"Descent Into Chaos": Ahmed Rashid on How the US Aid to "War on Terror" Ally Pakistan is Aiding the Taliban

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Meanwhile the future of a recent peace agreement between the Pakistani government and local Taliban forces along the Afghan border remains unclear. But a new report from the conservative think tank, the RAND Corporation, blames Pakistani support for the continued success of the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. The report says: “If Taliban sanctuary bases in Pakistan are not eliminated, the United States and its NATO allies will face crippling long-term consequences in their effort to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan.”

Our guest today is veteran Pakistani journalist and bestselling author Ahmed Rashid. His latest book, just published, is called “Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation-Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.” He explains how the US’s ally Pakistan has armed and financed the Taliban after the US invasion of Afghanistan. How the CIA pays Pakistan to arrest al-Qaeda operatives, but Pakistan uses it to fund the Taliban resurgence in North-West Pakistan. And he traces how the US and NATO’s failure to deal with Afghan civil society has led directly to the huge rise of the opium trade that funds the Taliban. Ahmed Rashid joins me now from Philadelphia.

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist based in Lahore. He writes for a number of US and international newspapers. He is author of several books. His latest is Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.