Levin Urges Tougher NATO Rules of Engagement Along Pakistan Border

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


spotlight_photo_large.jpg

Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Armed Services, spoke with reporters this morning by phone from the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, where he was preparing to board a plane for Israel, the final stop on a fact-finding trip that had already taken him to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Discussion of the latter took up most of the conference call, with Levin urging that NATO forces based in Afghanistan amend their rules of engagement to allow troops to engage enemy fighters on the Pakistani side of the border.

“It’s not right for our troops to be shot at and not respond,” Levin said. “We have every right.” In fact, U.S. forces already return fire across the border when attacked, but NATO partners—Germany to the north; Canada and the UK to the south—do not. Levin said that a tougher response from troops based along the border would help prevent Taliban and Al Qaeda from slipping back and forth so easily, a continuing frustration for the U.S. military.

The other side of that coin is the Pakistani government’s apparent lack of effort to stop the cross-border flow of insurgents and weapons. Levin told reporters that U.S. intelligence agencies have evidence that Pakistani army troops not only give Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents free passage, they also, in certain cases, have actively aided their military operations—a fact that brings into question continued military aid for the Pakistani regime. The Frontier Corps, in particular, a tribal militia that has become the recipient of millions of dollars in U.S. support, is of suspect loyalty, said Levin. (Read my earlier piece on the Frontier Corps here.) Whether funding for the Corps or other parts of Pakistan’s military will continue depends on whether those forces are being used for their intended purpose, namely to crush Taliban fighters and establish some modicum of government control over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. “We don’t want to strengthen the Pakistan side if they’re going to misuse the support,” Levin said.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate