You don't know jack about Booker

As Democrats step forward stating their interest in the presidency, we are beginning to know more about them.  Like how Cory Booker is a vegan.  A vegan; not a vegetarian. I had no idea!

Booker, who became a vegetarian in the 1990s and a vegan in 2014, has said his last nonvegan meal was on Election Day that year.

How about that!

Perhaps because I read that news, or who knows why, Pocket recommended a news story about my favorite fruit/vegetable from the old county--Jackfruit.

A post about this fruit is one of the oldest in my blog, in its second version.  As I wrote then:

Back in India, my mother cooks the young, unripe jack fruit--before it develops into its huge size--in a couple of different ways.  One of my favorite dishes.  Am drooling when I think of it.
I think it is one of those dishes that is fast disappearing from the urban kitchens.  Unfortunately.

Which brings me back to the news story that Pocket recommended. It is about jackfruit.  Thousands of miles away from the home of the fruit--Kerala--"in food trucks in Los Angeles, vegan eateries in London – and now even at Pizza Hut– jackfruit consumption is surging among diners looking for an ethical alternative to meat."

Who woulda thunk that!

As kids, we learnt from others--who perhaps had tasted beef and pork--that the green jack dish tastes like meat.  Like shredded or pulled beef or pork.  But, to think that now this is going global, far, far away from the "god's own country" from where the name "chakka" became "jack."  It is a fascinating world in which we live.

From a starting point of virtually zero, jackfruit exports, including to the US, Europe and Britain, grew to 500 tonnes last year, and could reach 800 tonnes by the end of 2019, according to Kerala’s agriculture minister, VS Sunil Kumar.
“The vegan trend in western countries will help [jackfruit farmers] tap a booming global market,” he said.

I wonder if Cory Booker has tasted the traditional idichakka thuvaran.  Maybe Malayali Indian-Americans ought to serve him that at a fundraiser. 

I am already looking forward to a lunch with idichakka thuvaran ;)

The killing poppy fields: Exit stage left

I wish John Oliver would devote one of his shows to Afghanistan.  You know, the country that the Soviet Union fucked up for a while, after which the Taliban screwed for a while, and finally leaving it to the US to have some jolly good fun. 

Yes, that Afghanistan!

As I noted in my op-ed back in 2008, the Soviet Union rolled into Afghanistan in December 1979, making it one awful year; annus horribilis, as I refer to it.  The countries with the international geopolitical events that year continue to be involved in geopolitical issues even now: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

In everyday life, chances are that most Americans have completely forgotten about Afghanistan.  If only they knew about how much the Taliban has been winning friends and influencing people!

The Taliban have long had a powerful presence in Pakistan, where its leadership is based. In addition, both Iran and Russia have been providing some Taliban units with logistical support. It’s notable that, in parallel to the intensified military campaign, the Taliban has ramped up its diplomacy. In August, the group sent delegations to Uzbekistan and Indonesia, and Taliban representatives are frequent visitors to China.In early September, the Taliban is also sending a delegation to Moscow to take part in a conference on the future of the region convened by President Putin, who is now taking on the part of Afghan peacemaker. The US was invited but, needless to say, neither Washington nor Kabul will attend. In many countries, it seems, the Taliban are being met with open arms—and as the future victors of a war whose conclusion all now judge foregone.

putin, of course, never lets such opportunities slip past him. 

What is happening now is deeply reminiscent of how the Taliban conquered the country in the first place, during the 1993–1996 period that followed the Soviet withdrawal. In that campaign, the Taliban first secured the countryside, recruiting soldiers widely and offering the rural population the false promise of an end to the civil war even as they extended the fighting. ...  For Afghans, this present predicament is indeed a miserable moment. It appears that the international community is giving up its nation-building efforts and shifting its focus to opening relations with the Taliban. Seemingly forgotten in foreign chancelleries is how the first age of Taliban rule destroyed the country and deprived the population of economic opportunity, civil liberty, and education.

But, hey, it is not like the US really cared about Afghanistan anyway!  Why should we care for a country where men wear turbans and women wear hijabs and niqabs, right?

Unlike Vietnam, though, there are no mass American casualties, no draft, and no peace movement for the military planners and political decision-makers to contend with. The melancholy fact is that the American public is not much engaged with what happens in Afghanistan, either way. 

Mission accomplished! :(

Energy politics worsen--in India, and South China Sea

Consider this: in a rapidly growing economy, to go along with a huge population that is hungry for electricity, a power generation facility is ready for commissioning after years of construction.  While one might hypothesize that this will be a welcome relief from the blackouts and energy rationing, it has become controversial. Because, it is a nuclear power station--the Kudankulam project in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

People's activists want the Kudankulam nuclear power plant shut down completely; Tamil Nadu's politicians have the less ambitious aim of halting work on the project until the fears of local people are allayed. The plant was originally scheduled to begin operations later this month. 

A combination of the Fukushima aftermath and the nature of politics in India have brought this about.  The Fukushima angle is not only because Kudankulam is a nuclear power generation facility, but also because of its location by the sea, and the populated peninsular India.

Looking at the map, one might be reminded of the Indonesian earthquake that triggered the tsunami, which reached the coastlines of India and wiped out people and communities.

In a tropical country like India, where it is the sea that guarantees limitless water supply, well, nuclear power plants tend to be located very near the coast: as the Union of Concerned Scientists explains:

Nuclear power plants are usually built next to lakes, rivers, and oceans.1 Not for the scenic views that such locales provide, but because water can absorb the waste heat produced by the plants. Nuclear power plants consume vast amounts of water during normal operation to absorb the waste heat left over after making electricity and also to cool the equipment and buildings used in generating that electricity. In event of an accident, nuclear power plants need water to remove the decay heat produced by the reactor core and also to cool the equipment and buildings used to provide the core’s heat removal.

So, ... One can easily imagine the complex politics in this context.  A country with severe electricity shortage while demand rapidly increases; a facility constructed at quite an expense in a country that has nearly half a billion poor; the location dynamics affected by the consequences of earthquakes and tsunamis; politicians and activists who are only too eager to seek short-term victories; cavalier statements by officials; and endless commentaries (including this one!)

This will, however, not be the final battle over nuclear power. 

as for China, India, and South Korea -- countries with a growing appetite for nuclear power that account for the bulk of active plant construction -- only the first has put any of its nuclear plans on pause, and that's just pending a safety review. India and South Korea have vowed to tighten safety standards, but have otherwise forged ahead with plans for nuclear expansion.

The battle is far from over because the energy demand simply cannot be met through renewable "green" sources of energy.

There are three reasons why hydrocarbons will continue to dominate the global energy mix for decades to come: cost, the slow pace of energy transitions, and scale.

Further, carbon-based sources are already being contested, as I noted even recently, when  I worried about the growing tensions, primarily between India and China, over valuable oil and natural gas in the South China Sea, off Vietnam.

The South China Sea war of words is escalating as well:

India is playing with fire by agreeing to explore for oil with Vietnam in the disputed South China Sea, a major Chinese newspaper said on Sunday, advising the Indian company to reconsider and pull out. ...

The China Energy News, published by Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, said cooperation between India and Vietnam in these seas was a bad idea.

"India's energy strategy is slipping into an extremely dangerous whirlpool," it said in a front page commentary. ...

"Challenging the core interests of a large, rising country for unknown oil at the bottom of the sea will not only lead to a crushing defeat for the Indian oil company, but will most likely seriously harm India's whole energy security and interrupt its economic development.

"Indian oil company policy makers should consider the interests of their own country, and turn around at the soonest opportunity and leave the South China Sea," it said.

I can only imagine that these resource issues will worsen this decade before they can get any better.

The Indian-Chinese pissing match in the waters of the South China Sea

We are fast nearing the fiftieth anniversary of the war between India and China.  A little after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's prime minister at that time, loudly and proudly proclaimed "Hindi Chini bhai bhai"--Indians and Chinese are brothers--China decided to re-enact a recurring theme in the story of humans: a battle between brothers.

It was a short war in which India was humiliated. Even after all these years, territorial claims remain unresolved.

As if those land-based issues were not enough for geopolitical tensions, the two countries now seem to want to take their fight to the open seas. In the South China Sea, to be specific.

Why?

To borrow from Bill Clinton's election slogan, it's the energy, stupid!

More than two years ago, Robert Kaplan wrote in Foreign Affairs:

Already the world's preeminent energy and trade interstate seaway, the Indian Ocean will matter even more in the future. Global energy needs are expected to rise by 45 percent between 2006 and 2030, and almost half of the growth in demand will come from India and China. China's demand for crude oil doubled between 1995 and 2005 and will double again in the coming 15 years or so; by 2020, China is expected to import 7.3 million barrels of crude per day -- half of Saudi Arabia's planned output. More than 85 percent of the oil and oil products bound for China cross the Indian Ocean and pass through the Strait of Malacca.

India -- soon to become the world's fourth-largest energy consumer, after the United States, China, and Japan -- is dependent on oil for roughly 33 percent of its energy needs, 65 percent of which it imports. And 90 percent of its oil imports could soon come from the Persian Gulf. India must satisfy a population that will, by 2030, be the largest of any country in the world. Its coal imports from far-off Mozambique are set to increase substantially, adding to the coal that India already imports from other Indian Ocean countries, such as South Africa, Indonesia, and Australia. In the future, India-bound ships will also be carrying increasingly large quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG) across the seas from southern Africa, even as it continues importing LNG from Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

As the whole Indian Ocean seaboard, including Africa's eastern shores, becomes a vast web of energy trade, India is seeking to increase its influence from the Plateau of Iran to the Gulf of Thailand -- an expansion west and east meant to span the zone of influence of the Raj's viceroys. India's trade with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf and Iran, with which India has long enjoyed close economic and cultural ties, is booming. Approximately 3.5 million Indians work in the six Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council and send home $4 billion in remittances annually. As India's economy continues to grow, so will its trade with Iran and, once the country recovers, Iraq. Iran, like Afghanistan, has become a strategic rear base for India against Pakistan, and it is poised to become an important energy partner. ...

India has also been expanding its military and economic ties with Myanmar, to the east. Democratic India does not have the luxury of spurning Myanmar's junta because Myanmar is rich in natural resources -- oil, natural gas, coal, zinc, copper, uranium, timber, and hydropower -- resources in which the Chinese are also heavily invested. India hopes that a network of east-west roads and energy pipelines will eventually allow it to be connected to Iran, Pakistan, and Myanmar.

India is enlarging its navy in the same spirit. With its 155 warships, the Indian navy is already one of the world's largest, and it expects to add three nuclear-powered submarines and three aircraft carriers to its arsenal by 2015. One major impetus for the buildup was the humiliating inability of its navy to evacuate Indian citizens from Iraq and Kuwait during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. Another is what Mohan Malik, a scholar at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, in Hawaii, has called India's "Hormuz dilemma," its dependence on imports passing through the strait, close to the shores of Pakistan's Makran coast, where the Chinese are helping the Pakistanis develop deep-water ports.

Indeed, as India extends its influence east and west, on land and at sea, it is bumping into China, which, also concerned about protecting its interests throughout the region, is expanding its reach southward. Chinese President Hu Jintao has bemoaned China's "Malacca dilemma." The Chinese government hopes to eventually be able to partly bypass that strait by transporting oil and other energy products via roads and pipelines from ports on the Indian Ocean into the heart of China. One reason that Beijing wants desperately to integrate Taiwan into its dominion is so that it can redirect its naval energies away from the Taiwan Strait and toward the Indian Ocean.

The Chinese government has already adopted a "string of pearls" strategy for the Indian Ocean, which consists of setting up a series of ports in friendly countries along the ocean's northern seaboard. It is building a large naval base and listening post in Gwadar, Pakistan, (from which it may already be monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz); a port in Pasni, Pakistan, 75 miles east of Gwadar, which is to be joined to the Gwadar facility by a new highway; a fueling station on the southern coast of Sri Lanka; and a container facility with extensive naval and commercial access in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Beijing operates surveillance facilities on islands deep in the Bay of Bengal. In Myanmar, whose junta gets billions of dollars in military assistance from Beijing, the Chinese are constructing (or upgrading) commercial and naval bases and building roads, waterways, and pipelines in order to link the Bay of Bengal to the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Some of these facilities are closer to cities in central and western China than those cities are to Beijing and Shanghai, and so building road and rail links from these facilities into China will help spur the economies of China's landlocked provinces. The Chinese government is also envisioning a canal across the Isthmus of Kra, in Thailand, to link the Indian Ocean to China's Pacific coast -- a project on the scale of the Panama Canal and one that could further tip Asia's balance of power in China's favor by giving China's burgeoning navy and commercial maritime fleet easy access to a vast oceanic continuum stretching all the way from East Africa to Japan and the Korean Peninsula

All of these activities are unnerving the Indian government. With China building deep-water ports to its west and east and a preponderance of Chinese arms sales going to Indian Ocean states, India fears being encircled by China unless it expands its own sphere of influence. The two countries' overlapping commercial and political interests are fostering competition, and even more so in the naval realm than on land. Zhao Nanqi, former director of the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army, proclaimed in 1993, "We can no longer accept the Indian Ocean as an ocean only of the Indians." India has responded to China's building of a naval base in Gwadar by further developing one of its own, that in Karwar, India, south of Goa. Meanwhile, Zhang Ming, a Chinese naval analyst, has warned that the 244 islands that form India's Andaman and Nicobar archipelago could be used like a "metal chain" to block the western entrance to the Strait of Malacca, on which China so desperately depends. "India is perhaps China's most realistic strategic adversary," Zhang has written. "Once India commands the Indian Ocean, it will not be satisfied with its position and will continuously seek to extend its influence, and its eastward strategy will have a particular impact on China." These may sound like the words of a professional worrier from China's own theory class, but these worries are revealing: Beijing already considers New Delhi to be a major sea power.

As the competition between India and China suggests, the Indian Ocean is where global struggles will play out in the twenty-first century.

Geographers immediately pounced on this argument, and denounced it as old-fashioned geopolitical theories that have been thrown out.  I disagreed with them, and worried all the more after reading Kaplan's essay.  (Though, there is a little bit of tiredness and ennui when I see Kaplan talking up anarchy and disorder over and over again!)

Turns out that Kaplan was quite on the mark--India and China have upped the competition for access to oil and natural gas.  And, it is not in the hilly terrains by the Brahmaputra or Burma, but near Vietnam.

The Hindu reports:

The Chinese government on Monday reiterated its opposition to exploration projects by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh and Vietnam in the South China Sea, saying any deal without its approval would be “illegal and invalid” and an infringement on China’s sovereignty.

The comments from the Foreign Ministry came as Indian officials said ONGC Videsh would continue with exploration projects in two blocks, located near the Paracel Islands, over which Vietnam claims sovereignty. India has reportedly taken the position that Vietnamese claims were in accordance with international laws.

China, however, has conveyed its opposition to the Indian government about the project, citing its claims of sovereignty over all the South China Sea and the disputed islands. China’s claims are contested by a number of countries, including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Asked about India’s reported decision to go ahead with the projects, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei, without directly referring to India, said on Monday that China enjoyed “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea islands.

“Any country engaging in oil and gas exploration activities in this jurisdiction without the approval of the Chinese government,” he said, “constitutes an infringement upon China’s sovereignty and national interest.”

The Times of India adds:

Soon after India announced its decision to go ahead with oil exploration in South China Sea with Vietnam, China on Saturday said it would expand its exploration of 10,000 sq km of seabed in southwest Indian Ocean. This was announced as part of its 2011-2015 oceanic development policy. ...
In an opinion piece in Xinhua, China asked India to wise up and "refrain" from moves in the South China Sea, where China retains "absolute sovereignty". "For countries outside the region, we hope they will respect and support countries in the region to solve this dispute through bilateral channels," the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said while responding to a question concerning ONGC's plans to explore in two offshore oil blocks in South China Sea.

As the old Swahili saying goes, "when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers."

Of course, China has most countries in this region quite tense, even without this showdown with India.  Richard Rousseau notes in Foreign Policy Journal:

The importance of the sea routes, the presence of hydrocarbons and the abundant marine resources in the South China Sea are the three main causes of sovereignty disputes over the high number of islands. Guaranteeing sovereignty to any country over any part of the sea, and thus laying the basis for its legal right to exclusive exploitation of the seabed and the surrounding waters and islands, remain a controversial issue. This situation is further complicated by the strategic interests of the United States, which for its part consider the area vitally important for its strategic interests.

So, hey, why not change the name from South China Sea, eh!

Some ASEAN nations proposed a name change of the South China Sea to the Southeast Asia Sea.

The South China Sea has been known as the East Sea to the Vietnamese, the West Philippine Sea to Filipinos and the South Sea to the Chinese. The South China Sea has been used so long by Western mapmakers without Southeast Asian people’s consent.

It might have originated from mapmakers in Europe who were not conscious of the probable impact afterward. The naming of the sea is becoming a sensitive issue to ASEAN nations, as much as that of the sea between Korea and Japan is for the Korean people.

National Geographic has accepted a dual name, the East Sea/the Sea of Japan. Some proposed a neutral sea name such as the Blue Sea or the Green Sea. 

I wrote about a similar name issue quite some time ago, in the context of the Persian Gulf/Arabian Gulf controversy.  We humans can make a fight out of anything!

Cartoon of the day: the war in Afghanistan

BHO meet LBJ, continued

Back in January--yes, seems like eons ago now--I linked to Juan Cole's observation, which was eerily titled "BHO meet LBJ."

That theme is gaining a lot more momentum recently.  While not that specific phrase, the theme is clear.  First, here is John Kerry--yes, the same Kerry who was one of the early supporters of candidate Obama:

Before we send more of our young men and women to this war, we need a fuller debate about what constitutes success in Afghanistan. We need a clearer understanding of what constitutes the right strategy to get us there. Ultimately, we need to understand, as Gen. Colin Powell was fond of asking, "What's the exit strategy?" Or as Gen. David Petraeus asked of Iraq, "How does it end?"
Why? Because one of the lessons from Vietnam—applied in the first Gulf War and sadly forgotten for too long in Iraq—is that we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people. Otherwise, we risk bringing our troops home from a mission unachieved or poorly conceived.

It was interesting that Kerry's op-ed was in the Wall Street Journal.  I wonder what the deal is with that.
Well, it is not that the "liberal" media is quiet about the ghost of Vietnam.  In the NY Times, Frank Rich presents the following comments in the context of Woodward "leaking" McChrystal's report, and then an unnamed White House official countering it:

it’s “eerie” how closely even these political maneuvers track those of a half-century ago, when J.F.K. was weighing whether to send combat troops to Vietnam. Military leaders lobbied for their new mission by planting leaks in the press. Kennedy fired back by authorizing his own leaks, which, like Obama’s, indicated his reservations about whether American combat forces could turn a counterinsurgency strategy into a winnable war.
Within Kennedy’s administration, most supported the Joint Chiefs’ repeated call for combat troops, including the secretaries of defense (McNamara) and state (Dean Rusk) and Gen. Maxwell Taylor, the president’s special military adviser. The highest-ranking dissenter was George Ball, the undersecretary of state. Mindful of the French folly in Vietnam, he predicted that “within five years we’ll have 300,000 men in the paddies and jungles and never find them again.” In the current administration’s internal Afghanistan debate, Goldstein observes, Joe Biden uncannily echoes Ball’s dissenting role.
Though Kennedy was outnumbered in his own White House — and though he had once called Vietnam “the cornerstone of the free world in Southeast Asia” — he ultimately refused to authorize combat troops. He instead limited America’s military role to advisory missions. That policy, set in November 1961, would only be reversed, to tragic ends, after his death. As Bundy wrote in a memo that year, the new president had learned the hard way, from the Bay of Pigs disaster in April, that he “must second-guess even military plans.” Or, as Goldstein crystallizes the overall lesson of J.F.K.’s lonely call on Vietnam strategy: “Counselors advise but presidents decide.”
Obama finds himself at that same lonely decision point now.

And Ross Douthat--the conservative columnist at the NY Times who replaced William Kristol--piles on:

However serious his doubts about escalation, Obama seems boxed in — by the thoroughness of McChrystal’s assessment and the military’s united front, by his own arguments across the last two years and by his party’s long-running insistence on painting Afghanistan as the neglected “good war.” But if Obama takes us deeper into war out of political necessity rather than conviction, the results could be disastrous.

Meanwhile, Germany's newly (re)elected Chancellor Merkel's deputy, Guido Westerwelle, will lead the cheers for continued Afghan military engagement:

While Germany's deployment to Afghanistan has become increasingly unpopular, Mr Westerwelle has emerged as the most powerful and articulate proponent of sustained involvement in the war.

So, instead of the Anglo-US lead into the Iraq debacle, we will now have a German-American push in AfPak?

Afghanistan. What, me worry?

"Obama's war" and Pakistan's fate

I am not a big fan of Tariq Ali; but, hey, I have to give credit where it is due. Ali details the mess that Pakistan is in this essay in the London Review. He writes:

As far as the political temperature goes there is never a good month in Pakistan. This is a country whose fate is no longer in its own hands. I have never known things so bad. The chief problems are the United States and its requirements, the religious extremists, the military high command, and corruption, not just on the part of President Zardari and his main rivals, but spreading well beyond them.

This is now Obama’s war. He campaigned to send more troops into Afghanistan and to extend the war, if necessary, into Pakistan. These pledges are now being fulfilled. On the day he publicly expressed his sadness at the death of a young Iranian woman caught up in the repression in Tehran, US drones killed 60 people in Pakistan. The dead included women and children, whom even the BBC would find it difficult to describe as ‘militants’. Their names mean nothing to the world; their images will not be seen on TV networks.

And this is only the beginning of a very depressing essay. I cannot imagine how regular life goes on in Pakistan. I wonder if people just shut themselves off--a denial of sorts?

GM is an "economic Vietnam"

We should be concerned lest GM become a kind of economic Vietnam, where the federal government throws good money after bad, year after year, in a vain quest for victory.

Leave it to Richard Posner for clear thinking, and clear writing. Though am not always inclined to agree with him, in this case I am just convinced that Posner is correct.

Pakistan "fires" at US troops. OMG!!!

Pakistani troops have fired shots into the air to stop US troops crossing into the South Waziristan region of Pakistan, local officials say.
Reports say nine US helicopters landed on the Afghan side of the border and US troops then tried to cross the border. ...
They say seven US helicopter gunships and two troop-carrying Chinook helicopters landed in the Afghan province of Paktika near the Zohba mountain range.
US troops from the Chinooks then tried to cross the border. As they did so, Pakistani paramilitary soldiers at a checkpoint opened fire into the air and the US troops decided not to continue forward, local Pakistani officials say.
Reports say the firing lasted for several hours. Local people evacuated their homes and tribesmen took up defensive positions in the mountains.

That was from the BBC. Holy &*%$!

Chris Hitchens reminds readers about the origin of the country's name, which itself is a reminder of all the related geopolitical problems:

The very name Pakistan inscribes the nature of the problem. It is not a real country or nation but an acronym devised in the 1930s by a Muslim propagandist for partition named Chaudhary Rahmat Ali. It stands for Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir,
and Indus-Sind. The stan suffix merely means "land." In the Urdu language, the resulting acronym means "land of the pure." It can be easily seen that this very name expresses expansionist tendencies and also conceals discriminatory ones. Kashmir, for example, is part of India. The Afghans are Muslim but not part of Pakistan. Most of Punjab is also in India. Interestingly, too, there is no B in this cobbled-together name, despite the fact that the country originally included the eastern part of Bengal (now Bangladesh, after fighting a war of independence against genocidal Pakistani repression) and still includes Baluchistan, a restive and neglected province that has been fighting a low-level secessionist struggle for decades. The P comes first only because Pakistan is essentially the property of the Punjabi military caste (which hated Benazir Bhutto, for example, because she came from Sind). As I once wrote, the country's name "might as easily be rendered as 'Akpistan' or Kapistan,' depending on whether the battle to take over Afghanistan or Kashmir is to the fore."

US getting entangled in Pakistan is a horrible step

The US is boldly going into Pakistan. Not a good idea. According to news reports,

General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, considered by the US as a pivotal figure in the "war on terror", said yesterday Pakistan had never agreed to allow the US to operate on Pakistani territory, and that unilateral attacks risked undermining joint efforts against insurgents.
"Falling for short-term gains while ignoring our long-term interest is not the right way forward," Kayani warned.
Kayani usually keeps a low profile so his open rebuke of the US is likely to make policymakers in Washington sit up and take notice.
Today, Pakistan's prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, said Kayani reflected government opinion and policy.

All I can do is add this to my growing list of posts on Pakistan :-(

Robert Dreyfuss, writing in The Nation, compares the US' forays into Pakistan with how we expanded the war from Vietnam into the neighboring Cambodia. Dreyfuss writes,

The Times reports today that President Bush gave an order in July allowing US Special Forces "to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government ...
... There could hardly be a worse strategy. It risks inflaming Pakistani public opinion against the United States and boost the religious parties. It will make the new Pakistani government look like pawns or puppets of the United States, which won't exactly make them popular among Pakistanis. And, of course, it won't be successful in eliminating Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Historians of the Vietnam war might compare the strategy to President Nixon's ill-fated decision to expand the war across the border into Cambodia in search of alleged Viet Cong "santuaries." That didn't work out well. ...
... Yesterday, testifying at a House committee, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs ("frankly, we are running out of time") pretty much confirmed the Times report: The nation's top military officer issued a blunt assessment yesterday of the war in Afghanistan and called for an overhaul in U.S. strategy there, warning that thousands more U.S. troops as well as greater U.S. military involvement across the border in Pakistan's tribal areas are needed to battle an intensifying insurgency.
Mullen has been the point man in US efforts to put pressure on Pakistan to allow more aggressive American attacks directly into Pakistan, meeting repeatedly with Kayani and other officials to demand that Islamabad surrender its national sovereignty.