Oh, Here's Another Crisis You Might Want to Notice (2): Afghanistan/Pakistan

The New York Times reports today:

Backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery, Pakistani security forces on Tuesday shut down a crucial supply line for NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan as they launched an offensive against Taliban militants who dominate the Khyber Pass region.

The famous trade route, used for more than half of military equipment for US and NATO troops, is now under constant threat from local insurgents --- under the umbrella term of "Taliban" --- who fire on convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikov rifles.

The official US/NATO line is that the shutdown is "a temporary irritation", but the US is scrambling to find new routes through central Asia.

UPDATE: Thousands Rally Against US and NATO in Pakistan

Following up on a post earlier today, a reader in India sends us this from AFP:

Thousands rally against US, NATO in NW Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dec 18, 2008 (AFP) - Thousands of protesters rallied in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, demanding that Islamabad end its logistical support for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The crowd of about 5,000 demonstrators chanted "Allahu akbar" (God is greater), "Crush America" and "No to NATO supplies" as they marched through Peshawar, an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The rally came amid a recent spike in attacks by Taliban militants on NATO and US supply depots on Peshawar's outskirts, close to Pakistan's lawless tribal areas -- a hotbed of Taliban and Al-Qaeda activity.
International forces in Afghanistan are hugely dependent on Islamabad for their supplies and equipment, with about 80 percent transported through Pakistan and then across the border.
The chief of the radical Jamaat-i-Islami party, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, told protesters: "It is a shame for an Islamic country to supply logistics to the US, which is working against the interests of Muslims all over the world."
He demanded the government abandon its role as an ally in the US-led "war on terror", warning that if logistical support is not suspended, "we will force the government with public support to halt all supplies."
On Wednesday, missiles fired by suspected Taliban militants targeting a NATO supply convoy killed a woman and wounded her two children in the Khyber tribal district, on the main supply route into Afghanistan.

And this, from December 16:

BRUSSELS, Dec 16, 2008 (AFP) - NATO played down Tuesday a recent spate of attacks on depots and convoys on a key Pakistan route, saying that supplies were still getting through to its force in strife-torn Afghanistan.
"The Pakistani route is still open, is still safe," Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, the head of NATO's military committee, told reporters. "At the moment, the supplies are passing.
His remarks came after haulage companies in Pakistan said they had stopped delivering to foreign troops in Afghanistan after a major deterioration in security along the supply route to the Khyber Pass.
The bulk of the supplies and equipment required by NATO and US-led forces battling the Taliban insurgency on the border is shipped to Pakistan's largest port, Karachi in the south.
From there, the containers of food, fuel, vehicles and munitions are taken by truck to depots outside Peshawar before being transported through Pakistan's restive tribal areas to Afghanistan via the Khyber pass.
But the fabled road passes through the heart of Pakistan's tribal zone, a largely lawless region turned hideout for militants since the US-led ousting of Afghanistan's Taliban regime at the end of 2001.
Di Paola said that NATO was looking to diversify its supplies, with progress being made on an agreement with Russia to allow non-lethal equipment to be shipped through to its troops.
"We are looking to open multiple routes of communication," he said, noting that talks with Turkmenistan were also advancing. "The more lines, the better."
Pakistan's army chief vowed last month to help keep NATO's supply line open.

Pakistan: You May Want to Notice This

The story only gets one paragraph in The New York Times, and I haven't seen it elsewhere in US and British newspapers:

Thousands of antigovernment protesters demanded Thursday that Pakistan shut the route along which supplies are ferried to American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The demonstration, staged by more than 10,000 people in the city of Peshawar, also focused on a recent series of American missile strikes against targets suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Leaders of the demonstration drew links between the missile attacks and the supply line, saying the equipment was being used for attacks on Pakistani soil and vowing to shut down the convoys.

So now it's not just "Taliban", attacking NATO warehouses and destroying hundreds of trucks, who are threatening the US-led supply operation for the forthcoming "surge" in Afghanistan. (Take note, Washington Post, which is still catching up with that story.)

And why might thousands of demonstrators in Pakistan take to the streets against the US/NATO campaign in Afghanistan? Before you say "extremism", "Taliban sympathiser", etc., consider:

A deadly United States military raid on a house near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan became a new source of tension on Thursday, with the Americans calling it a successful counterterrorism strike and the Afghans saying it left three innocent civilians dead and two wounded.

A Europe Apart from America?

Giles Scott-Smith of our Holland Bureau writes for our big-sibling website, Libertas about the latest article from two leading Dutch intellectuals, Karel van Wolferen and Jan Sampiemon: "‘After the triumph of Obama, Europe must abolish NATO."

Scott-Smith concludes:

Here we have two figures on the moderate right who go further in their critique than the Maoist-inspired Socialist party, which has given up its rejection of NATO over the past few years. WolfSamp’s value comes from posing the persistent question: What are the alternatives for a post-US world order from a European perspective?