Wikileaks shines some light on our adventure in Af-Pak:
Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.
The documents, made available by an organization called WikiLeaks, suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.
Taken together, the reports indicate that American soldiers on the ground are inundated with accounts of a network of Pakistani assets and collaborators that runs from the Pakistani tribal belt along the Afghan border, through southern Afghanistan, and all the way to the capital, Kabul.
Much of the information — raw intelligence and threat assessments gathered from the field in Afghanistan— cannot be verified and likely comes from sources aligned with Afghan intelligence, which considers Pakistan an enemy, and paid informants. Some describe plots for attacks that do not appear to have taken place.
But many of the reports rely on sources that the military rated as reliable.
Sadly, we’ll probably spend more time being mortified at the evil unpatriotic pricks at Wikileaks who have the nerve to tell us unpleasant things than we will discussing what we are doing in Afghanistan.
Corner Stone
I’m sorry for anyone who previously did not understand this to be true.
Bnut
And how many years have many been saying this? It’s like we willfully wear blinders so when we step in the our own shit we can blame it on the other horses.
Corner Stone
BTW, there have been some attempts to discredit Wikileaks, and they may or may not have actual merit. But I have yet to see any reason I shouldn’t view their info with at least as much credibility as anything I see in WaPo or NYT.
K. Grant
I would love to be able to say that we should allow Af-Pak to let themselves fall completely into ruin. I really would. But I wonder about this, and would really like to hear what people have to say – what happens if we just get out? What happens if we simply leave and let Karzai tend to the problem?
No cant or snark, I really would like to know what happens if we pack up and go home.
Violet
Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Pakistan is the current gravedigger.
Cat Lady
More cowbell.
slag
Hmmmm….I’m not sure how much credibility this buys them.
This is unpopular to say, but Af-Pak is a conundrum for me. I have revenge fantasies about Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, so I’d like it to succeed (I simplistically measure success by Bin Laden’s capture). But I’m fairly confident that it just cannot succeed, at this point. And quite frankly, all the death and destruction needs to end. So, it seems clear that we need to cut our losses and retool.
We failed. Again. Let’s deal with that fact and move on.
General Stuck
WoW, What a shocker considering Paki ISI created the Taliban in the first place.
That fact is one of the reasons Pak is as unstable politically as it is. The Taliban are secondary in the territories there, more of a personal militia that the Pak secret services who pine for an Islamic state for Pakistan, keep well armed and fed. But there are also other factions, particularly in the east part of the country that don’t want such things. The entire country is a powder keg, with most of the poor, who are most of the country tired of all the western style bullshit corruption, and are sympathetic and worshippers of OBL and his wahabbism ideology. It won’t take all that much for it all to go south, and in a hurry. And then there is India and nuclear weapons on all sides, except the Islamists, for now.
Joe Army
That’s some interesting stuff.
Have you ever had the time to check this out:
http://www.cjtf82.com/ ?
It has been available since 2003. If you think it is so much nonsense, that’s fine, let me know and I’ll be on my merry way.
robertdsc-PowerBook & 27 titles
@K. Grant:
The Christmas and Times Square bombers show that Al Queda is a global operation and that the ostensible reason for us being there to deny them territory in Afghanistan is a bunch of poppycock.
If we left, they’d still have the ability to attack us. Throw that on top of the ineffectiveness of the Karzai government and it’s high time we left. Nothing better is going to come out of that country whether we’re there or not.
furioso ateo
@K. Grant:
Collapsed Pakistan = Somalia with Nukes.
Joseph Nobles
The papers cover 2002-2009.
Is there any wonder why the Afghan Army and police have such recruitment problems?
General Stuck
@K. Grant: Afghanistan is not really a big problem, at least for us if we disengage. The problem has always come from Pakistan, and elements that wanted to control Afghan and create an Islamist state in that country, as well as stability, with hopes of some day doing the same in Pak proper.
The command and control for this coming from elements of the Pak secret services and possible the military as well. But it has been funded largely by wealthy Arabs and others who want the same thing for this region.
Cat Lady
@General Stuck:
Maybe we can hand it off to the Chinese?
salacious crumb
The Indians for years have been pointing to the US that the ISI was sponsoring terrorist attacks within India and Kashmir. And that they were using using Afghanistan, with the Taliban as its proxy, to train suicide bombers to harass Indians and the Afghans. But the US, especially Clinton, didnt give a fuck because it wasnt American soldiers dying (of course US Presidents do give a fuck when Israelis die). Then 9/11 happened. And every fucking intelligence report on the face of this planet pointed to Pakistani military as being one of the major sponsors of the Taliban, which in turn supported Al Qaeda. remember when the Pakistani ISI operatives were caught red handed in a room full of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters (this was during the Operation Enduring Freedom). What did Bush do? he allowed the Pakistanis to secretly airlift those bastards back in to Pakistan. And then went on to lavish billions of dollars to the military, which in turn was used to buy weapons to fight India, not the terrorists.
Its not like Obama and the US military and CIA never had this information. they always had it. what have they ever fucking done with it except masturbate over it while our soldiers die in a God fuckin forsaken land? and yet we keeping pretending that the Pakistanis are sucking our dicks while all this time they are the ones fucking us in the ass. HARD.
I am really beginning to lose confidence in Obama. he is not turning out to be what he had presented himself as in the election. First he surrounds himself with pro corporate Goldman Sachs executives, trusts oil industry people to ‘do the right thing” until the oil spill shit really goes South, humiliates Sherrod and now is casting doubt over appointing Warren. and then there is the permanent blowing of the Pakistani dick
General Stuck
@Cat Lady: The last time atheistic commies tried that, it didn’t end well. This time though with nukes in the balance. I don’t know wtf we should do.
demo woman
BBC has a short article and I’m highlighting this passage
Hmmmm who would want to leak Iran’s involvement?
BBC’s link
Corner Stone
@salacious crumb:
{Klaxons blaring}
Now you’ve went and done it.
Corner Stone
@demo woman:
No shit. There was a “report” recently that IIRC stated factually that some 30% of all Taliban had received training in Iran.
The Dangerman
@slag:
Watched an interesting program on the History Channel last night called “10 Ways To Kill Bin Laden”; it surmised that the 1998 Tomhawk strikes failed to kill Bin Laden was because we told Pakistan at the very last moment that the missiles were going to be flying over their country (which we had to do, given that they could have mistaken it as a strike from India, which could have been very bad) and someone picked up the phone and told UBL to “beat feet out of town”. Of course, recall that the 98 strikes were denounced from the Right as a “Wag The Dog” given it occurred in the midst of the Lewinsky affair; well, we all know how that story ended up a few years later.
The chances are pretty much zero that we will capture UBL; we might get lucky and kill him (or he might already be dead). Apparently, not all that long ago, we were close enough that his guards were about to shoot him (since he has reportedly left standing orders not to be allowed to be taken alive). We had him dead to rights in Tora Bora, but somehow he escaped (we had yet to start our Iraq adventure, which is at the core of the problem; we HAD a legitimate cause in Afghanistan and shit it all away with Iraq). After Tora Bora, we had realtime video of a tall gentleman that looked like Bin Laden meeting with some bad guys; the poor fucker, who was apparently an innocent, made a bad choice of whom to look like (I’d be wearing a hat with “Not Bin Laden” all over it) and lost his life to a Hellfire missile. Point being, the fact that we fucked up at Tora Bora is the gift that keeps on giving.
Given that Afghanistan and Pakistan are insanely complicated, I’ll have to put my trust in Obama to figure it out. What isn’t complicated to me, however, are all of our bases around the world that we don’t need any longer now that the Cold War is dead and buried. I’d close them all except for a precious few (South Korea comes to mind).
Corner Stone
This is a straight bribe. Any questions?
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
Not really. Though I might quibble with one or two of SC’s points of obama failure, especially the part about how Obama presented himself in the election. But the comment didn’t make comparisons to Bush, nor present blaring falsehoods for same.
And it doesn’t express complete lack of support for Obama, only “beginning to lose confidence”. Though it would have been nice to include some accomplishments, but that is not required.
salacious crumb
@demo woman: There may be elements within this US administration that want war with Iran, but its not gonna happen. At least not in any conventional way that we know of. couple of reasons:
1) Hillary Clinton: remember why she got defeated in the primaries? The left in the US was incensed with her war mongering ways and her refusal to apologize for her Iraq war vote. Considering the fact that people here are preoccupied with employment and not losing their homes and their sons and daughters dying in a foreign land, Obama adding another dimension on uncertainity is not gonna wash well with at least a good section of non rabidly pro Israel Democrats.
2) Neither NYT nor Guardian (i havent looked at Der Spiegel) have released any actual proof as to what Iran has done in Afghanistan. So thats very flimsy information on as to base one’s anger on. Besides, considering that Iran can cause more trouble for us in Afghanistan, do we really need to antagonize that sleeping dog again?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
From the US interest point of view, Pakistan’s nukes ate the only reason I care about Afghanistan. I am definitely beginning to lose interest from a humanitarian POV since most don’t really want it.
demimondian
@Corner Stone: Yes.
Why does this bother you?
Yutsano
@salacious crumb:
Iran is more than likely doing what they have been doing for decades with Afghanistan: simply trading with the Afghan people and supporting them economically when possible. No doubt that gets twisted into “support” since the Iranians aren’t all that particular about who they trade with. Also keep in mind that Dari is Persian with different accents (as a good friend who’s familiar with both languages relayed to me) so there are deep cultural ties there as well. Afghanistan may not be keeping with UN resolutions regarding the Iranian sanctions, but it’s hard to fault a farmer in western Afghanistan finding a willing market with someone who speaks a similar language and has a cultural background like theirs. I get the feeling this subtlety will get lost in all the sabre rattling however.
Ron Beasley
I was in the military, Defense Intelligence Agency, when the Pentagon Papers were published. Most of us were thrilled that some light was being shined on the very dirty truth. This may be a turning point just like that was and US the politicians will be unhappy because it will make it even more difficult for them to continue to support the greedy insanity of the Military Industrial Complex.
NobodySpecial
I would think Iran is really focused on making sure whatever puppet government arises in Iraq is busy dancing to their tune rather than fucking with the US in Afghanistan.
salacious crumb
@Yutsano: agreed.
demo woman
@Corner Stone: Does that mean Fox News will stop telling scary stories about brown people in the US but instead focus on terrorists in Iran. Nukes are scary but so are gun toting monkeys. We’ll have to wait and see what Sarah says.
EDIT.. I realize that Pakistan is barely holding it together and there is a dangerous element, I just think for some Iran it the real target.
slag
@The Dangerman:
Yeah. Sadly, I’m of that mindset myself.
While I say getting Bin Laden (dead or alive, really) is a simplistic measure of success, I kind of only half mean it. It’s not about getting one guy. It’s about how hard it would be to get that one guy. Getting that one guy would necessarily mean that we had achieved a lot in terms of intelligence gathering, working with local populations, bringing government and ordinary folks from the region over to our side. Doing all that is the only way we would ever get Bin Laden or even find out if he’s dead. It’s the only way we begin to break the back of Al Qaeda. And I just don’t see it happening when we’re bombing the shit out of the people whose help we obviously need. But maybe that really is a simplistic way of looking at it.
And yes, Tora Bora makes me crazy, and the Wag the Dog nonsense just freakin pisses me off. Sorry, John Cole, it does.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
I’m sorry, but Fuck Wikileaks: especially given John is ex-military, I’d have thought he’d be a bit more concerned when someone spills the beans. Leaking classified intel was a dickhead move by the Bushies when they burned Plame, because sources *could get killed* and it’s still a dickhead move by whoever did the leaking to Wikileaks.
Corner Stone
@demimondian: Do you mean beyond the fact that we’re paying a foreign country money to not kill our soldiers all the while they conspire to kill our soldiers and we at the same time can’t discuss any fiscal incentive stateside because we are broke?
Besides that you mean?
Svensker
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Who are “most” and what don’t they want?
Yutsano
@furioso ateo: Glad to see you’re keeping your head low. :)
Corner Stone
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I know this was a typo, but IMO it’s a really good one.
burnspbesq
@salacious crumb:
Wow. You were doing ok up until that point. But that’s a fucking delusion. If you thought Obama was going to be something other than what he is, that’s on you for not paying attention.
Nick
@Sock Puppet of the Great Satan:
depends on what they’re leaking. some of this stuff is benign, some is problematic that could strain relations with Pakistan, who have us over a barrell at the moment.
but the American people couldn’t care less about transparency in this regard so this story will be dead by Tuesday.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
You mean this isn’t a moral crusade against Islamic extremism but rather a cynical geopolitical game? Nah, that can’t be it.
demo woman
@burnspbesq: Biden and Obama talked about Pakistan during the debates several times.
Corner Stone
@demo woman:
I’m considering starting a pool. Which will kill us all first, the gun toting monkeys or the ninjas who steal Pakis nukes?
I think the money line is with the monkeys.
Nick
@demo woman: and how did what they talk about lead people to believe we’d be in a different situation today?
NobodySpecial
@Corner Stone: I’ve personally got a hedge fund on getting run off the road by Facebook haters instead. Monkeys and ninjas are so last year.
salacious crumb
@burnspbesq: Sorry if for once I truly believed he was gonna be a bit different. you couldnt say that for Hillary or Kerry or Edwards. I still think he far better than some of his previous presidential counterparts in many respects but i think power is getting to his head and preventing him from making decisions that would have been considered wise when he was not President
demo woman
@Ron Beasley: Is it possible that the papers were leaked to increase the scope of the war? That’s my fear.
Svensker
@demo woman:
Well, there’s this. And then there’s this. Not to mention this.
Will I go in moderation? Will we bomb Iran? Get me outta here!
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: The monkeys were trained and armed by the ninjas.
Svensker
Yup, moderation. I hope that’s my only correct prediction.
Davis X. Machina
There’ll be fewer than 5,000 American military in Afghanistan on election day 2012, certainly fewer Americans than there are in Korea today.
The country can’t afford it in one sense, the military can’t afford it in another way, Afghanistan and the region can’t afford it, the Democratic party can’t afford it, NATO’s already there, and the GOP can run on it by taking credit or opposing it, so they don’t care.
It’ll take that long to figure out how to leave, and the exact public reason why we’re leaving, but we’re leaving.
We’ll eventually figure out that burning down the house next door is no way to stay warm.
salacious crumb
btw, I think the excellent Seymour Hersh is coming out either tonight or next Sunday with his expose on the role of ISI in currently supporting the Taliban.
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: Why does this have to be an either/or proposition? I’m all about the monkey ninjas dude.
slag
@salacious crumb:
Normally I dismiss this kind of thinking because I tend to assume that situations are more complicated than they might appear to me. But after listening to Audacity of Hope on CD recently, I’m starting to wonder whether this explanation may indeed be the correct one. Occam’s Razor and all that.
The Dangerman
@slag:
True, but I’m of the mindset that bombing the shit out of people might convince them that helping us is the best option amongst their choices. Again, it’s all such a huge clusterfuck that I have to trust that people far smarter than I will get it right; that we left this problem to fester while we did Iraq is amongst the largest of Dubya’s failures.
The fact that it was such a monstrous fuckup makes me wonder about how UBL actually escaped (or, for that matter, if he did; I’d be far from surprised if the truth was he is a smudge in a cave someplace, but we have to keep him “alive” for some reason).
It was all about the Right regaining power; claim “Wag The Dog” or kick thousands of African Americans off the voting rolls in Florida before 2000, same song, different verse.
demo woman
@Nick: I don’t think it did. They both stated that Pakistan had elements of extremism especially on the border and that it was paramount to make sure their nukes did not fall into the hands of those extremist. At least that is what I remember and please correct me if I’m wrong.
General Stuck
@salacious crumb:
You are certainly entitled to believe what you want, but not for claiming Obama is doing anything significantly different than what he described in the campaign. Unless you have specific policies contrary to what he said he planned to do with Aghan. or Pak, or Iraq for that matter.
slag
@The Dangerman:
I hear this. It’s pretty much the source of my ambivalence. And yet, the phrase Fog of War keeps coming back to me. The best and the brightest aren’t always the best and the brightest, if you know what I mean.
Corner Stone
@The Dangerman:
I’ve never liked this formulation, in any regard. And I like it much less when people are dying.
mai naem
Seriously, get the f&ck out of Afghanistan. If Pakistan falls so be it, Its about time the other countries in the area take over. We don’t have the money or the resources to be playing policeman in every f#cking area in the world. China is running ahead making friends all around the world, stashing away IOUs in natural resources while we keep on blowing our money in Afghanistan, Iraq, NK and god knows where else. And if Pak has nukular weapons let them fire them. If they fire them, you bomb them to kingdom come and you are done with them. After all we have second capability several times over and nobody would question the US bombing Pakistan in retaliation. BTW, this is assuming that Al Quaeda etc. are made up of a bunch of idiots.
salacious crumb
@General Stuck: what exactly has he done vis-a-vis Pakistan and their military? during the campaign trail, he was very clear that he believed we needed to look at Pakistan’s military’s activities in order to understand why we are not winning there. (that, and of course the fact that Bush had underfunded this war from the get go). So what tangible results does he have to show for this?
Since becoming President, what action has he taken regd pakistan and if he has, why arent we told about it? why do we have to wait for wikileaks to inform us? He could apply diplomatic and other pressures on pakistan, ban the travel of their leaders and make them a pariah state. yes the Pakistani leaders would get mad and threaten to really help the Taliban and make the world a much worse place but how is different from whats going on now? on Pakistans nukes?
Alan in SF
“Being mortified” at leakers is so Bush Administration. Obama will hunt them down and throw them in prison.
General Stuck
@slag: No doubt. But i wouldn’t describe it as getting the power causes bighead, more like the unfathomable pressure and uniqueness of actually sitting in the Oval Office being leader of the free world, rather than not. I am sure that it would be a struggle for anybody to keep that kind of power from going to ones head, but I don’t see that as a big motivator for Obama, and I suspect Michelle has something to do with that.
He said he was going to support efforts by the US to be involved in Afghan/Pak, and the fact he has now decided to fix an end date to our ground war there , belies claims he is power hungry or a warmonger. The nukes and the specter of another 9-11 are the likely motivators, both of which, if the worse happened from us pulling up and leaving entirely, would be the end of his presidency, and likely that for any democrat for a long time. Not saying those are noble reasons or not, but they are reasons.
Yutsano
@slag: Actually I find that to be an easy dismissal of disappointment. Obama is not the government. He is not a dictator. I know people thought Bush snapped his fingers and things just happened for him but that wasn’t entirely true, he just had a meaty club to use called 9/11. I’m disappointed in Obama in several ways. I also get that the pressures of campagining and authoring pale to what he’s dealing with now. Or I’m just an optimist who focuses on the accomplishments.
slag
@Alan in SF:
Tell that to Valerie Plame.
The Dangerman
@Corner Stone:
I don’t like it either, but AfPak – actually, for that matter, everything in one big circle roughly defined by the 3 points of Somalia, Lebanon, and Pakistan – is enough of a mess that I have no choice but to believe that someone who knows more than I do will get it right. Actually, since “getting it right” hasn’t happened for decades (or, for that matter, millennia, depending on how you measure success), I’d be happy for something roughly appearing like progress to me.
General Stuck
@salacious crumb: Wikileaks didn’t tell us anything that was unknown. The basic pol situation in Pak has been known for a long time. It is complicated and frought with uncertainty and contervailing interests throughout the region.
Mostly because they have nukes, but also to try and keep that country from collapsing with nukes. Whether or not his policies are the right ones, or whether we should be there at all doing anything, are open for debate, but not his intention to be engaged there during the campaign and after.
If you voted for him, you voted knowing, or should have known, that we would be mucking around in that part of the world while he was president. You can still oppose him on that, but not claim he deceived you in any large way.
Alan in SF
@slag:
I should have said “whistleblowers,” not leakers, but the point remains.
Daniel Ellsberg: For Obama to indict and prosecute Drake now, for acts undertaken and investigated during the Bush administration, is to do precisely what Obama said he did not mean to do — “look backward.” Of all the blatantly criminal acts committed under Bush, warrantless wiretapping by the NSA, aggression, torture, Obama now prosecutes only the revelation of massive waste by the NSA, a socially useful act which the Bush administration itself investigated but did not choose to indict or prosecute!
Bush brought no indictments against whistleblowers, though he suspended Drake’s clearance. Obama, in this and other matters relating to secrecy and whistleblowing, is doing worse than Bush.
http://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2010/06/articles/whistleblowers-government-empl/terrorism/ellsberg-ciriticizes-obama-for-prosecution-of-whistleblowers/
jfxgillis
John:
Strangely enough, that’s not the case yet according to memorandum. For instance:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/wikileaks-pakistan-and-afghanistan-isi-intelligence
The logic I guess is this: It’s unpatriotic treason to reveal how Bush fucked up if Bush is President. But it’s a patriotic exercise in free speech if you reveal how Bush fucked up when you can blame it on Obama. Or Hillary:
http://rightwingnews.com/2010/07/hillary-in-a-bind-pakistan-aiding-taliban/
Cacti
@General Stuck:
Hear, hear.
The centerpiece of Obama’s foreign policy strategy during the campaign was the draw down in Iraq coupled with the escalation of military activity in Afghanistan.
It’s nonsensical to be mad at someone you voted for when they’re doing exactly what they said they’d do.
demo woman
@General Stuck: Ditto. I skimmed the NYTimes and The Guardian and it appears that most of the info they printed was known. I haven’t delved into the 90,000 articles on WikiLeaks yet though and probably won’t since it’s almost my bedtime.
Nick
@mai naem:
ummm, you do realize we’re talking about a nuclear power here, right?
furioso ateo
@Yutsano: Thanks, I’m back in the States now actually, get discharged in a couple months.
Corner Stone
@Cacti:
Unless you never agreed with it?
If you vote for a candidate then you’re wedded to their entire platform?
salacious crumb
@General Stuck: well I voted for him, I supported our involvement in Afghanistan, but with the expectation that he would take specific action there, especially vis-a-vis Pakistan, which I havent seen.
yes our dealings with Pakistan is complicated, but how does that help us anymore? we know they are fucking us in the rear, but yet its not all that clear to me what we are doing to address it. so is it deception on his part? I dont know. All Im saying either we get out and say Pakistan won and let them make Afghanistan their bitch or we deal firmly with Pakistan (and stop this useless obsession with Iran), Saying our dealings with them is complex and then using it as as an excuse to not do anything is not acceptable to me.
The Dangerman
@slag:
True; you remind me of the movie “The Smartest People In The Room” (and, can I just say, I hope the Enron fuckers burn in Hell). At least with The Smartest People (and, by this, I’m referring to all matters related to the economy), there is a certain level of transparency on all the complications involved in the economy. I can judge how Obama is doing on economic matters with the knowledge that I have at least a minimal grasp of the issues; with the “Best and the Brightest” issue of AfPak, I don’t know what a minimal grasp of the issues looks like.
Yutsano
@furioso ateo: Oh you lucky Dawg. Actually I’m wondering if discharge is a smart option considering the job market lately.
someguy
On the one hand, I think it’s tremendous that WikiLeaks exists, to undercut US efforts to establish hegemony over everybody else.
On the other hand, I’m going to be bummed as hell when the Pak government falls thanks to shit like this, and the ISI gives nukes to their pets in AQ, who then nuke London and NYC. That will suck. But I guess it will be a big victory for transparency or anti-colonialism or whatever.
Cacti
@Corner Stone:
Is this a serious question?
slag
@General Stuck:
Yeah. It was kind of funny listening to him talk in the book about how senators start to become desensitized to their purpose. How their behaviors on the job start to diverge from their values. Flying around in private jets was his primary example of how that process begins. And its not hard to imagine since some or all of us have probably experienced something similar at some point in time. It seems almost inevitable that desensitization of that sort would occur. Like our system’s set up to make that happen. And you would have to be almost superhuman to resist it.
So, power-hungry may not be the right word, but I think desensitization might be. Though both qualities might yield similar results.
That said, I think the change in Obama has mostly been around the margins so far. I’m generally pleased about the many accomplishments that have been made recently. Those don’t go away, and I think there will be many more to come. But I think salacious crumb is right to say that President Obama has made some decisions that Senator Obama would probably have disapproved of. Although you never know.
General Stuck
@salacious crumb: Parts of Pak is “fucking us in the rear”. Others, not so much. I don’t know all the complexities, but if our aid to them is ending up in Taliban hands, or AQ, then obviously it should stop.
And I don’t know what “specific actions” you are talking about, but am guessing they were similar to mine that got flushed down the toilet of Iraq by Bush. Obama inherited a giant mess and seems to me to be doing the best he can with an impossible situation. I agree with the end date for the ground war, as for all the intrigue in Pak, I don’t have a clue the details on that. But the gestures of aid to ordinary Pakis is a noble idea, if not naive to think it would make a big difference. But the idea that if we just left that country and region to their own devices and everything will turn up aces is made by people who have no clue of Pak history of unstable politics. I doubt our meager involvement there now is affecting that much one way or the other. But if everything turns to shit, I think it is a good idea to scoop up those nukes or render them inoperable.
slag
@The Dangerman:
I agree and find this challenging myself. I can read and dissect, but when it comes down to it, I don’t live in any of the countries we’re warring in. I don’t know what the air smells like there.
But I live in this country, and one thing I do know about this country, is that we don’t generally place a huge premium on the lives and well-being of foreign peoples. And certainly not as much of a premium as foreigners put on their own lives and well-being. So, that awareness combined with my own calculations of costs and benefits generally guides my opinions in these matters. More so than any nuanced understanding of Afghanistani-Pakistani-Iranian relations. Of course, admitting stuff like that always makes me feel like an idiot.
stuckinred
Wait till the hero Jim Webb gets wind of this.
Alex S.
I wonder whether Obama knew about the clusterfuck he got elected into. Pakistan is basically blackmailing the American people by the power of their nukes.
“If you don’t send us billions of dollars, we’ll let our government collapse and hand over power to the fanatics…”
I am not sure these leaks are a good idea. They don’t provide information the public got has to know. They don’t reveal bad governance (torture, massacres, genocide or something like that). Instead, they describe the whole hopeless situation. Logically, the next step would be to escalate the war (the leaks show Pakistan’s treason, so they are the enemy now, too) . But this new stage of the war would be even more impossible to win than before… so the only solution is retreat, and now everyone knows that it’s a retreat in face of defeat, not a self-determined choice.
Cacti
@slag:
I’d say we don’t place much of premium on the lives of even our own people.
We have the worst workers rights and healthcare delivery system in the developed world, and we incarcerate more of our citizens than any other nation on the planet.
When we look at how we take care of our own, it’s hardly a surprise that no one bats an eyelash when we incinerate hundreds of thousands of foreigners half a world away.
Cacti
@Alex S.:
Like say, Pakistan knows it’s about to fall, and so, decides to lob a nuke at India as a final FU.
Corner Stone
@Alex S.:
Who thought we were winning prior to this?
These leaks aren’t game changers. It’s not new info.
salacious crumb
@General Stuck:
ok couple of points:
a)
I suppose I disagree with that statement. The Pakistan military is a very rigidly hierarchical structure. these guys are not politicians who make fuddy duddy decisions. Pakistan, since its inception has been run by generals or has had the Army embed itself into political, economic and other aspects of the state. These guys dont make mistakes. The junior officers in the military dont make decisions on their own. Every order that is an order for a good deed or bad deed comes straight from the top. ok so maybe the civilian administration doesnt know every detail about the nefarious activities of the ISI (they never had real power anyways, even now) but the parts of the Pak military isnt fucking us in the real..the ENTIRE military is, including Gen Kayani.
b)
I am not suggesting that should we leave everything will be aces (or peaches and cream as I like to put it) but I dont see how our presence is really helping over there anymore. we keep on screwing the Afghan civilians and keep pissing them off. Our soldiers are dying as well. in my opinion, the one place we could take action is Pakistan, but it appears we are not doing a good job there either, assuming we are even doing anything with them except pretending all is peachy. And i dont think we are any closer to understanding any thing about their nukes either. So whats the point staying there? maybe im going round in circles but i think you get my point.
Im all for helping civilians, but remember at the end of the day the military calls the shots over there, and they can just as easily undo all our constructions efforts in Pakistan in order to keep the perception among Pakistanis that the Americans never helped the Pakistani public
slag
@Cacti:
Yeah. Well, there is that.
Alex S.
@Corner Stone:
It would have made a different impression though if the troops had simply gone home just like Obama promised during the campaign. Now, everyone will know that if, or when, America withdraws, it will be so because Pakistan staged a guerilla war and paid them with american taxpayers’ money. How much more humiliating could it be?
Corner Stone
I’m sure that’s not going to come back to bite us in the ass.
salacious crumb
@General Stuck: btw, Admiral Mullen recently admitted that Pakistan has to do much more than it is currently doing. so thats good. And I have great respect for Admiral Mullen and Gen Petraeus. They are no nonsense guys who just as much want to get out of AfPak as much as the American public does and I am glad that they are taking a hard look at Pakistan. I am seriously hoping they can come up with an action plan to deal with Pakistan because Obama cant.
Alex S.
@Cacti:
It seems like Pakistan will only fall if they want to. They use that possibility as a bargaining chip.
Phoenix Woman
Remember how the Rolling Stone story mentioned some troops who were pissed off that McChrystal wasn’t letting them “get their gun on” like they used to?
Sounds like it’s back to the, ahem, good old days:
———–
The Guardian references changes to the Rules of Engagement under Gen McChrystal leading to some changes in how civilian casualties were treated though the only actual change them mention is a “new “information requirement” to record each ‘credible allegation of Isaf [the occupying forces] … causing non-combatant injury/death’.”
And they go on to note that:
That loosening may have already occurred as the BBC reports today that it looks like 45 civilians were killed in Joshani on Friday. ISAF has been claiming to know nothing about this event but a BBC reporter was nearby and has spoken to witnesses:
Corner Stone
@Alex S.:
As others will no doubt tell you, Obama campaigned on the promise to focus our efforts on The Good War ™.
Everyone always knew this. Before Obama was elected everyone knew this.
Alex S.
@Corner Stone:
Hmm, you might have suspected that, and it turned out you were right, but not “everyone” “always” knew. If everyone did, the leaks wouldn’t make the news, I guess.
schrodinger's cat
Pakistan has been a basket case since its inception. I don’t see why that should change just because of US military presence in the neighborhood.
Corner Stone
@Yutsano:
I’ve heard that about you nefarious government employee types.
General Stuck
@salacious crumb: Listen, our only two interests in Pak is OBL and his followers, and the Pak nukes. I suspect, as with about every foreign endeavor like this that there is mutual rear fucking going on.
Some of our interests coincide with those of the Pak Generals, and likely some don’t, or at least some elements and the ISI. We want Bin Laden and his buds, that is all, and to try and keep that country together and It’s nukes in sane hands. And no doubt that the first interest we have there is not helping keeping the country held together, so we get aid packages to win hearts and minds, and such. It is a mess, but I don’t see any other plan that would work better. The Wahabbists have implanted the idea of turning both Afghan and Pak into a nirvanic Islamic State, so that cat is out of the bag, or else the Pak military would not have gotten as serious as they have. Our drone attacks don’t help the situation, but the dynamic of OBL as a symbol and leader to Taliban minded and their supporters is what is fueling this shit, plus weak civilian leadership in both Pak and Afghan.
Corner Stone
@Alex S.: The “leaks” just highlight the bullet points of fucked upedness.
I don’t have ESP or a pipeline into the Paki govt.
But this wasn’t hard to determine. Years ago.
We’ve been bribing Pakistan for years for the simple fact they have nukes. Otherwise, if they didn’t agree with us we just would’ve carpetbombed the whole fucking place as is our wont.
Among many reasons this is why the warmongering talk about Iran is ratcheting back up. We don’t want them to change the balance of power further by procuring their own arsenal.
salacious crumb
@General Stuck: ok fair enough. I think I agree with you mostly and dont wanna get drawn into an argument anymore because I think the US is faced with a series of bad choices. but just to recap: my overall point was that Obama could be taking more stringent steps against Pakistan. I think your overall point is that we cant because we need to ensure Pakistan safeguards its nukes and thus we cannot afford to piss off their generals and thus have the country fall into chaos. Fair enough.
There is one point i still wanna bring up though, and i dont think it negates your overall point
I think you are giving too much credit to the Wahabbists. This is about India and Pakistan, really. Not Wahabbists. Although they too want to see what they think is the perfect version of an Islamic state over there. at the end of the day Pakistan wants to use Afghanistan as another means to conduct their foreign policy. They absolutely do not want India over there and are hoping to use it again as a training ground for Kashmiri terrorists and thus wound India with a thousand cuts (look into the 1997 hijacking of the Indian airliner from Nepal to Kabul) and you will see what im talking about. If India agreed to completely withdraw from Afghanistan and absolutely have no presence there of any sort, plus have Karzai and his northern alliance members leave Afghanistan, we will see a dramatic end to these attack on US forces because even if Taliban isnt in control, Pakistan is. and I even suspect they will find a way to give up OBL and Zawahiri to the US, of he isnt already dead. because the last thing the Pakistanis want is US intefering in Afghanistan in the event that another 9/11 style attack happens in the homeland.
Yutsano
@salacious crumb:
Wait, WHAT? India will not simply go out of Afghanistan if we ask them nicely. Perhaps they are using Afghanistan as a check against Pakistani influence but they also have a huge number of economic interests already bound up in Afghanistan (if the usage/exploitation of the massive mineral wealth ever comes to fruition India will definitely have a hand in that) so just demanding that India leave will get a huge middle finger from us. And as far as the Northern Alliance comment, where the hell are they supposed to go, Siberia? The Northern Alliance is based in the northern part of Afghanistan, and Karzai will do all that he can to keep that base satisfied until he can solidify his rule over the whole country. Plus in case you haven’t noticed the Northerners have been against the coalition forces as well, we just get the news about the Kandahar incidents because that’s where the Taliban is concentrated. So if you have some strange secret plan for making this happen I’m dying to hear it. But what you’re proposing here is at best unrealistic.
General Stuck
@Yutsano: Yea, the Northern Alliance represents about half the country of a number of ethnic tribes from the surrounding “stans”.
And I still think people underestimate the degree of support in the country of Pak for a religious state, especially among the poor. Though they may like the idea of it, likely less so if they actually lived in one.
salacious crumb
@Yutsano:
okay….
well I am not saying India should or shouldnt leave. My point is that that is what the Pakistanis want. Ok lets face it ..the Pakistanis, by any standard, have the upper hand. Ok so India may give us the middle finger, but its not like the Indians are very safe in Afghanistan either. The US will say ok fuck it we are leaving Afghanistan. then what? will the Indians be able to fend for themselves against the hordes of Taliban and Pakistanis? So as I see it the Pakistanis are making the argument to the US, you leave, put our guys the Taliban in power and make sure the Indians definitely leave. which is why the Indians are pleading with the US to not leave, because they very well know they are royally fucked once the US leaves.
also, regd Northern Alliance.. I should have said that the Pakistanis would like to Karzai and his northern alliance buddies agree to relinquish power and arms or at the very least see Karzai significantly weakened with more power resting in the arms of Taliban and Pakistan. the govt officials in karzai’s admin would leave because should Taliban take over they know they wont have any heads left once the US leaves
Yutsano
@General Stuck: Pakistan is already nominally a religious state, its very foundation was based upon the principle of separating Indian Muslims from the Hindu majority. The end result turned out to be a disaster of major proportions, especially when India got its footing in the international economy while Pakistan struggled with military dictatorship and a backwards economic model. The one good thing Pakistan has going for it is a decent educational system, but a lot of that is also based upon religious studying (witness the degree scandal sweeping the Pakistani Parliament right now) so they have soem of the fundamentals there. But they need to find their own footing and get over their paranioa that India will just subsume them. If it didn’t happen with Bangladeshi independence it won’t with Pakistan. But we all are fully aware of what having a militaristic state does for the pocketbooks of the elite.
Dr. Morpheus
@Corner Stone:
Nobody’s seriously arguing about somebody “stealing” Pakistan’s nukes. Rather their arguing that the current government may be replaced by a fundamentalist one that decides on a nuclear ‘final solution’ over the Kashmir province.
Local trouble = global suffering would be the result of even a “limited” exchange between Pakistan and India.
Nick
@Dr. Morpheus: It’s not out of the realm of possibility that a fundamentalist government won’t give a dirty bomb to a terrorist who will unleash it in downtown Kabul, a European City, or worse, Manhattan.
Or a worse case scenario, put a warhead on a ship in Karachi and sail it into New York Harbor.
I think we can all agree, even the most liberal among us, keeping nukes out of the hands of Al-Qaeda is a good thing. Right?
Yutsano
@Nick:
Yup. Which is why they don’t want nukes to go any further than the Korean penninsula. Kim Jong-Il is much more inclined to sell his weapons than Pakistan is, and that’s what really concerns the nuclear watchdogs more than anything. The only danger is if Pakistan falls to a fundamentalist government, and the military will step in if that seems like a distinct possibility. The military runs Pakistan. Anything else is window dressing.
Bill H
@Dr. Morpheus:
Actually, pretty much everybody is honking endlessly about the fear of Pakistani nukes “falling into the hands of terrorists,” and you are the first I have ever heard suggest that a Pakistani government of any shape or form might use them regarding the Kashmir issue.
Nick
@Bill H: India would be the first to go. Now, we may luck out in that India would completely destroy Pakistan before they have a chance at using them against Israel, Europe of the US, but 500 million dead people on the Indian subcontinent is not something that will go unnoticed here economically.
GregB
One more Friedman Unit and it will be all chocolate and flowers in Af-Pak.
General Stuck
@Bill H: There is a difference between thinking a band of Taliban or AQ would or could mount some kind of commando raid to steal Pak nukes, which of course is an absurd notion, especially since most of Pak nuke components are held in different locations == and the possibility that the country could form into a fundamentalist state thereby granting access to those nukes for said fundamentalists.
That is the point Morpheous was making I think.
Bnut
I have always felt that the most important part of Af-Pak was to get in good with Pakistan so when they and India have a shooting war n 10 years over fresh water, we might have friends on both sides we can talk into chilling out. But I’m also a the product of public education and the military, so take with a grain of salt, lol.
Dr. Morpheus
@General Stuck:
Yes, exactly, BTW, click the link I provided.
A nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India would result in a “nuclear fall” which would result in world-wide devastation.
Oh, and a large swathe of the Pakistan military has deep sympathies with the fundamentalist as well as the ISI, also, too.
Viva BrisVegas
@demo woman:
Iran might be run by murderous thugs, but what makes so many people believe, or at least pretend to believe, that it is run by suicidal fools.
Iran is shia, Taliban follows probably the most extreme form of sunni Islam. Before 911 they were in a low level war.
Before 911 the Taliban was undertaking a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign against shia Hazari minority.
In short, the Taliban lives to kill shia yet we are expected to believe that the Iranians would nevertheless train and support them.
Unlike some countries, I suspect given their history the Iranians fully understand the concept of blowback.
wilfred
Of course the NYT and American news agencies lead with the usual ‘Oh, the villains!” regarding Pakistan.
What? No comments about how Pakistan might have its own interests in the region? Nah.
Here’s the Guardian’s opening:
Bit of a different emphasis, no?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/25/afghanistan-war-logs-military-leaks
D-Chance.
As Atrios would say, “Document the Obamatrocities!”
Brachiator
@salacious crumb:
Grow up. It’s all nice and neat to write about the standard issue bad guys, the US military and the CIA, but the plain fact is that official US foreign policy has tilted toward Pakistan since the Cold War. That’s the entire, freaking US government, Democrat and Republican, year in and year out.
Part of the original reason for this was because of Cold War paranoia. India, which yes had a few actual communists in their government, was officially non-aligned. To the boneheads in the State Department and elsewhere, if you weren’t for us, you were against us. The Pakistan government said, “America, we’re 1000 percent anti-communist,” and thus starbursts.
Soviet rumbling in the area later helped reinforce the special relationship with Pakistan.
Now, if you foolishly believe that Obama can quickly undo decades of US policy, I got some land I want to sell you.
This also goes for anyone who thinks that the Wikileaks, as wonderful as they are, easily tells us what our foreign policy in the area should be.
The Chinese previously hinted that they would be happy to supply Pakistan with arms, no questions asked, and no pesky human rights strings, as they are currently doing with Sri Lanka.
Superpowers play by their own amoral rules. And sadly, it is a mistake to assume that if the United States is no longer a player in the region, the game will simply stop.