit to the south.

Mr. Karzai arrived shortly after the legendary warrior Mullah Naqib died of a heart attack on Oct. 11. As hundreds of mourners gathered in the front garden of Mr. Naqib’s home on the north side of Kandahar city, the president stood and placed a silver turban on the boyish head of Kalimullah Naqibi, the tribal elder’s 26-year-old son.

[snip]

Some politicians in the city approved of the President’s action, viewing it as a swift intervention to give the tribe a leader with firm loyalty to the central government. Mr. Naqibi and his supporters say the move was purely decorous, a symbol of the President’s approval for a decision already taken by top elders in the tribe.

But senior members of the Alokozai’s leadership are publicly expressing their discontent, blaming Mr. Karzai for interfering in their affairs and violating their traditions. Installing an untested young man as their tribal leader has hurt security, they say, pointing to the fact that, within weeks of the decision, Canadian and Afghan troops were required to push back the first major Taliban attack on Alokozai lands north of the city.

General Khan Mohammed, an Alokozai tribesman who serves as an adviser to the Interior Minister, said he recently visited Mr. Karzai at his palace with another senior elder to complain about the selection of the young leader.

“I said, ‘Why did you put the turban on Kalimullah’s head?’” Gen. Mohammed said in an interview at his home in the capital. “The tribe didn’t choose this leader. I told him, you’re increasing the violence in our lands.”

[snip]

Variations of the same question are asked in private by senior politicians in Kandahar, who say the disgruntled contenders for the Alokozai leadership are trying to revoke the blessings they have already bestowed on Mr. Naqibi.

But the rules of Pashtun tribal etiquette forbade anybody from raising a fuss in the wake of Mr. Naqib’s death, Gen. Mohammed said, so the elders in attendance that night didn’t feel comfortable raising their voices against the President. Article

Afghanistan summary here.

Pakistan summaries here and here and .

---

Internal chaos abides.

The Pakistani military said Wednesday it had killed at least 33 militants, while two soldiers died in rocket attacks, as heavily-armed supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric gained control over a third town in the north-western valley of Swat. Article

---

Internal political chaos abides.

Pakistani authorities have charged former cricket star and opposition politician Imran Khan under the country’s anti-terror act, which includes penalties such as life imprisonment.

Khan was arrested Wednesday, shortly after arriving for a rally at Punjab University in the eastern city of Lahore. It was his first public appearance since the imposition of emergency rule.

In a separate development, Pakistani opposition politicians are considering plans to form a united front against the state of emergency and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Article

More. (And also a comment from ye old scribe noting the abject silence from the U.S., the EU, etc., etc. regarding restoration of the judiciary.)/p>

The counsel of General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday submitted in the Supreme Court a written reply to the petition of Tikka Iqbal against November 3 Proclamation of Emergency, praying that the petition be dismissed and the Proclamation be validated. Raja Ibrahim Satti advocate filed the reply through advocate-on- record Ejaz Muhammad Khan a day before the 10-member full court is due to resume hearing of the two constitutional petitions on Thursday.

The other petition has been moved by Watan Party through its counsel Barrister Zafarullah Khan.

In the reply, the counsel stated that the petition was not maintainable as the Article 3 of the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) clearly lays down that “No court including the Supreme Court, the Federal Shariat Court, the High Courts and any Tribunal or other authority shall call in question the PCO, the Oath of Office (Judges) Order 2007 or any order made in pursuance thereof.”

The PCO also lays down that “No judgment, decree, writ, order or process whatsoever shall be made or issued by any Court or tribunal against the President or the Prime Minister or any other authority designated by the President.” Article

---

Short of an armada of airlifts, the alternate options for permissible overland transport are highly limited, particularly with winter setting in.

The U.S. military is looking at alternate routes to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan in case the political crisis in Pakistan makes current supply lines unavailable, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

The U.S. military sends 75 percent of its supplies for the Afghanistan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel sent to troops, the Defense Department said.

[snip]

…Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the military had to make contingency plans due to importance of those supply lines.

“There are efforts underway right now to figure out contingency supply lines to our troops in Afghanistan if it becomes necessary to alter the way we now support our troops in Afghanistan,” Morrell said.

“In light of the fact that there is civil unrest in Pakistan, in light of the fact that there is a state of emergency in Pakistan, we feel it is responsible, given the importance of the Pakistani supply lines to our operations in Afghanistan, to have a contingency plan.”

Morrell said the United States does not send ammunition through Pakistan.

“No matter what is happening on the ground in Pakistan, it will not impact us being able to provide ammunition to troops in Afghanistan,” he said. Article

---

Rules and procedures exist not only to provide instruction and guidance, but also accountability.

Canadian diplomats and corrections officers in Kandahar have come across what they consider to be a clear and “credible” case of torture involving a Canadian-captured Taliban fighter.

The revelation came as the federal government was forced to release over 1,000 pages of court documents that outline in graphic detail some of the abuse claims made by Afghan prisoners.

Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier told the House of Commons about the latest case, which brings to seven the number of complaints Canadian authorities have received since Ottawa signed a revised prisoner transfer agreement with the government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.

Senior government officials, speaking on background late in the evening, said the incident was discovered during the latest inspection by Canadian authorities of a jail – likely belonging to Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service.

“Our trained observers came across particularly credible evidence of mistreatment,” said a senior official, who indicated the injuries were physical.

“We have since heard from the Afghans that their investigation has already been launched and they come to an initial indication of wrongdoing and that they’re considering measures that include both firing personnel and prosecution.”

Published reports last spring said as many as 30 prisoners – captured by Canadian troops, but handed over to local authorities – complained of being beaten and abused prior to the signing of a new transfer arrangement last May. Six more cases surfaced in the wake of the new deal.

[snip]

Both the Canadian and Afghan governments promised investigations into the allegations last spring.

Senior officials said, with the exception of the latest case, the investigations are either incomplete – or inconclusive because record-keeping in Afghan jails is spotty.

Human rights officials have raised concern that Canadians maybe held liable under international law if they’ve been deemed to have handed someone over to be tortured.

A senior federal official, with responsibility for United Nations matters, said the issue falls into a legal gray area and that Canadians might not be accountable as long as it’s demonstrated they took every precaution to ensure torture didn’t take place.

But a University of Ottawa law professor, who first raised concern about prisoner treatment, dismissed the defence.

“We have not met our obligation under international law to avoid aiding and abetting torture,” said Amir Attaran. “If you deliver the body to them in good faith and they go away and torture, you’re safe? There’s no disputing we now know torture is taking place.”

[snip]

The court records show that Canadian officials are not sure what happened to a number of the prisoners it transfered to the Afghans prior to the signing of the new arrangement. They were also put in the embarassing position of writing to the United States, which took custody of Canadian-captured insurgents between 2002-2005, to determine what happened to some of them. Article

Afghanistan summary here and here.

Pakistan summary here and here.

Also here and here.

---

Intrnal chaos abides.

Pakistani helicopter gunships killed four militants and destroyed bunkers and ammunition dumps at a village in a northwestern region where a pro-Taleban rebel has led an insurrection, the military said yesterday.

More than 200 people have been killed in clashes between fighters commanded by Maulana Fazlullah and security forces over the past few weeks in Swat, a picturesque, mountainous district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that was formerly a tourist haven. Article

---

Internal electoral chaos abides.

Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto demanded the resignation of U.S.-backed President Gen. Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday, dashing Western hopes that the two moderate leaders would form an alliance to confront strengthening Islamic extremists.

Bhutto, just placed under house arrest for the second time since her return from exile, said she was working to forge a partnership with Nawaz Sharif, the man overthrown as prime minister in a 1999 coup by Musharraf.

[snip]

Authorities imposed the detention to block her from staging a protest procession to the capital, Islamabad. The march went ahead but was quickly stopped by police, and security forces also clashed with anti-government protesters in other cities.

Tuesday’s events were in many ways a replay of Friday, when police sealed Bhutto inside her Islamabad villa for a single day and rounded up hundreds, possibly thousands, of her supporters to stop a mass rally she had called outside the capital.

Bhutto said thousands of her supporters were again rounded up Tuesday, although officials denied detentions on such a large scale. This time, Bhutto’s reaction was much sharper – calling the crackdown the “breaking point” in her relations with Musharraf.

“I’m calling for Gen. Musharraf to step down, to quit, to leave, to end martial law,” she said in a phone call with a group of journalists. “Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country. We cannot afford this kind of chaos and instability,” Bhutto said.

“I could not serve as prime minister with Gen. Musharraf as president. I wish I could,” she added.

[snip]

In the southern city of Karachi, Bhutto supporters angered by her detention fired on two police stations, and police used tear gas to disperse them. A 9-year-old boy and a woman were wounded in the crossfire of a gunbattle between demonstrators and police, witnesses said.

In unusually strong criticism of a key ally, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson on Tuesday described emergency rule as an “ominous development.” Article

---

External confusion/chaos/wishful thinking abides.

“Washington’s approach to Pakistan has always been that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. But there is every reason to believe that with Musharraf and Pakistan, that is not the case,” says Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy in Washington. “Musharraf has blinded Washington over and over again with a mastery of blackmail, but in the two areas we worry most about – nuclear proliferation and Islamist extremism – there are alternatives that are just as good, if not better.”

Captivated by Pakistan’s status as a nuclear power, linchpin in the US-led war on terror, and the presumed home of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the US has treated the military leader as if he were the last stand before nuclear Armageddon or a new triumph for Islamist extremism, many experts say. Musharraf came to power in a coup in 1999.

A Pakistan with Gen. Ashfak Kayani as military chief, for example, and a civilian government elected by the Pakistani people, would be at least as effective in opposing the extremists’ rise and perhaps better at safeguarding Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Many observers believe General Kayani is Musharraf’s likely successor as head of the armed forces.

[snip]

Another factor standing in the way of US backing for a real political transition in Pakistan could be private deals the US may have made with Musharraf over US actions vis-à-vis Afghanistan and Iran.

“This is just speculation,” Harrison says, “but it’s not hard to imagine some kind of agreements that might have been made with Musharraf about intelligence or special operations” in Iran or concerning the Islamist communities in Pakistan’s northern frontier areas “that are influencing our actions in this crisis.” Article

---

Constant punctuations of civilian slaughter.

The Polish Defense Ministry says seven soldiers serving with the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan have been detained for the killing of civilians in the eastern part of the country.

In a statement released Tuesday, Polish military prosecutors say the soldiers were detained for violating international law, specifically the Hague and Geneva Conventions. Article

Summary here.

---

The latest French connection.

With U.S. F-15 fighters ordered to stand by in Afghanistan, French fighters are providing close-air support for U.S. troops and their allies there, the Military Times reported Wednesday.

Since a Nov. 2 crash of a F-15C Eagle in Missouri, the U.S. AirForce has restricted flights of F-15Es and F-15Cs to “mission-critical” sorties only.

In Afghanistan, where F-15Es take off from Bagram Air Base, the restriction means that F-15Es sit on combat alert status but are not assigned to pre-planned or on-call missions.

In the absence of F-15s, French Mirage 2000 and F-1 CR fighters were summoned for two air strikes and more shows of force above enemy positions in Afghanistan. Article

---

April 2010 would be well into Year Eight.

Britain has begun preparing to extend its military deployment in Afghanistan until 2010, the defence secretary said on Wednesday.

Defence Secretary Des Browne announced a temporary brigade headquarters was being set up to command British forces in Afghanistan from October 2009 - when the current British commitment ends - to April 2010. Article