There is a bit of irony, or perhaps prescience, in today's "Washington Post." Richard Clarke offers Plans of Attack in which he imagines two meetings, one of the senior leadership of Al Qaeda and related organizations, and one of the U. S. Counterterrorism Security Group of the NSC. Clarke imagines the first relishing recent attacks in Mumbai leading to tensions causing a buildup along the Indian-Pakistani border, thus allowing Al Qaeda to begin to cut the supply lines for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
To BEGIN to cut the supply lines.
In this is an article, not highly featured, entitled Dozens of NATO supply trucks torched in Pakistan, which begins
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Suspected militants attacked a Pakistan transport terminal used to supply NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, killing a guard and burning 106 vehicles on Sunday.
Perhaps it is worthwhile taking the time to consider both Post pieces, because the question in my title seems quite a propos.
Let's start with the news. Peshawar has been at times an almost lawless city. Dozens of small shops create effective knockoffs of weapons, especially variants of AK-47s. It was the center of supply for our efforts to disrupt the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during what many have come to know as "Charlie Wilson's War." It is at the Pakistani end of the famed Khyber Pass, which contains the one road into Pakistan from Afghanistan capable of the amount of heavy traffic necessary to supply a military force by land. And as the news article notes in its 3rd paragraph,
Up to 75 percent of the supplies for Western forces in the landlocked country pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi.
And what was destroyed? Simply losing the 106 trucks that would transport materials does not portray the scope of the damage. The attack, which was carried out by about 30 assailants carrying guns and rockets, killed a guard, and original reports were that only 62 vehicles were destroy.
But terminal manager Kifayatullah Khan said 106 vehicles were destroyed, including 62 that were carrying Humvees. The other torched trucks were carrying sealed shipping containers or other vehicles, including fire engines and dump trucks, Khan said.
He said his terminal handled only trucks carrying military supplies for Afghanistan.
The article tells us that last week another terminal near Peshawar was attacked, two guards killed, and 12 trucks were destroyed.
The story does not tell us how many guards were at the site of the most recent attack. One would hope that security would have been increased after the previous attack, which might lead one to question Pakistani commitment to the effort, that this attack was so successful. And while NATO spokesmen say that the series of attacks on the supply chain - these are not the only ones - have not as yet handicapped their ability to provide the necessary material to troops in Afghanistan, they are seeking to open routes from other nations, in Central Asia, so that they are not so dependent upon this one apparently highly vulnerable route.
Now let us consider Clarke. And let us remember his efforts in 2001 to try to warn the Bush administration of the dangers posed by Al Qaeda. He may no longer be part of the official counter-terrorism efforts in the Government, but he clearly retains contacts with some people in the loop, and attempts through this piece of imaginative writing some additional cautions about what we could be facing.
He imagines that the leaders - of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and local Pakistani militant groups - are meeting in Rawalpindi, home of the Pakistani military, in a house owned by a retired ISI (Pakistani military intelligence service) general. Lest we think this is too far fetched a concept, Clarke reminds us that
Rawalpindi is where the ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, hid, precisely because no one would think of looking for him there.
While there are disputes among the attendees, for example Mullah Muhammad Omar and Ayman al Zawahiri, it is clear that those from Al Qaeda see a real opportunity if the Pakistani military is forced to move to the Indian border. Clarke does end with a cautionary passage, place in the mouth of Osama Bin Laden. Let me quote both the conclusion of the remarks place in the mouth of Zawahiri and those final remarks by Bin Laden:
And once India begins to move its troops toward the Pakistani frontier, the Pakistani army will abandon the Afghan border, leaving us free to operate, to cut the Americans' supply lines, to reinforce our brothers who are killing the Americans inside Afghanistan."
Zawahiri throws his short, squat body back into a mound of pillows and smiles at bin Laden. "Our tactics are forcing the Americans to rain down airstrikes on Afghan villages," says the Egyptian physician turned terrorist. "This is already causing the government in Kabul to demand a timetable for American withdrawal. This spring, we will step up our attacks, before the Americans can shift their forces from Iraq back to Afghanistan. After the snow melts, we will overrun the Americans' bases. This new American house Negro, Barack, will be forced to negotiate a peace with our brothers in the Taliban. Then the Americans will leave, and we will have created the caliphate we dream of."
A long pause follows. Bin Laden breaks it, speaking softly, looking at the rug beneath him. "I fear this Barack is not as weak as you think, doctor. Already, many of the faithful are ready to forgive the Americans their sins just because they have chosen him as their leader. It is a setback for us." Bin Laden raises his head, and a wry smile passes briefly over his face. "But . . . his economy is badly ill. If it gets much worse, he will have to bring all of his troops home. So . . . we may have to increase their pain level. We have done that before."
we may have to increase their pain level. We have done that before.
As for the meeting of the American Counterterrorism officials? He has a female NSC official describe the ineffectiveness of the Pakistain military in controlling Al Qaeda in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, with implications far beyond Afghanistan:
Al-Qaeda is busy training terrorists up there, including Europeans and Asians, people who could slip into the United States without arousing suspicion. And al-Qaeda is also developing another sanctuary in Somalia, where their local allies have been taking over Somali cities. It's not a soothing picture. We could see al-Qaeda attacks in 2009 on the Arabian Peninsula, in Europe, even here at home. But of course, we have no actionable intelligence pointing to a specific plot."
And he imagines our moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, an action to which Obama has committed. An admiral representing the military anticipates a major Taliban offensive as the weather warms, which he thinks will enable us to hit them hard as they come into the open. But he knows military efforts are insufficient: "winning"in Afghanistan will require the State Department to
We need reconstruction, economic development, governance efforts. State also needs to persuade the Pakistanis to clean up the border area and keep our supply lines into Afghanistan secure."
keep our supply lines into Afghanistan secure. Reading this after reading about the attack in Peshawar should provide a real caution to all of us.
Clarke imagines the representative of the State Department as a career Foreign Service Officer, and has her noting that the advances that had been made at reducing tensions between India and Pakistan might all be at risk as a result of Mumbai, worrying about the cascading effects of an Indian "overreaction":
"We need our new president to use his pretty considerable appeal in South Asia, not just to stop these hotheads from going to war, but to actually broker a deal between India and Pakistan. He also needs to persuade the NATO allies to keep their forces in Afghanistan, maybe increase their numbers a little and allow them to fight. And of course, he has to win the battle of ideas by reestablishing America's support for democracy, human rights and international law."
Clarke wants us to understand the scope of what was just said, which he does by having the NSC official running the meeting say :
"And what would you have the president do on the second day?"
This imaginative piece is about far more than Afghanistan. Remember the caution of the type of people being trained. Clarke makes clear that the intent of Al Qaeda is the spreading of a fundamentalist Caliphate, beginning with Muslim nations, with the dream of world-wide domination. If that seems unimaginable, remember that in the 20th century we saw several examples of small fringe groups who dreamed of the possibility of world-wide domination. Two of them, the National Socialists in Germany and the Communists in Russia, succeeded in gaining control of major military powers with consequence for the world which were traumatic. Other attempts, such as that of Sun Myung Moon, have not as yet achieved that first level of control of an important nation.
Terrorism here in the U.S. remains a real threat, although the more immediate concern probably should be the ability of Al Qaeda and related groups to interfere with a major portion of the world supply of petroleum.
Clarke ends with with a short, but blunt, paragraph:
Seven years after 9/11, the United States has neither eliminated the threat from al-Qaeda nor secured Afghanistan, where bin Laden's terrorists were once headquartered. To accomplish these two tasks, we must now eliminate the new terrorist safe haven in Pakistan. But that will require effective action from a weak and riven Pakistani government. It might also depend upon dealing with the long-standing India-Pakistan rivalry. On balance, al-Qaeda's agenda for 2009 looks to be the easier one.
Afghanistan is key - if it is at risk, if the Taliban and al Qaeda regain effective control, they will have a base from which they can seriously destabilize the entire region. The increasing lawlessness in Somalia is also related: we are already seeing the disruptions caused by a small group of pirates, and we should be concerned about the evidence of increasing Al Qaeda influence in a country which still does not have an effective central government.
Today I glanced at my Washington Post. There was a news story. There is an imaginative construction of planning for the matter of terrorism. I don't know about your reaction. At a minimum you should be very concerned. I would not be surprised were you, like me, to find yourself exceedingly worried that in a time of worlwide instability due to an economic crisis that forces wishing us ill would find this a remarkable opportunity to move vigorously towards their goals. After all, the Nazis flourished in a time of severe economic disruption in Germany, and the Communists came to power in part because the Russian government failed in its military efforts in World War I, leaving a power vacuum.
The economy should not be the only thing of concern to our new administration and those of us who desperately want him to succeed.
Aghanistan at risk?? If so, what are the implications elsewhere?
Have a nice day, if you can.
Peace.