They've Got The Whole World In Their Hands

I've been suggesting for a few years now that the War on Terror can be ended in Kashmir. That's a view you don't hear very often because most people aren't as smart as I am, but it's as likely as anything else I've heard proposed, and most often, more so. More importantly, the history tends to bear it out.

It should be noted that there were no terror training camps in Afghanistan prior to 1989. The Pashtun mujaheddin that the United States, Saudi Arabia and China supported were armed and trained in the tribal provinces of Pakistan during the anti-Soviet jihad.

That's sort of important because that's exactly where they're fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan from today. Moreover, a good number of them are exactly the same people that we armed and trained all those years ago. In intelligence circles, this is known as "blowback." Another example of blowback is the diversion of US mujaheddin funding to the Pakistani nuclear program. Some accounts have as much as 50% of the Afghan aid going into the Islamic Bomb.

Once the Soviets began withdrawing from Afghanistan and the civil war began, the remaining Arab fighters began establishing training camps in the south and east of the country under the sponsorship of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence.

There were two motives for doing this. First, Afghanistan is strategically important to Islamabad, particularly the military, and the Pakistanis wanted to continue their influence there, hoping that a faction that they controlled would prevail in the coming battle for Kabul. The camps would be used to train Pakistan's preferred factions, although the Arabs would be the primary face of them.

Secondly, the ISI hoped that the lessons that the learned in the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad could be applied in the Indian occupied half of Kashmir. Fighters would be trained in Afghanistan and then smuggled past the Line of Control in Kashmir to support the independence movement there. It isn't a coincidence that Kashmir exploded into violence in 1989, the year that the Soviets began demobilizing from Afghanistan. Afghan-trained terrorists arrived in Kashmir in large numbers in 1992.

The terror camps had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, which had only been formed that year. Osama bin Laden had already returned to Saudi Arabia, later moving to Sudan and not returning to Afghanistan until mid-1996. Bin Laden and his band of Arabs had nothing to do with the Afghan civil war. Bin Laden was forced out of Sudan under pressure from the Clinton administration, which might have created another incidence of blowback in the form of 9/11. It's impossible to imagine the Sudanese, who want nothing more than better relations with the U.S, tolerating something like that being planned and executed from its territory.

The camps, indeed, the entire superstructure of terror in Afghanistan is a Pakistani creation and remains largely - although not entirely - under the influence of the ISI.

Pakistan supports terrorism because it is seen as a strategic asset against the militarily superior India. The fact that those assets are being used against American and NATO forces is seen by the ISI as unfortunate but the cost of doing business. Pakistan is not going to diplomatically persuaded to stop supporting terrorism, nor is there any prospect of a military attack accomplishing that goal. I've been discussing the consequences of invading Pakistan at Jay Currie's place, so I'll refer you there.

However, Pakistan would end its support of terror if their reasons for that support were resolved. The first step on that path would be to resolve the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan. Once that's settled, everything else is relatively simple.

Kashmir has been a cauldron of wrong for as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but hasn't received half the attention, despite a much higher body count and the potential for even more disastrous consequences. Kashmir is far more likely to be the flashpoint of a nuclear exchange than is Iran or North Korea. And it could be easily avoided.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 47, adopted on 21 April 1948, called for a national plebiscite on Kashmir's status. The people could decide to join India, join Pakistan, or achieve independence. India has refused to hold the referendum, knowing that it would lose highly strategic, if overwhelmingly Muslim populated, territory.

Although the violence has declined somewhat since 1994, there are still approximately 2,500 violent incidents in Kashmir every year. The Indian security paramilitaries (as opposed to the Army) have been credibly accused of gross war crimes, although every side in the conflict is guilty of atrocities to one extent or another.

In the last couple of weeks, separatist protests have begun anew in Indian Kashmir and Jammu. Surprisingly, the New Dehli is responding by easing security measures in the territory and openly talking about modifying its hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which protects those security forces accused of crimes from prosecution.

India's relaxation of security in the face of renewed protests might be a response to Pakistani President Zadari's declaration that Kashmiri separatists are "terrorists." Or it might not. Right now it's impossible to say with any certainty.

But this might create the ideal circumstances for a deal between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, preferably allowing the plebiscite called for under Resolution 47. That would almost certainly create an independent Kashmir.

If that happens, Pakistan would have far fewer reasons to support terrorism and several more reasons to oppose them. Islamabad's not altogether paranoid fears of an American "tilt" toward New Delhi would suddenly mean considerably less than they currently do. More important, without Pakistani support, the odds of the Afghan government being able to handle the Taliban without large numbers of NATO troops increases dramatically.

Wouldn't that be nice? I sure hope that someone in Washington is having the same idea.