Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3238-1003761739-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Mon, 22 Oct 2001 07:44:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 26662 invoked by uid 510); 22 Oct 2001 14:41:50 -0000 Received: from n5.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.55) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 22 Oct 2001 14:41:50 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3238-1003761739-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.4.54] by n5.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 22 Oct 2001 14:42:19 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 22 Oct 2001 14:42:19 -0000 Received: (qmail 11425 invoked from network); 22 Oct 2001 14:42:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 22 Oct 2001 14:42:18 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta3 with SMTP; 22 Oct 2001 14:42:18 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9MEgYN04976 for iwar@onelist.com; Mon, 22 Oct 2001 07:42:34 -0700 Message-Id: <200110221442.f9MEgYN04976@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2001 07:42:34 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:US.'Lacks.Credible.Political.Agenda'] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit London Times October 22, 2001 US 'Lacks Credible Political Agenda' By Stephen Farrell and Zahid Hussain in Islamabad A Senior Pakistani official last night accused the United States of failing to articulate a clear policy for the future of Afghanistan. The criticism follows growing discontent among United Nations officials, exiled Afghan commanders and aides to the former Afghan monarch, King Zahir Shah, at what they perceive to be a military campaign running far ahead of US and UN political initiatives. Many fear that the lack of a credible alternative to the Taleban will stop Taleban commanders and tribal leaders from defecting, and repeat the mistake of 1992 when the Soviet-backed regime of President Najibullah collapsed into a vacuum quickly filled by four years of Mujahidin infighting, banditry and anarchy. "It is very clear that the US political strategy is lagging dangerously behind the military strategy," said one senior Islamabad official, who refused to be named. "About two weeks after September 11 we began to say to Washington that we need to at least start thinking together about what everybody wants to see happen in Afghanistan. "The sense that we get is that the political and the military has not gelled yet. The military isn't just far ahead of the political, they are not generally consistent with each other at the moment." The official acknowledged that the US had a very difficult task putting together a worldwide coalition and launching a ground attack campaign in unfamiliar terrain surrounded by hostile forces. He also conceded that any pressure from Pakistan could be wrongly misconstrued as an attempt to impose its own Pashtun solution on Afghanistan, which would be greeted with horror by Northern Alliance leaders suspicious of Islamabad and all its works. But the source reluctantly concluded that, after more than a month of high-level contacts, the talks last week between President Musharraf and Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, at which they agreed on the need for a broad-based government, were the "first real ones" on how to proceed on a "diplomatic political track trying to create something that is not seen by the Afghans as an imposition from outside, because the moment they see that, we know the history of what happens". The official said it was proving hard for the US to rekindle its involvement in the region, which fell away sharply upon the collapse of the Soviet-backed regime. Calls for a peacekeeping force or administration in Kabul have been greeted with caution at the UN, where Lakhdar Brahimi, the experienced envoy to Afghanistan last week pointed to the difficulties in a country traditionally hostile to a foreign presence, "especially in military uniforms". Frustration at the apparent delay in an international political initiative was voiced yesterday by Haji Muhammad Zeman, one of the former Mujahidin commanders who fought the Soviet occupation and now live in exile in Pakistan after being driven out by the Taleban in the mid-1990s. "Afghanistan needs - and I need - United Nations peacekeeping forces to come and bring peace to Afghanistan," he said. "If the UN refuses to send peacekeeping troops and peace does not come to Afghanistan, the war will spread. Other countries will also not be at peace. There will be more troubles like on September 11." Hedayat Arsala, envoy of the exiled King Zahir Shah, highlighted the desirability of a peacekeeping framework. "People . . . want to forget the past," he said. "They are looking for an alternative. Without an alternative, we don't see any chance of the Taleban Government collapsing." ------------------------ Yahoo! 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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-12-31 20:59:56 PST