A new proposal for the Pakistani crisis:
A new and classified American military proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, American military officials said.
Is there any crisis, worldwide, in which our ultimate solution is NOT to arm random groups of people with weapons that we all know will not be tracked and will undoubtedly end up being used against us in our next glorious struggle?
Seriously.
*** Update ***
The big $64,000 question for me has to do with “blowback.”
Given the cost of our grand adventure in Iraq, which I foolishly supported, shouldn’t that be the $2.4 trillion question?
Although I hear the Pakistanis will greet us as liberators and the inevitable war will pay for itself.
The Other Steve
Hey, that’s my solution for stabilizing Detroit!
les
It’s government by NRA–if everyone has enough weapons, everyone will be polite. Or sumthin.
4tehlulz
So is the Pentagon is looking to overthrow Musharraf? Because that will be the eventual result of this policy.
Svensker
No.
AEOSATSQ h/t Atrios
28 Percent
Only if you are not a liberal then you’re solution is to use “international institutions” so called to apply sanctions and send a lot of blue helmets and black helicopters in to act as “peacekeepers” so called. So much more macho (that was sarcasm in case you didn’t notice)
Thanks for playing, John. Try again when you’re ready to talk the language these people RESPECT again!
jcricket
I dunno John – I’m increasingly troubled by the whole “we need simple answers” that modern politics has turned into. The whole idea of being an intellectual, an elite thinker, has been derided so much (by the media, by Republicans, by “the average American”) that I wonder if Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” isn’t spot-on.
This shit is complicated, sometimes requiring years of diplomacy, two-steps forward/one-step back kind of stuff. We simply can’t keep going around blustering our way into stuff.
And if Republicans insist on being the party of bluster, we’re all going to be continually screwed (and not in a good way, but by one of those machines that can’t be shut off).
Zifnab
Government subsidized military. The US Government is now the premier weapons supplier and arms dealer in the Muslim world. As. Intended.
We sell F-16s to Pakistan and Iran. We sell M-16s to Iraq and Afghanistan. We sell MWRAPs to the US Army and C-4 to the Sadr militias. And its all bought with 50 cents on every one of your income tax dollars. Happy fucking birthday.
America, land of the fatted calf. Don’t ask silly questions next time you wonder why we’re getting butchered.
Cinderella Ferret
Touche! The Other Steve beat me to it. John you are correct. Continuing the same behavior and expecting a different outcome? It worked great in Afghanistan. Just imagine how peaceful Iraq will be once we finish training and arming all the factions. Woo hoo! Can you say vacation on the Euphrates?
If we must send aide overseas then why don’t we buck up the public education system and make sure Pakistani teachers get paid. Then Pakistani parents won’t feel as though sending their kids to madrasas is the only option.
guyermo
yes, there is. As far as i know, this administration’s plan to combat global warming involves no actual combat, arms proliferation, or even spitballs.
norbizness
That’s not classified, that’s the plot line for Rambo III.
sparky
Well, SOMEBODY has to buy last year’s models from our military-industrial complex. That way we can finance our purchase of this year’s models….
Come to think of it, I guess it’s a good deal for them, since unlike the hapless American citizen, those folks don’t pay for guns. We can give them, loan them, or ahem, lose them. But no fear, for whichever way they get there, the dunces in the US of A will continue to foot the bill. Just think of it as Cheney’s invisible hand.
Dennis-SGMM
It worked out well with OBL and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Besides, if we don’t arm shaky characters for temporary advantage then whom will we be able to waterboard in the future?
alphie
Killing brown people is America’s 2nd largest industry (health care is number one).
Why shouldn’t the government work on expanding exports for the only American industry that still has foreign markets?
Just be happy they aren’t working on increasing domestic markets for it(yet).
Dennis-SGMM
yes, there is. As far as i know, this administration’s plan to combat global warming involves no actual combat, arms proliferation, or even spitballs.
That’s because it involves no action whatsoever.
Dreggas
All we need now is Bush saying to the terrorists “You can run…but you can’t hide” oh, wait….dead or alive or something.
I am really beginning to understand why Reagan was so damn bad in so many ways I mean, stingers…High-powered Barrett sniper rifles….to the afghans…to fight the Russians…
On a lighter not Tom DeLay and Ken Blackwell have teamed up to form a new conservative group The Coalition for a Conservative Majority, this is not to be confused with the groups Americans for a Conservative Majority or Texans for a Conservative majority as both groups are, to use an anonymous quote “Splitters”.
Oh and as for Huckabee…for states rights before he was against it
4tehlulz
I thought it involved waterboarding Mother Nature.
guyermo
actually, mother nature will be the one waterboarding us as we lose NYC and Florida gets circumcised due to rising sea levels.
ThymeZone
No.
SATSQ protocol.
Dreggas
Ok I hadn’t read the full article on Huckabee before posting…man so much material to work with regarding Chuck Norris…..
“I’m Mike Huckabee, Chuck Norris’ bitch, and I approve this message…and so does my Daddy Chuck.”
Evinfuilt
As long as we give away last years models, we’ll need newer and better weapons to defeat them.
We need better fighter jets because we sold our formerly best jets to Iran. Heck, didn’t we just sell them spare parts accidentally/illegally.
Billy K
Arms is the only thing we manufacture any more in our “service economy.”
Cyrus
You forget the outsourcing. A fair amount of pork is generated this way, but there are no dead Americans, no massive number of American spouses and children and siblings living in tents in distant countries with unfamiliar food, etc.
Well, actually, it did (disclaimer: I’m only 25, so what do I know). The encroaching foreign power really did get kicked out of Afghanistan, leaving behind something vaguely resembling local autonomy. If you assume that getting the USSR out of Afghanistan was good — we can argue about its necessity in hindsight, but as I understand, it seemed like a good idea at the time — then arming local rebel groups worked. The mistake was forgetting about them for the next 10 years despite humanitarian crises, ignoring counterterrorism warnings, little things like that. And just because this strategy worked to get the USSR out of Afghanistan, doesn’t mean at all that it’s a good way to get militant groups out.
Dreggas
Now’s your last chance to save on all ’07 shoulder launched missiles. Hurry now Ramadan is just around the corner!
Tsulagi
What could possibly go wrong?
I’ll use a blockquote I just put in the previous “Raising Gas Prices” post to illustrate…
See? It’s a template for success.
Tax Analyst
Well, sometimes the neo-cons want to bomb people back into the Stone Age. That’s a whole lot different than arming them.
I’m not quite sure which method is considered the more “compassionate response”. But I could probably pick one if I were waterboarded, I suppose.
Rudi
This solution is better that the latest warmongering from O’Hanlon and Kagan in the NYT. The more war crowd now has it’s eyes on Pakistan. Lets arm the Terminator and Rambo, they’ll fix it all. War drums beat for more neocon war in Pakistan.
Johnny Pez
If the only tool you’re willing to use is a hammer, then you have to pretend all your problems are nails.
Bubblegum Tate
America to the Rescue! “Oh, billions of dollars…is there no problem you can’t solve?”
The Other Andrew
I’m more than a bit creeped out by the implications of this. I try not to be unrealistically conspiracy-minded, but, we have puppets in place in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re under the covers with Saudi Arabia, we’re checking out Iran, we may be moving against Pakistan…please, god, let all of that be a coincidence, and not some sort of endgame.
Dreggas
Armageddon style?
Rick Taylor
Ron Paul is looking better and better.
4tehlulz
Instability is not a means to an end for these people. It is an end in itself.
The more I observe this administration in action, the more I think they just do shit for the lulz.
jcricket
I bring you your regularly scheduled George Orwell quote:
Delia
Interesting question once the dollars become worth less than the paper they’re printed on.
Long ago, in the days of my innocence, I had this idea that the leaders of great empires were, you know, competent, maybe even intelligent, that they wouldn’t do obviously stupid things like sell deadly weapons to any goofball who came down the street claiming they could control the rowdies in their neighborhood. I thought the people who controlled great empires knew stuff about strategy and history and not making the same mistake ninety times in a row.
Obviously I was wrong. Great empires accumulate for whatever reasons, and then eventually the idiot children come to control them and run them into the ground.
Zifnab
Power Corrupts. And Unlimited Power is kinda cool.
You seem to be missing the point, though. Our government was a failure, but it was far from incompetent. It set out to seize power in Iraq. And it did. It set out to drop taxes, curdle government programs, and redistribute wealth to its political investors, and it did. It sought to roll back civil liberties at home, and it did.
From a certain perspective, this administration was an unmitigated success. Unfortunately, it was a bit too open-handed, and the people it governed did not appreciate its successfulness (for some reason). The master stroke in 1984 was the indoctrination of those closest to the levers of power. The Republicans failed in creating nationwide hegemony, because they did not successfully distribute the proper amount of kool-aid to the requisite number of people. So while they’ve still got their stalwart 24%ers, they lack the magic 51% necessary for a permanent majority.
People look at this administration and think – “Oh! They failed to uphold all those conservative principles about small responsible government and social values and blah blah blah.” Bullshit. They failed to convince enough people that those were their values, and that’s where they done fucked up.
AkaDad
FTFH
Words matter.
WE ALL FALL DOWN
Welcome to ARMageddon!
Kathy
John,
That is the absolutely and totally most brilliant blog title for the subject matter I have ever seen. There should be a Best Blog Post Title category in the Koufax Awards and you should get it for that one.
And btw, I stole it. :-)
Jon H
It’s the Bush variant of the Clinton strategy. Instead of lobbing cruise missiles at Bin Laden’s tent, Bush’s approach is to drop pallets of cash.
Though at this point Al Qaeda might actually reject US dollars.