Killing is more acceptable than capturing and questioning (even brutally).  David Ignatius explores the matter at the Washington Post:

Our default is killing terrorists by drone attack. Do you care?

Every war brings its own deformations, but consider this disturbing fact about America’s war against al-Qaeda: It has become easier, politically and legally, for the United States to kill suspected terrorists than to capture and interrogate them.

Predator and Reaper drones, armed with Hellfire missiles, have become the weapons of choice against al-Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas of Pakistan. They have also been used in Yemen, and the demand for these efficient tools of war, which target enemies from 10,000 feet, is likely to grow.

The pace of drone attacks on the tribal areas has increased sharply during the Obama presidency, with more assaults in September and October of this year than in all of 2008. At the same time, efforts to capture al-Qaeda suspects have virtually stopped. Indeed, if CIA operatives were to snatch a terrorist tomorrow, the agency wouldn’t be sure where it could detain him for interrogation.

Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA, frames the puzzle this way: “Have we made detention and interrogation so legally difficult and politically risky that our default option is to kill our adversaries rather than capture and interrogate them?”

It’s curious why the American public seems so comfortable with a tactic that arguably is a form of long-range assassination, after the furor about the CIA’s use of nonlethal methods known as “enhanced interrogation.” When Israel adopted an approach of “targeted killing” against Hamas and other terrorist adversaries, it provoked an extensive debate there and abroad.

“For reasons that defy logic, people are more comfortable with drone attacks” than with killings at close range…

Another angle at the end of an earlier post–BruceR., at his post via the “Drone Porn” link, argues that once a decision has been made to target people at long range for killing, the method is not the issue:

…

Grim?

…

STAFF SGT. BRIAN FERGUSON / AIR FORCE
An MQ-9 Reaper taxis down a runway in Afghanistan…

Earlier:

Drone porn?

And see the Update thought here.  Canadian UAVs in Afstan are, of course, not weaponized; imagine the shock, the horror, the uproar if one of our “drones” accidentally killed one civilian, eh?

Mark
Ottawa

Further to the mention in this post,

…
These were heartening words for Indian officials, who want the United States to play a role in curbing the activities of Islamic militant groups in Pakistan but at the same time stay out of facilitating a resolution over Kashmir [the Indians have been far from nice guys in Kashmir, but most of the Muslim world expresses little outrage--whilst the West basically averts its gaze in pursuit of self-interest in India]…

one Indian’s observation:

A WEEK before he was elected in 2008, President Obama said that solving the dispute over Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination — which has led to three wars between India and Pakistan since 1947 — would be among his “critical tasks.” His remarks were greeted with consternation in India, and he has said almost nothing about Kashmir since then.

But on Monday, during his visit here, he pleased his hosts immensely by saying the United States would not intervene in Kashmir and announcing his support for India’s seat on the United Nations Security Council. While he spoke eloquently about threats of terrorism, he kept quiet about human rights abuses in Kashmir…

For three years in a row now, Kashmiris have been in the streets, protesting what they see as India’s violent occupation. But the militant uprising against the Indian government that began with the support of Pakistan 20 years ago is in retreat. The Indian Army estimates that there are fewer than 500 militants operating in the Kashmir Valley today. The war has left 70,000 dead and tens of thousands debilitated by torture [population 10 million in 2001]. Many, many thousands have “disappeared.” More than 200,000 Kashmiri Hindus have fled the valley. Though the number of militants has come down, the number of Indian soldiers deployed remains undiminished.

But India’s military domination ought not to be confused with a political victory…

Indian nationalists and the government seem to believe that they can fortify their idea of a resurgent India with a combination of bullying and Boeing airplanes. But they don’t understand the subversive strength of warm, boiled eggs.

Arundhati Roy is the author of the novel “The God of Small Things” and, most recently, the essay collection “Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.”

Yet in Canada we essentially ignore all this (as well as the many, er, failings of the Dragon–thank goodness the Indians do have free speech), whilst we obsess about the Afghan government’s human rights abuses and corruption. What double standards when big bucks are thought to be at stake. Fie.

Mark
Ottawa

Two opinion pieces to suggest the complexities, starting with a typical piece of Pak paranoid fear-mongering and then an American perspective:

Indian boots in Afghanistan? [via Moby Media Updates]

Our Indian problem in Afghanistan

Now the latest news on how President Obama is walking the tightrope:

Obama supports adding India as a permanent member of U.N. Security Council [Paks will hate that]
…
Earlier Monday, Obama pledged to strengthen U.S.-India efforts to fight and prevent terrorism and to work with all South Asian nations to deny safe havens to terrorists.

But at a joint news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Obama steered clear of the contentious issue of trying to mediate long-standing tensions between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.

Obama said the United States “cannot impose a solution” between India and Pakistan. He said his country is “happy to play any role the parties think is appropriate” but added that the two neighbors will have to “find mechanisms to work out these very difficult issues.”

These were heartening words for Indian officials, who want the United States to play a role in curbing the activities of Islamic militant groups in Pakistan but at the same time stay out of facilitating a resolution over Kashmir [the Indians have been far from nice guys in Kashmir, but most of the Muslim world expresses little outrage--whilst the West basically averts its gaze in pursuit of self-interest in India]…

Singh said during the news conference that dialogue with Pakistan cannot succeed as long as Pakistani groups continue to stage terrorist attacks in India.

“You cannot simultaneously be talking and at the same time the terror machine is as active as before,” Singh said. “Once Pakistan moves away from this terror-induced coercion, we will be very happy to engage productively with Pakistan and resolve all outstanding issues.”..

More on Pak paranoia from Terry Glavin:

Who’s To Blame For Pakistan’s Agonies? ‘Hindu Zionists and American Think-Tanks.’

And an earlier article on Indian great-gaming:

India’s Tripartite Plan for Afghanistan
Delhi is drawing closer to Iran and Russia in anticipation of a U.S. troop drawdown.

Complicated neck of woods, what?  A final, really scary, note:

How a nuclear war may begin

Update thought: Quite a few Paks probably fear the presence in Afstan of a few hundred members of the Indo Tibetan Border Police to provide security for Indian interests as the thin edge of the military wedge.

Mark
Ottawa

Operation “Cold Start” could lead to a very hot war indeed.  Pakistan must really rein in certain Islamist terrorists it has backed in the past (see here and here: one hopes the ISI has got a memo–and is acting on it):

NEW DELHI — Senior American military commanders have sought to press India to formally disavow an obscure military doctrine that they contend is fueling tensions between India and Pakistan and hindering the American war effort in Afghanistan.

But with President Obama arriving in India on Saturday for a closely watched three-day visit, administration officials said they did not expect him to broach the subject of the doctrine, known informally as Cold Start. At the most, these officials predicted, Mr. Obama will quietly encourage India’s leaders to do what they can to cool tensions between these nuclear-armed neighbors.

That would be a victory for India, which denies the very existence of Cold Start, a plan to deploy new ground forces that could strike inside Pakistan quickly in the event of a conflict. India has argued strenuously that the United States, if it wants a wide-ranging partnership of leading democracies, has to stop viewing it through the lens of Pakistan and the Afghanistan war…

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Afghanistan, is among those who have warned internally about the dangers of Cold Start, according to American and Indian officials. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, share these fears.

The strategy calls for India to create fast-moving battle groups that could deliver a contained but sharp retaliatory ground strike inside Pakistan within three days of suffering a terrorist attack by militants based in Pakistan, yet not do enough damage to set off a nuclear confrontation [that's a hell of a gamble].

Pakistani officials have repeatedly stressed to the United States that worries about Cold Start are at the root of their refusal to redeploy forces away from the border with India so that they can fight Islamic militants in the frontier region near Afghanistan. That point was made most recently during a visit to Washington last month by Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

The administration raised the issue of Cold Start last November when India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, visited Washington, Indian and American officials said. Indian officials told the United States that the strategy was not a government or military policy, and that India had no plans to attack Pakistan. Therefore, they added, it should have no place on Mr. Obama’s agenda in India…

Some administration officials have argued that addressing Cold Start, developed in the aftermath of a failed attempt to mobilize troops in response to an attack on the Indian Parliament by Pakistani militants, could help break the logjam that has impeded talks between the countries.

But India has mostly declined to discuss the topic. “We don’t know what Cold Start is,” said India’s defense secretary, Pradeep Kumar, in an interview on Thursday. “Our prime minister has said that Pakistan has nothing to fear. Pakistan can move its troops from the eastern border.”

Indian officials and some analysts say Cold Start has taken on a nearly mythical status in the minds of Pakistani leaders, whom they suspect of inflating it as an excuse to avoid engaging militants on their own turf.

“The Pakistanis will use everything they can to delay or drag out doing a serious reorientation of their military,” said Stephen P. Cohen, an expert on South Asia at the Brookings Institution.

India’s response to terrorist attacks has been slow-footed. After Pakistani militants attacked Parliament in 2001, India’s ponderous strike forces, most of them based in the center of the country, took weeks to reach the border. By then Western diplomats had swooped in, and Pakistan made conciliatory statements, deflating Indian hopes of striking a punitive blow.

The military began devising a plan to respond to future attacks. The response would have to be swift to avoid the traffic jam of international diplomacy, but also carefully calibrated — shallow enough to be punitive and embarrassing, but not an existential threat that would provoke nuclear retaliation.

For now, there are no signs that Cold Start is more than a theory, and analysts say there is no significant shift of new troops or equipment to the border.

But American military officials and diplomats worry that even the existence of the strategy in any form could encourage Pakistan to make rapid improvements in its nuclear arsenal.

When Pakistani military officials are asked to justify the huge investment in upgrading that arsenal, some respond that because Pakistan has no conventional means to deter Cold Start, nuclear weapons are its only option…

Earlier on the president’s visit:

Desperately resurrecting Obamamania/Reality Update

Update thought: This obviously planted story is a nice example of diplomacy by other means: giving the Indians an indirect, but clear, warning and at the same time re-assuring the Paks that the US is on the case.

Mark
Ottawa

From Paul at Celestial Junk, the fellow has a way with words:

Last Marshmallow Roast

Day in, day out, the story in Afghanistan is the same.  The Taliban are being hunted mercilessly.  American air assets have been flooding the battlespace in the surge, and the enemy is being worn down.  Thousands of US soldiers are spreading out into the countryside and kicking over Talbian ant-hills, and in each case the result is the same … dead and scattered Jihadists.

This is the part that we hear so little about; all we hear about are the ISAF AND USA deaths … or civilian deaths.  It’s like watching a football game where only the other team’s scores are given.  You have no idea if your side is winning.

The fact of the matter is that the Taliban have never faced what they are facing now.  Their leaders are killed almost as fast as they assume their positions (even in Pakistan) … their fighters are killed day and night in a massively one-sided battle … and they are losing.  For the first time the Taliban are willing to negotiate … why … because they are losing not only the battle, but the will.  Their factions are fragmenting and a growing number of fighters are coming home.  There is a limit to how many young men are willing to leave their villages never to return.

The following video shows in great detail how many Taliban meet their end [not with a whimper but a...]…

Plus from Matthew Fisher of Postmedia News:

Optimistic news emerges from Afghanistan
…
The feeling among Canadians and American soldiers fighting in this corner of the country is that the principal reason some Taliban are keen to talk is that the enemy has been getting crushed on the battlefield since a huge surge in U.S. forces finally kicked in this summer. Even a few members of the Western media who have been notoriously dubious about the war may slowly be changing their minds…

The iconic symbol of this war in Canada may be the ramp ceremony, but not one has been conducted by Canadians at the Kandahar Airfield for 11 weeks now. Despite the recent spate of coalition deaths, the number of U.S. casualties is down slightly this fall and the numbers of Canadian and British casualties are down dramatically.

A major factor has been that drones have been whacking IED emplacers while far more IEDs and IED components are being found before they can kill or maim. There have been anecdotal reports that the Taliban have been taking staggering casualties in Kandahar and have been fleeing west and north [see "German combat Update" here] and, if they can run a NATO-enforced gauntlet, to Pakistan.

Another telling hint of a change on the ground is that village elders have been turning out in far greater numbers for shuras — town hall meetings — organized by Afghan and NATO troops. They are doing so, they say, because they fear the Taliban less. In a few cases, they may actually be carrying peace feelers from insurgents.

Nevertheless, the war is hardly over…

Indeed. Yesterday:

Afstan: Talkin’ to the Talibs/Dutch military return?/CF departure Update

Update: Washington Post:

Top U.S. military, civilian officials assert gains in Afghan war

Plus some balance from CP:

Opinions vary wildly on whether Kandahar is safer

Upperdate: Major op in Panjwaii:

Critical Assault by Allies Begins Near Kandahar

Canadians work to corral Taliban as major operation begins

Mark
Ottawa

A letter in the Toronto Star.  Good on them for publishing it; one wonders if the Globe and Mail would have:

Double standard on Afghanistan

Re: Afghan governor among 20 killed in mosque blast, Oct. 9

A “massive bomb blast” in a “packed mosque” during Friday prayers in Taluqan, Afghanistan, kills 20 and wounds 35. It is just the latest in a long list of Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks against mosques and religious processions, many aimed specifically at minority Ahmadi or Shiite Muslims.

In court, the Times Square Bomber [see 3) here] calls himself a “soldier of God” who says he was “radicalized” by U.S. drone attacks — attacks seeking out the very people who bomb packed mosques. So, he is a soldier in service of those who would kill Muslims at prayer? Why will no one be radicalized by the mosque bombing in Taluqan [see second part of this post]?

A U.S. preacher threatens to burn a Qur’an and many in the Muslim world take to the streets in protest while Imams thunder about “Islamophobia” and we agonize about our “intolerance.” The preacher is easily shouted down and becomes a nobody again in no time. Everybody in the Muslim world goes back to sleep. Even a mosque bombing doesn’t wake them up.

However, if a U.S. drone had mistakenly hit that mosque in Taluqan, well, you can be sure there would be a swift reaction of outrage. At this stage is it even worth asking why the double standard [see this relevant post]?

Tony Volpe, Toronto

Via Moby Media Updates.

Mark
Ottawa

Conference of Defence Associations’ media round-up.

As for military solututions…from President Obama’s just-resigned National Security Advisor:

‘Hope Is Not a Strategy’
Outgoing Security Advisor Jones Voices Concern on Pakistan
…
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should your cooperation with the Pakistani army fail, is there a possibility that Pakistan would become the next military target of the US?

Jones: I am going to take the optimistic view that rational people do rational things and that — with the help of friends and allies and common goals — Pakistan will avoid, or hopefully avoid, that unfortunate eventuality. But hope is not a strategy, so we have to be cognizant of the fact that there are things which could happen that could alter the relationship if we are not careful…

Earlier:

“The White House’s report on Af-Pak: Hold the optimism”

Quite.

Mark
Ottawa

Further to this post,

The strange Pak side of the AfPak war/Some optimism across the border Update/US policy change? Upperdate/An old profession Uppestdate

from David Ignatius in the Washington Post:

What’s notable about the new White House report on Afghanistan and Pakistan sent to Congress this week is its bleak assessment of the security picture. You could almost read President Obama between the lines warning the military: This strategy isn’t working the way we hoped. Don’t ask me for more troops…

You can sense in this report the tension that lies ahead between Obama and his commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus. The military didn’t write this assessment (one top military leader hadn’t even read it before it was leaked to the Wall Street Journal)…

What drew a front-page headline in the Journal was the report’s discussion of the deteriorating political situation in Pakistan and the refusal of the Pakistani military to mount a new offensive against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in North Waziristan, as the United States wants. “This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets,” the report notes, although it concedes that after the devastating floods in August, the Pakistani military was swamped with relief work.

The sharp critique will add a little more fuel to the combustible U.S.-Pakistani relationship…

Reading the Pakistan section, you can’t help wondering whether a soft coup is taking place [emphasis added]: The military (whose popularity is increasing even as that of the politicians declines) is assuming ever-greater responsibility for Pakistan’s welfare, even though it is nominally staying out of politics…

The cornerstone of the U.S. strategy — the plan to begin transferring responsibility to Afghan forces starting in July 2011 — also looks shaky. The Afghan army and police are expanding, but their “operational effectiveness is uneven.” An effort to recruit more Pashtuns from the south has had “inconclusive” results. A highly touted Afghan army operation in August was botched (“hastily planned, poorly rehearsed”)…

Given the temptations to fudge the facts, you have to credit the White House for making an independent evaluation, without the weasel-words that often fill such reports…

Realism is one thing, but the White House’s de facto making plain its strains with the military ain’t exactly helpful.

Mark
Ottawa

Juxtaposing:

1) Pakistan Urges On Taliban

2) US apologises to Pakistan for helicopter attack on soldiers

Yesterday:

AfPak complications

Update: And across the border once again to a bit of optimism, hopefully not premature, from US Army troops in the Arghandab district of Kandahar:

Despite rising doubts at home, troops in one corner of Afghanistan see signs of progress
…

…

And more optimism–and a lot of caution in a rather robust Washington Post editorial:

Could a deal with the Taliban end the war in Afghanistan?

THE FACT THAT senior Taliban leaders have “sought to reach out” to the Afghan government, as U.S. Gen. David H. Petraeus recently reported, is encouraging news. It suggests that U.S. military operations against the insurgents are having more of an impact than the generally gloomy Western reporting on the war indicates. A year ago the Pakistan-based Taliban faction known as the Quetta shura rejected negotiations with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai unless all U.S. NATO forces first withdrew; it appeared confident that the war was going its way. The surge of U.S. forces into its heartland around the city of Kandahar, coupled with a robust special operations campaign that has captured or killed hundreds of Taliban field commanders, may have softened its position.

There are, however, reasons for concern about reports, including one in The Post this week, that the government of Mr. Karzai and the Obama administration have begun to look to the negotiations as a way out of the conflict…

Both Mr. Karzai and the Obama administration are right to offer reconciliation to members of the Taliban and to listen to any overtures that come from their leaders. But the two governments should agree on a firmer set of criteria for what would constitute an acceptable bargain. Above all, they should rule out allowing the Quetta shura to reestablish itself as the ruler, de facto or otherwise, of any part of Afghanistan.

Upperdate: Thought-provoking post by Tom Ricks at his The Best Defense:

U.S. policy on Pakistan: heading for a major but unannounced change?

My gut feeling is that U.S. officials are beginning to give up on getting serious anti-Taliban help from the government of Pakistan. My guess is that there won’t be any official change stated, but more actions that Pakistani officials haven’t been consulted about. Also, if the ISI really is interfering with peace talks with the Taliban, I’d expect to see a rollup of ISI agents in Afghanistan. This would be done quietly, if possible, so the public signs would be reactions such as the kidnapping of Indian officials in Afghanistan, or bombing the Indian embassy again.

My speculation isn’t based on any leaks or anything, just a reading of a series of recent newspaper articles.

Shorting Pakistan is kind of a no-brainer: In the long one, which is the better ally to have, India or Pakistan?

But what the heck happens to Pakistan then? Terrible risks involved.

Uppestdate: Terry Glavin on reporting, that old profession:

…This Guardian story should get a Pulitzer in the self-parody category. It’s like something out of Evelyn Waugh’s Black Mischief.

The story purports to report that unnamed Afghan government officials are engaged in “extremely tentative” direct talks with unnamed Haqqani Taliban officials and also that unnamed American officials are engaged in similary  “extremely tentative” but rather indirect talks with unnamed Haqqani Taliban officials facilitated by an unnamed intermediary from an unnamed western country, according unnamed Pakistani and Arab “sources”, the Guardian has learned.

We are further enlightened to read that a senior Pakistani official, “speaking on condition of anonymity,” refused to comment about something, and that the U.S State Department could not be reached for comment, plus: “Different diplomatic sources gave different accounts of the Haqqanis’ readiness to take part in a preliminary dialogue,” but one unnamed diplomat from an unnamed country said :”The Haqqanis
know they have to make the transition from the IRA to Sinn Féin.”

From that last sentence I am willing to wager it can all be explained by an inordinate amount of drink taken last night at the Hare and Hounds pub underneath the Gandamack Lodge. Besides, I see by the bylines that Declan Walsh was involved [see Mr Glavin's clarification in "Comments"].

Mark
Ottawa

The US and how it gets along–or rather does not–with the Paks:

1) Reading Woodward in Karachi (lengthy, well worth the read)

Is this the nail in the coffin of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship?
BY MOSHARRAF ZAIDI

…As much as supporters of the effort — both in Washington and Islamabad — may go to great pains to explain that this war is for Pakistan’s own good and that the United States is not waging a war on Pakistan, such appeals are likely to fall on deaf ears, and not just among the conspiratorial hypernationalist types.

Even among some of the most stalwart supporters of the United States, suspicion of Washington’s intentions runs deep and wide. In an account of a meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari and U.S. diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad, Woodward describes Zardari’s passionate elaboration of why he is convinced that the TTP — often called the Pakistani Taliban — are being financed and directed by the United States to weaken Pakistan so that Washington can grab Islamabad’s nukes. This kind of ridiculous suspicion of the United States is, of course, as Woodward also notes, a regional disease, with Afghan President Hamid Karzai routinely blaming the United States for supporting the insurgency. But dismissing the ridiculous without understanding its resonance is also dangerous. If this account of Zardari’s meeting with Khalilzad ever made the front page in Pakistan, Zardari, whose popularity has suffered for being a U.S. ally, would get an immediate boost. That’s how deep the suspicion runs…

Is it any surprise that Pakistanis see conflicting messages coming out of Washington? Within this deeply negative and gloomy context, Woodward’s book exposes some of the U.S. government’s contingency plans for Pakistan, including military strikes on as many as 150 suspected terrorist training sites. One conspiracy theory popular in Islamabad, which the book will no doubt feed, is that U.S. special-operations forces will one day come and take Pakistan’s beloved crown jewels — the more than 100 nuclear weapons thecountry bankrupted itself to develop…

One of the most telling accounts in the book is of Husain Haqqani, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States, trying to explain to members of the Obama administration how to engage with Pakistan. After trying a number of analogies, the unflappable Haqqani finally just lays it out plainly, “Give us a little bit of respect. Don’t humiliate us publicly.”

The public humiliation of being the subject of Obama’s war, without being able to publicly acknowledge its myriad dimensions, is a pressure that is crushing Pakistan’s fragile democracy and hurting wider U.S. goals. If one of the objectives of Obama’s war was to stabilize and secure Pakistan, then, by that measure, the war is not doing well at all…

Mosharraf Zaidi has served as an advisor on international aid to Pakistan for the United Nations and European Union and writes a weekly column for Pakistan’s the News. You can find more of his writing at www.mosharrafzaidi.com.

2) America’s image problem in Pakistan

By Kalsoom Lakhani
…
Cyril Almeida, an assistant editor and columnist at Dawn [website here], echoed, “Anti-Americanism is deep and pervasive. To the uninitiated, the Pakistani desire for a U.S. visa/passport/job may seem like tacit approval of what America stands for and aspires to achieve through its foreign policy.” However, he noted, this would be a wrong assumption. “The personal (economic advantage that may be gained) is very different from the political (intense opposition to U.S. foreign policy) [see 3)]. And this contradiction is not specific to the Pakistani condition,” but is reflected elsewhere in the Muslim world.

As the use of drones continue unabated in Pakistan, and tensions are further exacerbated by news of NATO helicopters crossing into Pakistani territory killing Pakistani soldiers late last week, anti-American sentiment will only continue to rise, despite billions of dollars of aid being promised to local civil society, and despite American efforts in the recent flood disaster…

Kalsoom Lakhani is the director of Social Vision, the strategic philanthropy arm of ML Resources in Washington, D.C. She is from Islamabad, Pakistan, and blogs at CHUP, or Changing Up Pakistan.

3) One/one Pakistani-American:

Times Square bomb plotter predicts defeat of U.S.

NEW YORK — Expressing no remorse and predicting the “imminent” defeat of the United States at the hands of Muslim forces, Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday for his attempt to spill blood with a homemade car bomb.

“Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has just begun,” Shahzad, 31, warned U.S. District Judge Miriam Cedarbaum in one of several polite but chilling exchanges. “Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.”

Shahzad — wearing a white cap, a black prison smock and longer beard and hair than he did at his June guilty plea — also for the first time complained about his post-arrest treatment at the hands of the FBI, and said he was comfortable with his fate because he saw it as the will of Allah.

“If I am given 1,000 lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah,” said Shahzad.” … Decree whatever you desire to decree, for you can only decree regarding the life of this world.”..

A naturalized American citizen from Pakistan who was living in Bridgeport, Conn., Shahzad was captured two days after his May 1 bomb attempt. He quickly confessed, telling officials that his plot had been set in motion by the Pakistani Taliban. He said he was defending Muslims and retaliating against American attacks on civilians…

Earlier, from Terry Glavin:

Who’s To Blame For Pakistan’s Agonies? ‘Hindu Zionists and American Think-Tanks.’ [more on those agonies here]

While on another front:

Taliban in high-level talks with Karzai government, sources say

Mark
Ottawa