It would be wrong to call this a civil war. Accurate, but wrong. Better not to talk about it at all.
A senior Pakistani government official has urged residents of the Swat valley to flee the troubled region in the northwest where a peace deal with Taliban appears to be crumbling amid intense fighting.
Khushal Khan also said that the authorities in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) had issued an appeal for help to house tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting between government troops and Taliban fighters in Buner.
I mean, just because Taliban fighters want to institute their own radical and brutal version of Sharia law and are killing official government forces and civilians whenever they feel like it is no reason to get concerned about the future of a country with ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons in its arsenal.
And raising questions about the stability of Pakistan’s government? That is so over the top. It is undoubtedly a direct violation of Pakistani sovereignty even to mention it. Better to just give their government the military aid it wants without any questions asked.
Zardari is in the United States preparing for talks with Obama on Wednesday, hoping to secure a massive US aid package to better equip the military and boost development in his cash-strapped nuclear power sector.
I think we should just approach the situation in Pakistan in exactly the same way we former Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Bernanke handed out money to failing financial institutions in the closing days of the Bush administration: just give them the money and don’t ask for any reassurances about anything. In particular, we have no right to inquire about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons or exactly how US aid money will be distributed. For example, it’s not President Obama’s job to insist that we receive a quid pro quo for funding Pakistan’s military and its nuclear program, after all. What’s the phrase I’m looking for to describe how we should conduct our foreign relations with Pakistan? Oh yes: Don’t ask, don’t tell.
I mean, to do otherwise would be so uncivilized. Better that Pakistan fall into chaos risking either (1) a nuclear conflagration with India (worst case) or (2) transfer nuclear technology to terrorists or (3) creating a terrorist haven for Islamic extremists like the ones who attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001 and killed hundreds in the attacks on Mumbai over the last few years (arguably already the de facto situation there) or 4) all of the above, than we attempt to influence the situation to prevent such outcomes.
Then again, we could actually try to take steps that lessen the risk of these potential catastrophic scenarios. Stuff like this perhaps:
[I]n the past month Pakistan suddenly has seemed to tip toward collapse as the Taliban rapidly expanded toward Islamabad while the country’s army and weak civilian government dithered.
This is the sort of trouble U.S. administrations have often ignored until it was too late — as in neighboring Iran before its Islamic revolution. So it’s been notable how quickly how many senior Obama administration officials have concentrated on Pakistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has almost camped out in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of Pakistani army commander Ashfaq Kiyani, visiting twice in the past month alone. President Asif Ali Zardari has been invited to Washington this week for a trilateral summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The administration organized a pledging conference in Tokyo three weeks ago that raised $5.5 billion in new civilian aid for the government. It is meanwhile talking to Congress about quickly approving $400 million in training money for Pakistani security forces fighting the Taliban, in addition to the billions in military and economic aid in future budgets.
Admittedly, Obama’s efforts may fail. American power to influence events for the benefit of all nations and peoples involved in the region, including Pakistanis, is severely limited these days. And I do not agree that continued predator drone flights over Pakistani territory is a prudent action, even in areas controlled by the Taliban. However, to stand idly by and watch Pakistan disintegrate when the consequences of such a catastrophe would cause far more harm to the people living there, much less increasing the risk to our own security and to the security of the world at large, seems far more foolish in my opinion. In the past we have turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s support for Islamic extremists and terrorists, failed to halt their nuclear proliferation efforts and generally acted as a drunken sugar daddy for Pakistan’s military and intelligence forces, because we calculated we needed their support as an ally in the Cold War. Well, the Cold War is over, and regardless of how one assesses past US involvement and interference in Pakistan (bad when we supported dictators like Musharraf, good when we prevented a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan in the mid 90’s), the “do nothing” approach is not really a viable option. That is essentially what Bush did for the most part over the last eight years.
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Three of the most dangerous Taliban leaders in Pakistan, once arch-enemies, have formed an alliance that could threaten thousands of American troops set to arrive across the border in Afghanistan this year.
Maulvi Nazir, one of the leaders of the newly established Council of the Mujahedeen Union, said U.S. troops in Afghanistan were “absolutely” the group’s target. “We have readied suicide bombers for them, they cannot escape us.”
“We, Baitullah, Hafiz Gul Bahadur [the third commander] and all our friends reached the conclusion that organizations have created mistrust and discrimination among us — the CIA, Mossad, and especially Pakistani organizations,” he told an ABC News cameraman, referring to the American, Israeli, and Pakistani spy agencies. “All these divisions, cracks and mistrust were created by the enemy. Baitullah, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and I understood this and reached this conclusion and put all differences aside and united against the enemy.”
Pakistan Taliban suspends gov’t talks
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."It’s depressing, we don’t even have clue where the nukes ARE. It might already be too late.
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It’s Obama’s watch now. Not just Pakistan, but also Somalia:
LONDON (CNN) — The latest video from Somalia’s al Qaeda-backed Al-Shabaab wing is as slickly produced as a reality TV show but with a startling message — complete with a hip-hop jihad vibe.
“Mortar by mortar, shell by shell, only going to stop when I send them to hell,” the unidentified voice raps on the video, which runs at least 18 minutes.
The video also shows a man reported to be Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, dubbed “The American” by al Qaeda. He apparently is now in Somalia training and counseling Somalis from North America and Europe. He speaks in American English.
“Away from your family, away from our friends, away from ice, candy bars, all those things is because we’re waiting to meet the enemy,” says the man believed to be al-Amriki.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."If the O mans requests for non- military support include funding for an increase in bible production and the attempts to increase the apparent military involvement to recruit new christian followers, we will definitely succeed in once again aiding the haters in their goals.
Oh! why can’t we ever learn?
I agree with you, Steve.
Finally rented Charlie Wilson’s War (I know, way late). There’s a great scene where he meets Pres. Zia, and when Wilson talks about how to get the weapons into the hands of the Mujahadeen, Zia presses him to just give the weapons to Pakistan, they’ll figure out how best to get them where they need to go.
Philip Seymour Hoffman gives another great performance.
Half a loaf is better than losing the Nukes.
The Taliban are a force in a lightly populated ethnic area in the northwest and along the border with Afghanistan. That doesn’t matter to Pakistan’s rulers but it does a great deal to the U.S. military, because that same ethnic group across the border is the major ethnic group of Afghanistan. Without the massive U.S. pressure on them, the Taliban wouldn’t matter much to the Pakistani ruling class, which is dominated by two other much larger ethnic groups. Pakistan’s rulers could maintain indefinitely a live-and-let-live relationship with the Taliban. I think you’re being more than a bit overwrought with fantasies of nuclear bombs and so on. Finally, if there is some form of sharia rule, it will be not be because of the Taliban but because one of the other much larger ethnic groups gets behind a likely ‘moderate’ version of that law.
Complete lunacy indeed. Steven D you have zero knowledge about Pakistan. Hysterics can’t make up for that. Why compromise the quality of the Booman Tribune by posting uninformed rants like this that are reminiscent of the fantasmagorical posts about Iraq on right-wing sites in 2002? You are clearly rather knowledgable on financial matters, but this stuff is just ridiculous.
Pretty amazing that you draw the conclusion that America military adventure can once again save the day.
Pretty crazy assumption after the history of U.S. meddling in the region has probably made the region less stable rather than more stable.
I also love the standard American Exceptionalism from the author wherein he fantasizes that if America would have only intervened in Iran we could have imposed a leader we like on the country.
But hey, meet the new Democrats. Itching to start their war so they can get their popularity bump and prove once and for all they ain’t no wimps and will mess stuff up just as good as Bush.
Makes me highly suspiciuous of this “reporting” that we just have to act in Somalia and Pakistan. Makes me wonder who in the military is pushing these stories.
I’m not surprised at all by the usual Democrats (and Obamabots) falling hook line and sinker for the same ol American Dogs of War always itching to get into a fight.
You get them tiger.
Go spread your freedom to Pakistan and Somalia this time. The World will see your hearts are pure and your bombs are righteous. I’m sure you’re getting all the right information and while American bombs in the Middle East haven’t worked for decades, if ever (contrary to that drivel you cited), it will probably work this time and America will defuse that ticking nuclear bomb in Pakistan and we can save those people in the process–all simply by bombing them and invading their country (soverienty? Ha. That’s for wimps)! Good idea.
Bombs away . . . .
What I find most amusing about Steven’s recent two Pakistan posts is that when one points out to him that rhetoric like his is the classic rhetoric of military intervention he gets all doe-eyed and claims, like Norman Bates, that he is too peaceful to even hurt a fly.
The truth is the imperialist mind-set is so deeply wired into the collective mindset of the US that, when the chips are down, bleeding heart libruls aren’t all that different from their right-wing brethren: once the clamored-for intervention occurs the so-called conservative is overtly triumphalist whereas the so-called liberal piously sighs “I wish we didn’t have to do that but what choice do we have”.
It is incredibly irresponsible and incendiary. And sad.
Americans are stuck in this dysfunctional relationship. As you point out, the right-winger beats his chest, demands blood, and calls anyone that wants anything less a wimp that doesn’t want to protect America.
Instead of standing up to these immoral bullies the Democrats cower in fear and adopt the same bullying by beating the kids or the dog when the abusive husband isn’t around.
I fear really bad things in the next few years. Obama has wedded the Democratic party to the interests of the bankers and popular rage at the evisceration of middle class America will be unleashed once middle-class America realized that the Democrats and the Republicans conspired with the bankers over 30 years to absolutely sucker them into oblivion. Obama and the Democrats will do everything they can to hide this obvious reality and create smoke about their intentions. And the like Bush found, one of the easiest ways to distract the American people from a corporatist agenda that harms the vast majority of Americans is to find a scary brown enemy on another continent to go and kill.
The Democrats are such mealy-mouthed cowards they will gladly follow the Generals into another war–either to hunt “pirates” in Somalia or to “tie up loose nukes” in Pakistan, or just to generally continue Bush’s War on Terrorism. The modern Democrat has to prove he’s serious by bombing some brown people.
I can’t stop this inevitable push to war as these putative “liberals”, or “progressives”, or whatever these chicken-hawk Democrats are calling themselves these days. They will have an easier time of it then even Bush because half of the Democrats will join 95% of the Republicans to rush off to save the Pakistanis from themselves by bombing them. . . With reporting such as this and the typical Democrats falling quickly into line there is no doubt in my mind we will be involved in a much bigger military adventure in a year’s time.
But it saddens me to see the only people that really can stop us from going to war so easily fall for such ridiculous bullshit (if we only would have intervened in Iran . . . .). The conservative Democrats will get their wish. They will finally exercise the Ghost of being anti-war and anti-Wall St. They will finally and totally disabuse America of any notion of that (even though the silly GOP will still call them that). They will be happy to know that they have replaced the warmongering party and the party of Wall Street with a somewhat “nicer” version of the same. As you say, at least Obama has the courtesy to pretend to care as he orders the bombing of thousands of souls in yet another country. I’m sure the targets of our bombs will not care that Obama has a pure heart and is doing it for their own good to save them from themselves.
Peres gives AIPAC their marching orders, meanwhile Iraq continues meltdown.
Israel’s Peres coaches AIPAC on Obama’s Iran policy
and:
Is Kurdistan the next terrorist state?
Some calming thoughts.
(1) The current government of Pakistan was elected and currently has the support of the military. We might not like who is involved in this deal of convenience but for now it’s pretty stable.
(2) The peace deal with the Taliban has been shown to be like bipartisanship with Republicans. It was a means by which the Taliban sought to consolidate its gains in a march on the capital. The military acted to disrupt this.
(3) The conflict in the Swat Valley is not a civil war. It is very much like Waco or Ruby Ridge, only the sectarians are al Quaeda with Taliban cover. There is no evidence that without force of arms the Taliban would have public support. The issue of the Sharia is an appeal to the public to restore “honest” courts. The logic is “If the government won’t do it, religious courts can.” The problem is in the agendas besides justice in civil disputes that the religious courts might have. Wanting Shari’a law is not the same as wanting the Taliban’s Shari’a law. Taliban activities in the Swat valley are in support of their ally al Quaeda. It is like mafia control of a state. And BTW, the local (“tribal”) leaders in this area have shown themselves perfectly capable of changing sides if it is in their interest.
(4) Pashtuns in Pakistan seek political power for understandable reasons. They are an ethnic minority in Pakistan.
(5) If the current conflict actually became a civil war in major provinces in the country, the military would have to decide what they wanted to do about the nuclear weapons and production capabilities. (a) Turn and join the Taliban. Think about the implications of that for the current Pakistani military. (b) Capitulate and turn over the nuclear arsenal to the Taliban. (c) Sabotage the nuclear arsenal and production capabilities. Unlike external attack, civil wars tend to be long drawn-out events if the rebels are successful. All three of the options are logistically possible.
(6) How long would India and China remain uninvolved in any real civil war Pakistan? Neither one has any incentive to treat the Taliban kindly, even as a tool against each other.
(7) Have we ever had a nuclear state change hands through force? Oh, yes, the collapse of the Soviet Union. So what policies have worked in that situation and how might they apply in Pakistan? An Indian-Pakistani build-down of nuclear weapons–but what about China? The US is not as directly involved as the Russian situation, and consequently has fewer interests and less leverage.
What should the US do? The best thing the US could do would be to focus on the capture of the al Quaeda operatives holed up in the Swat valley and their transport to courts in the US. That would permit the US to withdraw from Afghanistan “in an orderly fashion”. Karzai has apparently teamed up with a warlord, who might have the power to stabilize at least part of Afghanistan (but at what cost?).
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It was clear Al Qaeda leadership was offered sanctuary by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The Bush regime faltered on the war in Afghanistan and allowed Al Qaeda foreign fighters to set up shop in uninhabitable region of Kunar and Helmand provinces. The US military operation in Afghanistan was called off and let Al Qaeda slip across the border into Pakistan’s tribal region. The Taliban strongholds of Quetta (Balochistan) and Peshawar (NWFP) guarantees extremist Islamic views, madrasses and suicide bombers. Ask the United Kingdom about the terror threat and its origin. The Taliban heeft made themselves a target for the Pakistani military by the assassination attempts on ruler Musharraf and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
The nation is in turmoil and can only be united in its despise of their sole enemy India. Kashmir remains an unresolved conflict.
I’ll be happy to hear from other bloggers their insight into the Pakistan conflict. For now, I’m glad Steven D presents his views. I don’t see them as ridiculous, nor does he call for US military intervention. On the political front there is cause for concern.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."This is the sort of trouble U.S. administrations have often ignored until it was too late — as in neighboring Iran before its Islamic revolution.
Fortunately, Obama’s liberal predecessors Kennedy and Johnson didn’t ignore the “trouble” in South Vietnam. Obama must follow their example. This is America’s destiny, forever saving the world.