The bestselling author of the now seminal Taliban has an important Washington Post op-ed. In it, Ahmed Rashid, reflects on President Bush's upcoming visit to Pakistan:
When President Bush lands in Islamabad later this week, it may be
the closest he ever comes to being in the same neighborhood as Osama
bin Laden. His nemesis is probably only a few hours drive away in
Pakistan's Pashtun belt, now considered to be al Qaeda Central and one
of the world's most dangerous regions.
During the past 12 months
or so, CIA and Pentagon officials have quietly modified the line they
employed for three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- that bin
Laden was hiding out "in the tribal areas along the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border." Now the same officials say with some
confidence that he is "not based in Afghanistan." Whatever ambiguity
there was in the past is gone: Bin Laden is in Pakistan.
What's left is the question: What are the United States and its ally, Pakistan, doing about it?
The stock government line is that Bin Laden is hiding, or "on the run." This is so inadequately reassuring it's not really worthy of dismissal, and it's nowhere defended. (Well, I suppose there's always Victor Davis Hanson: "Bin Laden is in theory "loose," but can't go anywhere except the wild
Afghan-Pakistan border or perhaps the frontiers of Kashmir." So -- beyond displaying an ignorance of Pakistan's frontier provinces -- does that mean Bin Laden isn't loose, since he's only "loose"? Anyway . . . .) Rashid:
The region has become a haven for bin Laden and a base for Taliban
raids across the border back into Afghanistan which they had fled.
Not
that you'd be able to tell any of that from what Bush administration
officials have been saying. Almost everything the administration claims
about the al Qaeda leader is tinged with bravado and untruthfulness.
"We are dealing with a figure who has been able to hide, but he's on
the run," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said earlier this month.
Here in Pakistan, however, the view is different. Bin Laden is not
considered to be on the run, but well protected by friends who are
making his life as comfortable as possible.
After all, his number
two, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, appears to have a busy
social calendar in Pakistan's Pashtun belt. U.S. missiles narrowly
missed him at a dinner party held in his honor on Jan. 13.
Since Pakistan's government cannot exercise its sovereignty over these areas, is it accurate to say Osama bin Laden is running around "in hiding," or that Bin Laden has vacated Afghanistan and established a new base for al-Qaeda's operations? A large void of a distinction separates the two.
Al Qaeda's money, inspiration and organizational abilities have helped
turn Pakistan's Pashtun belt into the extremist base it is today, but
U.S. and Pakistani policies have helped more. Although the Taliban and
al Qaeda extremists were routed from Afghanistan by U.S. forces,
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's refusal to put enough U.S.
troops on the ground let the extremists escape and regroup in
Pakistan's Pashtun belt. The Taliban settled in Balochistan where they
had originated before 1994, while al Qaeda members hid in the tribal
agencies they knew well. Bin Laden had built tunnels and caves there
for the anti-Soviet mujaheddin in the 1980s.
And Rashid continues with a cruelly illuminating look at Musharraf's failed strategy towards the Taliban and jihadist Arabs running amok in his country. Worth your time.
Cross-posted to American Footprints; and why not Blue Force too while I'm at it.
Update: Via masterchef, if you can stand some graphic photos of the Taliban's victims, go read "The Taliban's bloody foothold in Pakistan", from the Asia Times.
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