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RedditHere's a choice for would be foreign policy makers: is the solution to the current crisis in Pakistan (a) a comprehensive Pakistan-India accord, with full Iranian and Russian support, to strengthen Pakistan's civilian government and assert civilian control over Pakistan's rogue ISI intelligence agency, or (b) stepped-up US military intervention in Afghanistan, unilateral US strikes into Pakistan's lawless border areas in the northwest, and thuggish American threats aimed at Pakistan's fledging regime?
If you picked (a), good for you. If you picked (b), well, the campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain might offer you a job.
Recent revelations in the New York Times about Pakistan's ISI and its ties to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, including reports that the ISI was indeed responsible for the deadly bombing at India's embassy in Afghanistan, have pushed the Afghan-Pakistan-India nexus to the very front of the news.
But greater US attacks and more US troops in Afghanistan aren't the answer.
The answer lies in talks between India and Pakistan. India's Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's Yousuf Raza Gilani, the two leaders, held the first meeting between leaders of the two countries in fifteen months this week, and Pakistan's foreign minister was optimistic, saying that the talks had helped "clear the air" between the two nuclear-armed rivals which have fought three wars, two over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. "A lot of steam had been let out of the pressure cooker. The dish we're going to cook is going to be for the betterment of the region," he said.
Trudy Rubin, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer, described the comments of Pakistan's foreign minister on the importance of improving India-Pakistan ties:
Better relations with India "are a top priority," Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi told guests, emphatically, at a recent private dinner in Villanova, organized by the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Speaking the elegant English of a Cambridge University graduate, he insisted: "There is a large constituency on both sides that wants normalization. There may be hiccups, but we will forge ahead."This policy--if Pakistan's new civilian government really pursues it--is of crucial importance to the United States and the wider world.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Quereshi said here on Thursday that Islamabad's response to a blast outside the Pakistan consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, was "measured" and it adopted the same attitude towards the blast outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul.
"We believe charges and counter-charges would not help. It is easy to indulge in blame game. What we need is solutions to resolve issues," he told journalists.
Of course, the problems between India and Pakistan aren't just hiccups. The United States, Afghanistan, and India have all accused Pakistan's ISI of supporting the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and other anti-Indian terrorist groups in a campaign of violence against India. And Pakistan, not without some justification, has accused India and Afghanistan of supporting terrorists against Pakistan in that country's Baluchistan province and elsewhere:
Ruling Pakistan People's Party leader Rehman Malik, who functions as the interior minister and is a confidant of party chief Asif Ali Zardari, appealed to Pakistan's western allies, including the US, to stop India and Afghanistan's alleged activities."India wants to destabilise FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). What India and (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai are doing must stop. They must stop this," he told reporters in Washington yesterday.
Though Pakistan has always blamed foreign hands for stirring trouble in Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province, this is the first time since the February 18 election that a senior government official has blamed India for fomenting unrest in the country.
Pakistan has seen the Islamists are critical to securing Islamabad's control of Afghanistan since the 1970s, and it sees controlling Afghanistan as a way of countering Indian influence in the region. India, for its part, has worked closely with Iran and Russia over the years against Pakistan and the Taliban, and India used its ties to the non-Islamist, non-Pashtun Northern Alliance in Afghanistan as a way of weakening Pakistani influence in Iran and central Asia. (For most of the years after the 1970s, the United States supported Pakistan, the Islamists, and even the Taliban.)
It ain't beanbag when two nuclear powers start accusing each other of close-to-war actions. Is this the kind of situation in which the United States wants to go into, guns blazing? I hope not. The remote chance that some nutball Islamists in Al Qaeda might do something nasty to the United States pales in significance against the real-world threats to the people of Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan posed by Islamic fundamentalists and other extremists, including Hindu fanatics.
In fact, the United States is singularly ill-equipped to go bungling into that part of the world like some drunken sheriff. Last time we did, post-1979, when we supported the Afghan warlords and Islamist crazies against the USSR, we helped create the very problem we're trying to solve now. Many of the extremists holed up in Quetta, the Northwest Frontier Province, and the tribal agencies are people America armed and trained a generation ago.
So let's let India and the new government of Pakistan handle their own problems. They'll need immense diplomatic support from the rest of the world, including the UN and the US, but also including Iran, Russia, China, and others. Pakistan is fragile. It's new government, having already lost one major coalition partner, is trying to bring ISI under civilian control at the same time they are trying to force General Pervez Musharraf out of office and reorganize the corrupt, pro-Islamist army command. For my part, I believe they'll do better without heavy-handed US threats, which only aid extremists and ultranationalists.
RSS
Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers AND DOMESTIC SPYING in U.S.
By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A04
The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.
Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.
And then...a few weeks later...
W A S H I N G T O N, Nov. 1 A group of military scientists is feverishly examining the microscopic spores of anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle for clues to a mystery that could have profound implications for the United States and its ongoing war on terror: Who made it?
Posted by plunger at 08/01/2008 @ 08:00am
Mr Dreyfuss,
The actual answer is both a & b. Solving the disputes between Pakistan and India which have raged ever since the creation of the nation of Pakistan will do nothing to resolve the problem of the Taleban and Al Qaeda in the valley of Wir.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 08/01/2008 @ 08:23am
President Bush seems to have shifted ever so slightly in the direction of the diplomatic route with respect to Iran but the hint of a new approach was forced on him by political realities. American foreign policy has not fundamentally changed since the period after World War II when it was defined by Truman, George Kennan, John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson. The underlying premise of U.S. foreign policy is that the government should not hesitate to use military force whenever and wherever it is necessary to protect American interests.
That premise still dictates American approach to countries where America either needs to establish or protect its interests through force if needed. The bombing and occupation of Iraq has been driven by the imperative of protecting American oil company's interests which included the building of military bases. Hence you have Obama's pledge to draw down the troops rather than withdraw the troops. Between 30,000 and 70,000 troops will be needed to protect American oil interests. Since democracy, freedom and reconstruction are as distant today as they were after the occupation, it is difficult to argue that those were American goals in Iraq. The sectarian violence did not begin until after the occupation.
Afghanistan is another example of bombing and fighting a war in a country where the U.S. needs to build bases for the purpose of protecting the pipeline from the Caspian Sea. Again, it is difficult to argue that fighting the war on terrorism, freeing the Afghan people and bring democracy to the country was the real purpose. The United States abandoned the hunt for Osama to bomb Iraq, a country with no involvement in 9/11. The warlords and Northern Alliance supported by the U.S. are no better and possibly worse than the Taliban. The American puppet government barely has control of Kabul so democracy is well beyond the horizon.
Obama has pledged to send more troops to this war-torn country to intervene in a civil war that appears to be not winnable. The Taliban are gaining strength with recruits from Pakistan and have gained control over half the country where they are winning popular support against the occupiers who have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Weddings seem to be the target of choice for American bombers.
Pakistan is in the middle of the civil war in Afghanistan given that Pashtun tribesman are a source of new recruits for the Taliban and because the ISI consists of extremists who further pose a threat to stability in the area. Obama has already warned Pakistan that he will intervene possibly with bombs to solve the crises. Interfering in another country is illegal but targeting a country with nuclear weapons is also insane.
Nothing has really changed since Truman funded dictatorships in Greece and Turkey after WW II to prevent left-wing insurgents from taking over. If Obama is serious about a new direction in foreign policy he needs to rethink his basic assumptions about how to relate to the rest of the world.
http://www.stateofdarkness.com
Posted by David Model at 08/01/2008 @ 08:46am
If Obama is serious about a new direction in foreign policy he needs to rethink his basic assumptions about how to relate to the rest of the world.
Posted by David Model at 08/01/2008 @ 08:46am
And you need some actual history lessons instead of developing your conclusions from the likes of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 08/01/2008 @ 08:58am
ANTHRAX in 1975 and Cheney & Rumsfeld are in the midst of it:
Did he jump or was he pushed?
I am writing this from Frederick, Maryland. I've just been filming, for Channel 4, a press conference in which the son of a CIA officer who died in suspicious circumstances presented his evidence that vice-president Dick Cheney and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld were, in 1975, when part of the Gerald Ford administration, involved in a cover-up of the events surrounding his father's death.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2002/aug/17/weekend.jonronson
http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Articulations/Script-CodeNameArtichoke. html
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2006/08/its-small-world-anthrax-division.ht ml
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/anthraxsuspect.html
Posted by plunger at 08/01/2008 @ 09:39am
"The US ought to stay out. Let's let India and Pakistan solve their own problems."
"In fact, the United States is singularly ill-equipped to go bungling into that part of the world like some drunken sheriff."
mr. dreyfuss, you hate america.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 10:47am
President Bush seems to have shifted ever so slightly in the direction of the diplomatic route with respect to Iran but the hint of a new approach was forced on him by political realities.
Posted by David Model at 08/01/2008 @ 08:46am
that's right. there's an election coming and gas prices had to be lowered.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 10:50am
Afghanistan is another example of bombing and fighting a war in a country where the U.S. needs to build bases for the purpose of protecting the pipeline from the Caspian Sea.
Posted by David Model at 08/01/2008 @ 08:46am
finally, someone who sees. i've been trying to get my countrymen to see this but to no avail. it's about gettin' them tairists
here:
Russia takes control of Turkmen (world?) gas
By M K Bhadrakumar
From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market.
Gazprom, Russia's energy leviathan, signed two major agreements in Ashgabat on Friday outlining a new scheme for purchase of Turkmen gas. The first one elaborates the price formation principles that will be guiding the Russian gas purchase from Turkmenistan during the next 20-year period. The second agreement is a unique one, making Gazprom the donor for local Turkmen energy projects. In essence, the two agreements ensure that Russia will keep control over Turkmen gas exports.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 10:55am
The warlords and Northern Alliance supported by the U.S. are no better and possibly worse than the Taliban.
by dave model
that couldn't possibly be true.......
after all, northern alliance is an english name
and
taliban is in the devil's tongue.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 10:57am
where they are winning popular support against the occupiers who have killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians.
'I want to kill Canadians,' says Afghan whose children died in shooting
Graham Thomson, Canwest News Service
Published: Friday, August 01, 2008
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The father of two children accidentally killed by Canadian soldiers says he wants revenge.
"If I get a chance, I will kill Canadians," Rozi Muhammed said yesterday.
winning hearts and minds!
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 10:59am
Nothing has really changed since Truman funded dictatorships in Greece and Turkey after WW II to prevent left-wing insurgents from taking over.
Posted by David Model at 08/01/2008 @ 08:46am
hey don't forget mιxico!
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 11:01am
If Obama is serious about a new direction in foreign policy he needs to rethink his basic assumptions about how to relate to the rest of the world.
Posted by David Model at 08/01/2008 @ 08:46am
oh, he's serious about a new direction.
he's going to direct the money to HIS corporate sponsors.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 11:02am
And you need some actual history lessons instead of developing your conclusions from the likes of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky.
Posted by lvliberty1 at 08/01/2008 @ 08:58am
here's a history lesson for you:
"It is a matter of great regret that the throwing of bombs by zeppelins on London was denounced as a most savage act and the bombardment of places of worship and sacred spots was considered a most abominable operation. While we now see with our own eyes that such operations were a habit which is prevalent among all civilized people of the west"
king amanullah of afghanistan.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 11:09am
what people call "taleban" are mostly pissed of afghans.
they are farmers, not students of islam.
hey, america!
why don't you awaken these people and put them on your payroll?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 11:16am
payroll?
you mean like in the 80s.
hmmmm?
that could become problematic.
uh oh! what's going to happen in iraq?!?!?!?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 11:17am
oh, he's serious about a new direction.
he's going to direct the money to HIS corporate sponsors.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 11:02am
Bingo, you win, er, a, you are correct, and the Lobbyists and corporations sponsoring both candidates win and the rest of us lose.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/01/2008 @ 11:56am
I can't believe I am saying this but I agree with LVL. We can't go into this guns blazing obviously. But these are two nuclear powers. We need to exercise some control over the situation so they don't start firing them off. We can help to mediate discussions to keep the peace process going.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 12:54pm
We need to exercise some control over the situation so they don't start firing them off.
perhaps controlling your own wmds would be a better start.
We can help to mediate discussions to keep the peace process going.
that's more like it.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 12:54pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:32pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/01/2008 @ 1:32pm
We haven't used WMD's since WWII. We just like to wave em up people to remind them they are there.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 4:56pm
We haven't used WMD's since WWII. We just like to wave em up people to remind them they are there.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 4:56pm
Nuclear weapons are more of a detriment than any thing else, especially in the case of India and Pakistan. Neither country would dare use them against the other for two very good reasons. 1) Retaliation. 2) The fall out from using one on the enemy would end up right back in their yard.
All this talk of nuclear attacks by neighbors is a bunch of hot air and nothing more. The rest is to try to drag other nations in to throw money in to solve THEIR problems.
I'm with Dreyfuss on this one. Let them yell at each other and threaten each other, but nothing more will come of it than that other than possible border skirmishes.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/01/2008 @ 5:03pm
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/01/2008 @ 5:03pm
I'm just essentially saying lets just mediate them yelling at each other.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 6:19pm
We haven't used WMD's since WWII. We just like to wave em up people to remind them they are there.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 08/01/2008 @ 4:56pm
well,
i've seen lots of masses destroyed.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 01:48am
Some "aggressive diplomacy" that pushes toward an accord like this would be helpful indeed, but that doesn't mean that we don't need an increased presence in Afghanistan. It's been neglected for so long, and its at risk of falling apart. If U.S. action in Pakistani territory it too risky, troops could at least beef up security on the border of the tribal areas, to thwart cross-border attacks into Afghanistan. The consequences of "failure" in or withdrawal from Iraq, if a renewed civil war followed, is difficult to predict. But we know exactly what the consequences of losing Afghanistan would be.
Posted by scottbp at 08/02/2008 @ 04:40am
But we know exactly what the consequences of losing Afghanistan would be.
Posted by scottbp at 08/02/2008 @ 04:40am
yep. the indians will be forced to get their natural gas from iran.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/02/2008 @ 9:36pm
India and Pakistan have been warring for 48years from LBJ to Bush's Presidencies! The threat of intervention, withdrawal of aid, or even more aggressive diplomatic action by any country OTHER than the U.S.A. is not only just plain hollow but as useless as the neverending spitting into the wind that the U.N. has practiced for the last 50 years!
Posted by RedRiver_. at 08/02/2008 @ 11:32pm
Regardless of the number of American troops in Afghanistan, I don't see an invasion of Pakistan as an option. Our main interest in Afghanistan is al-Qaida. Because of 9/11, I supported the war in Afghanistan. I have no interest in dominance or Imperial games. I would like to see us working with Iran on Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan's neighbors have to be part of the solution. While I opposed the Iraq war, we never had enough troops to secure that country. We do not have enough troops in Afghanistan. We need to get private enterprise out of the Pentagon, and government in general. You cannot rely on a volunteer army in wartime, and the National Guard is needed at home. Like it or not, you need the draft to expand and contract the services depending on the need. We also need our industrial base back from overseas to redevelop our internal market, provide jobs, and support our national defense. These were the major reasons Hamilton wanted tariffs. The last eight years have been hell, and I think the next four to eight years may make the situation worse. I have been around for a while, and I have never seen such a collection of idiots as the current crop.
Posted by P. J. Casey at 08/03/2008 @ 7:44pm
You are the one who needs history lessons. You'd do well to get them from Zinn and Chomsky. But they would lay a lot more reality on you than you can handle.
Posted by louisrue at 08/04/2008 @ 03:38am
Lets see...everytime Pakistan and India start "talking" they end up on the brink of nuclear war. One of these days they will not step back. It would be a good idea for America to be involved.
Posted by pyeatte at 08/04/2008 @ 1:42pm
I have not been a supporter of Obama, but I was pleased with the energy package he proposed in todays speech (4/8/08). It will work if he fully implements it. However, He will need tariffs to keep the industries and jobs in America, or they will all be either outsourced or cheap labor will be in sourced. These needs to be American industries supported by American labor or legal immigrant. The American market will be recreated if all these ducks are in order. ( I have an undergraduate degree in History, and I know how America became a major industrial power.)
Posted by P. J. Casey at 08/04/2008 @ 2:06pm
I recommend that Dreyfuss read Ahmed Rashid's book or at least quick Q an A at Harper's magazine. If the international community does not want the Karzai government to fall to the Taliban, it will have to pledge economic and military support to Afghanistan; it will have to train the military and use drone attacks--Dreyfuss forgets that the Pakistani Taliban has lost elections and still driven out tens of thousands of peace loving Pasthuns from FATA. Dreyfuss should be a little more wary about talking about Indian terrorism. NATO will have to carry out reconstruction but that can't be done without military protection as the Taliban will attempt to destroy any project that gives the government legitimacy. Now the central problem is the contradiction of humanitarian intervention. National interest and humanitarian mission are in contradiction and to carry out the latter, the stronger nation may still not want to really loose any troops to fighting. So it then uses aerial power to protect its troops but the aerial use of force does harm to the innocent civilians for whom the mission was authorized in the first place. Rumsfeld allowed air attacks not be authorized as long as no more than 20 civilian deaths were expected. He did this because he knew that he was not sending enough combat troops and that this is the only way he could protect them. Obama will have to figure out a way to overcome this contradiction; two extra brigades won't be enough.
Posted by hartal at 08/04/2008 @ 7:04pm
sorry above sentence should have read:
Rumsfeld DID NOT REQUIRE that air attacks BE OFFICIALLY AUTHORIZED AS long as no more than 20 civilian deaths were expected. He gave de facto sanction to collateral damage because he knew that he was not sending enough combat troops and that indiscriminate aerial attacks were the only way he could protect the troops
Posted by hartal at 08/04/2008 @ 7:07pm
I also want to add that Dreyfuss seems like a cold hearted racist to me in this piece. Tens of innocent Indian diplomats are dead at the hands of a reactionary and violent group of thugs funded by the Pakistani secret police, a group of thugs which has driven tens of thousands of their own Pasthuns from their own homelands and who want to create a state under sharia law. For Dreyfuss brown people are brown people. He has no sympathy for the innocents and the progressives, and he thinks the US can't be bothered defending the innocent and progressive brown people from the very thugs they have helped to create. There's no a drop of solidarity in his piece. This guy is a racist jerk.
Posted by hartal at 08/04/2008 @ 7:19pm
Our main interest in Afghanistan is al-Qaida.
Posted by P. J. Casey at 08/03/2008 @ 7:44pm
this is not correct.
control of natural gas, is.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/04/2008 @ 8:12pm
You're both right, "P. J. Casey" and "Frosty Zoom." Here's how: Our main interest in Afghanistan OUGHT to be Al-Qaeda. Unfortunately, our present government probably IS mainly interested in natural gas.
I agree with Mr. Dreyfuss that our government also ought to be more aggressively seeking multilateral solutions to the multiethnic problems that plague Afghanistan. The strategy of catching terrorists by invading and occupying "terrorist-friendly" countries - and in the process killing a lot of non-terrorist civilians - has been tried, and I believe it has failed too badly to be worth trying again.
Yes, the new government of Afghanistan is better than the old one, and yes, we ought to support it, but this is not our task alone. Remember that our government's proposal to invade Afghanistan was not as widely internationally condemned as its proposal to invade Iraq was. If we involve enough allies and neighbors (including India, Russia, and Iran, as Dreyfuss suggests), then perhaps we can provide more "carrots" to encourage multiethnic co-operation, so that we will very soon not have to rely on "sticks" to discourage a multiethnic civil or regional war - or to flush out terrorists.
I certainly hope that our leaders and our international allies will soon accept the wisdom of this new strategy, because both our ability and our willingness to occupy Afghanistan militarily are fading fast. Moreover, I do not believe that any military occupation can succeed for long in this often-invaded country, whose inhabitants understandably resent foreign rule. You may feel responsibility toward the Afghans, "Hartal," and this is decent of you, but I believe most of them would look more favorably upon "racist" non-interference than upon the most "sympathetic" military occupation.
Posted by JakobFabian at 08/05/2008 @ 02:18am
Neither Obama nor Ahmed Rashid is proposing that America owes Afghanistan mostly military aid and that America should continue with indiscriminate aerial strikes which kill innocent Afghani civilians (I was clear that this is the intolerable outcome of Rumsfeld's military strategy, which has in fact played into the hands of the Taliban). But most Afghans do not believe that the US does not owe them massive reconstruction aid and it is clear that peaceful projects cannot be carried out without military protection. And most Afghans (as well as Pashtuns) don't want to live under the Taliban, but that is the likely outcome if the US, following Dreyfuss' and the racist hippie left's advice, ditches Afghanistan now that the ISI backed Taliban has blown up the Indian embassy.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 04:08am
I have been around for a while, and I have never seen such a collection of idiots as the current crop.
Posted by P. J. Casey at 08/03/2008 @ 7:44pm
That pretty much sums it up.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 11:10am
No what sums it up is how racist the liberal left continues to be. Do remember that Clinton worked behind the scenes to make sure that Rwanda could not be described as a genocide so as to absolve the US of any responsibility to act in partnership with others. His administration reasoned that it would only be worth sacrificing one US life if it could save more than 70,000 Rwandans lives. No that is not a typo. Underlying the left chants against the war in Afghanistan is the same calculus. Americans don't want to sacrifice a single American solider against the rising Taliban offensive (and that is why it overuse aerial power too). But the US owes Afghanistan the military and economic aid needed for stabilization and at the very least to contain the Taliban. Ultimately this will purchase Americans security too if they were not so racist and short sighted. Dreyfuss should be challenging this kind of counterproductive racist insularity head on; instead he and vandenHeuvel are capitulating to it. An irresponsible left.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 1:25pm
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 1:25pm
Do not blame the liberal left on what is going on in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia. If you wish to blame anyone, start with the folks seeing these situations as a way to make a buck, or should I say millions of bucks off the situation.
Destablizing the small countries with resources and paying off a propped up bunch of thugs like the Taliban is no new game to either the British, French, Portuguese or the American goverments. Take your damn blinders off and see that wealthy people exploit people of all skin colors and keep them at each others throats. That is how they keep their wealth. Keep people occupied over stupid little turf battles while they pull all of the oil, precious metals like titanium etc. out from under their noses and laugh all of the way to the bank that they also own.
How is it that Opium is leaving Afghanistan in record numbers after we "Liberated" the country under YOUR MAN W"S HELM!!!! The liberals didn't do that. This isn't about racism, it's always been about money and always will be.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 1:49pm
Bush's retreat from Afghanistan for the purposes of a colonial occupation of Iraq is why the poppy economy is back and why a defenseless Karzai had to cut deals with drug running thugs. For their own racist, insular reasons, the liberal left wants also to minimize US involvement in Afghanistan. We have an alliance between the Republican colonial occupiers and the liberal left racists on not doing what is needed to stabilize Afghanistan.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 1:56pm
For their own racist, insular reasons, the liberal left wants also to minimize US involvement in Afghanistan. We have an alliance between the Republican colonial occupiers and the liberal left racists on not doing what is needed to stabilize Afghanistan.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 1:56pm
First of all, the people in these regions you talk about have been killing each other for centuries before the U.S. even existed as a country.
Secondly, as an American, I am more worried about this country than Afghanistan or India or Pakistan. Here's the problem. The U.S. forign policy makers are only intersted in quelling situations, or stirring them up for monetary gain. They don't think about consequenses 15 or 20 years down the road. Our little stint backing the Taliban to fight against the Russians is a good case in point. We didn't rebuild Afghanistan once the Soviets were gone because there was no money in it for the businessmen who control Washington. But there sure as hell was a lot of money in selling weapons to fight the Soviets with. Once again, a lot of pofiteering off war death and destruction.
Finally,the country meddling the most in the affairs of these countries would be Great Britain or the British Empire. Call them racists if you will. They also wrote the book on the slave trade as well.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 2:06pm
Ok Wolfgang I'll let the editors of the Nation whom I consider reasonable people decide whether their out of Afghanistan editorializing is responsible. We have obligations to the Afghanis and to our own security. Dreyfuss' call to ditch will not allow us to live up to our responsibilities.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 2:20pm
<i>Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 2:06pm </i>
Quite honestly, though I agree with hartal in rejecting Dreyfuss' tendencies towards insularity, I think hartal's charge of racism is a little unfair. Though I have little doubt that it at least subtly underlies some assertions of this kind, I don't think it's particularly fair to ascribe racist motives to Mr. Dreyfuss so easily. Instead, I think his position piece here (like many of his other pieces) really revolves around the validity and scope of a claim that Wolfgang neatly summarizes:
<<Secondly, as an American, I am more worried about this country than Afghanistan or India or Pakistan.>>
This, I think, is one of the most thorniest issues that any approach to foreign policy has to confront, because it seems relatively obvious that two things are true. First, as US citizens and as representatives elected by the public, officials of the US government have a strong and clear obligation to protect and defend the US (as many of their oaths of office make clear). At the same time, however, being citizens and representatives does not remove the foundational moral responsibility to protect human life and dignity. The fact that someone is not from this country does not mean that their lives can be either dismissed or used merely as pawns.
I tend to think that Mr. Dreyfuss is giving far too much weight to the first while virtually dismissing the second. I also don't believe that balances of money and power are all that determine what happens in the international arena, and even if they were, that's hardly license to sink to a level of complete amorality. To do so, in fact, would be to subscribe to the very moral relativity that Happy was criticized for in the "Fighting Terrorism with Justice" thread.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/05/2008 @ 4:12pm
Dreyfuss' call to ditch will not allow us to live up to our responsibilities.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 2:20pm
I don't like seeing innocent people in any country being killed. My problem is that when we meddle in things like this, we tend to make things worse, not better. When you start talking about arming one side or the other, innocent people usually end up being killed even with the best of intentions.
The Taliban deserve to be stomped on like the cockroaches that they are. But, as you've witnessed, Iraq was more important to W. Why? Because Iraq has oil and Afghanistan does not. Now that they can cut Iraq up to share the revenue from the oil it produces, Afghanistan may come back on the radar.
But, I am quite tired of funding wars in other countries to keep the battle over there. A bigger crock of shit never existed. Killing people in their home countries and occupying their countries is why they hate America, and our good friends from Saudi Arabia are responsible for the extremist version of Islam that gets young boys fired up enough to strap explosives to themselves to kill the infidels, not to mention that the Saudi's fund the very terrorist groups we are supposedly fighting against.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 4:22pm
The Taliban is not unified; there are perhaps 500 tribal leaders. Some Pasthun followers have legitimate gripes about NATO killings, the lack of FATA's autonomy and maldevelopment, and lack of representation in the Karzai government. The response to Afghanistan has to be primarily political and economic, and the aid has to be targeted better than it has been. Moreover, Pakistan has to be held to account for the massive aid it gets. Obama has been as right about this as he was prescient about the consequences of an occupation of Iraq. He obviously has a good foreign policy team which is consulting the right people.
Now some and perhaps most of the Taliban leaders are terrorists, financed by the ISI to keep their Afghani 'backyard' under their control so that India, Iran and Russia don't have influence in Afghanistan (and there is a part of the US military establishment which is sympathetic to this use of Pakistan and the Taliban). Dreyfuss forgets to emphasize what Rashid underlines--the Taliban have driven tens of thousands of Pasthuns out of their homes, and they now threaten to Talibanize Pakistan. This is blow back on a huge scale. The ground level reality is complex and the responses will have to be nuanced and based on understanding of complex realities. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld were criminally idiotic as Ahmed Rashid shows--they underfunded efforts, and cut deals with war lords. They allowed Musharraf to play a double game. But the leftist desire to ditch is not much better. It's not just that the US owes something to the Afghanis out of abstract universalism. Our history of the use of the country as a proxy obligates us to play a significant role in reconstruction.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 4:56pm
Our history of the use of the country as a proxy obligates us to play a significant role in reconstruction.
Posted by hartal at 08/05/2008 @ 4:56pm
You do realize that what you are asking for is quite impossible to actually do? Especially when you have other people out there trying to stir up the hornets nest for their own purposes.
Try to think outside the box here. For example, just suppose that you had a lot of money invested in, oh say, Exxon. And the prices of oil were coming and down and you didn't like that and no natural disasters were near in sight. Oh, how about starting some shit up with Iran to keep the old pot on a slow boil just to keep the prices up?
Now, if you look at things from that position, there's a lot of factors including distributuion of wealth in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India making quite a bit of money of the situation as is. We go in there picking one side, the other sides gain more power, but none of them are the good side. Just because someone is an enemy of one of your enemies, does not make them your enemies enemy your friend.
We go into a very complex situation like you just stated, we aren't going to solve one damn thing except get out troops killed, waste a ton of money, and make more enemies than before we started.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 5:08pm
does not make them your enemies enemy your friend.
Sorry, meant to say, does not make your enemies enemy your friend. Sounds like something Rumsfeld would say.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 5:11pm
the enemy's friendly enemy is my friendly enemy's unfriendly friend.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 5:19pm
<i>Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/05/2008 @ 5:08pm </i>
What you seem to be saying here is that none of the factions in play in Afghanistan are friendly, and maybe that's entirely true. All that means, though, is that our policy requires us to accept the lesser of two evils. What some posters here seem to forget is that refusing to act is itself a choice, one whose costs have to be weighed against the costs of acting.
The claim that our interventions have almost always been destructive is plainly false. Granted, some of our recent actions have rather gone south, but that is due more to the terrible strategic thinking behind them than to an inherent feature of our decision to act. Consider instead the case of Afghanistan in the 1980s. It's certainly true that much of al-Qaeda can trace itself back to the mujahideen that we aided against the Soviets. But why is that? It's not because of the aid itself; it's largely because AFTER we aided them, we chose not to fund the necessary reconstruction of their country. Had we done that, I suspect things would have turned out much differently. The problem came from not being interventionist enough when we needed to be; why should that mistake be repeated?
Posted by Thrawn at 08/05/2008 @ 5:55pm
The problem came from not being interventionist enough when we needed to be; why should that mistake be repeated?
Posted by Thrawn at 08/05/2008 @ 5:55pm
that's right.
stop fighting and start building.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 6:18pm
<i>Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 6:18pm </i>
Or alternatively, as the situation in Afghanistan seems to demand...do both. Without actually engaging the Taliban, rebuilding efforts will fail.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/05/2008 @ 7:21pm
don't forget reducing heroin demand.
these people aren't taliban. they aren't students.
they are pissed off afghanis who want the occupation to end.
i'd bet they'd like a few hospitals and roads, though.
but hey, it requires much more energy to construct than to destroy.
a national referendum on the nature of "western" help to their country would only be fair....
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 10:17pm
<i>Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 10:17pm </i>
A national referendum? In the environment that is Afghanistan, that seems like the least reliable indicator of popular will imaginable.
Also, you do make a valid point; many of the people caught in the middle of the conflict aren't Taliban and we need to consider that carefully. There is a lot of hostility (not to mention fear)that the Taliban are able to manipulate. We still need military action because the Taliban do exist and are a threat to any future stability, but without actual reconstruction on the ground our efforts there will be worse than useless.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/05/2008 @ 10:32pm
A national referendum? In the environment that is Afghanistan, that seems like the least reliable indicator of popular will imaginable.
well,
what value do their elections have, then?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 11:14pm
NW Pakistan On the Brink of Civil War' Tuesday, August 05, 2008 By Shaheen Buneri
Pakistani mourners carry the national flag-draped coffin of a police officer, killed in a weekend bomb blast in Swat valley, where Pakistani troops are battling Islamic militants. (AP Photo) Peshawar, Pakistan (CNSNews.com) Pakistan's military claims to have killed at least 94 Taliban militants in stepped-up operations in the North West Frontier Province's Swat valley, following the collapse of a truce.
Amid reports that the militants are trying to get reinforcements into the affected area from neighboring tribal regions, the Taliban has denied the casualty claim, saying on the contrary that it had killed 70 security force members in a week of fighting, while sustaining only nine losses.
The military action was launched after Islamic militants last week attacked security checkpoints and killed three intelligence officials. More than 20,000 troops are reported to be involved in the fighting, targeting forces loyal to the Swat-based radical cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, head of the Swat faction of the umbrella Pakistan Taliban Movement or TTP.
Army Brig. Zia Anjum Bodla told reporters in Swat that the Taliban had repeatedly violated a peace agreement signed last May with the NWFP government. The military action would continue until the area was cleared of insurgents.
"This time we will fight decisively to achieve our ends," he maintained.
Bodla said apart from the enemy casualties, at least 15 security forces and 28 civilians had also been killed.
The provincial government negotiated a peace agreement because, it said, a military-driven strategy to restore calm to that area had failed a view shared by the national government in Islamabad. But the U.S. and Afghan governments a
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 01:03am
The problem came from not being interventionist enough when we needed to be; why should that mistake be repeated?
Posted by Thrawn at 08/05/2008 @ 5:55pm
Thrawn, I would agree with you whole heartedly except history has shown us that we (the United States) don't get involved in anything unless there's that silver lining and that lining means either money or access to national resources.
Call me a pessimist, but as we've both pointed out, the U.S. walked out of Afghanistan once the Soviets packed up and left which set the stage for the Taliban to take root in the absence of any law enforement in the area.
If we throw a bunch of money at the Afghanistan now and try to rebuild the country, we'll be facing the same problems we've encountered in Iraq. We had the Taliban on the run but as I pointed out ealier, W and Cheney used it only as a stepping stone to go after that black gold in Iraq.
Unless there is a profit to be made from going into Afghanistan, I think the U.S. will only pay lip service to that country. We may restabalize it, empower the governemnt in place a little more, but nothing more. While the U.S. is heading into a recession it will be hard to convince the people of this country to throw more tax dollars at another country while people here are losing their homes, can't afford to pay their bills and in a lot of cases, don't even have a job.
In a perfect world, we would clean up our messes and stop causing new messes, but this is far from a perfect world. The U.S. is not the world police force, nor do we have the resources to act as the world police force. The sooner we realize this, the better.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 09:25am
While the U.S. is heading into a recession...
I'd like to rephrase that....While the U.S. is in a recession....
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 09:30am
<i>Posted by frosty zoom at 08/05/2008 @ 11:14pm</i>
That's a fair question; I don't tend to think that democratization can work if you set up elections without paying any attention to the stability of civil society. In Afghanistan right now, the government can't even claim anything remotely approaching the traditional "monopoly on force" that is necessary for a legitimate government. All the more reason why reform in Afghanistan involves both military and structural components.
<i>Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 09:25am</i>
Sometimes, yes. But I don't think this is a problem that taints every single action the US takes; we've taken some largely altruistic actions in the past and remain capable of doing so.
Moreover, moral responsibilities exist regardless of how often we've followed them in the past. Even if we often HAVEN'T done the right thing, we still have an OBLIGATION to do so, and unless you can show that it is actually impossible to do what is right (something I don't think you'll even remotely be able to show), that obligation carries weight. That's why categorical non-intervention isn't justified; it uses fears of bad motives to excuse refusing to act when acting is necessary. By all means, our decisions on whether to act and how to act should be strongly tempered by recognition that our motives often aren't completely pure, but that recognition should not paralyze us from action altogether. Act humbly and cautiously, but by all means, act.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 12:50pm
And I hope we never, ever "act" out of purely humanitarian ground.......opens us up to become.......God! Even then, those who receives "pure" help, will bitch and moan it wasn't enough, wasn't fast enough, wasn't good enough!
Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/06/2008 @ 1:08pm
you mean like those in n.o.?
that's the stupidest b.s. you have posted in a long time.
helping people is bad?!?!?!?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 1:34pm
All the more reason why reform in Afghanistan involves both military and structural components.
posted by thrawn. are you scottish?
but aren't there tens of other countries that fit that same description?
why are they ignored?
and why are other countries such as equitorial guinea just as unjust as afghanistan fκted in washington?
a very tangled web, indeed.
it's too bad u.s. government foreign policy doesn't reflect the goodness that is in the average american's heart.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 1:46pm
Scottish? No, why do you ask?
You do bring up a difficult problem. How do we make sure that we're not ridiculously or arbitrarily selective with our decision? We obviously aren't capable of helping every single country in the world, especially when we certainly can't perfect ourselves. It's a tricky balance, and I'm not sure precisely where it should fall.
Also, though...Equatorial Guineau? Could you elaborate on how it's analogous to Afghanistan?
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 3:53pm
helping people is bad?!?!?!?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 1:34pm
It is if you are a true conservative like Happy, W and Cheney. Remember, their common link is to shrink the government to where it is small enough to drown in a bath tub.
That statement sums up another article written right here at the nation. Bushco has set out to do exactly what it wanted to do.
1) Bankrupt the government 2) Privatize as much government as possible 3) Make as much money off the process as possible while looting the fed. 4) Make the government appear to be mal-adjusted to carry out it's missions by appointing idiots not qualified for their tasks. See the justice department, FEMA, and all of the faith based wackos W has put into positions of power making a mockery of our government. 5) Weaken the military to the point private mercernary units can be used instead of government run forces...see Iraq, Afghanistan, The war on drugs...and on and on and on. 6) Infiltrate every branch of the government with folks loyal to the conservative cause of killing the federal government.
The conservatives such as Happy, Liverlips, JM, Rio, etc. are all of this slice of bread. They act like they are all patriotic and country loving but in fact hate everything the federal government does. They can't really refute this because there are sooo many posts proving this point they have no where to go.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 4:02pm
thrawn is the scottish past participle for "throw".
eq. guin. is not really analogous for afg. every place on this earth is different, and the governments "representing" the so called "nations" are equally different.
the taliban were the gov. of afg. they were crazy. they were hosted in texas. gas pipeline. things didn't work out.
eq. guin. has oil. lots. and a nasty dictator. the u.s. shunned him. until, well, oil became what it is today.
ms. rice, said "Good morning. Welcome. I'm very pleased to welcome the President of Equatorial Guinea, President Obiang. We will have a full set of discussions about our bilateral relationship, about some innovative social programs that USAID is involved with and about the range of regional issues that we both confront. So thank you very much for your presence here. You are a good friend and we welcome you. "
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Obiang's regime retained clear authoritarian characteristics even after other parties were legalized in 1991. Most domestic and international observers consider his regime to be one of the most corrupt, ethnocentric, oppressive and undemocratic states in the world. Equatorial Guinea is now essentially a single-party state, dominated by Obiang's Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE). In 2008 American journalist Peter Maass called Obiang Africa's worst dictator, worse than Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.[1] The constitution grants Obiang wide powers, including the power to rule by decree.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In July 2003, state-operated radio declared Obiang to be a god who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell." He personally made similar comments in 1993.
crazy.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 7:30pm
<i>Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/06/2008 @ 4:02pm </i>
Forgive me, but this seems like a giant list of assertions. First off, you have an extremely oversimplified view of what conservatism actually means. Though there is a general view that government is too large in the status quo, there is still a good deal of disagreement as to how and how much it should be shrunk.
Second, though, there are a TON of assertions here as to what the Bush Administration's motives were in taking particular actions, and your ability to propose an account that unifies these actions does not by itself constitute evidence. Did they want to shrink government? Absolutely. Did they deliberately plot and scheme to MAKE it work incompetently? I don't think you ever prove that they do. In fact, if they actually are conservative, it seems like this is the LAST thing they would do. Why? Because someone who comes in with the kind of conservative orientation you're ascribing to them ALREADY believes that the government's waste and inefficiency is self-evident; why should they need to do more? What evidence do you have, moreover, that they DELIBERATELY sent soldiers to their deaths just so they could make room for private corporations? These are some pretty serious accusations, and I think they require a whole lot more warrant than you've provided thuse far.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 10:00pm
<i>Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 7:30pm </i>
Huh; the stuff about EG is pretty interesting, though at least from some stuff I've looked at (a small sample, admittedly), it looks like things have changed significantly since then. I certainly hope they have.
On the Scottish thing...huh. I hadn't even thought of that. The reference is actually from somewhere entirely different.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 10:03pm
need more examples?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 10:17pm
Ah; I think I may have been a little ambiguous. I mean that the material I've looked at is probably a pretty small sample of (and dealt with only some specific aspects of) the political system in Equatorial Guinea.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 10:45pm
that i understood.
i meant other dictators.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/06/2008 @ 11:06pm
Ah, I see; nope.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 11:37pm
o.k.
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/07/2008 @ 12:19am
did i ever tell the one about kazakhstan.....?
Posted by frosty zoom at 08/07/2008 @ 12:21am
What evidence do you have, moreover, that they DELIBERATELY sent soldiers to their deaths just so they could make room for private corporations? These are some pretty serious accusations, and I think they require a whole lot more warrant than you've provided thuse far.
Posted by Thrawn at 08/06/2008 @ 10:00pm
Thrawn, There's plenty of evidence to support what I have said. 1) The cronyism in the department of justice only a deaf and blind person could deny. 2) I never said they intentionally sent soldiers to their deaths. What I did say, is that they've run the military into the ground over this stupid damn war and instead of letting the regular Army provide secuirty (the easy job) in the green zone, they let their big campaign contributor BLACKWATER provide security instead of regular army troops. If that isn't evidence, I don't know what is. The army generals were pissed off about that little move even.
You are correct, the moves the Bush administration have taken are anything but conservative. But, people calling themselves conservatives are the ones making these very unconservative moves. They are intentionally destroying the federal government whether you believe it or not. Either that, or they are the biggest F8(&-ups ever to step foot in D.C.
Considering Cheney pretty much said Iraq would be a quagmire when he was in Bush senior's administration and then pushed for the war under juniors admin. I would say that they knew exactly what they were doing, and it sure as hell wasn't helping out the people of Iraq and we've seen what it has done to our military readiness.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/07/2008 @ 06:58am
Thrawn, This one is for you. Check out the link below. Before you go to this link though, I would like to say that I think there are two types of conservatives in this country. One group is made up of people who actually care about the welfare of the U.S. and just have a differing opinion than "left wingnut liberals" like myself. Then, there's another group, who really don't give a rip about anybody and just want to rape, pillage and take as much as they can while they can. W, Cheney and company and this administration fall into that category. When you have other republicans for other administrations looking at the doings of W with horror, you should kind of clue in.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#26063821
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/07/2008 @ 08:06am
.... secuirty .... Sorry, meant security. My fingers are not cooperating this morning.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/07/2008 @ 08:46am
From Barnett Rubin's website
THuRSDAY, JULY 31, 2008
Rubin: Pakistanis on Pakistan
The following article by Afrasiab Khattak, the head of the Pashtun Nationalist Awami National Party in the Northwest Frontier Province (Pakhtunkhwa) appears in Dawn today. I have not been able to find it on the website yet. Khattak is provincial head of the party that heads the elected government of NWFP and has been appointed Pashtun Peace Envoy by the NWFP Provincial Assembly.
FATA's growing disconnect
By Afrasiab Khattak
IT is hardly an exaggeration that the security of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the entire region and indeed that of the whole world will be defined by developments in Fata over the next few months. Different scenarios are being painted by military strategists and political experts.
Al Qaeda, after regrouping in the militant sanctuaries of the area, is acquiring the capacity to repeat attacks in North America or Europe similar to those carried out in 2001 in the US.
If reports about the exchanges between Pakistan and the US at the highest level are anything to go by it is pretty clear that the US will retaliate against Pakistan, probably even more severely than it did against the Taliban-dominated Afghanistan. Similarly the use of these militant sanctuaries for cross-border fighting is so large in scale (in fact all the six political agencies bordering Afghanistan are being used) that denial in this regard is no longer plausible.
The federal government has to either admit defeat or muster the political will to resolve the problem, or else justify the existence of militant sanctuaries by explaining their usefulness to the national interest. We have run out of time and this decision cannot be delayed any more as there are no takers of the denial line.
As if this were
Posted by hartal at 08/07/2008 @ 12:17pm
As if this were not enough, armed lashkars (armies) from militant sanctuaries in Fata are poised to penetrate/invade the contiguous settled districts. The events in Hangu some three weeks back are a case in point. The Hangu police arrested four Taliban commanders from a car that also contained weapons, explosive material and manuals for making bombs in a place called Doaba not far away from the Orakzai Agency border.
Hundreds of Taliban surrounded the Doaba police station and demanded the commanders' release. They also blocked the Hangu-Kurram highway. During this confrontation the Frontier Constabulary was ambushed near Zargari village and 16 security personnel were killed. Subsequently the army was called in to launch a military operation in Hangu. This action was not just in retaliation for the murder of 16 FC men but also came in view of the threat of attack by four to five thousand Taliban from Orakzai and Kurram agencies.
By now the said military operation has been completed and the targets achieved to the extent that the Taliban have been chased out of Hangu. Nevertheless, they have fled to Orakzai Agency where they are regrouping and preparing for future attacks.
The NWFP (Pakhtunkhwa) government is in a quandary. It has to call in the army whenever armed lashkars threaten to overrun a district as the police force simply does not have the capacity to fight an ever-expanding insurgency.
After Swat the army has also been deployed in Hangu. In view of the militant sanctuaries situated nearby, the army cannot be withdrawn in the near future. Imagine if the story is repeated in other vulnerable districts. Will the army also have to be deployed in all these other districts? Will such measures not bring the existence of the civilian provincial government into quest
Posted by hartal at 08/07/2008 @ 12:18pm
Will such measures not bring the existence of the civilian provincial government into question?
Is it not amazing that in spite of such high stakes the presidency that has a monopoly over governance in Fata seems to show no anxiety over the prevailing situation? It is continuing with the policy of keeping Fata a black hole where terrorist groups from across the globe run their bases. It is still a no-go area for the media and civil society, and so far there is no corrective measure or policy change in sight. So much so that we have failed to take even the most preliminary step of extending the Political Parties Act to Fata.
It is only natural that we are perturbed when attacks are launched from across the border. But should we not be equally sensitive to the loss of our sovereignty over Fata to militant groups? Strangely enough we do not seem to be bothered about the militants' total control of Fata. When the international media carries reports about this situation we dismiss them as enemy' propaganda against Pakistan. We have failed to grasp the fact that in the post-cold war world there is a universal consensus about two things. One, that all assault weapons that can be used for launching a war cannot be allowed to be kept in private possession. Two, that no state will allow the use of its soil by non-state players against another state. The entire world is astounded by our fixation with the cold war mode. We have developed an incredible capacity to live in unreality. This is indeed dangerous for any state system but it can be catastrophic for a state dancing in a minefield.
Posted by hartal at 08/07/2008 @ 12:19pm
Where does all this leave the people of Fata? They are victims and not perpetrators as some people would like us to believe. They are in fact in triple jeopardy. Firstly they are groaning under the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) of 1901. They have no access to the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan since they are not justiciable outside of the jurisdiction of the higher judiciary.
Secondly the tribal belt has almost been occupied by foreign and local militant organisations that are better equipped, better trained and better financed than the local population. More than 160 tribal leaders have been killed by terrorists in North and South Waziristan who operate with total impunity. Today's Fata is not dissimilar to the Taliban and Al Qaeda controlled Afghanistan before 9/11.
Thirdly, the people of Fata get caught in the crossfire between militants and security forces from both sides of the Durand Line. The so-called collateral damage has seen a cancerous growth in Fata. The people of Fata have lost the support and protection of the state. They have no access to the media, courts and hospitals or to humanitarian assistance. The only intervention by state players takes place through their armies and air forces in which people of the tribal area are mostly on the receiving end.
For any informed and sensitive Pakistani, the situation in the tribal area is the top-most priority when it comes to policy formation and implementation. We must realise that the question of dismantling militant sanctuaries in Fata and taking short-term and long-term measures to open up the area and integrate it with the rest of the country needs urgent national attention if we are to avoid the impending catastrophe.
Posted by hartal at 08/07/2008 @ 12:20pm
Posted by hartal at 08/07/2008 @ 12:20pm
Looks like you are right about the Pakistan situation. I don't see Musharraf just idly stepping aside while they impeach him. Pakistan looks like it's on the verge of imploding.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 08/07/2008 @ 1:53pm