The truth is that Pakistani Taliban provide help to thei fellow Pashtun tribal leaders in Afghanistan and that has frustrated U.S. efforts to control Afghanistan. The U.S. has realized that it cannot win the war in Afghanistan unless that help is cut off.

The U.S. has tried to stem the flow of aid from Pakisran with secret bombings inside Pakistan [similar to U.S. secret bombing in Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam war], and Predator drones attacks, but it has not only failed, but also raised the hostility of the Pakistanis. How do you then cut off the
Pakistan Pashtun from helping the Afghan Pashtun against the U.S.? Money !

Upon taking over the presidency by default of his wife’s assassination, Zardari
realized that Pakistan was broke, and was living on U.S. handouts arranged by
Pervez Musharraf and George Bush. He tried to get IMF loans, but failed (surely the U.S. wanted to keep him begging); he visited China and asked for
loans, but he was turned down. Then, the U.S. turn on the propaganda that the Taliban were a threat to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, and turned on the screw on Zardari to wipe them off if he wanted a plum aid package. And the Pakistani army which has been getting from the U.S. a monthly check of
$20 millions for counterinsurgency operations agree because that keeps the army afloat in a financially broke state. And, of course, if the army agreed to wipe out the Taliban, another $ 7.5 billion will be coming. If not, Pakistan may turn into another Somalia-like state, and with the Indian threat always looming [a psychotic Pakistani fear], declaring war on the Taliban became a Pakistani financial necessity.

Is really a war against the Taliban, or against the Pashtun tribes? Chicago Tribune corresponded Mark Magnier reported on May 11, 2009 from Pakistan
that: “Taliban means Everything and Nothing,” and most Pakistanis cannot really comprehend what is going on. A headline on Tiles Online on May 5, 2009 also read: “Mistrust of the West is stronger in Pakistan than fear of the Taliban.” And a Taliban spokesman told the PBS “Frontline” reporter on April 14, 2009: “We have never fought the army before, but we do now because the
Pakistani army and government have adopted U.S. policies.” And, finally, a Pakistan Dawn newspaper editorial on May 6, 2009 called Obama’s supposed Taliban threat to nuclear weapons “journalistic garbage,” said ” the $ 7.5 billion U.S. aid will line only a few pockets in Pakistan and the U.S. [ Pakistani lobbyists], but it won’t trickle down to the common people.” The paper suggested that the government “stop the U.S. meddling, reject the U.S. aid, and resolve the internal differences by itself.”

After the February 2008 Pakistani elections, U.S. Undersecretary of State John
Negreponte went to Pakistan and told the newly elected leaders: No negotiations with the Taliban -if you want U.S. aid to continue.” The global financial crisis hit Pakistan really hard, and the only option to stay afloat was more U.S. aid. But Obama offered it with a condition: “Wipe out the Pashtuns -
under the Taliban logo- to help us control Afghanistan. And Pakistan complied because the salaries of its politicians and the army generals were at stake. Now, many here celebrating the chopping up of Pashtuns as the last
hurdle that will lead us to victory in Afghanistan. But the catastrophic effects, and the cataclysm of refugees caused by the U.S. demanded civil war,
would be the U.S. undoing in Central Asia in the long term. The adage: “Be careful what you wish; you might get,” may come back to haunt us if history is the measuring stick of success. Nikos Retsos, retired professor