Taliban, Pakistan and Islamic Militants- PBS special - Page 2 - PhillyBlog

peacemover · #11 (**permalink**) 02-01-2008, 02:48 PM

Understandable. I may have indeed "interpolated several sources," as I read several 9/11 and national intel expose books around that time, including that of former Natl Counterterror Chief Richard A. Clarke, who most certainly does take Bush to task, as well as, to some degree, Clinton and Bush 41 for missing the boat on neutralizing the growing Islamic terror threat prior to a large-scale attack like what happened in New York and Washington on that fateful day.

I could have sworn that Wright at least raised the question of Bush's role in, at the very least, failing to respond effectively and forcefully to neutralize and stamp out al Qaeda during that window of opportunity in the days and weeks immediately following 9/11.

Nevertheless, the point of the thread was to discuss this important topic of great concern of the growing disorder and apparent harboring of radical militants in Pakistan today.

As to your characterization of Musharraf- sadly I would have to agree, at least in part, that he may be our best option, out of a slew of choices over in that region that range from bad to worse, to absolutely disastrous.

He would definitely seem to be playing both sides against the middle over there- lip service and half-promises to the U.S. and the west to get funding and keep our troops out of Pakistan, and appeasement of the warlords to keep them from wanting to come down out of the mountains and kick the butts of him and his military to either disrupt their already precariously delicate hold on power in the country or, worse yet, depose him in some sort of a coup d'etat.

As a matter of fact, there was another article about him in the NY Times again today about his recent meeting with European leaders:

Pakistani P.R.

Also, thanks for the book reference- I will add that to my list and check it out...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

It's the part about Wright condeming Bush. The book was pretty memorable in it's great detail right up until that Tuesday morning, and then it just stops.
Look, like I said, I only read the book and sometimes, folks have a tendency to mix sources in their memories and maybe that's what happened in your first post.
And... because some folks, have a tendency to blame Bush for everything, I figured this was another "I got a flat tire and it was Bush's fault" thread.

peacemover · #12 (**permalink**) 02-01-2008, 04:29 PM

Another thought- the tribal militias in those mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan are so hardened, tough and determined as warriors, there is no realistic way (nor is there reason to try to) defeat them.

They know the complex mountain terrain, with all of its multitude of rugged features, caves, and protections; they are brave and determined fighters, and they are not afraid to die in battle- from the youngest to the oldest. That was true of these peoples hundreds of years ago, and it is still true today. The only things that have changed are the weaponry and the flag of the imperial power that has them in its sites.

I suspect, rather, that Musharraf will be kept in power for the time being, as long as he does not directly snub his nose at the U.S. or the West. Meanwhile, I suppose we can expect to hear more reports of these predator drones "taking out" high value al Qaeda and militia leaders.

This problem cannot be solved with missiles alone, though- particularly since, as I wrote earlier, these militiamen are not afraid to die and will fight to the last man by any means necessary. Rather, such attacks, widely viewed as martyrdoms, no doubt, will probably only add to their numbers and bring in greater recruitment, as well as illicit acquisition of weaponry and funds.

Moderate leaders in the region, and not just heads of state, but civil leaders as well, need to be engaged in diplomatic dialogue, western aid needs to be provided to common citizens in these nations where poverty, poor healthcare, and lack of adequate education provides a fertile breeding ground for recruiting a new generation of terrorists and jihadis.

This will begin, I hope, with this next upcoming election by electing new leadership who will strengthen America's tarnished image in the world community, build bridges to other nations and cultures beginning with solid diplomacy and scaling back (rather than further expanding or making permanent) our grossly over-extended military involvement in Iraq among other places.

Tannhauser · #13 (**permalink**) 02-01-2008, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peacemover

Understandable. I may have indeed "interpolated several sources," as I read several 9/11 and national intel expose books around that time, including that of former Natl Counterterror Chief Richard C. Clarke, who most certainly does take Bush to task, as well as, to some degree, Clinton and Bush 41 for missing the boat on neutralizing the growing Islamic terror threat prior to a large-scale attack like what happened in New York anbd Washington on that fateful day.

It's a problem endemic to anyone who reads a lot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peacemover

Another thought- the tribal militias in those mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan are so hardened, tough and determined as warriors, there is no realistic way (nor is there reason to try to) defeat them.

My understanding is that's the conclusion the Brits drew when they carved Pakistan out of Indian Empire. Honestly, it's so rugged, that I don't even think nuking it would have a desired effect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peacemover

Nevertheless, the point of the thread was to discuss this important topic of great concern of the growing disorder and apparent harboring of radical militants in Pakistan today.

I believe it was the morning after Bhutto's assasination, Bill Bennett was discussing a recent interview he'd had with Mansoor Ijaz about two weeks earlier. After a wide ranging discussion of the political issues in Pak, Bennett asked (as I recall) "What do you see happening in the next ten years in Pakistan?"
To which Ijaz replied "Well, there's many, many possibilities, but the only thing that's sure, is it will end badly."

peacemover · #14 (**permalink**) 02-02-2008, 04:19 PM

I am definitely not a huge Bill Bennett fan, but, in this case, his question is a timely one. I just hope this Ijaz is wrong about his prognosis. The last thing we, and the rest of the western world need is for Pakistan to erupt into total lawlessness and end up getting taken over by radical militants. A scenario like that could have disastrous consequences as far as rallying and recruiting more militants in a total jihad against the U.S. and the west.

For now I guess the best hope is that Musharraf can plug the leaks and hold some semblance of order over there long enough for enough of the top militants to be captured or taken out so that the movement loses its momentum and focus. Given the way in which these groups are structured, though, with decentralized leaders and operatives working largely on their own initiative, I have my doubts about this strategy as well.

The U.S. military brass has obviously taken a fancy to the predator drone attacks, but, again, while looking sexy for western propagandists and war mongers, they do little if anything to substantively address the real problem fueling militant Islamists. This is largely an ideological war- for which sending in more missile attacks, while looking good in the short term, only fans the flames. That is one way that this whole so-called "war on terror" has gone wrong- aside from barking up the wrong tree in Iraq, an otherwise stable dictatorship without WMDs (at least in recent years).

The Bush administration, while proclaiming reduction of government, has all the while pressed an aggressive campaign of military expansionism, unilateral war-making, profiteering, privitatization and corporate plunder of federal funds. Meanwhile, world opinion and image of America has plummeted to the lowest levels in quite a long time- perhaps ever.

Also, this drastic decline is not just a case of other nations, and terrorists "hating us for our freedom," as Mr. Bush tried to assert numerous times, along with the fallacious Iraqi WMD claims. The military expansionism, occupation of Iraq, gratuitous shedding of civillian blood and tens of thousands of civilian deaths at the hands of American military forces has not helped.

The horrific actions of military personnel, covert operatives and others at the behest of the administration at places like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and Blackwater throughout Iraq has been disgraceful.

Unfortunately, it would appear to me, at least, that this administration became so engrossed with escalating the unjustified, premature war and occupation in Iraq and divvying up the corporate spoils, that they took their eye off the ball in Pakistan. Lately they have seen the crap start to hit the fan over there, and I guess have tried to continue to buy Musharraf's loyalty.

A risky strategy at best, and at worst, being as Pakistan has nuclear weapons, it could become an international disaster of the utmost severity.

That's part of my perspective. It is a complex problem that has been neglected, then fueled and exacerbated. Whomever takes office in 2009 is going to have their hands full just trying to contain and put out the wildfires that this administration's disastrous international policy missteps have created.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

I believe it was the morning after Bhutto's assasination, Bill Bennett was discussing a recent interview he'd had with Mansoor Ijaz about two weeks earlier. After a wide ranging discussion of the political issues in Pak, Bennett asked (as I recall) "What do you see happening in the next ten years in Pakistan?"
To which Ijaz replied "Well, there's many, many possibilities, but the only thing that's sure, is it will end badly."

Tannhauser · #15 (**permalink**) 02-05-2008, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peacemover

I just hope this Ijaz is wrong about his prognosis. The last thing we, and the rest of the western world need is for Pakistan to erupt into total lawlessness and end up getting taken over by radical militants. A scenario like that could have disastrous consequences as far as rallying and recruiting more militants in a total jihad against the U.S. and the west.

I agree with you, but I do think Pak is going to turn out REAL bad.
It's interesting that this situation is still fairly under the radar, all things considered.
Since I believe in always looking for the silver lining though, if we pay very close attention now, we can tell our kids exactly how the worst political disaster of the 21st century unfolded.
Thanks for the well reasoned exchange of ideas (and BTW - I'm not "snippy", "Tannhauser" is actually a middle German word that means "needlessly combatitive".)

Ezra · #16 (**permalink**) 02-06-2008, 06:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

(and BTW - I'm not "snippy", "Tannhauser" is actually a middle German word that means "needlessly combatitive".)

Tannhäuser is an opera by Richard Wagner

Also means Fir House and is a name of a city in Germany.

Tanhuser is a middle german word and the name of a medieval poet.

You are a poet and you don't even know it!

peacemover · #17 (**permalink**) 02-07-2008, 09:41 AM

Agreed. That whole region is a powderkeg waiting for a spark. Hopefully some semblance of peace and order can be preserved and/or restored...

Interesting about your moniker...

I had heard of the Wagner opera, but wasn't sure what it meant.

Funny stuff!

I also enjoy a good hearty, candid dialogue with people who have differing, but well-informed views. It seems like the folks in Washington would benefit from more of this sort of dialogue instead of just shouting past each other and posing for pointless photo-ops...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tannhauser

I agree with you, but I do think Pak is going to turn out REAL bad.
It's interesting that this situation is still fairly under the radar, all things considered.
Since I believe in always looking for the silver lining though, if we pay very close attention now, we can tell our kids exactly how the worst political disaster of the 21st century unfolded.
Thanks for the well reasoned exchange of ideas (and BTW - I'm not "snippy", "Tannhauser" is actually a middle German word that means "needlessly combatitive".)

peacemover · #18 (**permalink**) 02-07-2008, 11:00 AM

By the way, here is an excerpt from the NY Times book review article that appeared when LT was originally released in Aug 2006 (bold and underlines mine):

Quote:

The failures of the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A. to share information — and their failure to stop the 9/11 hijackers — have been voluminously documented before, but Mr. Wright’s narrative is so lucid and unnerving that it drives home the stupidity, hubris and dereliction of duty that occurred within the United States government with unusual power and resonance.

Mr. Wright is equally scathing about the Bush and Clinton administrations. He notes that terrorism was a low priority for the Bush White House when it took over in January 2001. And like Mr. Bergen and Mr. Randal, he argues that the Clinton administration’s reaction to the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa — launching cruise missiles at an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in a failed effort to kill Mr. bin Laden — helped turn the terrorist into a global celebrity and enabled him to mythologize himself further.

Mr. bin Laden’s goal in striking the American embassies and bombing the American destroyer Cole in 2000, says Mr. Wright, was to “lure America into the same trap the Soviets had fallen into: Afghanistan”: “His strategy was to continually attack until the U.S. forces invaded; then the mujahideen would swarm upon them and bleed them until the entire American empire fell from its wounds. It had happened to Great Britain and to the Soviet Union. He was certain it would happen to America.” When neither the embassy bombings nor the Cole bombing was enough to “provoke a massive retaliation,” Mr. Wright suggests, Mr. bin Laden decided “he would have to create an irresistible outrage.”

That outrage, of course, was 9/11. Though American forces would not become bogged down in Afghanistan — at least not immediately in the fall of 2001 — another, longer war was on the horizon. On March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the start of the war against Iraq; more than three years and more than 2,500 American deaths later, the United States is still there, fighting just the sort of asymmetrical war Mr. bin Laden so fervently desired.
. . .

Additionally, here is an excerpt from a review of the book on Amazon.com:

Quote:

- Pakistan was "the most mysterious country" the author visited. Far from being unstable, it is "very, very stable", "too stable" ("eerily stable"). He said, the military "owns" Pakistan, and it is run by military families. If you are not in the military, you are basically locked out of Pakistani society. He said, they play a game with the U.S. called "find Bin Ladin". They constantly get paid by the U.S., and they pretend to look for Bin Ladin. It is all a game to get money from the U.S. He said, there is now a "permanent Al Quida zone" along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it is very worrying.

Additionally, here are a few excerpts on the debate over U.S. policy from the PBS Frontline special from an interview with Barnett Rubin, director of studies and a senior fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation:

Quote:

… Is Pakistan an ally of the United States and the war on terrorism?

Both the concept of war on terrorism and the concept of ally are deeply flawed concepts for trying to understand what is actually going on in the region. … They're for themselves; they're not with us or against us. They're for themselves, pursuing their own national interests. They didn't suddenly come into being with no history on Sept. 11 in order to be for us or against us. Afghanistan and Pakistan have been at odds ever since Pakistan was created in 1947. There has been conflict along that border ever since the British tried to demarcate it in the 19th century, so this is not something new. It's just a new version of it.

Pakistan said it was our ally during the Cold War. It took billions of dollars of assistance that we gave during the period of the Afghan struggle against the Soviet Union, and it used it to build up its military and its nuclear weapons in order to balance what it saw as its main threat, India. It then used those same resources in order to strengthen the most fundamentalist elements of the Afghan resistance in order to try to create a government in Afghanistan that would be weak and subservient to Pakistan to assure that there would never be any threat to Pakistan from that side, that India could not get any kind of a foothold there.

In addition, Pakistan has, from the beginning, faced a tremendous problem of national integration. The main political parties of the Pashtun and Baluch ethnic groups actually opposed the formation of the state of Pakistan. They were allies of the Indian National Congress. And Pakistan, ever since the inception of the state, has poured resources, including resources it got from the United States for other purposes, into trying to weaken the secular, intellectual and tribal leadership of the Pashtuns and the Baluch, and it instead strengthened religious extremist leadership in those ethnic groups, which would be much more supportive of the Muslim state of Pakistan.
. . .
Can the United States trust Musharraf when he says he's cleaned up the ISI and that we're all rowing in the same direction?

Well, it's not a matter of trust. Unfortunately, in international politics, I guess that President Reagan was correct in his statement that he used to use with [President of the Soviet Union Mikhail] Gorbachev: "Trust, but verify." I'm afraid that we have gone too far on trust and not far enough on verification.

But I don't blame Pakistan necessarily for pursuing its national interests. I blame the United States for not seriously trying to understand what that national interest is. What's going on between Pakistan and Afghanistan is not the war on terror. There are very serious, longstanding problems in that region, and if we want to pursue our interests, which have to do with assuring that that area will not be a basis for international terrorism against us, we also have to understand the very real concern, sometimes exaggerated concerns, of the people who live there and help them to address those.

Sounds to me like W, his administration, along with the heads of all the intel orgs need to go back to history class and study up- or better yet- it would have been nice if they had been aware of and/or heeded the lessons of history prior to these disastrously ill-advised international policy blunders in that region.

Tannhauser · #19 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 12:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by peacemover

By the way, here is an excerpt from the NY Times book review article that appeared when LT was originally released in Aug 2006 (bold and underlines mine):

I think we can both agree, we're talking about a book that was, what, around 600 pages long?
Clearly, the overwhelming thrust was not to assign blame to either W. or Clinton.
A Conservative publication (or myself) could say the key point of the book was Barbara Bodine not letting John O'Neil back into Yemen to continue his Cole investigation, but you know, that would be wrong.
In the grand scheme of things, that, in all likelihood wouldn't have made a tinker's damn worth of difference as to where we are today.
Yes, it was a rising storm that was ignored, but if Clinton had been on the rooftops ringing the bell about it, no one would have listened anyway, so I don't see any point of assigning guilt. It was what it was when it was.
As far as the book goes, if we're going to use it to assign blame, we're missing the point. That's what makes the book so great and why I've thrust it into the hands of Liberal and Conservative friends alike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by peacemover

Sounds to me like W, his administration, along with the heads of all the intel orgs need to go back to history class and study up- or better yet- it would have been nice if they had been aware of and/or heeded the lessons of history prior to these disastrously ill-advised international policy blunders in that region.

It's an excellent passage you've quoted, and I'll say right here, I'm not a fatalist. Possibly the furthest thing from it.
But we're talking about Pakistan. We could be talking about any of the 'Stans out there or a bucket-load of other nations.
They're too big to buy off, their culture doesn't keep them bought off even if we could, and culturally, they're just dead set against us. Where our moral compass points north, their's goes south.
Honestly, W. NIS/CIA/FBI/alphabet soup org/ all know this. No matter how much you study this and no matter how many resources we devote towards this, Wasim Churchill isn't going to magically appear as the head of Pak.
You know that, I know that. It sucks, but that's the way it is...
And unfortunately, that's why I think Mansoor Ijaz is right.

Pray to God that Pak doesn't upgrade it's nukes to be able to reach Philadelphia, and we'll live to tell about the rising storm we saw come about in the 2000 oughts.

phillyaggie · #20 (**permalink**) 02-08-2008, 01:48 AM

Why would anyone want a warped old blowhard to be a new leader of Pakistan?!

Wasim Churchill.... haha at least the name is funny.