A big shoe drops…
”We terminated the most precious American asset which vowed to defeat mujahideen.” These were the words of al-Qaeda’s top commander for Afghanistan operations and spokesperson Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, immediately after the attack that claimed the life of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto on Thursday (December 27).
No matter what turns out to be the truth behind the assassination of US neoliberal proxy Benazir Bhutto, there is little doubt that we have entered a new stage of dangerous global instability as a direct consequence of US foreign policy in South and Southwest Asia.
With the US created civil war in Iraq shifting into a second post-ethnic-cleansing phase, when the putative “progress” of the surge (it’s no such thing) is near enough to being exposed for the deadly farce that it is, the US is now faced not with a pretext to invade another country, when it has no capacity to do so, but with what may feel like urgent necessity to our government. Civil war in Pakistan means a nuclear-armed state — in a shaky cease-fire with a nuclear-armed neighbor (that is the second largest national population in the world) — is now up for grabs.
The simultaneous occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is a recipe for a worse debacle than anyone might ever have imagined… if it is possible at all.
Someone, somewhere in Washington, ought to be asking, “What have we wrought?”
The Buffalo In The Midst:
Methinks they get busy making ‘lemonade’ when handed lemons.
From AP: “The government said it would hunt down those responsible for her death in the lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border where Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders are thought to be hiding.”
In Full: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071228/ap_on_re_as/pakistan
…and they have just the ‘right’ people for the job (right!):
From The Washington Post the other day: U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan
Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban…
(Although the U.S. government just gave Hamid Kharzai the go ahead to attempt a re-integration of the talib into Afghani civil society, perhaps by offering them Helmand & Paktia provinces http://leighm.net/wp/2007/12/28/tth_071228/ \\ lcm)
…government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.
But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan’s political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.
According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan’s border tribes.
In Full: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/12/musharrafs_woes_have_opened_a.html
28 December 2007, 6:38 pmJim:
Pakistan Is ‘Central Front,’ Not Iraq
by Robert Parry
The chaos spreading across nuclear-armed Pakistan after the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is part of the price for the Bush administration’s duplicity about al-Qaeda’s priorities, including the old canard that the terrorist group regards Iraq as the “central front” in its global war against the West…But the reality again appears different. Though rarely mentioned in the American press, the evidence is that bin Laden and other extremists have cleverly played off Bush’s arrogance and belligerence to strengthen their strategic hand within the Muslim world.
By keeping Bush focused on Iraq, al-Qaeda and its allies also bought time to transform themselves into a more lethal threat in Pakistan, with the danger that the new turmoil could win al-Qaeda its ultimate prize, control of a nuclear bomb.
Full article at: http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/122807Parry.shtml
28 December 2007, 7:04 pmpeggy:
If whoever planned Bhutto’s return to Pakistan (she did not want to go) had thought about it just a little bit, they would have seen that her assassination there was inevitable. She had been warned and threatened, she was an open target, and she was exactly the kind of person (very wealthy, female, pro-West, charismatic head of the largest political party in Pakistan) that the Islamic Jihad would have wanted to take out.
28 December 2007, 9:28 pmSo the question is, were the US foreign policy planners simply bungling when they sent Bhutto to make common cause with Musharaff (another thing she did not want to do, and neither did he) or … something else? Probably it is best to go with simply bungling, as there are too many conspiracy theories already out there to have to deal with another.
General Joe:
Stop falling for al-CIAda.
The “militant” attack by “extremists” is a concoction, a lie, to justify war, more war, and the generalized looting of the humanity. It’s a 1984 world now. jamie
PS I no longer use the above email.
28 December 2007, 11:39 pmFred Torssander:
You can call me a swivel-chair strategist if you want, but my first thought was that what we see is an escalation in the proxy-war stadium of the scramble for oil. As before the war against Japan, USA strives to resist the development of an asiatic competitior by US-navy control of the oil-transport sea-lanes. But the industrial development since the 2:nd world war has made cross continent pipelining possible. And before the war against Afghanistan there were plans on a Trans Afghanistan Pipeline.
29 December 2007, 5:42 ameoinmonkey:
“Stop falling for al-CIAda.
The “militant” attack by “extremists” is a concoction, a lie, to justify war, more war, and the generalized looting of the humanity. It’s a 1984 world now.”
Do sensible people actually believe stuff like this?
29 December 2007, 10:18 amThe Buffalo In The Midst:
eoinmonkey: Do sensible people actually believe stuff like this?
I don’t know about ‘sensible people’, but ‘rational’ folks do:
“…having its source in or being guided by the intellect (distinguished from *EXPERIENCE* [emphasis mine] or emotion); “a rational analysis”
…and humans have the ability to ‘rationalize’ just about anything if it’s to their benefit.
IMHO, it’s not to the benefit of Americans to ignore the likely outcome. (but I’m a bit… ummmn, …deviant…) A PakGanistani nation, much in the way that Iraq, or Yugoslavia was a nation, cobbled together by the world powers of the time.
Ask the Afghanis or Pakistanis (especially the indigenous, non-westernized) if they are looking forward to this, and one might see why it’s in the interests of Americans to rationalize a more self-centric outcome.
29 December 2007, 2:09 pmThe Buffalo In The Midst:
I should correct this phrase: “…one might see why it’s in the interests of Americans to rationalize a more self-centric outcome.” to read: “…one might see why it’s in the short-term vested interests of Americans to rationalize a more self-centric outcome.
29 December 2007, 4:28 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
Some thoughts on addictions. Which one of the following is the
bigger addiction that the USA’s government is addicted to ?
a. Cozying up to authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, and several other countries.
or b. Keeping the USA’s general public , with some exceptions,
ignorant of the USA’s government’s cozying up to
authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and
several other countries.
———–
I don’t have a ready-made answer for this . . . . Only thought
I’d throw it out there, etc. etc. etc.
Tim
30 December 2007, 3:56 pmThomas:
It is odd that someone with a record as clean as Chalabi’s would be considered an asset – is it for US consumption only? Do people in USA not know of her support for the Students (Taleban)? Or her corruption? As for a cartoon figure like Sharif, was he also considered an asset? Or is there some dynamic I’m missing, such that when someone high-placed in the US government considers them to be an asset, that they get a life of their own, irrespective of what people think generally? Are the opportunists they attract by throwing around some money enough to give substantive life to their governments? Or do people start running after the dominant nonsense that a government sprouts? Or is it that those who run after the government’s nonsense carry guns and dispense funds?
I have a friend from southern Sudan, no lover of the North, who says that Juba City has become a hell-hole with food unaffordable, but guns available everywhere (cheap), and tons of money going around, due to US input, and ethnic rivalries showing up (between southerners).
31 December 2007, 2:05 amJames:
I haven’t really been following Pakistani politics, and there seem to be a number of conflicting issues in the discussion, so this is all a bit confusing for me. Is the following summary correct?
a) Musharraf just used Al Qaeda to wipe out his most important political opponent.
b) This marks the start of a violent power struggle within Pakistan (or an escalation of an existing struggle).
c) Islamic extremists may win this struggle.
James
2 January 2008, 12:58 amThe Buffalo In The Midst:
James:
I haven’t really been following Pakistani politics, and there seem to be a number of conflicting issues in the discussion, so this is all a bit confusing for me. Is the following summary correct?
a) Musharraf just used Al Qaeda to wipe out his most important political opponent.
No one’s really sure yet. Juan Cole’s Informed Comment is claiming the OSC has information to the contrary.
b) This marks the start of a violent power struggle within Pakistan (or an escalation of an existing struggle).
You ARE out of touch… There’s been rioting in the streets for at least the last few months and thousands of Pakistani lawyers have been jaile due to Musharraf’s firing of Pakistan’s Supreme Court Chief Justice (who didn’t rule as demanded regarding Pakistan’s authority over the Autonomous Tribal Areas amongst other issues)
c) Islamic extremists may win this struggle.
Which ones? Our ‘allies’ or the independents.
See the header of my site for more on that, what bloggers can do to help in this specific instance of islamic police-state-ism, and how the illustrated tactic plays out in the long run.
2 January 2008, 12:58 pmThe Buffalo In The Midst:
The Informed Comment link in regard to AQ’s involvement in Bhutto’s assassination
2 January 2008, 1:02 pmPhil:
Thank you Buffalo and General Joe for stating what should be obvious to thinking and reading people after these last six years. The evidence linking US (and British) spy agencies not only with the creation of the fictive “islamic fascist” enemy, “Al Qaeda,” but also with the continued operations of this ridiculous “enemy” is voluminous and widely available in the mainstream press for anyone who wants to read it, and who has the common sense to separate fact from fiction.
Nothing but glossy mass media accounts, CIA releases of ever more ludicrous but somehow untraceable “Bin Laden” videos (sometimes with his hair “dyed” for pete’s sake), and the words of mendacious US government spokespeople are all we have been given to “prove” the existence of this alleged enemy.
Now these same spokespeople tell us that the all-purpose villain “Al Qaeda” murdered Bhutto, when she herself pointed to Pakistani official forces as threats to her safety. They tell us that “islamo-fascists” murdered the woman whose government helped nurture and create the Taliban, who recognized the Taliban government when no other country besides Sudan would, and who invited Islamist political forces into her own government. Right, and Saddam had nuclear weapons aimed at Tel Aviv.
What about the more obvious role of the ISI, the Pakistani spy agency that is but a franchise of the CIA? What about the role of Musharraf, her sworn enemy and also the US government’s paid man in charge? Do you really think the folks at Langley are sitting around fretting “What have we wrought?” It’s exactly what they wanted.
3 January 2008, 7:30 pm