Some thoughts on Julian Assange

Just a thought on the NYT report that Assange has gotten the UK courts to get a bail amount set for him.

First off the publication of the information that prompted his detainment is not the first time he has done so against the US government, and prior ones included the names and information about our sources and methods in Afghanistan.

Second the civil law may not hold much of a venue against a mere publisher of such information.

Third, drafting any such ex-post facto law is truly horrific as one could never know what is and is not legal to do at any time. The civil law is not the place of venue for Mr. Assange on such publication matters, quite obviously.

Thus we start with the full documents on the International Humanitarian Law held by the ICRC, and go down to the Methods and Means of Warfare.

From that list I will start with the Lieber Code that was instantiated by President Abraham Lincoln for the Union forces 1863, which continued to be used into the 1890's.  Thus this part is of interest not only about Mr. Assange, but his informants and highlighting is mine throughout:

Art. 88. A spy is a person who secretly, in disguise or under false pretense, seeks information with the intention of communicating it to the enemy.
The spy is punishable with death by hanging by the neck, whether or not he succeed in obtaining the information or in conveying it to the enemy.

Art. 89. If a citizen of the United States obtains information in a legitimate manner, and betrays it to the enemy, be he a military or civil officer, or a private citizen, he shall suffer death.

Art. 90. A traitor under the law of war, or a war-traitor, is a person in a place or district under Martial Law who, unauthorized by the military commander, gives information of any kind to the enemy, or holds intercourse with him.

Art. 91. The war-traitor is always severely punished. If his offense consists in betraying to the enemy anything concerning the condition, safety, operations, or plans of the troops holding or occupying the place or district, his punishment is death.

Well that starts to put a sort of proper perspective on things as the Congressional Authorization for the Use of Force is a Declaration of War.  Thus those helping us in Afghanistan are brought into the conflict and the publication of their names is a direct help to the enemies of the US.  Really, you shouldn't do that during wartime.

Now to skip ahead to the Hague Convention II 1899:

CHAPTER II
On spies
Art. 29. An individual can only be considered a spy if, acting clandestinely, or on false pretences, he obtains, or seeks to obtain information in the zone of operations of a belligerent, with the intention of communicating it to the hostile party.

Thus, soldiers not in disguise who have penetrated into the zone of operations of a hostile army to obtain information are not considered spies. Similarly, the following are not considered spies: soldiers or civilians, carrying out their mission openly, charged with the delivery of despatches destined either for their own army or for that of the enemy. To this class belong likewise individuals sent in balloons to deliver despatches, and generally to maintain communication between the various parts of an army or a territory.

Art. 30. A spy taken in the act cannot be punished without previous trial.

Art. 31. A spy who, after rejoining the army to which he belongs, is subsequently captured by the enemy, is treated as a prisoner of war, and incurs no responsibility for his previous acts of espionage.

Whoever provided the information to Mr. Assange would be considered a spy in the Hague Conventions.  Would Mr. Assange?  If he was just given the information and went through proper channels at DoD to ask about publication, the answer would be 'no': the information would have been cleared by a power in the war.  As he did not do so and did communicate the information to our enemies in the field, then his activity is that of espionage.  Similarly the 1907 Hague Convention IV has the same verbiage for Spies.

Now onto another part of this with the Hague Convention V 1907 which deals with Neutral countries:

THE RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF NEUTRAL POWERS

Article 1. The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable.

Art. 2. Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral Power.

Art. 3. Belligerents are likewise forbidden to:
(a) Erect on the territory of a neutral Power a wireless telegraphy station or other apparatus for the purpose of communicating with belligerent forces on land or sea;
(b) Use any installation of this kind established by them before the war on the territory of a neutral Power for purely military purposes, and which has not been opened for the service of public messages.

Art. 4. Corps of combatants cannot be formed nor recruiting agencies opened on the territory of a neutral Power to assist the belligerents.

Art. 5. A neutral Power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles 2 to 4 to occur on its territory.

It is not called upon to punish acts in violation of its neutrality unless the said acts have been committed on its own territory.

Art. 6. The responsibility of a neutral Power is not engaged by the fact of persons crossing the frontier separately to offer their services to one of the belligerents.

Art. 7. A neutral Power is not called upon to prevent the export or transport, on behalf of one or other of the belligerents, of arms, munitions of war, or, in general, of anything which can be of use to an army or a fleet.

Art. 8. A neutral Power is not called upon to forbid or restrict the use on behalf of the belligerents of telegraph or telephone cables or of wireless telegraphy apparatus belonging to it or to companies or private individuals.

Art. 9. Every measure of restriction or prohibition taken by a neutral Power in regard to the matters referred to in Articles 7 and 8 must be impartially applied by it to both belligerents.

A neutral Power must see to the same obligation being observed by companies or private individuals owning telegraph or telephone cables or wireless telegraphy apparatus.

I do love the formality of such things!

The Convention covers the countries and Neutral persons:

CHAPTER III

NEUTRAL PERSONS

Art. 16. The nationals of a State which is not taking part in the war are considered as neutrals.

Art. 17 A neutral cannot avail himself of his neutrality
(a) If he commits hostile acts against a belligerent;
(b) If he commits acts in favor of a belligerent, particularly if he voluntarily enlists in the ranks of the armed force of one of the parties. In such a case, the neutral shall not be more severly treated by the belligerent as against whom he has abandoned his neutrality than a national of the other belligerent State could be for the same act.

Art. 18. The following acts shall not be considered as committed in favour of one belligerent in the sense of
Article 17, letter (b):
(a) Supplies furnished or loans made to one of the belligerents, provided that the person who furnishes the supplies or who makes the loans lives neither in the territory of the other party nor in the territory occupied by him, and that the supplies do not come from these territories;
(b) Services rendered in matters of police or civil administration.

Well espionage, which includes the transmittal of information is helping out a party to a conflict or, more appropriately, against a party to a conflict.

Now a fascinating addition to the Hague Conventions are the Hague Rules 1923 that cover wireless transmission, as they would also apply to our current mixed-mode internet:

Art. 8. Neutral mobile wireless stations shall abstain from keeping a written copy of wireless messages received from belligerent military wireless stations, unless such messages are destined for the said neutral stations.

The violation of this rule entitles the belligerents to confiscate the texts in question.

Oh, and that would mean Mr. Assange was taking sides in the conflict(s) the US is in, by his own action.

The Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention only covers espionage as it relates to occupied territory, and deals more in the field than things outside of it.  Full trials are to be provided for 'protected persons' (civilians) in the area of occupation for any offenses (military or civil) done there.  Thus as Afghanistan has been liberated but still requires the presence of US forces to maintain its integrity against hostile elements at war with both Nations, that means that either party in the territory (Afghanistan or the US) may utilize the general schema.  Now given that full trial and appeals are available, lets look at what is within its confines:

Art. 68. Protected persons who commit an offence which is solely intended to harm the Occupying Power, but which does not constitute an attempt on the life or limb of members of the occupying forces or administration, nor a grave collective danger, nor seriously damage the property of the occupying forces or administration or the installations used by them, shall be liable to internment or simple imprisonment, provided the duration of such internment or imprisonment is proportionate to the offence committed. Furthermore, internment or imprisonment shall, for such offences, be the only measure adopted for depriving protected persons of liberty. The courts provided for under Article 66 of the present Convention may at their discretion convert a sentence of imprisonment to one of internment for the same period.

The penal provisions promulgated by the Occupying Power in accordance with Articles 64 and 65 may impose the death penalty against a protected person only in cases where the person is guilty of espionage, of serious acts of sabotage against the military installations of the Occupying Power or of intentional offences which have caused the death of one or more persons, provided that such offences were punishable by death under the law of the occupied territory in force before the occupation began.

The death penalty may not be pronounced against a protected person unless the attention of the court has been particularly called to the fact that since the accused is not a national of the Occupying Power, he is not bound to it by any duty of allegiance.

In any case, the death penalty may not be pronounced on a protected person who was under eighteen years of age at the time of the offence.

Art. 69. In all cases the duration of the period during which a protected person accused of an offence is under arrest awaiting trial or punishment shall be deducted from any period of imprisonment of awarded.

Art. 70. Protected persons shall not be arrested, prosecuted or convicted by the Occupying Power for acts committed or for opinions expressed before the occupation, or during a temporary interruption thereof, with the exception of breaches of the laws and customs of war.

Nationals of the occupying Power who, before the outbreak of hostilities, have sought refuge in the territory of the occupied State, shall not be arrested, prosecuted, convicted or deported from the occupied territory, except for offences committed after the outbreak of hostilities, or for offences under common law committed before the outbreak of hostilities which, according to the law of the occupied State, would have justified extradition in time of peace.

So it is a multipart thing that allows for trials: espionage, or serious acts of sabotage against military installations, or intentional offenses which caused the death of one or more persons.  For Afghanistan the recourse is to its own civil code to see what the punishments would be, while for the US we could use our military code or the Taliban civil code as that was pre-existing prior to hostilities.  Really you would have a better chance with the current regime than the US.  Perhaps Mr. Assange will give himself up to them?

The US has not signed up to the 1977 Geneva Convetions so they are not considered as part of what is or is not espionage for the US.

Thus we quickly run out of what to do with Mr. Assange: he is performing the act of partisan espionage contrary to his status as Neutral citizen.  He is violating the Neutrality that is garnered him by being a non-combatant civilian and actively working against one of the belligerents in a conflict to supply information to the enemies of that belligerent.  Yes our civil laws may be lacking here, but we are at war and peace has not been declared in either Iraq or Afghanistan, nor have the Congressionally set objectives given to the Executive been met.

The case of Julian Assange and Wikileaks is not one of civil courts, but courts martial, and any Nation involved in Afghanistan can put out that he is a threat to their troops in the field and their allies.

Of course that would be the civilized thing to do: get Mr. Assange a full military trial with defense lawyers to account for his activities of breaking his neutrality and publishing such information injurious to the US and those who have helped it, as well as those we have liberated.  But then we stopped acting civilized when we started trying to treat war as a 'police matter'... instead of as war.

Perhaps we can start to treat civil actions differently from martial actions, and start to recognize those making Private War upon us just as all Nations since the dawn of history have done.  Mind you, that isn't pretty.  But it is civilized, if you have the stomach to be civilized, that is.

21st century gold rush

The following is cross-posted at The Jacksonian Party.

In the midst of the economic recession in the West and the deepening debt and banking problems leading to the insolvency of Nations, there is one, small, bright spot now coming to light.  It is not in the West nor Middle East but central Asia.  The place is the war torn Nation of Afghanistan.

The mineral riches, if reports are accurate, are phenomenal.

Although this is the NYT (13 JUN 2010, James Risen) reporting this, so take it with a grain of salt, but the DoD has confirmed the survey results and analysis:

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

Yes, all those Lithium Ion batteries for devices need good, old fashioned lithium.  Apparently Afghanistan has that in abundance.

The importance of iron and copper, which is in so much of our equipment, buildings, electronics, vehicles... indeed the industrial revolution was built on iron then steel, and the electronics industry built on copper... that vast resources of minerals bearing these two in abundance could spur a major change in pricing downwards for much of daily life over a decade or two.  What happens if the bottom falls out from the lithium, iron and copper markets?  We just might find out.

How big is this discovery?  It is truly phenomenal:

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.

Will every investment work out?  No, of course not.

Will the net influx of mining capital transform Afghanistan in profound ways?  Yes.

Mind you that $12 billion figure for GDP may not count the drug trade for another billion or two.  Even with that, no amount of opium traffic can equal what happens when modern mining concerns roll into action, and the money that will flow through Afghanistan will be tremendous.  Even with no local firms, the country will make money on a transactional basis and most likely have some minor amount put into the Nation's coffers.  That is a double edged sword, as the government may think of that as government money while it is, in actuality, the money of the people who have the sovereignty over their land via government.

Afghanistan had, at one time before the Soviet invasion, a relatively ethical government.  Reading Michael Yon and others, there was even some evidence of that going through to today: that government functionaries at the low levels understood that they must do their job.  Thus the question of how far and how deep the corruption of the current government is worrying:

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine. The minister has since been replaced.

The question on the replacement is: was this done only because of US power or done due to US complaint.  The first is no safe harbor for the Afghan people, the latter is a demonstration that some accountability exists within the system to deal with corruption.

China, of course, is involved seeking mineral deposits to fuel their economy, which has such structural bad debt that anything that can be grasped as helping to mitigate that is seen as essential.  The mineral deposits, however, will take a decade or two to see full utilization and that is of no help to China in the present.

And Afghanistan is not ready for the 'big league's of being a top international player in anything, especially vital mineral ore:

The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency.

The Pentagon task force has already started trying to help the Afghans set up a system to deal with mineral development. International accounting firms that have expertise in mining contracts have been hired to consult with the Afghan Ministry of Mines, and technical data is being prepared to turn over to multinational mining companies and other potential foreign investors. The Pentagon is helping Afghan officials arrange to start seeking bids on mineral rights by next fall, officials said.

“The Ministry of Mines is not ready to handle this,” Mr. Brinkley said. “We are trying to help them get ready.”

This started with a USGS and Afghan Geological Survey group that pulled out the old British and Soviet era maps for the country and then stage an initial fly-over of promising sites.  That led to indications of much larger than expected deposits and a wider and more comprehensive survey in those areas in 2007.  The results sat in files until recently as US officials were looking for some way, any way, of getting Afghanistan on its feet economically.  When they got a better look at the results and compiled them, the extent of what was there became apparent, and the need for skilled hands to help in this was paramount:

The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.

But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.

Soon, the Pentagon business development task force brought in teams of American mining experts to validate the survey’s findings, and then briefed Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Mr. Karzai.

Yes, experience in Iraq counts and now offers an asymmetrical way to approach the Afghanistan conflict.

Asymmetrical?  In what way?

Whenever you find mineral deposits in strata there is a very good likelihood that much of the surrounding strata has similar deposits as they may have been put down by similar environments.  Over time with folding, thrusting and erosion the exact linear extent of such deposits may be warped, but the wider they were to start with means that it is unlikely that the resources sit just within the original finding areas.  That means that in the NWFP of Pakistan and other 'tribal' border regions, there may be mineral wealth beyond what has been found there to-date... which is nothing.  But then no one was looking that hard, were they, what with all the tribal and Islamic unpleasantness going on there.  So into the middle of an active, ethnic war zone comes some of the largest mineral discoveries seen in modern times.

Pakistan now has a great and deep incentive to push hard for surveys in its territory from the air based on the nearby deposits in Afghanistan and see what it can find.  I don't expect such finds to actually make things 'better' for Afghanistan or Pakistan, but then we are in the age where the lone prospector with a shotgun to defend himself has been replaced by multi-ton trucks the size of houses. 

And those will come, war or no war.

If there was any wisdom going into this, an amenable peace could be arranged for the final turning in of private war groups and a multi-ethnic, multi-Nation agreement to end hostilities and allow the local people to go to work which would enrich both Nations and all peoples of those Nations.  That would take a master statesman to do.

We are out of those, at present.  So is the rest of the world.

If you thought the fight for natural resources by the old Great Empires prior to WWI was a nasty business, then you ain't seen nothing yet.  That was orderly exploitation that built up local infrastructure which, though meager, has been lost after decolonialization in many Nations.  There are no high-minded, grand visionaries to see that giving people a job and a leg up in the world is a path to freedom and liberty for those involved.

America has a chance to help and do it right.

I am deeply afraid that we are about to screw things up royally for the next few decades and a resource that could lead to ending current hostilities and enriching the poor through hard work will, instead, plunge that region into chaos.  The last time that happened we got 9/11.  That was done on a shoestring.  Now imagine tens of millions of dollars going into Islamic terrorism not per year, but per month over the next decade.  Say an extended al Qaeda and Hezb-i-Islami doing about ten times their current income from narcotics, gem and gold smuggling and antiquities looting... every month perhaps every week.  As things stand they will get their terrorist 'share' of the pie and impoverish the people around them unless something is done very, very soon to end them.

You tell me what that looks like to you.

Because I do not like the look of it at all.

Hitting the target, but missing the mark

Or: Something President Obama is doing right, but not fully.

From Hot Air came a post on Leon Panetta talking about how Predator strikes are damaging al Qaeda and that al Qaeda may have to go to a 'lone gunman' form of terrorism.  Part of the  problem with al Qaeda is that it is not a highly centralized system for terror attacks: Hambali, as an example, didn't need bin Laden or Zawahiri to approve his operations which have killed many in Indonesia.  The highly integrated, top-down directed attacks are a hallmark of al Qaeda, but so are car bomb factories set up by purely local operatives in Iraq.  For every Red Mosque in Pakistan you get a no-name, small mosque in the Caribbean or South America generating small amounts of income and recruits.  al Qaeda went from core group systems, in the early 1990's, that had to work with other groups to stage attacks (like the 1993 WTC bombing) and then took a page from Aum Shin Rikyo's Sarin Gas Attack in Tokyo to plan and execute tighter and nastier plans.  Yet their small scale capability inside Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir demonstrate purely local terrorism and their branching out to Hambali and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines shows the affiliate/franchise type of operation, with the attacks in Madrid being of that type and hard to directly trace to anyone.

Keeping that in mind, I responded at HA thusly, all spelling and syntax errors kept intact for the amusement of the audience:

It is damned good that the Predator strikes are happening in coordination with the Pakistani take-downs. These are not unrelated as someone realizes that you cannot win a ground war from the air: you need ground forces for clean-up and to take advantage of a disorganized foe.

That is a strategy, the Predator strikes are tactics for the Af-Pak theater.

Of greater worry in Af-Pak is the non-al Qaeda, non-Taliban, cross-functional ‘Shadow Army’ that is becoming a cross-terrorist organization able to garner support from local groups and regional operators, like Gulbudden Hekmatyar. In targeting aQ/Talibe we are letting this new cross-group go unmolested as it has diverse means of support beyond the external. It is good that some of the most capable of the aQ/Talibe/Mehsud organizations are being taken down and out. I have heard nothing on Hekmatyar’s organization that stretches from China to London.

In Yemen we also have some on-the-ground support from the government, but it has proven to be an incompetent government willing to let known terrorists go either officially or unofficially through not following up prison escapes. Like the leader of the USS Cole attack. Again that is trying to use the air assets to enable the ground assets, but the coordination is not so hot there.

Then there is the slow return of al Qaeda to Somalia via the Islamic Courts Union. They seem to have gotten help from terrorists coming from… the US, Minnesota in particular. When we worked with the Ethiopians on getting the ICU chased out by utilizing air and naval assets, we unfortunately left open the quick jaunt to KSA where many ICU members fled to. Too bad we couldn’t get KSA’s cooperation on doing anything about that. Additionally the Somali minority in places like Northern Kenya have proven to have good hiding places and recruiting agents for the ICU/al Qaeda.

The ‘lone gunman’ strategy is not new to al Qaeda, either. Part of my looking at low-level activities when many low-level operatives were caught before doing anything is seeing why these who are not ‘professional’ can be quite dangerous with a minimal amount of help. And not via high value items or training, either. President Bush did a good job going after some of the most noxious enablers and helping others to do so, like Victor Bout and Monzer al Kassar, both extremely able supporters for the right cash or cause. They are just examples of the big ticket traffickers, and for each of those there are ten or so at the next rung who might not be able to get you SAMs but can get you Chinese attack helicopters.

After that things get dicey in the Caribbean as al Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood (often working together), KSA radical clerics, Iranian clerics and some splinter groups have targeted that area for recruitment and new ‘lone gunman’ style operations in the past. While they may seem more comical than effective, stopping a small splinter group planning on hijacking a LNG carrier and detonating it in Hartford or possibly Boston is not only chilling but a typical ’small unit’ operation of under 5 people with only a few weapons and modicum of explosives necessary to rupture the containment of the LNG. Be a nasty thing to wake up to, a few square blocks of waterfront Hartford or Boston gone flat.

‘Lone gunman’ does not mean low casualty and does mean much more inventive, if less well skilled. They don’t have to be ‘Professionals’, just able and effective… once. It is not al Qaeda’s preferred mode of operations, but they have done with it in the past to ‘lie low’. They really do mean to wage war upon us, and all of civilization so as to get their way. They declare themselves enemy of mankind and want to be its rulers. Never forget these things.

al Qaeda does not operate alone and while it contributes some functionality to the terror organizations in Pakistan, it is not their leader.  The 'Shadow Army' has stood up from components of the Taliban, al Qaeda, Mehsud family fighters (or Lashkars), Lashkar e Toiba (or whatever their current name is), plus parts of Gulbudden Hekmatyar's Hizbi-i-Islami being run out of a refugee camp in Pakistan.  Together they offer cross-functional cooperation for operations, training, personnel and funding.  Saudi funds that used to go directly to al Qaeda now see a number of other, smaller groups, getting funding as well as that heading to al Qaeda (usually in the form of supplies, not direct cash).  When any group can offer 'suicide bombers for hire', which the 'Shadow Army' can do, for commercial venues (such as attacking the guy who owns a competing business across town) you are no longer in the great and lovely world of top-down, leader led terrorism.  You are now in local, retail terrorism.

You can go after the chain, but the links reassemble into different chains when the main one is attacked.  It doesn't matter if it is cocaine smuggling from S. America, Heroin smuggling from China, emeralds from Kashmir, murder for hire in Pakistan, car bombs to go in Iraq, radical Mosques in London, or sending supplies to Mexican Syndicates and Gangs to get favor and entrance to the US: these are not indicative of a large-scale, big operation organization but one that can capably shift from wholesale to retail warfare.  What's worse is that you can't dry up their supply houses as it is 'Just In Time' production.

Who said these guys couldn't learn anything from the West?

Stopping terrorism is a local affair, done through Counter Insurgency (COIN), and that has been successfully applied in Iraq, Colombia, Philippines, and Sri Lanka.  Although terror operations are not kaput in ANY of those Nations, the forces of the nation states involved have the upper hand.  Pakistan is starting its bloody attacks on terror groups, but the question is: from what angle?  Is it the 'end all this terrorism' angle or the 'lets get rid of groups we can't control to empower those we can'?  For the past 50+ years it has always been the latter, and nothing going on contradicts that view today.  The attacks on Kashmir and India have not stopped nor have their Pakistani support bases been attacked, and since many of those groups operate in BOTH Afghanistan and Kashmir/India, the idea of stopping some near border facilities close to Afghanistan and not addressing those in the rest of the Nation puts the question in doubt. 

Afghanistan is starting to realize that the US may just 'cut and run' and hang everyone in the region out to dry, which will be the case until a long-term accommodation with the Pashtuns can be done.  That will require the generally ungovernable border provinces of Pakistan plus some of the family/clan lineages in Afghanistan to finally come to an agreement on either having the Pashtuns:  a) settle as a Pakistani Province, b) settle as an Afghan province, or, c) become their own mini-state.  This is as full provinces or a Nation State, no more of this 'tribal lands' deal and being able to foster and get away with murder whenever you please.  That border is not written in stone, but in an old British document that put a 100 year timeframe on solving the problems of the Pashtuns.  The Pashtuns ran out the clock on the British Empire.

Predator attacks are all well and good: I applaud them as one of the very few laudable things that President Obama has done.  It is, unfortunately, minimum compared to his campaign rhetoric.  You cannot win a ground war from the air, and we are not intent on breaking up the entire terror complex of which al Qaeda is one section and not even the largest section nor even the largest section involved in Afghanistan.  The most virulent, yes, the largest, no.

And the further away you get from semi-competent ground support, going from Pakistan to Yemen, the further away you get from effectiveness.  In case it has been missed, drone attacks and missile attacks without ground forces is seen as weakness by terrorists as you are unwilling to get your hands dirty to stop them.  Friends and allies can be a great help in that, doing some of the dirty work that needs to be done... and it would be a damned good idea to stop talking them down in Europe and elsewhere and implore them to get in the fight a bit more.  Say, by removing our bases in Nations with overly restrictive ROEs or ones with the population unhappy that the US wants to go after these international war criminals.

As a side-light, when did war crimes get trumped by mere civil criminality?

That didn't work up to 2001 and the only thing that has worked since then is pulling terrorists out of the general human population.  KSM even dared us to do our duty under the Geneva Conventions, which is not to get him a nice life-time cell, but to execute him for waging war and being part of no army and accountable to no nation state.  When these beasts can taunt us to do our duty as they are not afraid of it, and we are afraid of doing our duty, we are no longer civilized but decadent.

Using Hellfire missiles to wipe out a few terrorists, here and there, is great retail COIN, semi-functional on the strategic scale and pretty damned useless on the global scale given how these operations morph when attacked.  So far we don't have a global COIN strategy.  Bush didn't have one and Obama is clueless on what the concept means.  Breaking al Qaeda is necessary but not sufficient to the job we are getting handed, as al Qaeda as it was is no longer the way it is.  Its next structure to replace the current one is already in-place... and working very well at the retail level and ready to go wholesale in a different form.  Losing top-level effectiveness will not help when low-level diversity, spread and ability to cross-work shows up.

Its already done that in the 'Shadow Army'.

It can easily do that for groups with joint aims, if different goals.

The aim of al Qaeda has always been on the United States.

And the shadow of the US falls stronger the closer you get to home... look for conflict nearby and you just may see a new 'Shadow Army' arise of different form but with the same virulence and aims, which is to bring war and disorder to the US so as to bring it down, not in a Statist grip, but in the fullness of blood from our bodies.  They seek not to crush our souls, but our very lives from this Earth.

And Predator strikes aren't stopping that any time soon.

From refresher to hard ends

Looking at terrorism in SE Asia I have put together the following posts:

Dropping the dime on the oil drop

Mountain warfare and what it takes

Terrorists on the decline?

A DIME does not pay the toll

Terrorism: the good, the bad and the ugly

A quick refresher on Pakistan

Terrorism and Pakistan, part 1 and part 2

The Hard Part

Management of Savagery -The 'weak horse'

How many troops can we support in Afghanistan isn't the right question

Afghanistan and the essential fight

The shadow and the firestorm

 

These articles are predicated on understanding both Counter Insurgency (COIN) and Mountain Warfare (MW) and, of the two, MW is the more essential one as it is the regional and cultural base that we have to work with.  Today our view of COIN is one based on semi-successful campaigns (France in Algeria) which were a short term success and a longer term mixed bag, our hard work in Colombia with the local governments against FARC, and in the Philippines against the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front.  Iraq has many deep teaching points for us and we should not squander that learning experience when approaching COIN in Afghanistan.  Indeed the failure of Saddam and Turkey to crush the Kurds in the border region between Iraq and Turkey tells us much about Afghanistan and COIN, and what NOT to do.

From the Algerian experience the one salient lesson is: anyone who was once an insurgent who goes back to their old ways should be immediately confronted.  By not doing that, by not requiring local groups to permanently abide by peace, the doorway to a new insurgency was opened.  If your foes cannot enforce their settlement, then do not make one with them.  The forces confronting the Tamil Tigers have learned this hard lesson and that is why it is down to the 'last man' which looks to be the last Tamil Tiger.  Forces that factionate and cannot enforce peace upon those factions are not negotiating from any viable position.  It is possible to siphon off those who have just grown tired of fighting, but they are to be watched and not trusted so long as their old comrades continue to fight.  You can get a 'separate peace' in Private War but you cannot get a return of the trust that was abdicated by the individual who decided to leave civilization to fight it.  Similarly the cohesive society of the Kurds means that much lip service is given to not harboring the PKK from Turkey (and Iran), and yet individual fighters can and do get that refuge.  Turkey and Iran have both utilized attempts to dissolve the Kurdish culture, Kurdish language and Kurdish traditions and only by having those upheld by secular government has Iraq earned peace.  It is unfortunate that those other bordering Nations do not afford tolerance to multiple cultures in their own borders.

From the Kurdish experience, anti-FARC COIN, and work in the Philippines we can garner one major lesson: hard terrain makes for long COIN campaigns.  Decades long in some cases.  Serious work against FARC started in the mid-1990's and still has not completely eradicated it, as it now has support from the tyrant in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.  In that part of South America there is jungle and mountainous terrain, both, that make finding and removing insurgents a difficult task.  The terrain works to the benefit of the insurgents who are few and can attack anywhere to terrorize.  Similarly the Moros in the Philippines restarted their proto-independence movement after WWII (after failing in the Philippine-American War, a successful COIN campaign led by the US Army) that then gained strength in the 1990's with the addition of al Qaeda funds and operatives, often from their Indonesian affiliate.  Again terrain tells the tale, and being able to root out an insurgency in jungle conditions is a non-trivial task.  In the area that was demarcated as Kurdistan after WWI, the Kurds have seen their territory sliced up and have waged an insurgency, in turn, against the Turks, Iranians, Syrians, Iraqis with each having faced the problem of some of the best fighters in the region fighting to proclaim their cultural identity and solidarity.  Mountain warfare against insurgents is one of the most difficult to achieve as the mountains, when used with strong local knowledge, become a palpable enemy to COIN forces.  That is cultural heritage the Kurds retain from before they migrated out of the area we now call Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan along the Pashtun regions we face a foe similar in background to the Kurds in that it is a warrior based culture and tribal on that basis, although even more primitive in that individuals can raise Family and Clan and Tribal forces on their own without any government oversight.  These personal units are generally referred to as 'Lashkar', although multi-group affiliates do arise using that term (ex. Lashkar e-Toiba) to show some personal fighting affiliation to a group or belief it is understood that these are not the personal fighting units of the region but agglomerated groups.  In staging a 'surge' in Afghanistan the areas being 'surged' into are those on the border regions influenced by the Pashtuns who live, by and large, in Pakistan but, like the Kurds in the Middle East, cross borders into other countries due to tribal affiliations and cultural identity.

Can such a group be successfully integrated into civil society?

Yes.  With that said, when such cultural groups cross borders it is understood that their kinsmen across those borders are not, of necessity, influenced by a Nation State peace agreement with the tribal society in that region of that Nation State.  If you live elsewhere you do not become peaceful in another Nation merely because a peace was reached elsewhere with your kin.  As the use of Lashkars indicate, the societal basis for the Pashtun region of Pakistan and Afghanistan is different than that of the Kurdish areas in the Middle East and must be taken into account.  Thus the history of that society must be a paramount concern when staging COIN to see if there is any basis for a 'separate peace' in Afghanistan with the Pashtuns. 

From my refresher article above, comes the discouraging news that the Pashtuns have outwaited the British Empire which put in place a 100 year agreement for recognition of borders between British held territories and Afghanistan.  Thus from that we can draw the following: an imposed peace or settlement by an outside Nation is not going to be the terms of a long-term and successful peace.  Temporary while the outside force is present, yes.  And when Afghanistan rejected that border agreement as permanent, due to that ethnic pressure, it can be assumed that no current 'successful' surge will remain in place for long on the ground without a larger consensus agreement amongst all Pashtuns.

To put it bluntly: to get a long-term peace agreement and recognition of borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Pashtuns will need to not only sign-on to that agreement but abide by it and be a full player in the negotiations.  That puts on the table one of the nastiest yet most interesting prospects of all: the Pashtuns declaring a Nation State homeland separate from Pakistan and Afghanistan, both.  This has been a minority position in the Pashtun regions for decades, but independence is one of the starting fuels of bloodshed against governments in that region and to end that source those voices must be heard, reasoned with and their consent given at the tribal level for any larger multi-Nation consensus.

Because this is mountain warfare terrain, all other tribes must agree that any renegades who try to raise Lashkars for any reason beyond simple tribal defense needs to be hunted down and ended.  There is a difference between militias for local defense that wear uniforms and have a chain of command and those who wear no uniforms, have no command and no greater sanction than THEIR LEADER or THEIR RELIGION to go to war.  Those sanctions must be firmly implanted as illegitimate and lethal to any trying to do so.

In doing this we must come to understand the American COIN campaign that started in 1783 and ended in 1787: the uprising against high State taxes that put farmers in jail and confiscated their land brewed a rebellion against that rule that only ended when a new consensus was reached by the creation of the US Constitution.  In that work local militias are of State concern and, so long as they are not given pay or made permanent by the State and held by the people, the Federal Government will only call upon them when the threat to all States is paramount.  The United States experience with COIN and with State government becoming draconian is clear and crystal clear: you do not get a peace until the safety and security of the people is ensured and that those people are not oppressed by their government.  In return local self-protection is respected while going to war on your own is prosecuted as illegal warfare or Private War or piracy, depending on the terminology used at the time. 

Our modern military understanding is a hot house flower bred under the massive 20th century wars and continued on through the Cold War and is not representative of the normal condition of the military for mankind.  We cannot apply our highly technical systems to primitive cultures in the realm of warfare, and must bring about the understanding of civilized use of warfare that is run by the Nation for Public War while outlawing Private War that has NO State sanction.  The State can and Publicly sanction Private War groups to go after other Private War groups, then those fighters fall under Public War domains while executing their own understanding of war and accepting the consequences of it.

It is this understanding that must be found within the cultures of the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan.  This will not be easily performed as witness the current state of the tribal systems of the region in regards to Private War groups.  Any 'surge' that does not draw that deep, dark, red line between Private and Public War and that attempts to 'prosecute' Private War fighters in a civil court will fail as it is a demonstration of not understanding the difference between Public and Private War.  By taking it into a civil law venue, then Private War is given recognition and ENHANCED no matter what the verdict is, because it is seen as a viable application of war by individuals since it is given a public trial venue.  Yet these are not civil crimes being committed, but war crimes due to military justice.  That justice has always been harsh as separating Private War and requiring it to get Public sanction enhances the peace WITHIN society by removing warfare FROM society that is not sanctioned BY society.

We do have statutes for those fighting Private War that are picked up for public offenses or otherwise turn themselves over to public authorities: they are the Piracy Statutes and are only applicable inside the territory of the United States and given to those that surrender to us after being pronounced as fighting Private War against us.  This has been a stance of the United States since its Founding as executed by Jefferson, Jackson and, most notably, Lincoln.  Those caught making war against us in the military venue get military justice.  Those that submit to be tried for their crimes in a public venue get civil justice.  When you are brought in making war against the United States or, indeed, any Nation you are to be put into the military justice system as that is what you were doing: performing military activities.

Terrorism, as those on the Left like to point out, is a tactic.  They never, ever, not once want to state what is the form of war that has that as its main tactic as that then tells you what to do with those individuals performing it.  It is a tactic of piracy, to terrify others with warfare so as to get your way.  Pirates have taken lives, taken slaves, taken ships and have fought on land and at sea since the first City States arose and they have been seen and treated in one way, only, since the beginning of civil law and society.  It is only when they surrender to civil justice, civil prosecution and willingly give themselves up to be judged for the accusation of piracy that they get a trial in civil court.

This is what needs to be brought to the Pashtuns: the understanding of the defense of civil society from those willing to wage war against it on their own.  Currently the Pashtuns have little to recognize as they, themselves, are divided by two major Nations, terrain and yet are bonded by kinship, culture and custom.  To do this and get this peace requires the understanding of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Pashtuns that they are going to be given time to work out an accord that is suitable to ALL of them by consensus with no hold-backs, no lprovisos and no 'well maybes'.  If they cannot come to accord INSIDE their culture then no peace will ever be found OUTSIDE of it.  To do this does not require great multi-culti, glib worded politicians, but good,hard on-the-ground tribal leaders from other cultures that have this and perhaps a number of military historians pointing out exactly how Lashkars are seen by civilized people and why being civilized has such a high value to it that it is worth killing off Lashkars and taking up the positive liberty of civil defense for defense ONLY.

Because, apparently, the British Empire couldn't teach this lesson.  Nor could the Persian Empire before it.

Nor has Pakistan or Afghanistan or the USSR.

The only person who MIGHT have been able to teach that is the last Western leader that is STILL sung about by the bards of the region and how his passing changed the lives of everyone there.  Unfortunately he is long dead.

A guy by the name of Alexander.

Often with 'the Great' appended to it.

And if we can't learn the teachings of mountain warfare, how to deal with local cultures and get them to cooperate from our history, then Alexander's name will probably outlive all of ours and our Nations as we let this cancer spread by creating the conditions for its spread at home and abroad.  Getting rid of this Gordian Knot is not achieved by more rope.  Too bad that is what we now have on order, with nary a sword to be seen, and with that rope we shall, assuredly, hang ourselves as being too civilized to be civilized and do the right thing.

We could learn a lot from Alexander.

If we dared to use the sword to cut out this cancer.

Good luck with that rope stuff.

The shadow and the firestorm

Consider Bill Roggio's latest on the strengthening of al Qaeda forces in Pakistan, over at Long War Journal.  This is information that you can get no where else as easily and with such depth.  The re-appearance of the al Qaeda Shadow Army, particularly the unit that was the Taliban enforcer, Brigade 055, now Lashkar al Zil, or Shadow Army, is something to take note of, as the dispersal of the Talibe regime and subsequent operations disorganized it requiring it to re-formulate outside of Afghanistan.  Of particular note is the presences of ex-Baathist Republican Guardsmen amongst the diverse non-Pashtun organization that is the Shadow Army.  That said the 'foot soldiers' and mid-level types are bound to be from other places and Mr. Roggio cites as much in the article.

I've gone over some of the line-up previously and will list some of those posts, although I am sure to miss a few:

Examining the al Qaeda playbook (initial perusal)

First cut overview on The Management of Savagery

Terrorists on the decline?

Terrorism: the good, the bad and the ugly

Seeding the whirlwind and getting the vortex

A quick refresher on Pakistan

Terrorism and Pakistan, part 1

Terrorism and Pakistan, part 2

Huawei Technologies and its role in terrorism

Management of Savagery - The 'weak horse'

Afghanistan and the essential fight

Those are just the high level basics necessary to understand what we are seeing, and with those an examination of who the players are can be done.  No, fun was not had in writing those.

 

The Shadow Army has integrated parts of other terrorist organizations into their utilization schema.  In terrorist organizations that co-operate you often find mutual cooperation without hard and fast lines of authority - thus members may work together due to organizational needs, via  ideology, via common contacts, via common enemy, or one just weakening and transferring to a newer and stronger organization.  So seeing who they incorporate should be able to tell what sort of associations they are making.  This from the Roggio piece:

Afghan and Pakistan-based Taliban forces have integrated elements of their forces into the Shadow Army, "especially the Tehrik-e-Taliban and Haqqani Network," a senior US military intelligence official said. "It is considered a status symbol" for groups to be a part of the Shadow Army.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban is the Pakistani Taliban movement led by Baitullah Mehsud, the South Waziristan leader who has defeated Pakistani Army forces in conventional battles. The Haqqani Network straddles the Afghan-Pakistani border and has been behind some of the most high-profile attacks in Afghanistan.

From the Daily Times of Pakistan article of 09 JAN 2007 on this area:

In South Waziristan, according to the sources, the two main Taliban commanders are Baitullah and Abdullah from the Mehsud tribes. The former is the most powerful Taliban commander in the entire South Waziristan. He signed a peace deal with the Pakistani authorities at Sararogha in February 2005. It was agreed that the army will evacuate tribal territories, the Taliban will not attack the army, foreigners will not get protection, the army will not conduct operations against the Taliban if they agreed to help in the completion of development work. After the agreement, the Taliban established 16 offices in different parts of the Mehsud territory which are still functioning. They undertook harsh steps against criminals and dacoits. A ban was imposed on the use of computers/TV/music/dance. Sharia law was imposed. Baitullah has a lashkar of 30,000 armed tribesmen, while Abdullah has 5,000 armed men associated with him. Both groups give training to local youth and organise cross-border attacks. Baitullah Mehsud is associated with JUI-F like Sadiq Noor in North Waziristan while Abdullah Mehsud is attached to Uzbek/Tajik groups.

The sources said that in the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe, there were 14 groups of Taliban until November 2006 but after the appointment of Mullah Nazir as commander, all of them were brought under one leadership. Two Taliban commanders, Ghulam Jan and Ifthikar, do not accept Mullah Nazir as commander. However, Mullah Nazir remains the most powerful Taliban commander. He and other Taliban commanders like Muhammad Umer, Sharif, Noor Islam, Maulvi Abbas and Javed are affiliated with JUI-F. A separate group under commander Zanjeer, associated with Gulbadin Hikmatyar of Hizbe Islami is connected to the Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan.

Taliban commander Noor Islam based in Wana is an active supporter of Uzbek/Tajik and rebel Arabs. Haji Khanan, who is against the presence of Uzbeks, is another important Taliban commander. He is based in the Shakai area of the agency. Uzbek commanders and Abdullah Mehsud groups are more active in attacks on supporters of the government, while Arab commanders are more active in cross-border attacks.

The Mehsud brothers, now down to Baitullah, have been Talibani organizers on the border for years.  Their combined Lashkar was 30,000 or so locals.  Baitullah is the man who had not only the bulk of their private Lashkar, but the one who associated with other organizations and actively ordered and coordinated raids across the border.  Now lets look a bit more at the Mehsud brothers with this taken from the second of a two part report on them -

Part 2 from The Crime Library by Anthony Bruno:

Tribal militant leader Baitullah Mehsud has shown a disturbing interest in Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the controversial father of Pakistan's nuclear arms program, who in 2004 admitted to selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea on the black market. Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan reported that when Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in October of this year, Baitullah instructed Al Qaeda militants in Karachi to kill her for "three major offenses against Islamists." First, she supported the Pakistani military attack on Lal Masjid (the Red Mosque) in Islamabad on July 10, 2007—Lal Masjid was considered a hotbed of Islamist radicalism; one hundred and sixty-four Pakistani special-forces commandos stormed the mosque and madrassah, killing at least 20 and injuring over 100. Second, Bhutto has made it clear that if she takes power in Pakistan, she will allow American forces to search for Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan's borders. Third, she has said that if elected, she would allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to question A. Q. Khan.

[..]

Until 2005, Baitullah lived in the shadow of his daring and charismatic brother, Abdullah Mehsud, who, with his long black hair, was considered a terrorist rock star. Abdullah fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan against the Northern Alliance and in 1996 lost a leg when he stepped on a land mine. He was taken captive by warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum who turned him over to American forces. Abdullah Mehsud was sent to Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba and held for two years, insisting the whole time that he was just an innocent tribesman. He was released in 2004 for reasons which remain unclear and returned to Waziristan. Soon after his return, he orchestrated the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers working on a dam in his region, proclaiming that Beijing was guilty of killing Muslims. He also ordered an attack on Pakistan's Interior Minister in which 31 people perished. In July 2007 he died in a clash with Pakistani military forces as they raided his residence.

[..]

Baitullah made his intentions clear this past January when he said, "As far as jihad is concerned, we will continue to wage it. We will do what is in the interest of Islam." Speaking of the growing threat of Baitullah's militia, Pakistani military analyst, Hasan-Askari Rizvi, told The New York Times, "The army has never faced such a serious challenge in the tribal areas."

For those of you insisting that Guantanamo is such a 'bad place' and that 'innocent people are held there', do consider that Abdullah Mehsud, who controlled 5,000 personal war fighters, who was alllied with the Taliban, whose brother was actively fighting the US and its allies in Afghanistan, was SET FREE because he was 'an innocent tribesman'.  Really, it sucks to get picked up with weapons in a war zone or otherwise swept up in raids and such in such a conflict.  When he was released he went on to kidnapping and killing, and helping his brother and the Taliban.  You wanted a swift determination of combatant status and got it: kidnapping and killing are your return on investment of 'good will'.

With this information we can start to piece together Baitullah Mesud's range and scope of influence, and I'll swipe this from a previous article of mine:

1) Baitullah Mehsud - Sipah-e-Sahaba/Pakistan (SSP) (Source: TKB and SATP) [now Millat-e-Islamia/Pakistan via the SIPS name table] and its main factional group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (Source: SATP). Baitullah Mehsud does not *lead* either of these organizations, instead being a leader of a Lashkar (from TKB: Lashkar: Literally “battalion” in Urdu, the term is often part of the name of many South Asian terrorist groups) of 30,000 to 35,000 Mehsud tribesmen and other terrorist followers. Thus he is a military leader of import, with a sizeable following of Pashtuns. He is also cited as being commander of the Tehrik-e-Taliban (Source: SATP, SAIR Report 31 DEC 2007) or Taliban Movement Pakistan (Source: e-Ariana).

 

Now for a bit on how the Mehsuds stage attacks across the border.  Here is the SATP Pakistan Assessment: 2009 that examines this in part:

Alarmingly, some Taliban clerics reportedly boasted of converting ordinary persons into suicide-bombers "in six hours flat".

"From the 26 suicide attacks where we recovered a head in 2007, we made a startling discovery… The vast majority [of suicide bombers] came from just one tribe, the Mehsuds of central Waziristan, all boys aged 16 to 20," an analyst at the elite Special Investigation Group (SIG) told The Guardian. Qari Hussain, also known as Ustad-e-Fidaeen (teacher of suicide cadres), a Mehsud tribesman in his early 30s, is identified as the 'commander' who manages Baitullah Mehsud-led Taliban suicide bombing training centres and is directly responsible for indoctrinating youth for suicide missions. One of the training centres was discovered at a Government-run school in the Kotkai area of South Waziristan by the Army. GOC-14 Division Major General Tariq Khan told reporters in Dera Ismail Khan on May 18, 2008: "It was like a factory that had been recruiting nine to 12-year-old boys, and turning them into suicide bombers." The computers, other equipment and literature seized from the centre give graphic details of the suicide training. There were videos of young boys carrying out executions, a classroom where 10- to 12-year olds are sitting in formation, with "white band of Quranic verses wrapped around their forehead, and there are training videos to show how improvised explosive devices are made and detonated." .

"Pakistan is now a one-stop shop," says Tariq Pervez who recently retired as the Director General of the Federal Investigation Agency. He told The Guardian in an interview, "ideas, logistics, cash from the Gulf. Arab guys, mainly Egyptians and Saudis, are on hand to provide the chemistry. Veteran Punjabi extremists plot the attacks, while the Pakistan Taliban provide the martyrs. And it all came together in the Marriott case."

In fact, so pervasive is the phenomenon of suicide attacks that suicide bombers are also now available for a price to settle personal scores. This was revealed during Police investigations into a suicide attack in Bhakkar on October 6, 2008, in which 25 persons were killed and 60 wounded. According to Crime Investigation Department of the Lahore Police, accused Waqas Hussain and his four accomplices had hired a suicide bomber and explosives expert from Wana in South Waziristan to kill a former friend with whom they had a monetary dispute.

Need to hire a martyr/hitman?  Waziristan is the place to go!

Just so you know, that would be an ISI supported concept - using a government run school to train child suicide bombers.  Someone in the government must have known what was going on, and the finger would point to the ISI not only subverting the school, but then intimidating those inside the government who would try to report it.  Now this gives us the flow of the overall project:  Money,  materials and skilled operatives from KSA and Egypt, local Islamic Radicals as trainers/brainwashers, construction of devices locally, and then the recruited boys and others picked up in the area sent on their missions.  This has worked so well that they have a surplus of martyrs to help settle your local disputes: pay the money and have a suicide child bomber blow up your target.

Remember when you criticize the US for 'barbaric activities' you are glossing over what the hell is actually going on in the world and that US soldiers are accountable for their actions.   But then children as suicide bombers have never bothered the Left in America - they try to say that the US causes them and not blame those doing the funding, training, brainwashing, equipping and sending of them.  Always the US, never the actual people using children like this.  Of course that attitude is, itself, barbaric.

Now over to FATA and the Khyber Pass area, and from that same report:

Within FATA, violence is reported from all the seven Agencies - Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram, North Waziristan, and South Waziristan - in varying degrees. The continuing instability in neighbouring Afghanistan and the rapid fading of the Government's writ in FATA in 2008 has only intensified the conflict in the region. After Waziristan, Bajaur is arguably the most significant stronghold of the militants, who have entrenched themselves in the area, transforming the Agency into a nerve centre of the Taliban - al Qaeda network. Sources indicate that foreign al Qaeda militants - including Chechens, Uzbek, Tajik, Sudanese and Afghans - are converging on Bajaur to bolster the ranks of the jihadis. These foreigners are reportedly leading counter-attacks, since local militants alone were having difficulties confronting the Army action.

The Taliban, led by 'commander' Abdul Wali alias Omar Khalid, has near-complete control in the Mohmand Agency. Khalid, in his early 40s, was the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) chief in the agency before becoming a Taliban commander. One of the most influential Taliban leaders after Baitullah Mehsud and Maulvi Faqir, sources indicate that Khalid, who claims to have more than 3,000 fighters with him, has strong links with some Kashmiri militant groups. It is during 2008 that the Pakistani Taliban made a surge in the Mohmand Agency, where they now run a parallel state, implementing the Sharia (Islamic law), largely under duress.

[..]

Throughout 2008, attempts at regaining territory by the armed forces in FATA proved to be unsuccessful, with the militants swiftly recovering lost spaces. In essence, the state does not have a civil administrative system worth its name in FATA and, indeed, across the NWFP and Balochistan, and efforts to hold and sustain territorial gains rely almost exclusively on the presence of the Armed Forces.

During 2008, the Taliban-al Qaeda combine, notwithstanding sustained military operations, also consolidated their sway on the Khyber Agency. In fact, strengthening their presence in the Jamrud and Landikotal sub-divisions of Khyber Agency by the end of the year, the Taliban from Khyber began to extend support to their brethren in the NWFP and to threaten the supply lines of NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan. Baitullah Mehsud's fighters have now established at least nine centres in Jamrud and Landikotal, with at least one of these centres located no more than 10 kilometers from the NWFP capital, Peshawar.

The state's withdrawal is tangible. While senior officials seldom venture into any of the Agencies, the administration virtually lives at the mercy of the militants and is unable to exercise any real authority. The SFs in FATA are also faced with the dangerous scenario of their Pashtun elements demonstrating reluctance to fight their fellow Pashtuns. Apart from the "high" casualty rate there is also an "unprecedented" level of desertions and discharge applications being reported from FATA (numbers for which are presently unavailable), an unambiguous sign that multiple insurgencies are bleeding the Pakistan Army.

In case you missed it: Pakistan is now fighting a massive insurgency that is draining its Army and limiting the operations of the Nation.  I haven't added in the Balochistan problems, but they are also doing a number on the Army and National forces.  Now on to the NWFP area:

During 2008, the Taliban-al Qaeda was able to unambiguously demonstrate their supremacy to the extent that the NWFP, a region where the state's presence has historically been relatively strong, is almost as ungovernable as FATA. While the Government has declared eight Districts out of the Province's 24 as 'high security zones', all the Districts are presently affected by various levels of militant mobilisation and violence. The extent of state collapse is visible in the fact that only six Districts were declared 'normal' for elections on February 18, 2008. A parallel system of governance now exists under the command of the Taliban in Swat District and the militants have announced the enforcement of Sharia in the Shakai, Sheikhan and Mulakhel areas of Hangu District as well.

[..]

Peshawar, the NWFP capital, is under siege and is vulnerable to collapse. There were three suicide attacks among 71 terrorism-related incidents in Peshawar during 2008. In December 2008, the Taliban in Peshawar, facing little resistance, blew up at least 261 vehicles carrying logistics and supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan. Earlier, in June 2008, as the Taliban advanced towards the city, NWFP Police Chief and top administrators warned that, unless the Government took decisive action, Peshawar would fall. Peshawar is home to the headquarters of the Army's 11th Corps, the paramilitary Frontier Corps, the Frontier Constabulary and the Police. The Taliban have always had a significant presence in the capital and adjacent regions, including the Khyber Agency, Darra Adamkhel, Mohmand Agency, Shabqadar, Michni and Mardan.

Even as violence continues unabated across the Swat District, where Daily Times reported on January 19, 2009, after a year of military operations, the territory controlled by militants has increased from 25 per cent to 75 per cent, the provincial Government has, time and again, stated that it was ready for a dialogue with the Taliban - an offer that has been contemptuously ignored. While the dialogue process failed repeatedly in 2008, temporary cease-fires, in fact, allowed the Taliban-al Qaeda combine to regroup and rearm, while the state capacity has gradually diminished in the region. Worse still, continuous military operations in Swat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Peshawar, Bannu, Hangu, Malakand, and other areas have failed to establish the state's dominance in any of the territories temporarily 'regained'.

One of the fundamental reasons for the state's inability to hold territory in the Frontier is the absence of an effective mechanism for governance on the ground. This is compounded further by severe deficiencies in fighting capacities. While the Army is a relatively well-equipped force, the hamstrung Police forces face a grim challenge of constituting the first line of defence against urban militancy. According to the National Police Bureau's Annual Report, 2006, the Police operate under significant constraints, including the paucity of funds (only 12 per cent of the annual budget is available to meet Police development requirements) and shortage of Police strength (50 per cent deficit against sanctioned strength). In attempting to make amends, the Awami National Party-led provincial Government has proposed the creation of an elite police force of 7,500 personnel, which could be deployed on short notice in militancy-affected areas. However, reports on January 13, 2009, indicate that approximately 600 specially-trained commandoes of the newly established Elite Police Force have refused to get posted in the besieged Swat Valley, saying they would prefer dismissal to being made "scapegoats". "The services of around 600 commandoes of Platoon No-1 to Platoon No-13 were placed at the disposal of the District Police Officer of Swat. They were supposed to join duty during the first week of January. However, none of them left for the troubled town," The News reported. Parents of the newly trained commandoes had also reportedly refused to send their sons to Swat, where Policemen have been slaughtered and strangulated publicly on various occasions in 2008. Large-scale desertion is being reported from the Frontier. "Many cops had to place advertisements in local newspapers to assure the militants that they were no more part of security forces," said a local from Swat. A November 13, 2008, report said that approximately 350 Policemen had resigned from their posts, subsequent to a Taliban threat to either leave their jobs or get ready for "dire consequences".

This is what the beginning of a civil war looks like: insurgency strengthens, takes over the control of local government, then unifies against the National authority structure.  Pakistan isn't trying to 'negotiate' with the Taliban-al Qaeda and various groups that now follow them, it is trying to 'appease them'.  That is a sure sign of weakness, as the offers are now REFUSED.  That is not a good sign for the Pakistani regular forces, nor are the desertions, unwillingness to deploy in those areas, and the fact that highly trained commando police are unwilling to go there.

If these areas are falling from government control and to the Taliban/al Qaeda, we would expect to see their operations spread as success breeds success.  This from Punjab:

While the progressive collapse in NWFP and FATA is well documented, it is Punjab that is, in many ways, emerging as a jihadi hub. While 304 persons, including 257 SF personnel and 34 civilians, were killed in 78 terrorism-related incidents in Punjab in 2008, it is the presence of many militant groups in the province that is alarming. Data indicates, further, that more SF personnel and civilians were killed in Punjab than militants. While this is a clear indication that the Taliban-al Qaeda network is securing the upper hand, it is also evident that the extremists are bringing the conflict to Pakistan's urban heartland, including the national capital Islamabad, the provincial capital Lahore and the garrison town of Rawalpindi. In fact, out of the approximately 78 incidents in 2008, 21 were reported from Islamabad and 22 from Lahore. Apart from the fact that some of the terrorist attacks in Punjab have been carried out by the Taliban-al Qaeda network, suspects arrested in places like Faisalabad, Sargodha, Islamabad and Lahore, among others, in 2008, included persons from the FATA and NWFP. Militants from across the country and outside easily find safe havens in places like Islamabad and Lahore. With Peshawar, the NWFP capital which is just 150 kilometers away from Islamabad, already under militant siege, it is not surprising that Islamabad and Rawalpindi are being targeted. A senior Punjab Police officer has claimed that all cases of suicide bombings in the province had links to Baitullah Mehsud and his sub-groups operating in the NWFP: "The bombers and their accomplices have close links with Baitullah Mehsud and his sub-group leaders like Kali Zafar, Maulvi Rabbani and others who all belonged to Waziristan."

What the Taliban/al Qaeda now lack to make this a full civil war is a declaring of independence, uniforms, and an identification of the actors in charge.  This is now a full throated insurgency beginning to tremble the heart of Pakistan, and little is being done to stop it.  Indeed, it is now serving as a safe haven and recruiting ground:

While the lone terrorist arrested during the Mumbai attacks of November 26, 2008, Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, hails from Faridkot village in the Okara District of Punjab province, eight of the nine who were killed during the attack were also from Punjab. Both the LeT and the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) draw a majority of their cadres from south Punjab, including Multan and Bahawalpur, which is also the JeM headquarters. The LeT and its recently banned front, Jama'at-ud-Da'awa, have long maintained an open presence in places like the provincial capital Lahore and Muridke (approximately 40 kms from Lahore), where the group is headquartered. Qudsia Mosque in Chauburji Chowk in Lahore is the Jama'at-ud-Da'awa headquarters. On December 11 and 12, under relentless international pressure, authorities sealed 34 offices of the Jama'at-ud-Da'awa across Punjab, Police sealed the group's offices in south Punjab cities of Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, Arifwala, Bahawalnagar, Khanewal, Arifwala and Rajanpur. These sealed offices, however, represent no more than a tiny fraction of the large LeT presence across Punjab. The Punjab Government has appointed administrators in 10 Jama'at-ud-Da'awa schools after intelligence agencies reported that these institutions were promoting extremism. At least 26 educational institutions of the outfit operate in various parts of the province. Before the recent crackdown, LeT leaders like Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, Abdur Rehman Makki, Abu Hashim and Ameer Hamza were openly seen in Lahore. And despite the recent ban on the Jama'at-ud-Da'awa/LeT and the house arrest of its chief, Hafiz Mohammed Saeed, the group continues to function quite openly.

Groups like the LeT, with considerable state support, have, over the years built an elaborate socio-economic infrastructure in Punjab, functioning as an alternative to the state, since the latter is unable to provide the needed social capital for an overwhelming proportion of the population. The worldview of groups like the Jamaat-ud-Dawa / LeT thus enjoys wide acceptability. Given the quantum of popular acceptance, the Punjabi dominated armed forces - themselves deeply ambivalent on this count - may find it difficult to engage with the jihadis in Punjab, if subversion in the Province become unmanageable in the proximate future.

When folks talked of a 'civil war' in Iraq, they did not know what they were talking about.  This is the beginning of a long, hard and deep one in Pakistan.  By being unable to provide protection and services to the entire population, Pakistan has been playing a 'pay off A to plague B, B to plague C, and C to plague A' sort of deal, using Kashmir and Afghanistan as 'B' and 'C'.  Now the 'C' part in Afghanistan comes home to roost, finds support, makes friends with 'A' (the local radicals) and then both utilize contacts to 'B' to start bringing their organizations into the fold.

Next up is Sindh:

Levels of violence in Sindh province were relatively low with some 42 incidents reported during 2008, in which 52 persons, including 29 civilians, were killed and 109 injured. There is, however, growing evidence to suggest that militant groups maintain a significant presence in the Province, notably in capital Karachi, Sukkur, Khairpur, Jacobabad, Badin, Larkana, Mirpur Khas and Hyderabad. The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain stated, on August 9, 2008, that Taliban activities were visible in the interior of Sindh in areas like Badin and that an unspecified number of people were coming from FATA and Northern Areas to Karachi and the interiors of Sindh, on a daily basis.

Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, has seldom been out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons. While sectarian strife between the majority Sunni and minority Shia Muslims persists, the city is also a safe haven for Islamist extremists linked to Taliban - al Qaeda combine. The Taliban are present in Karachi and have links with the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and other banned religious organisations, but have no intention of carrying out attacks in the provincial capital, unless provoked by a political party or the Government, a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman, Mullah Omer, clarified on November 23, 2008. Earlier, on February 15, 2008, Karachi Police arrested 10 members of a militant group linked to the Taliban, who were planning massive terrorist attacks in the city during elections. The Inspector General of Police Azhar Ali Farooqi said the group, Tehrik-i-Islami Lashkar-i-Muhammadi, had ties with Mullah Dadullah, and with Taliban commander Tahir and Sirajul Haq Haqqani. Farooqi disclosed that the arrested men were formerly members of other banned outfits, such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, but after the Lal Masjid operation they formed a group of their own because their former organisations had 'deviated' from their mission.

Sources indicate that the LeT maintains a training camp in Azizabad in Karachi. The ten LeT militants who carried out the multiple terrorist attacks in Mumbai on November 26, 2008, set sail from Karachi. Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman alias Kasab, the lone militant arrested during the Mumbai attacks, stated during his interrogation, that Zaki-ur-Rehman-Lakhvi, the LeT 'operations chief' and one of the masterminds of the Mumbai carnage, had briefed them in Azizabad. The Jama'at-ud-Da'awa reportedly has offices in all major cities of Sindh where recruitment drives are conducted every year. It is from the metropolis, with a population of approximately 16 million, that many al Qaeda operatives, including Ramzi Binalshibh - the "20^th hijacker" of the 9/11 attacks - have been arrested. The city also houses the Binoria mosque complex, which has long been the nerve centre of the Military-Jihadi enterprise.

Police indicated in August 2008 that the Taliban, in order to accelerate the funding process, has hired youngsters belonging to the JeM, HuM, Harkat ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) and other militant groups, from Karachi. Intelligence agencies have indicated that Baitullah Mehsud, the LeJ and other outlawed jihadi groups have joined hands to pursue terrorist acts in Karachi. Daily Times reported on September 4, 2008, that this new grouping is headed by Raheemullah alias Naeem alias Ali Hassan, a 35-year old resident of Orangi Town. Adviser on the Interior, Rehman Malik, warned on November 21, 2008, that the LeJ may launch terrorist attacks in Karachi and "we need to discourage them and increase the vigil."

And there is the name Haqqani associated with the Lal Masjid mosque/training center.  While Haqqani left the previous organization, he kept many ties and started forming up a support organization to supply the Taliban and al Qaeda.  So when the Shadow Army indicates ties with two organizations, strongly, those organizations are, themselves, deeply tied into other organizations that stretch throughout Pakistan.

The Mehsud organization, itself, ties directly into a large number of places outside of FATA and NWFP, and into Sindh and Punjab.  Starting from a tribal based Pashtun organization it has now spread in influence and size as it garners funds from Saudi and Egyptian backers.  Mind you the heads of al Qaeda are Saudi and Egyptian, so this is not surprising, that these individuals have deep ties into the radical pockets in their home countries.

Now we can go on in Bill Roggio's piece, oriented on what the background and support of the Shadow Army represents:

The presence of the Shadow Army has been evident for some time, as there have been numerous reports of joint operations between the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani Network, Hizb-i-Islami, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, and other terror groups. In January 2008, The Long War Journal noted that the various terror groups were cycling through the numerous camps in the tribal areas and have organized under a military structure.

While the Shadow Army has been active, there has been little visual evidence of its existence until now. The Long War Journal has obtained a photograph of a unit from the Shadow Army operating in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled district of Swat.

[..]

A look at the clothing of the fighters gives a good indication of the identity of the fighters, an expert on al Qaeda told The Long War Journal. The length of the pants of pictured fighters is described as being at "al Qaeda height" -- meaning only al Qaeda and allied "Wahhabi/Salafi-jihadis" wear their pant legs this high.

"The extremists who follow al Qaeda's religious beliefs think that pants must be at least six inches above the ground because there's a hadith [a saying of the Prophet Mohammed] that says clothes that touch the ground are a sign of pride and vanity," the expert said. "This, along with the new dyeing of men's beards red or yellow is a sure sign of al Qaeda-ization."

The type of masks worn and the tennis shoes are also strong indicators that these fighters "are non-Afghan fighters," an expert on the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan said. "Those types of masks I have seen, and they are always on the Pakistani side of the border," the expert said. "The tennis shoes and socks are a big indicator that they are non-Afghan fighters, probably Pakistanis or Arab/Central Asian fighters."

[..]

The re-formed Brigade 055 is but one of an estimated three to four brigades in the Shadow Army. Several other Arab brigades have been formed, some consisting of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards as well as Iraqis, Saudis, Yemenis, Egyptians, North Africans, and others.

During the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan prior to the US invasion in 2001, the 055 Brigade served as "the shock troops of the Taliban and functioned as an integral part of the latter's military apparatus," al Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna wrote in Inside al Qaeda. At its peak in 2001, the 055 Brigade had an estimated 2,000 soldiers and officers in the ranks. The brigade was comprised of Arabs, Central Asians, and South Asians, as well as Chechens, Bosnians, and Uighurs from Western China.

The 055 Brigade has "completely reformed and is surpassing pre-2001 standards," an official said. The other brigades are also considered well trained.

One official said the mixing of the various Taliban and al Qaeda units has made distinctions between the groups somewhat meaningless.

"The line between the Taliban and al Qaeda is increasingly blurred, especially from a command and control perspective," the official said. "Are Faqir Mohammed, Baitullah Mehsud, Hakeemullah Mehsud, Ilyas Kashmiri, Siraj Haqqani, and all the rest 'al Qaeda'?" the official asked, listing senior Taliban commanders in Pakistan that operate closely with al Qaeda. "Probably not in the sense that they maintain their own independent organizations, but the alliance is essentially indistinguishable at this point except at a very abstract level."

The Taliban have begun an ideological conversion to Wahhabism, the radical form of Sunni Islam practiced by al Qaeda. "The radicalization of the Taliban and their conversion away from Deobandism to Wahhabism under Sheikh Issa al Masri and other al Qaeda leaders is a clear sign of the al Qaeda's preeminence," the official noted. Sheikh Issa is the spiritual adviser for Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ayman al Zawahiri's organization that merged into al Qaeda, and the leader of al Jihad fi Waziristan, an al Qaeda branch in North Waziristan.

The money, expertise, and supplies that al Qaeda can bring in has won converts amongst the Taliban.  The only good note out of this is that the Ba'athist Iraqi Republican Guards have, by and large, abandoned Iraq.  They do not serve as a lynch pin, however, that is what the Saudis are for: the ideological motivators and bagmen.  Outside of that, the longer reach of pre-existing terror groups, like that of Hekmatyar's, who could actually reach into China for insurgents, is still seen: he is the one man who has had a coherent organization to draw across the southern swath of ex-Soviet Republics in the region, and continues to do so.

What this demonstrates is that the Shadow Army organization is now one of the leading groups in the Taliban/al Qaeda sphere:

The Shadow Army has distinguished itself during multiple battles over the past several years, particularly in Pakistan's tribal areas and in the Northwest Frontier Province. Taliban forces under the command of Baitullah Mehsud defeated the Pakistani Army in South Waziristan during fighting in 2005-2006, and again fended off the Pakistani Army in 2008 after fighting pitched battles and overrunning a series of forts.

In Swat, the Pakistani military was twice defeated by forces under the command of Mullah Fazlullah during 2007 and 2008. Earlier this year, the military launched its third attempt to secure Swat, which has been solidly under the control of the Taliban. The most recent operation was initiated after Fazlullah issued an amnesty to certain government officials and called for others to be tried in a sharia court. The military regained control of a small region last week, but fighting has been heavy. A few days ago, Taliban forces overran a police station and captured 30 members of the police and paramilitary Frontier Corps.

In Bajaur, the hidden hand of the Shadow Army has been seen in multiple reports from the region. Taliban forces dug a series of sophisticated trench and tunnel networks as well as bunkers and pillboxes. The Pakistani military took more than a month to clear a six-mile stretch of road in the Loisam region. Pakistani military officials also said the Taliban "have good weaponry and a better communication system (than ours)."

"Even the sniper rifles they use are better than some of ours," the Pakistani official told Dawn "Their tactics are mind-boggling and they have defenses that would take us days to build. It does not look as though we are fighting a rag-tag militia; they are fighting like an organized force."

To those who have always wailed about how 'Iraq was distracting us' and 'allowing al Qaeda to rebuild' you have never, not once, offered a SOLUTION to this problem.  If it was to invade Pakistan than you should SAY SO and stop whining about things and just being a complainer.  This is, fully, the problem of the Pakistan, a sovereign nation, that is now unravelling and NOTHING offered by those opposing the war in Iraq would have done a damned thing about this problem as there is very little we can do with it.  By offering no concrete way forward, and there is no way to win in Afghanistan without solving this problem in another Nation, you have criticized to no good end.  Worse, by offering no hard evidence, complaining about Gitmo and otherwise publicizing every event that al Qaeda and the Taliban have wanted you to publicize, you are complicit in making them grow stronger. 

You want to *not* attack them?  Then they grow stronger because we are weak. 

You complain about 'civilian casualties' when they hide amongst civilians?  Then that is the blame of those doing the hiding like that - they are cowards.

Pacifism is appeasement to such as these, and look where that has gotten Pakistan.  By not supporting harsh reprisals, understanding that our enemies are barbarians and by accepting that they will cause innocents to be killed by their own actions, you have given them much strength and weakened our resolve to bring them to heel.

And with Pakistan releasing AQ Khan, we now have the one man that Baitullah Mehsud has sought for help for years.

Pakistan is trying appeasement once more, and getting attacked for it and its people killed.

The Shadow Army is about to unleash pure chaos in Pakistan.

The goal is the nuclear weapons there: the most unstable State to have them outside of the deranged Mr. Kim in NoKo.  They want to use AQ Khan to get at them... the man who ran the nuclear black market to Iran, Iraq, Syria, NoKo and others.  Once that happens we will see the firestorms begin.

Those that are left alive will either fight or submit.

No thanks to those who have been complaining for years and offering nothing better.

Part of the blame will be theirs for the deaths that will come from their dissolution of will by America.  As the world is not so small as it was during Vietnam, this time it is likely to come home and bring the firestorm directly to the critics as well as the innocents they castigated.  That is what you get for being nice and considerate to barbarians: killed or enslaved.

Or you can fight.

Only you can make that decision and when you don't fight, you are stuck with the other alternatives, of which 'peace' is not an option to those you empower.