welshTerrier2's Journal - While Iraq smolders ...

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welshTerrier2's Journal

Posted by welshTerrier2 in General Discussion
Sat Jul 28th 2007, 04:09 PM

All eyes in the US are focussed on Iraq ... and perhaps on Iran. But there may be huge trouble brewing in Pakistan.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons and serious internal political problems. Al Qaeda and deep hatred for the US are prevalent and growing throughout the country. And the Musharraf government appears to be sinking at about the same pace the bush government is sinking in the US. Tucked away in an article about the risks facing the Musharraf government was a most curious reference to a bush administration policy of using "Islamist radical elements in immature US-backed attacks in Iran." Has this been reported in the US media? One might even ask whether, if true, these attacks absent Congressional approval constitute a breach of bush's constitutional authority.

And now, there are new calls to reverse bush administration policy and possibly introduce US forces directly inside Pakistan to go after Al Qaeda strongholds. The problem with this, of course, is that such actions will greatly weaken the Musharraf government. If Musharraf permits US military intrusion into Pakistan, radical elements are likely to gain much greater political clout than they already have. And if they are able to gain power, they also gain control over Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Where are all those anti-nuke people when we really need them?

Pakistan is heating up rapidly. The situation may not be critical yet but the current trend is very dark indeed. The US Congress does little more than make squeaky noises about going after Bin Laden. That may sound good on the surface but lacks any real analysis of the political realities inside Pakistan. One thing they better start thinking about is impeaching bush. He's created this crisis with his failed policies in the region and clearly has no idea how to proceed. We can't afford to wait another 18 months for a new president.

source: http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodna... (excerpt from page 4)

This abrupt volte face cannot, of course, detract from the fact of the continuous US policies of denial and obfuscation that directly contributed to the current conditions in Pakistan. Conciliation, the search for an oxymoronic ‘moderate Taliban’, deal-making with radical elements, and looking the other way on a range of unrelenting Pakistani misdeeds in the region--even as efforts were reportedly made to use Islamist radical elements in immature US-backed attacks in Iran--created the conditions for the massive consolidation of the Taliban-al Qaeda-radical Islamist phalanx that is now manifesting itself across Pakistan. It is useful to recall, also, that when Musharraf rigged elections in 2005 to help Islamists consolidate their position, particularly in the NWFP and Balochistan, but substantially in other parts of the country as well, this met with almost universal condemnation. The US, however, enthusiastically endorsed Musharraf’s fraud, which brought Islamist to power in the very areas that are now the epicentre of Islamist terrorist dominance. Self-serving and short-sighted US policies and unaccounted aid to a dodgy dictator, despite overwhelming evidence of duplicity and direct Pakistani support to and involvement in terrorism across the world, are the essential but neglected backdrop of the current crisis. All this was pointed out again and again, but was deliberately and obstinately ignored by the Bush administration on grounds that were anything but rational. The fact that US leaders are now singing a slightly different tune cannot exculpate them from almost six years of the most extraordinary and abysmal incompetence in their counter-terrorism policy in South Asia. <skip>

But the intellectual opinion in the US also appears to be shifting, and there are concessions, as Bruce Hoffman of the Georgetown University now notes, that "The reluctance to take risk or jeopardize our political relationship with Musharraf may well account for the fact that five-and-a-half years after 9-11, we are still trying to run bin Laden and Zawahiri to ground."

The US is now abruptly compounding Musharraf’s difficulties by threatening direct interventions on Pakistani soil. National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell justified calls for direct US military strikes inside Pakistan’s tribal belt on the grounds that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding on the Pakistani side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. He criticized the peace agreement with radicals in Waziristan, saying, "because of this agreement, al Qaeda has been able to regain some of its momentum… The leadership is intact. They have operational planners, and they have safe haven. The things they’re missing are operatives inside the United States."

All these observations, however, come with reiterations of continued faith in Musharraf and his capacity "to correct" the errors of the past. Nevertheless, White House spokesman Tony Snow has declared that "There’s no doubt that more aggressive steps need to be taken." But ‘aggressive steps’ by the US at this very late stage will only accelerate Pakistan’s spiral into an Iraq-like situation.

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welshTerrier2

13595 posts

Member since 2002

"The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson

here are the final two haunting paragraphs:

There is plenty in the world to occupy our military radicals and empire enthusiasts for the time being. But there can be no doubt that the course on which we are launched will lead us into new versions of the Bay of Pigs and updated, speeded-up replays of Vietnam War scenarios. When such disasters occur, as they - or as-yet-unknown versions of them - certainly will, a world disgusted by the betrayal of the idealism associated with the United States will welcome them, just as most people did when the former USSR came apart. Like other empires of the past century, the United States has chosen to live not prudently, in peace and prosperity, but as a massive military power athwart an angry, resistant globe.

There is one development that could conceivably stop this process of overreaching: the people could retake control of the Congress, reform it along with the corrupted elections laws that have made it into a forum for special interests, turn it into a genuine assembly of democratic representatives, and cut off the supply of money to the Pentagon and the secret intelligence agencies. We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of its endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us."

WT2's Core Beliefs

Here is what I believe are fundamental truths that Democrats should be fighting for:

1. the war in Iraq has no legitimacy ... if bush succeeds there, the only result will be the establishment of an American puppet ... we will not succeed; we should not succeed; we should leave NOW ...
2. there should be no room for compromising the objectives of any human liberation movement ... compromises can be made on tactics (i.e. what we will settle for today) but never on the ideal ... Democrats should speak out on all human liberation movements ...
3. our democratic institutions have been poisoned by greed, wealth and power ... reform must be the number one priority of every American ... this is NOT a left-right issue; without a democratic process, nothing works ...
4. the Democratic Party must find a way to be genuinely inclusive of its left-wing ... demanding adherence to the Party line is NOT going to work ... we need major reforms in the Party to promote a better dialog between prominent party members and the grassroots ... without a real exchange of ideas and a real process of inclusion, we will not succeed ...

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