Calling Crap Crap: Part 2, Pakistan

From the folks who brought you the Iraq War:

We do not intend to be fear mongers. Pakistan’s officer corps and ruling elites remain largely moderate and more interested in building a strong, modern state than in exporting terrorism or nuclear weapons to the highest bidder. But then again, Americans felt similarly about the shah’s regime in Iran until it was too late. Moreover, Pakistan’s intelligence services contain enough sympathizers and supporters of the Afghan Taliban, and enough nationalists bent on seizing the disputed province of Kashmir from India, that there are grounds for real worries. The most likely possible dangers are these: a complete collapse of Pakistani government rule that allows an extreme Islamist movement to fill the vacuum; a total loss of federal control over outlying provinces, which splinter along ethnic and tribal lines; or a struggle within the Pakistani military in which the minority sympathetic to the Taliban and Al Qaeda try to establish Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Now I would be way, way out of my league to suggest that I know anything about Pakistan, but I do believe I can responsibly point to what sounds like crap to me and share that with my (small but loyal) band of readers.

"We do not intend to be fear mongers." This is completely disingenuous. Fear is exactly what Kagan and O'Hanlon mean to sow. That's how the architects of the Iraq War cowed a traumatized nation into happily supporting whatever the next thing was after capturing Osama, never mind that that mission is as yet incomplete.

In 2003 it was WMD, vials of white powder and the off-handed idea that, if Saddam didn't go, there'd be no telling what American target might next fall victim to (generally Islamic) terrorism. Now it's a fear of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, fear of an "extreme Islamist movement" that would fill the power vacuum in a destabilized Pakistan, fear of Taliban and Al Qaeda sympathizers who would turn the country into a state sponsor of terror (as opposed to being merely a safe haven for terrorists), fear of a resurgent, post-Cold War Cold War, wherein "we are both safer, day to day, and in greater peril than before."

What? Don't worry, we're safe, but worry, because we're in more danger than ever? The American military industrial complex has been looking for a Cold War since the Cold War ended, and it's not enough to have opened up a 30 years' quagmire in Iraq, there's got to be an imminent threat beyond. And what does this mean: "But then again, Americans felt similarly about the shah’s regime in Iran until it was too late." Is this for real? Don't forget, we supported the shah until we didn't, just like we'll support Musharraf until we won't, and then we'll remind everybody how fragile and dangerous we've been saying Pakistan is all along? WTF?

I read this op-ed after reading Kevin Drum's post about the decision by the New York Times to run a story this Saturday on U.S. efforts over the past six years to protect Pakistan's nuclear weapons. The post itself is pretty unremarkable, but this exchange in the comments section between the author and a reader strikes me as extremely relevant:

The question is: why did the White House suddenly decide it wanted this information public? I figure it's because they were taking heat for not helping secure Pakistan's nukes and got tired of it. And as we all know, this administration feels that selectively leaking classified info is perfectly OK if it's politically useful to them.

I'm going to go out on a limb and take Kevin's line of thinking one step farther. I get the feeling, after reading the Kagan and O'Hanlon piece, that we'll hear more in the coming days and weeks about threats to the security of the Pakistani arsenal, and therefore threats to American security at home and abroad. Keep in mind the order of events, as we now know them, from 2003. The government had already decided to invade Iraq and topple Saddam. They just needed an appropriately alarming reason to get the mainstream establishment on board with the idea of going to war: to wit, WMDs. And if Americans thought that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11, so much the better.

As far as I can tell, this op-ed reeks of specifically vague, intentionally confusing, inflammatory rhetoric aimed to soften up the ground, as they say in Washington (they say it on the West Wing, anyway) for whatever decisions about the Middle East and South Asia that have already been cooked up. Now we read that the U.S. plans to arm Pakistani tribesman against Al Qaeda in an effort control the long border with Afghanistan, and it all starts to make sense to me. Well, it doesn't make sense, but I see a pattern emerging.

Let's assume the U.S. government has already been arming Pakistani tribesmen, and pretty soon it's going to be obvious that nobody has any idea where all that U.S. equipment has gone or who's using it against whom. Now we've got a real problem, because not only do a lot of different interests want to get their hands on some real and confirmed weapons of mass destruction, but we also can't say for sure that they won't use American military inventory to gain their objective. The U.S. may have
to do something, militarily, and the public isn't going to like it, seeing what a mess has been made already in Iraq.

I do not want to suggest that instability in Pakistan is not a terrific problem, and one that we have to consider against the backdrop of an increasingly messy Middle East. There are countless splinter groups, jihadists, and, I fear, a growing number of capable guerrilla armies (with great equipment!) drawn along sectarian lines, not to mention sovereign nations, that desperately want to get at what's cached in Pakistan's nuclear bunkers. I just want to encourage extreme care and thoughtfulness as we evaluate our news sources--and op-eds masquerading as news sources--and that as a nation we manage to learn from the lather whipped up in advance of the Iraq invasion in 2003. I do not know what the specific motivation is behind the Kagan/O'Hanlon op-ed, but it requires a healthy skepticism to discern the smoke from the fire, a skepticism I think it is incumbent upon us to read with today.

Disconnect? What Disconnect?

John McCain on the campaign trail:

“I was the only one, the only candidate for president of the United States on either side” who fought to change course by providing more troops, he told voters in Iowa this week.

“I did everything in my power to try and change that strategy,” he said, referring to the course originally set by President Bush. “I was severely criticized by other Republicans for being disloyal. I said we had to have the strategy we are using now.”

Meanwhile:

Six U.S. troops were killed when insurgents ambushed their foot patrol in the high mountains of eastern Afghanistan, officials said Saturday. The attack, the most lethal against American forces this year, made 2007 the deadliest for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.

[snip]

The six deaths brings the total number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 101, according to a count by the AP. That makes this year the deadliest for Americans here since the 2001 invasion, a war initially launched to oust Taliban and al-Qaida fighters after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, but one that has evolved into an increasingly bloody counterinsurgency campaign.

The death toll mirrors the situation in Iraq, where U.S. military deaths this month surpassed 850 [on the year], a record high since the 2003 invasion there.

Emphasis mine. Baghdad may be slightly better off for the increased troop presence, but the rest of Iraq has long since spiraled out of control, the US is arming every side of the conflict, northern Iraq, previously the most stable area of the region, seems poised to deteriorate into instability amid the Turkish/Kurdish conflict, and the Taliban continues to prove resurgent in Afghanistan. Plus the opium trade is back up. McCain sounds as out of it and politically toxic as Joe Lieberman.

"have u forgotten"

Just read this 2005 post from BubbainGE on a message board at, of all places, DodgeDakotas.com. I haven't decided whether to laugh it off or not.

You sound intelligent, so I assume that you have at least a BA. You're posting on a Dodge Dakota website, so I can also assume that you didn't end up here by chance, thus eliminating the theory that you drive a 1975 Chevy Nova. I see your posts on here quite regularly, so you probably don't have to use the public library computers. You were probably a decent guy at one time, so we'll give you the benefit of the doubt & blame it on some extremist college professors.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I don't agree with all of the Bush policies. In fact, I don't think that whole area is worth the life of one American. But, I am obligated as a service member to go if the boss said to go, or else there's going to be some form of punishment. It's just like any other employee/employer relationship, but with a bit higher stakes. Now, you've made it pretty clear that you could care less that some of our boys are working on their 3rd time to the sandbox, but why only concern yourself with the ones coming back dead or missing limbs? I'd hate to even think that you're one of the guys sitting behind their computers at work or home with one of the little death toll counters clicking away every time a Marine gets killed because of an IED. Well, I've had my say, & I'm sure you're going to call me some foul names. That's OK. I've been cussed before & know it doesn' hurt.

Be sure to scroll down through the various posts on the subject, or else you'll miss the part where the discussion deteriorates into truckstop men's room graffiti quality rhetoric (look for Big Ed).

US Arms to Sunni Fighters

As if US efforts in Iraq weren't frustrating enough already, news that we're arming both sides of a conflict that didn't exist before we ousted Saddam, dismantled the existing political, military and social structures and specifically picked the side that was politically convenient to American interests in the region (narrowly), comes as little surprise. The problem, however, is that these decisions of convenience don't remain convenient for long.

As the New York Times points out,

Americans officers acknowledge that providing weapons to breakaway rebel groups is not new in counterinsurgency warfare, and that in places where it has been tried before, including the French colonial war in Algeria, the British-led fight against insurgents in Malaya in the early 1950s, and in Vietnam, the effort often backfired, with weapons given to the rebels being turned against the forces providing them.

Not only has our government put US troops between warring factions, but we're now arming both sides of the conflict. How long until Sunni fighters level US-provided weapons against the largely Shiite government our troops are supposedly ensconced in the region to protect? Tell me again how we're supporting the troops?

Troop Funding Spin

Glenn Greenwald, picking up on Jonathan Alter (who was picking up on Greenwald in the first place) helps clarify the most important aspect of political spin success enjoyed by the White House and Republican Party vis-a-vis funding the Iraq war:

Both of the premises which Alter sets forth here are correct: (a) de-funding does not even arguably constitute "endangerment or abandonment of the troops," but (b) "Americans have been convinced that it does." And therein one finds what is the most extraordinary and telling fact of our political landscape. Namely, our Iraq war policy was just determined, in large part if not principally, by a complete myth: that de-funding proposals constitute an abandonment or, more ludicrously still, "endangerment" of the troops.

Emphasis mine. This is another in a series of "wins" the White House has enjoyed over Democratic leaders, despite the overwhelming returns of the 2006 mid-term election that turned the country blue. No matter what the public polls say, no matter how elections turn out, the White House and Republican leadership have simply been able to reduce the matter most effectively to a visceral level. Until the Democratic leadership finds a way to counter this, owning the intellectual high ground will continue to prove meaningless. Despite huge losses in Congress due to widespread corruption, cronyism and moral failure, Republicans still manage to hang on to the moral high ground, absurd as it may be, when it comes to the war.

Greenwald's whole post is here. It's a good one.

More on Republicans and the War

More today to suggest that Republican lawmakers, as a whole, do not want to stay in Iraq but simply want to stay in power. From Think Progress.