Ralph Peters: We're going to keep giving aid and benefits to Pakistanis who have helped the taliban kill U.S. soldiers?

The treasure trove of 91,000 classified AfPak documents posted by WikiLeaks suggests that our government's been deceiving us about Pakistan's murderous behavior.

But the situation's even worse than that: Our government's been lying to itself.

The documents in question aren't superclassified. They're largely low-level field reports at the "confidential" level, bottom-rung stuff, with some secret documents mixed in. Their value lies in their unfiltered quality. This is what the guys on the ground with the guns have been seeing, hearing and sensing.

It ain't good. Reports covering the five years from 2004 to 2009 cite routine Pakistani support for the Afghan Taliban -- as the terrorists kill our troops. Pakistan's infamous Inter Services Intelligence, or ISI, also has been working with al Qaeda, according to the reports.

That's no surprise to Post readers, but our government is "shocked, shocked!" by the revelations. And the excuses for Pakistan's lethal misconduct have already started flowing.

We're told that these reports are unverified, that some can be traced back to anti-Pakistani Afghan intelligence operatives, and that American eyewitness accounts are one-offs.

Folks, I've done plenty of intelligence analysis, and here's how it works: A single report of a supposed ally's wrongdoing gets your attention, but it's regarded as an outlier until another source confirms it. After that, you actively search for further corroboration -- before you get blindsided big time.

One report might be hearsay. But hundreds of reports of Pakistani collaboration with our Taliban and al Qaeda enemies amount to a pattern. And intelligence is about patterns.

Our government's response to Pakistani complicity in the death of hundreds of our troops and the wounding of thousands? Send additional aid -- on top of the $6 billion recently committed -- and bills in Congress to grant special trade privileges to Pakistanis in Taliban-infested territories.

It's like dating someone who's wildly, flagrantly promiscuous and hoping that patience will lead to his or her sudden reform. But tolerance only encourages more bad behavior.

Why is unstable, entangled Afghanistan still vital when jihadists can attack U.S. from Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan or New Jersey?

...no amount of rhetorical tap dancing will allow the White House to escape the fundamental contradictions that underlie U.S. policy toward Af-Pak. In the first contradiction, the administration claims it’s fighting in Afghanistan to prevent al Qaeda from returning, and once again using Afghan soil to attack America. But now that al Qaeda can attack the United States, its friends and allies from Yemen or Somalia or Pakistan or London or New Jersey, it’s hard to claim any uniqueness for Afghanistan. So, why does the United States have to fight the war there with 100,000 troops?

In the second contradiction, the administration says that, deep down, the reason we’re fighting in Afghanistan is to help prevent an extremist takeover of Pakistan, an unstable Muslim country with nuclear weapons. And administration officials point to the fact that Pakistani officials tell us publicly and privately that the U.S. must stay the course in Afghanistan and stabilize the situation there—otherwise its ill effects will spill over into Pakistan and strengthen extremism there. And yet—and here’s where the new trough of secret WikiLeaks comes in—Pakistani military intelligence, known as Inter-Services Intelligence, is indeed helping the Taliban against Americans in Afghanistan. To boot, the Pakistani government is providing safe haven to the Taliban in Northwest Pakistan, thus making it militarily impossible for U.S. forces to smash them.

To put the issue somewhat melodramatically: The United States is giving “moderate” Pakistanis and the Pakistani military billions of dollars yearly in military and economic aid, which allows Pakistani military intelligence to “secretly” help the Taliban kill Americans in Afghanistan, which will drive America out of Afghanistan and undermine U.S. help for Pakistan.

All this flies in the face of the administration’s new line about an improving Af-Pak relationship. Yes, indeed, we’ve worked out a new trade agreement between these traditional adversaries. Yes, indeed, the Pakistanis are giving us the secret wink for our drone attacks against Taliban safe havens (even as they publicly condemn us for these drone attacks). Yes, indeed, Pakistanis are helping President Hamid Karzai talk with his fellow Pashtun Taliban. (Heaven knows what will come of this).

But let’s face it: Pakistan’s overriding interests in Afghanistan don’t have much to do with the United States. Their fixation is India, plain and simple. They don’t want India to gain any sort of foothold in Afghanistan and somehow encircle them. They’re pressing Washington for sophisticated American arms to fight India, not the Taliban. Some Pakistani leaders even worry of secret plotting between India and the United States against them, especially in Afghanistan.

Pakistani interests are not the same as America’s in Afghanistan, far from it.

NYT: Leaked documents suggest agents of U.S. ally Pakistan collaborate with Afghan taliban against U.S. in Afghan war

Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.

The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.

Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.

But many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable.

While current and former American officials interviewed could not corroborate individual reports, they said that the portrait of the spy agency’s collaboration with the Afghan insurgency was broadly consistent with other classified intelligence.

Some of the reports describe Pakistani intelligence working alongside Al Qaeda to plan attacks. Experts cautioned that although Pakistan’s militant groups and Al Qaeda work together, directly linking the Pakistani spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, with Al Qaeda is difficult.

The records also contain firsthand accounts of American anger at Pakistan’s unwillingness to confront insurgents who launched attacks near Pakistani border posts, moved openly by the truckload across the frontier, and retreated to Pakistani territory for safety.

The behind-the-scenes frustrations of soldiers on the ground and glimpses of what appear to be Pakistani skullduggery contrast sharply with the frequently rosy public pronouncements of Pakistan as an ally by American officials, looking to sustain a drone campaign over parts of Pakistani territory to strike at Qaeda havens. Administration officials also want to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan on their side to safeguard NATO supplies flowing on routes that cross Pakistan to Afghanistan.

This month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in one of the frequent visits by American officials to Islamabad, announced $500 million in assistance and called the United States and Pakistan “partners joined in common cause.”

By spinning the Afghan war for various constituencies, the White House scrambled the egg, an act not easily undone

The American public has become accustomed to discounting the spin of politicians -- even of presidents. The public views political spin the way it does professional wrestling: It's fun to cheer or boo, but don't take it seriously.

Unfortunately, what the president and his political operatives meant as a little useful spin for their domestic base was taken as formal policy by foreign players -- and they have acted accordingly. Our two allies in the Afghan War -- Pakistan and Afghanistan -- having heard the "spin" as policy have irrevocably taken the strategic action of discounting America as a reliable force in theater. And, as the president's strategy relied on gaining and keeping their trust and loyalty, his strategy has necessarily collapsed. In the coming months, we should expect many more words of explanation in Washington and many more failures in Afghanistan. Alea iacta est (the die is cast).

Even the greatest chef cannot unscramble an egg. Even the president of the United States cannot unspin his words.

Mission creep: now U.S. Special Ops are in Pakistan

(Reuters) - U.S. Special Operations Forces on a training mission in Pakistan are playing an expanded but largely unseen role in the country's counterinsurgency campaign, working with paramilitary units to "hold and build" tribal areas as militants are cleared out.

U.S. defense and administration officials say the elite trainers, who currently number more than 100, have not and are not authorized to take part in Pakistani military offensives in the semi-autonomous tribal regions, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, along the Afghan border.

Pakistan has balked at U.S. offers of joint military operations there, officials said on condition of anonymity.

But Special Ops trainers play a bigger role than has been widely disclosed in helping Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps, such as surveying and coordinating projects aimed at winning "hearts and minds" and preventing Taliban fighters from returning to areas once they have been pushed out.

A Pentagon proposal would deepen that role by creating a special $10 million pool of funds the trainers could spend more quickly on civil affairs and humanitarian projects in the FATA in coordination with their Pakistani counterparts.

U.S. defense and administration officials spoke about the training program and the new proposal on condition of anonymity because, as one said, the relatively small American military presence is such a "radioactive" issue in Pakistan.

U.S. and Pakistani officials worry that detailed disclosures about the role of Special Ops could compromise operational security, spark a backlash among Pakistanis against their government and fuel already high anti-American sentiment.

Captured al-Qaida agent is not Adam Gadahn

Pakistani intelligence agents say they have captured an American al-Qaida operative, but they have reversed their initial assertion that he is Adam Gadahn, who is wanted in the United States on a treason charge.

Pakistani officials said Monday the man they arrested recently in the southern port city of Karachi appears to be another American with the alias Abu Yahya Majadin al-Adam.

They said the similarity of the name with those sometimes used by Adam Gadahn initially caused some confusion.

Gadahn, 31, is a California-born spokesman for al-Qaida. He has often appeared in al-Qaida videos calling for attacks against the United States and other Western countries.

The United States has offered up to $1 million in reward money for information leading to his arrest.

Reports of the capture of one-time goat-herder Adam Gadahn may have been greatly exaggerated

An "important Taliban militant" was arrested today in Pakistan. But that is where the confusion started.

Earlier it was reported by Pakistani media that intelligence agents had arrested Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al Qaeda, in an operation in the southern city of Karachi.

It was further reported by the Associated Press and Reuters that Gadahn had been arrested, sourcing security officials.

CBS News was told by sources in the Pakistan government that it was Gadahn, even after U.S. officials refused to confirm it was the California native for whom a $1 million reward has been posted.

Now, CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad writes that earlier reports the detained individual was Gadahn proved false. According to a Pakistan security official who spoke with CBS News on condition of anonymity, the arrested individual is in fact "a Taliban militant leader who is known as Abu Yahya."

The official said evidence compiled from an interrogation of the suspect and information exchanged with U.S. officials verified the man's identify.

First Afghanistan, then Iraq, now Pakistan; the undeclared war takes on a life of its own

THE discovery of three American soldiers among the dead in a suicide bombing at the opening of a girls’ school in the northwestern Pakistan town of Dir last week reignited the fears of many Pakistanis that Washington was set on invading their country.

Barack Obama has banned the Bush-era term “war on terror” and dithered about sending extra troops to Afghanistan, but across the border in Pakistan, the US president has dramatically stepped up the covert war against Islamic extremists.

US airstrikes in Pakistan, launched from unmanned drones, are now averaging three a week, triple the number last year. “We're quietly seeing a geographical shift,” an intelligence officer said.

For the past month drones have pounded the tribal region of North Waziristan in apparent retaliation for the murder of seven CIA officers in Afghanistan by a Jordanian suicide bomber working with the Pakistani Taliban.

Last week America launched its first multiple drone attack, according to Pakistani security officials. Eighteen missiles were fired from eight unmanned aircraft in Dattakhel village, killing 16 people.

The discovery of the dead US soldiers revealed that America’s shadowy war in Pakistan not only involves drones but also small cadres of special operations soldiers.