Repères 11/02/08 - Pakistan, Afghanistan... L'échec américain

Pakistan army failures 'put the West in peril'
By Isambard Wilkinson, Telegraph 11/02/2008

"The West remains at constant risk of large-scale al-Qa'eda terrorist attacks because the Pakistani military requires years of training before it will be able to combat militancy, a Western military official has warned.

More than six years have elapsed since the September 11 attacks on the United States but the Pakistan army remains unequipped and untrained for counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations, the official told The Daily Telegraph.

He gave a comprehensive account describing how al-Qa'eda has been able to preserve its sanctuary in Pakistan by backing an insurgency in the lawless border tribal areas.

"If we [the West] have a reasonable degree of co-operation it may take two to three years for them [the Pakistan military] to be bought up to a level," he said.

"But realistically the way things are going it will take five years," he added.

As a result, he warned, there is a possible "worst case scenario that there will be another catastrophic event in the West and then everything else in between."..."

 

Conflicting Assessments of War in Afghanistan
By Peter Baker, Washington Post February 11, 2008

"...the report says in its first line. "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan."... "The Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies are on the run,"...

...Today, according to most assessments, the Taliban and its allies do not control territory but operate with impunity from bases in Pakistan. U.S. forces beat the Taliban in any direct engagement but have been unable to defeat them strategically. Reconstruction remains spotty and opium production a growing problem...

...Jones, the former NATO commander, does not couch his judgment. In a pair of reports that he oversaw, he made clear he views the situation in dire terms. One of them described "a stalemate of sorts" in which the Taliban cannot beat U.S. and NATO forces but "neither can our forces eliminate the Taliban by military means as long as they have sanctuary in Pakistan."..."

 

Gates Cautions on NATO's Survival
By ROBERT BURNS, AP 11/02/2008

"MUNICH, Germany (AP) — Survival of the NATO alliance, a cornerstone of American security policy for six decades, is at stake in the debate over how the United States and Europe should share the burden of fighting Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

"We must not — we cannot — become a two-tiered alliance of those willing to fight and those who are not," Gates told the Munich Conference on Security Policy, where Afghanistan was a central topic.

"Such a development, with all its implications for collective security, would effectively destroy the alliance," he added..."

 

America's Failure in Afghanistan
Spiegel February 11, 2008

"...Gates' vision of a "two-tiered" alliance is "just as wrong as his demagogic accusation that the Europeans underestimate the danger presented by the Taliban and al-Qaida and thus are not as committed to combating this danger. In fact, NATO is threatened because its Afghanistan mission, based as it is on military operations, has been a failure. It seems even to have been counterproductive, because it strengthens Islamist fundamentalism and terrorism instead of weakening it..."