Soldier's Lawyer Known for "Humanizing" Clients

By Gene Johnson and Phuong Le

Seattle - A day before the public learned the name of the soldier accused of methodically slaughtering 16 civilians in Afghanistan, his lawyer called a news conference and sketched a different portrait of Robert Bales: that of a loving father and devoted husband who had been traumatized by a comrade's injury and sent into combat one too many times.

The move was classic John Henry Browne. The charming, sometimes brash, media-savvy defense attorney had yet to even meet his client and was already attempting to shape public perceptions.

"His best work is not in a court of law, but really in a court of public opinion. He's a master at humanizing his client, and that's an important role," said Dan Satterberg, chief prosecutor in Seattle's King County, where Browne is based. "He is accessible and quotable. And he loves to talk to the media. He doesn't waste any time getting a positive portrayal of his client."

Six-foot-6 and seven times married, with a penchant for long, white scarves, Browne cuts a flamboyant figure in Seattle legal circles and has represented some notorious criminals, including serial killer Ted Bundy and the teenage thief known as the Barefoot Bandit.

Browne, 65, has obtained remarkable results for some of his clients, but his aggressive courtroom style can also rub prosecutors and judges the wrong way. In a drug case last summer, a mistrial was declared after he questioned the judge's competence in open court and a juror was overheard saying he wanted to punch the lawyer in the nose.

His new client, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a 38-year-old Army sniper from Washington state, could be charged as early as this week in the March 11 shooting rampage, a crime that has strained relations between the U.S. and Afghanistan and threatened to alter the course of the war.

Browne met with Bales for the first time Monday, conferring with him behind bars at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. While any trial is months away, some wonder whether the lawyer's sometimes abrasive behavior will sit well with the more formal culture of a military court, in which the jury consists entirely of soldiers.

By his own count, Browne has appeared in military court only three times in a career of more than four decades.

"He pushes prosecutors and judges, and his success is partially due to that," said John Wolfe, who worked for Browne in the 1970s. "His zealousness can cause people to make mistakes." But he added: "I fully expect he's going to adapt his style to the decorum required in a military trial."

Allen Ressler, a Seattle attorney who went to American University Law School with Browne and was his law partner years ago, put it this way: "He's not always the most pleasant human being in the world, but he knows what he needs to do to get results."

Browne has been known to turn around in court and roll his eyes if he dislikes what he is hearing from the judge. In the drug case that ended in a mistrial, he simply refused to continue participating because he disagreed with several rulings. He sat down and did the same thing in a 1979 murder case.

"He makes harsh statements sometimes, statements some people feel might be disrespectful," Wolfe said. "If he thinks a judge is out of line, he'll say, 'You're out of line.' He is passionate about his defense work, and when he thinks it's appropriate, he'll call a spade a spade."

Though friendly with reporters, Browne can at times be prickly with them, and isn't above calling one a "pest" for telephoning too often.

Several colleagues say that he clearly enjoys the publicity from big cases but that his real motivation lies deeper, in a belief in his clients and their right to a fair trial.

"John has always had high-profile cases because he's really good," said Anne Bremner, a Seattle lawyer who was Browne's fifth wife. "But often in high-profile cases, they can be a platform for important discussions on broad issues. Being part of that public discussion and potential institutional changes is important to him."

Most recently, Browne represented Colton Harris-Moore, the Barefoot Bandit who stole airplanes, boats and cars during a two-year run from the law. By painting a picture of the thief as someone who had been neglected as a boy, Browne and his co-counsel persuaded a judge to give Harris-Moore a prison term at the low end of the sentencing range — seven years.

Browne was so persuasive the judge called the defendant "a triumph of the human spirit" simply because Harris-Moore grew up to be a thief rather than, say, a serial killer.

One of Browne's biggest cases involved Washington state's worst mass murder, the slaying of 13 people at a Seattle gambling club in 1983. At the end of the trial, Browne had the mother of his client, Benjamin Ng, bow to the jurors and ask them to spare his son from execution, recalled Bremner. Ng was sentenced to life in prison.

In the 1970s, Browne came to represent Bundy when he was under investigation for killings in Washington state. Bundy ultimately confessed to dozens of murders around the country and was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989.

A Tennessee native, Browne graduated from the University of Denver, then got his law degree in 1971. He worked as an assistant attorney general in Olympia, Wash., and then as chief trial attorney in the public defender's office in Seattle before entering private practice.

He has benefited from the assistance of a series of sharp associate lawyers, most recently Emma Scanlan, who has handled many of the nuts and bolts of their cases while leaving the public pronouncements to him.

So far, Browne is doing a good job countering the portrait of Bales that has emerged in leaks from anonymous U.S. officials, said Dan Conway, a former Marine and a military lawyer. But talking so much about his client — for example, saying that Bales remembers little about the attack — is risky, Conway said.

Military investigators have sole access to witnesses in Afghanistan and can start collecting evidence to contradict Browne's suggestion that the shootings may have been what psychiatrists call a dissociative event.

"You want to humanize your client, but you don't want to give away the whole playbook," Conway said

The Dirty War on WikiLeaks

By John Pilger

Worldwide - War by media, says current military doctrine, is as important as the battlefield. This is because the real enemy is the public at home, whose manipulation and deception is essential for starting an unpopular colonial war.

Like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, attacks on Iran and Syria require a steady drip-effect on readers' and viewers' consciousness. This is the essence of a propaganda that rarely speaks its name.

To the chagrin of many in authority and the media, WikiLeaks has torn down the facade behind which rapacious Western power and journalism collude. This was an enduring taboo; the BBC could claim impartiality and expect people to believe it.

Today, war by media is increasingly understood by the public, as is the trial by media of WikiLeaks' founder and editor Julian Assange.

Assange will soon know if the supreme court in London is to allow his appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he faces allegations of sexual misconduct, most of which were dismissed by a senior prosecutor in Stockholm.

On bail for 16 months, tagged and effectively under house arrest, he has been charged with nothing.

His "crime" has been an epic form of investigative journalism: revealing to millions of people the lies and machinations of their politicians and officials and the barbarism of criminal war conducted in their name.

For this, as the United States historian William Blum points out, "dozens of members of the American media and public officials have called for [his] execution or assassination".

If he is passed from Sweden to the US, an orange jumpsuit, shackles and a fabricated indictment await him. And there go all who dare challenge rogue America.

In Britain, Assange's trial by media has been a campaign of character assassination, often cowardly and inhuman, reeking of jealousy of the courageous outsider. Bbooks of perfidious hearsay have been published, movie deals struck and media careers launched or resuscitated on the assumption that he is too poor to sue.

In Sweden, this trial by media has become, according to one observer there, "a full-on mobbing campaign with the victim denied a voice".

For more than 18 months, the salacious Expressen, Sweden's equivalent of the Sun, has been fed the ingredients of a smear by Stockholm police.

Expressen is the megaphone of the Swedish right, including the Conservative party, which dominates the governing coalition. Its latest "scoop" is an unsubstantiated story about "the great WikiLeaks war against Sweden".

On March 6, Expressen claimed, with no evidence, that WikiLeaks was running a conspiracy against Sweden and its foreign minister Carl Bildt.

The political pique is understandable. In a 2009 US embassy cable obtained by WikiLeaks, the Swedish elite's vaunted reputation for neutrality is exposed as sham. (Cable title: "Sweden puts neutrality in the Dustbin of History.")

Another US diplomatic cable reveals that "the extent of [Sweden's military and intelligence] co-operation [with NATO] is not widely known", and unless kept secret "would open up the government to domestic criticism".

Swedish foreign policy is largely controlled by Bildt, whose obeisance to the US goes back to his defence of the Vietnam War and includes his leading role in George W Bush's Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

He retains close ties to Republican party extreme right-wing figures such as the disgraced Bush spin doctor, Karl Rove. It is known that his government has "informally" discussed Assange's future with Washington, which has made its position clear.

A secret Pentagon document describes US intelligence plans to destroy WikiLeaks' "centre of gravity" with "threats of exposure [and] criminal prosecution".

In much of the Swedish media, proper journalistic scepticism about the allegations against Assange is overwhelmed by a defensive jingoism, as if the nation's honour is defiled by revelations about dodgy coppers and politicians, a universal breed.

On Swedish public TV "experts" debate not the country's deepening militarist state and its service to NATO and Washington, but the state of Assange's mind and his "paranoia".

A headline in March 6's Aftonbladet declared: "Assange's moral collapse". The article suggests Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks' alleged source, may not be sane, and attacks Assange for not protecting Manning from himself.

What was not mentioned was that the source was anonymous, that no connection has been demonstrated between Assange and Manning, and that Aftonbladet, WikiLeaks' Swedish partner, had published the same leaks undeterred.

Ironically, this circus has performed under cover of some of the world's most enlightened laws protecting journalists, which attracted Assange to Sweden in 2010 to establish a base for WikiLeaks. Should his extraditionbe allowed, and with Damocles swords of malice and a vengeful Washington hanging over his head, who will protect him and provide the justice to which we all have a right?

Vets Prone to Drug Addiction Get Risky Painkillers

By Lindsey Tanner

Chicago - Morphine and similar powerful painkillers are sometimes prescribed to recent war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress along with physical pain, and the consequences can be tragic, a government study suggests.

These vets are at high risk for drug and alcohol abuse, but they're two times more likely to get prescriptions for addictive painkillers than vets with only physical pain, according to the study, billed as the first national examination of the problem. Iraq and Afghanistan vets with PTSD who already had substance abuse problems were four times more likely to get these drugs than vets without mental health problems, according to the study.

Subsequent suicides, other self-inflicted injuries, and drug and alcohol overdoses were all more common in vets with PTSD who got these drugs. These consequences were rare but still troubling, the study authors said.

The results underscore the challenge of treating veterans with devastating physical injuries and haunting memories of the horrors of war. But the findings also suggest that physicians treating these veterans should offer less risky treatment, including therapies other than drugs, the study authors and other experts say.

Opium-based drugs like morphine and hydrocodone can dull excruciating physical pain. Relatively few veterans are prescribed such drugs. But some doctors likely prescribe them for vets who also have mental pain "with the hope that the emotional distress that accompanies chronic pain will also be reduced. Unfortunately, this hope is often not fulfilled, and opioids can sometimes make emotional problems worse," said Michael Von Korff, a chronic illness researcher with Group Health Research Institute, a Seattle-based health care system. He was not involved in the study.

The research involved all veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars who were diagnosed with non-cancer physical pain from October 2005 through December 2010 — or 141,029 men and women. Half of them also were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health problems.

The results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Department of Veterans Affairs paid for the study, which is based on VA health care data.

Lead author Dr. Karen Seal, who treats patients at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, said she sometimes prescribes opiates for war vets, but only if other painkillers don't work, and only in collaboration with non-drug treatment from mental health experts, occupational therapists and other specialists.

That type of approach is part of a VA pain management policy adopted in 2009, toward the end of the study period.

Dr. Robert Kerns, the VA's national program director for pain management, said the study "draws attention to growing concerns" about the use of opiate painkillers in veterans. These drugs may have a role in treating chronic pain in vets but only as part of a comprehensive pain management plan, he said.

In a written statement about the study, the VA said its pain management approach has been cited as a model of care, but that "we recognize that more work needs to be done."

Retired Lt. Col. Steve Countouriotis, a 30-year Army veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, says that after returning home a few years ago, he received a morphine prescription for war-related back and shoulder pain. He refused to take it and used aspirin instead.

"I don't feel comfortable taking those kinds of medicines," said Countouriotis, 60, of Petaluma, Calif. "I don't like mood-altering drugs." He said he doesn't have PTSD, but that some colleagues who do have also been given the drugs.

Doctors are too quick to prescribe them, Countouriotis said, adding, "It's too many, too soon."

Army data provided to The Associated Press last year showed that referrals for opiate abuse among soldiers rose during the decade that ended in 2009, and totaled more than 670 between October 2009 and June 2010.

Some vets in the new study got the drugs from overburdened primary care physicians outside the VA health system.

"Imagine primary care doctors getting about 20 minutes to see a patient expressing high levels of distress," because of war-related physical and mental trauma, said Seal, the study author. The balance between providing pain relief while being cautious with drugs that can be habit-forming "is always in play," she said.

In the study, 15,676 vets received opiate prescriptions for physical pain. These prescriptions went to almost 18 percent of vets with PTSD and 12 percent of those with other mental health problems, compared with about 7 percent of vets without those problems.

Among those with PTSD, subsequent self-inflicted injuries, including suicides, occurred in 3 percent of vets who got the drugs, versus 2 percent who didn't receive those prescriptions. The study doesn't provide a breakdown of suicides vs. nonfatal self-injuries.

The study "brings much needed attention to the complexity of this problem," said Dr. William Becker, a Yale University instructor and primary care physician who treats substance abuse and has worked with veterans.

"Patients are typically younger individuals who are in many cases kind of struggling to find their feet again" after returning home from war, he said. The ideal treatment includes behavioral counseling, therapy for war wounds and management of chronic pain.

"The word is spreading and I think this paper is going to send another strong message that this has really got to become the standard of care," Becker said.

Suspicion Rises Between Western Advisers, Afghans

By Deb Riechmann

Kabul, Afghanistan - "Shoulder to shoulder" is the mantra of the NATO-Afghan military partnership. Now, after Afghan soldiers and police turned their guns on their foreign partners during outrage over the Quran burnings, even Western advisers — not just combat troops — are looking over their shoulders.

The deepening distrust is jeopardizing the U.S.-led coalition's strategy of training Afghan security forces and helping government workers so that international troops can go home.

The advisers do a variety of jobs. While some focus on the battlefield, others pore over geological surveys, lure outside investors or make sure that key mountain passes are clear of snow. They work closely with their Afghan counterparts to build a government strong enough to fend off threats and attacks from the Taliban and other militants trying to destabilize their country.

There has been lingering distrust for years. Afghan soldiers and police, or militants dressed in their uniforms, have shot and killed more than 75 U.S. and other coalition forces in Afghanistan since 2007.

But tensions soared Feb. 25 when two U.S. military advisers were found dead with gunshots to the back of the head inside the Afghan Ministry of Interior, one of the most heavily guarded buildings in the capital, Kabul.

The two were among six U.S. troops killed by Afghan security forces during a week of demonstrations over the burning of Islamic books and Qurans at a U.S. military base in eastern Afghanistan. President Barack Obama and U.S. military officials say the burnings were a mistake and not intentional.

Hours after the military advisers' bodies were found on the floor of their office, Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, took the unprecedented step of recalling hundreds of coalition personnel working in more than two dozen government ministries in Kabul. He said the decision was made "for obvious force protection reasons." Britain, France, Germany and Canada quickly followed suit, putting much of the West's mentoring and advising work on hold.

"It's a declining relationship. It has been for years," said Martine van Bijlert, co-founder of the Afghan Analyst Network in Kabul. "You won't be able to fix that. The big question is 'Will it remain a workable relationship?' I think it's possible. It could settle down, but it won't fully settle down to the old level."

"These advisers are crucial, especially in the security sector when we're talking about transition," said Haroun Mir, director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies in Kabul. "Certainly the Afghan government can function without them, but if they don't return, it will take a toll on the financial situation of the government. Many of these projects financed by donors require the presence of these advisers."

Allen is determined to get the advisers back into the ministries as soon as possible — when he deems it is safe enough to do so, said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, a coalition spokesman. The coalition has not disclosed the total number of advisers who work in the ministries.

Their work has not completely stopped, he said.

"Though they are not physically standing beside them, the advisers are still in daily communication with their Afghan counterparts, as Gen. Allen directed to keep the lines of communication open," Cummings said. "We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan. ... Tens of thousands of Afghan and coalition troops continue to effectively work together on significant missions every day."

A few dozen advisers critical to the mission have trickled back to work, but with additional security, Cummings said.

A senior Western adviser who oversees advisers in several ministries said that when they go back they probably will be required to wear body armor and travel in groups with armed escorts. The adviser said they also might have to get permission to visit the ministries, reducing day-to-day contact with their Afghan partners.

Some advisers, such as the ones involved in the Afghanistan-Pakistan Hands program, will balk at increased security, the adviser said. The U.S. established the program in September 2009 to create a team of military and civilian experts who could develop close working relationships with their Afghan and Pakistani counterparts.

Contractors who serve as advisers generally are not so eager to rush back to the ministries, and some told the adviser they are ready to head home.

The adviser and all others who spoke on condition of anonymity for this article did so because of increasing tensions in the NATO-Afghan relationship.

Restoring trust between Western advisers and their Afghan counterparts will be challenging.

"If an adviser gets killed and you're an adviser, it's going to be difficult," said Nadia Gerspacher, a senior program adviser for the United States Institute of Peace in Washington.

"Is it going to make people less trusting and feeling more insecure in the ministry? Probably," said Gerspacher, who has been in contact with advisers in Kabul since the killings.

An international security contractor said he could feel the tension when he visited an Interior Ministry office the day after the U.S. advisers were killed. Usually Afghan police there greet him with "Salamou Aleikom," meaning "Peace be with you." This time, 14 or 15 armed policemen standing in a hallway outside the office were silent, he said. The policemen asked an interpreter whether the Western contractor was American or British. He and a colleague soon left.

An Afghan National Police general at the Interior Ministry said he felt ashamed by the killings and would welcome the advisers back.

They are the teachers for Afghanistan's new system of providing security and if they don't return, the work being done to reform the unprofessional and corrupt policemen will collapse, said the general. A lot of work has been suspended since the killings, the general said.

Another official at the Interior Ministry said the Western advisers' morale had been shattered.

When two Western advisers visited his unit a few days ago, he tried to break the tension. Jokingly, he shook his finger at them, smiled and said: "You've been absent for four or five days. Your pay will be docked." He said that he has developed strong bonds with a few of the Western advisers and will consider them good friends forever.

Some ministries aren't so dependent on the advisers, according to an official at the Finance Ministry. He said the advisers were badly needed three or four years ago, but that the ministry was now staffed with talented, well-trained Afghan employees who no longer need the 20 to 25 well-paid Westerners who currently work there. The ministry could hire five Afghans with the salary paid to one Westerner, he said.

US Marines in Fresh Controversy Over Sniper Team Photo With Nazi SS Flag

From The Guardian

Afghanistan - The US marine corps has confirmed that a sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS.

Use of the SS symbol is not acceptable, and the marine corps has addressed the issue, Lt Col Stewart Upton said in a statement. He did not specify what action was taken.

Upton said the marines in the photograph, posted on a blog, are no longer with the unit. The picture was taken in September 2010 in Sangin province, Afghanistan.

The photo shows a flag with what appear to be the letters "SS" in the shape of jagged lightning bolts. The symbol resembles that used by SS units in World War II.

The SS, or Schutzstaffel, was the police and military force of the Nazi Party, which was distinct from the general army. Members pledged an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. SS units were held responsible for many war crimes and played an integral role in the extermination of millions of Jews along with gypsies and other people classed as undesirables. The SS was declared to be a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg war crime trials.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation in Washington said it was outraged and wants a full investigation.

Mikey Weinstein with the foundation said he has been flooded with calls from former marines offended by the photo and from one member of his organisation who is an Auschwitz survivor.

"This needs to be fully investigated. This is a complete and total outrage," he said.

Weinstein said his organisation was sending a letter to the head of the Marine Corps and defence secretary Leon Panetta.

Master Gunnery Sgt Mark Oliva, a spokesman at Camp Pendleton, California, said the photo was brought to the attention of the 1 Marine Expeditionary Force inspector general in November, and he found there was no intent on the part of the Marines to identify themselves with a racist organisation.

Oliva said the investigation found that the SS symbol was meant to identify the marines as scout snipers, not Nazis, but it was nonetheless not acceptable.
 
This is the second time this year the marine corps has had to do damage control for its troops' actions.

The marine corps is also investigating a separate group of marines recorded on video urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters.

India Marks One Year of Being Polio-Free

New Delhi - Today marks the one-year anniversary of the last known case of polio in India, officials proudly but cautiously announced. This leaves the countries of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria as the only ones with major cases of polio.

Health advocates, who hoped the disease would be destroyed by the year 2000, feel elated about the news, though they are still cautious. Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad warned that India needed to push forward with its vaccination campaign to ensure the elimination of any residual virus.

"We are excited and hopeful. At the same time, vigilant and alert," he said in a statement.

Through Nata Menabde, the head of India's World Health Organization, the organization stated "We are all subject to relaxing a bit when we have achieved some goal but we simply cannot allow that to happen with polio. The important point is that while India may have stopped transmission of wild polio virus, it does not prevent such a virus from being re-imported or in fact the virus could be around and it has just not been detected.”

Overall however the 2.4-billion dollar plan has proven to be a large success. In 2010 there were 42 cases throughout the country, down from 742 in 2009. In 2011 there was only one case of the disease, a two-year-old girl named Ruksana Khatun on January 13^th of last year.

Although it's been a year, India won't be declared certified as polio free for about three years due to the possibility it may be transferred through human waste.

Number of Americans Wounded in Iraq is Obscured by Fog of War…and Peace By Noel Brinkerhoff

Most Americans simply don’t want to think about the Iraq War anymore. But that is not an option for hundreds of thousands of veterans and their families.

 

Exactly how many U.S. troops died in Iraq is pretty well established: 4,487 dead. But determining how many U.S. personnel were wounded in the war and during the prolonged occupation that followed is much more uncertain.

 

The Department of Defense says 32,226 were hurt. But this total only includes soldiers who sustained combat-related wounds from an “external agent or cause” (i.e. getting shot or hit with shrapnel).

 

What about the men and women who came home with “invisible” wounds–brain injuries, post-traumatic stress (PTSD), depression, hearing loss, etc?

 

If those injuries are factored in, the U.S. count could soar into the hundreds of thousands, writes Dan Froomkin at Nieman Watchdog.

 

For instance, a RAND study three years ago estimated that 14% of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans tested positive for PTSD, 14% for major depression and 19% for possible traumatic brain injury. Using those percentages against the 1.5 million who served in Iraq, Froomkin estimated that 200,000 could have PTSD or major depression and 285,000 may suffer from serious brain injuries.

Army Expert Forgot About C-4 in Bag, Court Papers By Jeremy Pelofsky

Midland, Texas - A U.S. Army Special Forces engineer arrested for trying to take explosives aboard a U.S. commercial airliner in Texas told authorities he had forgotten they were in his bag and did not notice them when he packed, according to court papers filed on Tuesday.

Trey Scott Atwater, who had been deployed to Afghanistan three times, was charged with trying to board an aircraft with explosives when he tried to fly out of Midland, Texas, on December 31 to Dallas, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court.

He told authorities that his Special Forces Team procedure was to carry at least two blocks of C-4 on any operation and when he packed his bags to leave from Afghanistan in April 2011 he did not recall the explosives being there.

Atwater grabbed the bag out of his garage for his Christmas-time trip from North Carolina to Texas as a carry-on and put his children's items in it, but he did not see the C-4 explosives inside, the affidavit said.
He said that he had not used any C-4 in training since his return to the United States.
When he left North Carolina on December 24, airport screening officers confiscated a smoke grenade from his bag, according to the affidavit.

Atwater is an Army Sergeant First Class in the elite Green Berets, assigned as an instructor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina, where he is a member of the Special Forces Engineers, according to the Army Special Operations Command.

Pakistani Militant Groups Unite Against NATO.

Islamabad – A cease-fire was pledged to Pakistani security forces from Pakistani fighters on Sunday, but is also joining forces with the Taliban to attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Security experts say the agreement, which reunites four major militant factions under the under Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar, was “a dual-purpose tactical move by the Taliban, which has lost hundreds of fighters during a two-year surge of U.S. forces in its Afghanistan strongholds.”

The deal between the groups also swells the Taliban's ranks and allows them the ability to launch more attacks into Afghanistan.

The unification between the groups, which will stop the occasional fighting between them, is very likely to serve the goals of the militants in the long-run.

Fata Research Center's director of research Mansur Mahsud said of the deal "It will take a lot of pressure off the militants, and deepen the tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. There will be angry complaints by the Americans, and counter-accusations by Pakistan that NATO isn't stopping raids by Pakistani insurgents from Afghan territory."

Update: It should be noted this is happening against the backdrop of the Taliban opening an political office in the country of Qatar.