We retired the prestigious Captain Louis Renault Award last year after Osama bin Laden was killed at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. We felt that nothing could top the shock value of that. Osama bin Laden, living for years just a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s top military academy, far from the tribal areas, and the US couldn’t tell Pakistani officials the raid on his compound was coming because US officials didn’t trust them – what could have been more shocking.
We’ve wanted to roll out the award several times since then but stifled the urge. But now comes this report, from the BBC, on a leaked NATO document that – wait for it – says that Pakistan supports the Afghan Taliban and shelters its leaders. Who would have seen this one coming? We truly and sincerely are shocked, shocked! that Pakistan would do such a thing. Below is a long excerpt from the BBC report:
The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.
The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.
It alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
A BBC correspondent says the report is painful reading for international forces and the Afghan government.
Pakistan has strenuously denied any links with the Taliban on previous occasions.
“We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks,” said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not seen the report.
‘Informational’
The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report – on the state of the Taliban – fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI) and the Taliban.
The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.
It notes: “Pakistan’s manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly”. It says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.
The report states: “As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical.”
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18 Comments
hmmm.. another blatant lie intertwined with a lame concoction depicting the preposterous behavior of NATO
Imagine, if the CIA and ISI were truly working together the war would have been over years ago.
Surprise surprise, Pakistan training terrorists to attack India and Afghanistan. What next, report mentioning Pakistan having nuclear weapons !!! Oh what a surprise !!!
Just wondering,has anyone bothered to ask the Afghanis if they would prefer to be ruled by the Taliban? Are we just assuming that they don’t want them to come back.
Time to update the target list? We must know where the ISI sleeps, right?
Quoting an al-Qaeda member from the NATO report:
“Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can’t [expletive] on a tree in Kunar without them watching.”
“The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad.”
Nothing so ‘Shocking’ for an average person..!!
You guys must be working hard to be ignorant i guess.
On top of which I have recently been told that Germany attacked Poland in 1939! What staggering times we live in!
Seriously, the ‘Beeb’ is going on about “how embarassing” this leaked document is for the Allies; Pakistan, Commonwealth country, recipient of British (and U.S. aid) currently knocking England for six in cricket, with an estimated million plus population in the U.K. has it’s problem with truth telling politely overlooked.
Still, nine more are to be sent down following today’s news of another thwarted bomb attack planned on London by “British nationals”, code for people of Pakistani origin.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16833032
All of the convicted men claimed Anwar Al-Awlaki as an ‘inspiration’ for their crime.
The world yet again lets out a collective sigh of frustration with Pakistan. The Long War Journal has been reporting on this state of affairs for so long I believe most have us have become resigned to accept the duplicitous nature of the Pak Regime but to see it spelled out so clearly and evidenced is sickening. I ask though are there Political answers to this? Are we headed to a Military conflict with Pakistan? When we look at the Mohmand Incident in through the prism of this information perhaps different answers and motivations would now appear?
I am saddened for the Pakistani people that their Leaders would throw their Soldiers lives away in this supposed ‘War on Terror’ while all the time they support and facilitate the very enemy they claim to want to destroy. How many Pakistani Soldiers have died for the illusory aims of Pakistan? fighting an enemy who is fact a proxy of their own Military and Political Leaders? If we remember the poster that claimed the Pakistani people had suffered the most in the war on terror I do not think we can deny the facts, but the real truth is that the reason they suffer the most is because their own Leaders are supporting and facilitating the very people who bomb and murder their civilians at their places of worship and behead their soldiers.
Pakistans double dealings are well know to her neighbors in the region. Ask the Kashmiris how the Paks have propped up an unwinnable insurrection for the last 20 years. There is also the Mumbai assault. The Afghanis do not trust them. The Iranians are put out with them. Even the Bangladeshis hold them at arms length. ..And yet, our government “needs” them. That is what is shocking.
Simply beautiful! I wish the news would lead with that clip and your commentary.
What shocks me is how our political leadership allows our military to fight only some of our enemies and with an ROE that is for policemen, not soldiers. We should be putting all of our enemies to rest across the world. This goes back so far, back to the American soldier brutally murdered on a high jacked plane and his body dumped out on the tarmac. The Iranian hostage crises. The Marine base suicide attack attack in Lebanon. The Pan Am bombing. The suicide attack against American quarters in Saudi Arabia, American Embassy bombings in Africa, Black Hawk Down, the inexplicable AMERICAN and European political and financial support and validation of the PLO with American and Israeli blood on its hands. A billion dollars in aid to PAKISTAN, the cesspool of radical Islam and all its glory. Our historical political appeasement had 9/11 written in stone, just no date until it happened. I grew up thinking we had smart people protecting and dealing with our enemies. I now believe we have more morons dealing with our enemies than smart, thoughtful and capable sheepdogs, and I believe they are making life hell for the few sheep dogs that we have left. May God have mercy on us, especially our soldiers and those of our true allies who put their lives in the hands of brain dead politicians.
Pakistan,Iran,Yemen,Sudan,Somalia and Saudi Arabia are our main religious nut enemies!Homes of intolerance and Jihad!
Ones to look out for in the future/present are Libya,Egypt and Syria.The Arab spring could lead to more Islamist chaos/intolerance!Future looks bleak for Israel and the West.
The big boys Russia and China seem to be allies of most of these.Conveniant?
Anuj Patel, I suggest looking up the term “sarcasm.” Then it will all make sense.
Also, you might have to watch Casablanca to appreciate the accompanying video clip.
Not to mention “memogate” and the real possibility that the Pak Army will be staging another coup soon.
Of course no one is surprised at this revelation but the real beauty of this is that this type of behavior has been Pakistan’s MO since its inception. Every scheme Pakistan has indulged in has resulted in them being that much further behind ‘the curve.’ The US, Afghanistan & those supporting them should welcome & embrace this latest ‘disclosure.’ If anyone is curious as to how the Afghan ‘adventure’ will turn out need only to investigate Pakistan’s past. One of the revealing features is that the more Pakistan involves itself the greater its failure.
I found the speed at which Pakistani officials denied a paper it had not seen interesting to say the least. Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina “Handbag” Rabbani Khar responded that these accusations of ISI collusion with the Taliban are, “old wine in even older wine bottles (sic).” I think she meant wineskins, but aside from her mixing her metaphors, she’s become the mouthpiece for the Pakistan Army and ISI. Her practice of habitually, unflinchingly lying through her teeth and dismissing serious allegations out of hand is making it harder for Pakistan to exercise serious foreign policy with her neighbors and the international community. When confronted with facts, Pakistani representatives lie, obfusticate or, in the case of the November cross-border firing incident in Mohmand or the fact of Osama bin Laden’s residing in Abbottabad, shift the issue to one of sovereignty. Truth is something to invent, manipulate or refute outright. For Pakistan, the consequences will come down the road a bit, when erstwhile “friends” and “allies in the war on terrorism” again wash their hands of Pakistan.
Even the fact that Pakistan’s civilian leaders habitually lie on the behalf of the military and the ISI – even as they jockey for air under the smothering military blanket – is nothing new under the sun. The issue isn’t that these “revelations” keep bubbling to the surface each time a report gets “leaked”, or that the Pakistanis continue to wildly dissemble. The question is what does the world do with a rogue outlaw nuclear state that is teetering on the brink of anarchy?
With Iran, which isn’t anywhere close to a breakdown of governance as Pakistan is, the Israelis are at least actively trying to slow their nuclear ambitions down. And the rest of the democratic world is being dragged, kicking and screaming, to tighten the economic screws on the insane theocractic leadership. North Korea is on life support only because of the Chinese communists, and their potential for mischief is severely restricted by their dire economic straits. In fact, their nukes are essentially a bargaining tool to get more aid to keep their failed regime alive. In Pakistan, however, the world has the potent and significantly more dangerous blend of Iran and North Korea; just enough governance to enable the export of terrorism as an instrument of their foreign policy and regional power aspirations (even as they collapse internally like North Korea), and a rapid build up of their nuclear weapons to extort more aid. Like Goldilock’s porridge, not too religiously insane and not too dysfunctional; but just the right blend to become more destructive for global security than either Iran or North Korea.
And yet, there is no coordinated effort to do anything about it. No smothering economic sanctions that would be easier to bring Pakistan to its knees than oil-rich Iran. No attempt to assassinate its nuclear scientists or to curtail its insane overproduction of nukes in any manner. And no attempt to punish its leadership for their outlaw behavior; the least of which was sheltering Osama bin Laden. In fact, on a recent Newshour interview, Gen. Jack Keane (Retd.), in a quintessentially Capt. Louis Renault moment, stated that we needed to stabilize Afghanistan and fight the Taliban for….. Pakistan’s sake!