http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/04/12-4

Published on Sunday, April 12, 2009 by the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Warning That Pakistan is in Danger of Collapse Within Months

by Paul McGeough Chief Correspondent In Washington

PAKISTAN could collapse within months, one of the more influential counter-insurgency voices in Washington says.

The warning comes as the US scrambles to redeploy its military forces and diplomats in an attempt to stem rising violence and anarchy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now," said David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.

"You just can't say that you're not going to worry about al-Qaeda taking control of Pakistan and its nukes," he said.

As the US implements a new strategy in Central Asia so comprehensive that some analysts now dub the cross-border conflict "Obama's war", Dr Kilcullen said time was running out for international efforts to pull both countries back from the brink.

When he unveiled his new "Afpak" policy in Washington last month, the US President, Barack Obama, warned that while al-Qaeda would fill the vacuum if Afghanistan collapsed, the terrorist group was already rooted in Pakistan, plotting more attacks on the US.

"The safety of people round the world is at stake," he said.

Laying out the scale of the challenges facing the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen put the two countries invaded by US-led forces after the September 11 attacks on the US on a par - each had a population of more than 30 million.

"But Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control," he told the Herald .

Added to that, the Pakistani security establishment ignored direction from the elected Government in Islamabad as waves of extremist violence spread across the whole country - not only in the tribal wilds of the Afghan border region.

Cautioning against an excessive focus by Western governments on Afghanistan at the expense of Pakistan, Dr Kilcullen said that "the Kabul tail was wagging the dog". Comparing the challenges in the two, he said Afghanistan was a campaign to defend a reconstruction program. "It's not really about al-Qaeda. Afghanistan doesn't worry me. Pakistan does."

But he was hesitant about the level of resources for, and the likely impact of, Washington's new drive to emulate an Iraq-style "surge" by sending an extra 21,000 troops to Afghanistan.

"In Iraq, five brigades went into the centre of Baghdad in five months. In Afghanistan, it will be two combat brigades [across the country] in 12 months. That will have much less of a punch effect than we had in Iraq.

"We can muddle through in Afghanistan. It is problematic and difficult but we know what to do. What we don't know is if we have the time or if we can afford the cost of what needs to be done."

Dr Kilcullen said a fault line had developed in the West's grasp of circumstances on each side of the Durand Line, the disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"In Afghanistan, it's easy to understand, difficult to execute. But in Pakistan, it is very difficult to understand and it's extremely difficult for us to generate any leverage, because Pakistan does not want our help.

"In a sense there is no Pakistan - no single set of opinion. Pakistan has a military and intelligence establishment that refuses to follow the directions of its civilian leadership. They have a tradition of using regional extremist groups as unconventional counterweights against India's regional influence."

In the absence of a regional diplomatic initiative to build economic and trade confidences before tackling the security issue, the implication, Dr Kilcullen said, was that India alone could not give Pakistan the security guarantees Islamabad required.

The special US envoy Richard Holbrooke has been charged with brokering a regional compact by reaching out to Iran, Russia and China, and Dr Kilcullen said: "This is exactly what he's good at and it could work.

"But will it? It requires regional architecture to give the Pakistani security establishment a sense of security which might make them stop supporting the Taliban," he said.

"The best case scenario is that the US can deal with Afghanistan, with President Obama giving leadership while the extra American troops succeed on the ground - at the same time as Mr Holbrooke seeks a regional security deal," he said. The worst case was that Washington would fail to stabilise Afghanistan, Pakistan would collapse and al-Qaeda would end up running what he called 'Talibanistan.'

"This is not acceptable. You can't have al-Qaeda in control of Pakistan's missiles," he said.

"It's too early to tell which way it will go. We'll start to know about July. That's the peak fighting season ... and a month from the Afghan presidential election."



http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599189337000

Taliban-backed militants into the Buner district of northwestern Pakistan, closer than ever to Pakistan's capital of Islamabad, have prompted concerns both within the country and abroad that the nuclear-armed nation of 165 million is on the verge of inexorable collapse.

Residents streaming from Buner, home to nearly a million people, told local newspapers that armed militants are patrolling the streets. Pakistani television stations aired footage of Taliban soldiers looting government offices and capturing vehicles belonging to aid organizations and development projects. The police, say residents, are nowhere to be seen. The shrine of a local Muslim saint, venerated across the country, was closed. The Taliban, which adheres to a stricter version of Islam than is practiced in most of Pakistan, hold that worship at such shrines goes against the teachings of Islam.

I watched a very revealing PBS documentary about this same topic last week. The al-Qaeda/Taliban intend to take over Pakistan and so far have had rather limited resistance. The government keeps forfeiting more and more territory to them saying that it is what the people of those areas want. The people in those areas though, are scared and threatened by the Taliban. Local law enforcement that try to resist are publicly beheaded and displayed with warnings that anyone who tries to move the bodies will face similar fates.
Here is link to PBS page about the program: In Search of al-Qaeda
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/search/

Wow no one commenting on this. So much to ask and say about it!

No One seen this happening? MSM????

Blew up Iraq and found none? Pakistan has them!!!!!!!!

Why arnt our boarders and ports secure???????????????????????????????


The Big war to stimulate the global economy?

Ditto:
And sorry 'bout the BS on the other thread.

Suggestion. Maybe, we could send them a few Trillion to shore 'em up while they get their Shiite together.

Same here!!! No one is saying anything about this?

Whats the percentage of containers screened coming into our ports? How safe are we?

A very small percentage of containers entering the US are physically examined according to information I have discovered. Of course how many and by what methods they are screened is information I am sure is closely guarded.

I agree this is a situation that is extremely important and should be discussed more. India and Pakistan are forever sparring and are both in possession of nukes. Add the Taliban into the mix and well...the possibilities of a spreading war, an intervention by India or China and even the use of nukes are all possible.

Additionally military strategist almost all agree that the geography of the area would make fighting there extremely difficult.

Taliban made the mistake of attacking a NATO truck depot. No one can ignore what's going on there now.

We dont have our own boarders secure but are fighting over a line drawn in the sand...

How can we control another countrys boarders when we cant secure our own?

Your questions are rather ambiguous!

One could not answer satisfactorily or completely in 1 million words!

They are just questions. sorry got a little

They are good questions, but the answers are just not as transparent as one would think.
For instance,
Every shipping container brought into the US is screened. Whether it is brought in by truck or ship!
They just arent screened by humans.

We know Pakistan has nukes and no one in the world (outisde of al-Quaeda) wants the Tliban/a;-Qaeda to get their hands on them. How much longer will the rest of the wait to take action to make sure Pakistan does not fall under the control of the Taliban? At what point would military intervention be necessary? If we wait too long it will too late.

billions of shipping containers go straight from ships to trains to store shelves in less than 24 hours

screening would slow that process down so much that store shelves would be empty and Americans won't stand for that

What can we do?

I don't think we can do anything

I fear a religious world war in our future

At some point if things continue as they have, the world will need to take military action against the Taliban in Pakistan.

I would secure our ports and boarders for one...

Ahh haaa!!!
That's where technology takes over!
We are after all the most technologically advanced country on earth.


Abstract Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has deployed a large array of radiation portal monitors for the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. These portal monitors scan incoming vehicles crossing the U.S. border and shipping containers leaving international ports for radioactive material via gamma-ray and neutron detection. Data produced and captured by these systems are recorded for every vehicle related to radiation signature, sensor/system status, local background, as well as a host of other variables. Within the Radiation Portal Monitor Project at PNNL, state-of-health observation and analysis for the whole RPM array using these data to determine functionality and performance is ongoing. Advanced state-of-health analysis and monitoring algorithms are being developed. Preparations are underway to incorporate the more difficult state-of-health monitoring of the mobile RPM and Advanced Spectroscopic Portals.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/wun1401124315257/

That is a journal!

http://www.newser.com/story/56936/taliban-just-70-miles-from-islamabad.html

Timing!

If done too soon we risk angering the world and the Pakistan Gov. Taking a chance of making the latter Allie with the Taliban and Al Qaeda!