Hillary’s council pushed for ‘targetted’ action against Pakistani military

WASHINGTON: 

In the fall of 2009, US President Barack Obama’s group of advisers conducted a review of pouring more US troops into Afghanistan or not, quietly pushing a hawkish line. However, the Advisers were veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration, and they had peppered Obama’s secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, with messages urging a counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan and a tougher US stance towards Pakistan, according to US State Department’s emails, Tuesday.

The emails reveal how, even as Obama ran a highly formalised Afghan policy review of near-endless meetings and position papers, Hillary Clinton was receptive to outsiders’ sometimes off-the-cuff views delivered through back-channels.

Some had more national security expertise than others, but all appeared to have Clinton’s ear – and her private email address.

“Hopefully, we can be more decisive: lean harder on the Pakistanis, provide more troops to (Afghanistan commander Gen. Stanley) McChrystal … and raise the heat on al Qaeda,” Clark wrote.

On Oct. 3, Berger emailed Clinton with a provocative proposal: the United States should take targetted measures against military officials in Pakistan, nominally a US ally, who support al Qaeda.