Disintegrating Pakistan
The situation in Pakistan seems to become more complicate and uncontrollable by each day.
Last week Obama's special envoy Holbrooke visited Pakistan. He obviously read the riot act to President Zaradari with regards to the Mumbai bombing. Just after he left the Pakistani government confirmed that 'some' of the Mumbai attack planning had been done on Pakistani ground. That had been rejected so far and the National Security Advisor Durrani had even been fired earlier over confirming that the surviving attacker was indeed Pakistani.
Earlier today an attack by U.S. drones on the tribal areas in Pakistan killed 25 people. A day earlier Senator Feinstein, chairwomen of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that such drone attacks are flown from bases in Pakistan. This has been rumored for quite sometime and the Pakistani people will certainly take Feinstein's talk as confirmation.
While Prime Minister Gilani and other ministers protested against any drone attacks and denied that they are launched from within Pakistan, President Zardari was silent on the issue. So did he (and the military) knew about these drones being based inside Pakistan and left the cabinet without that knowledge? If Gilani did not know, he might now think of leaving the job to at least keep his public standing intact.
The public, which is to 90% against such U.S. strikes, will now certainly demand more than shallow explanations. I expect some rather fierce demonstrations in the coming weeks.
Most drone strikes so far have been against groups that are active in Afghanistan but have bases in Pakistan, especially the Haqqamni family enterprise which is accused of last weeks attack in Kabul. But according to the NYT today's attack was against Baitullah Mehsud, who leads a Taliban group that fights the Pakistani government in its tribal areas.
Some of the myriad of Taliban groups fighting the Pakistani government are now also in conflict with other groups that are based in Pakistan but only fight in Kashmir and Afghanistan. They put some of their leaders on death lists. They also threatened to start attacks in Islamabad and other Pakistani population centers. Indeed today the Pakistani police found three 'suicide jackets' in Islamabad.
The government in internal strife, the military fighting some of the Pakistani Taliban groups but supporting others that fight in Afghanistan and various Taliban groups fighting each other. What a mess.
The only people who seem to live a peaceful life and are not touched by all the trouble are the original Taliban under Mullah Omar in and around Quetta.
I am sure they are laughing about the mess the U.S. is continuing to create in Pakistan and are discussing how they will pick up the broken pieces a few years from now when everyone else is tired of fighting. That once worked well for them in Afghanistan and sometime in the future might also be feasable in Pakistan.
Posted by b on February 14, 2009 at 18:56 UTC | Permalink
k_h_c
i couldn't agree more about the hellhound holbrooke
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 14 2009 19:49 utc | 2
Perspicacious post as usual, b.
I am somewhat shocked to discover that the drone attacks may be being flown out of Pakistan. I didn't know that. Sounds pretty dangerous to me. Folly indeed. Inviting reprisals. At least out of Afghanistan, the Pakistanis are left impotent.
Do we know which those bases might be?
By the way, typo, I think, 'Haqqami' for 'Haqqani'.
Posted by: Alex | Feb 14 2009 19:53 utc | 3
alex
yr right? i'm glad you're not after me for typographical errors or i would be buried deep underground
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 14 2009 20:18 utc | 4
do not be surprised if the demonic dr abdullah abdullah replaces karzai - a more servile puppet would be difficult to find
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 14 2009 22:06 utc | 5
Presumably everybody and his brother has big plans for Pakistan's strategic command and control when collapse is imminent. You'd expect that US National Technical Means will have pinpointed things to be dismantled in a hurry, so to speak, since the only thing that could hide the works is the latest DC-to-daylight spread spectrum technology, and most nuclear party-crashers are not allowed to play with that. So thinking ahead, if your don't want your prized deterrent put out of commission you might want to get components needed to reconstitute it to one or more trusted sovereign custodians until the dust settles. Western-Oriented Gentlemen call this proliferation. It's about to become much more urgent.
Posted by: ...---... | Feb 14 2009 22:37 utc | 6
r'giap @4
Of course, I don't pull up any old typos, waste of time, we all write in haste. The reason that it got to me was that 'Haqqami' is impossible in any Islamic language. The other typo in the post I didn't mention, though it was funny.
More importantly, if the US has been launching missile drones from Pakistan, it's a grave error, I can't imagine worse. The consequence is destabilisation, as b says. In that case, who puts their hands on the nuclear weapons? OK, the US may have organised all that. Can they guarantee that they've got all? Probably not.
The reason I bring up all this, is the character of Islamic society, particularly pure in Pakistan, because of the way the state was created. Since the ninth century, Islamic jurists set themselves against the state; in Islamic law the state's rights are limited and defined, far more than is realistic for a state. At the same time, there is a tradition of individual action for the Muslim to defend Islam. All of which is why the Islamic madrasas in Pakistan. As a consequence, the state is legally weak.
Pure theoretical Islam is stronger in Pakistan than even in Iran, though that might seem paradoxical.
Pakistan destablised, I couldn't guarantee to you that some Pakistani officer in the nuclear branch couldn't reserve to himself some nuclear weapon, which the invading US didn't find, and which he might pass to the Taliban or other organisation which he saw as defending Islam.
When this invasion by the US takes place, no doubt we will hear that all Pakistani nuclear weapons have been secured. Don't believe it, it is very unlikely.
Posted by: Alex | Feb 15 2009 0:28 utc | 7
alex
i was offering a self critique - tho i have typed since i was a baby - i seem to arrive at a certain depassement
essentially i agree with you alex - the situation is very, very volatile & the state almost inexistant
i wonder if john bolton's toupée remains on his head
to think that the empire has arrived at this, more through incompetence than design really does remind us of the madness the pure madness of the spanish empire as another poster has noted
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 15 2009 0:56 utc | 8
He obviously read the riot act to President Zaradari with regards to the Mumbai bombing.
Zardari is as keen as the US and India to throw the Pak army under the bus. If I were in his place, I would do the same thing. Pakistan army is the worst thing that happened to that country. Holbrooke's presence helped him quickly announce what he perhaps was planning to do for sometime. I believe most of the Pakistani politicians agree on one thing and that is to find a way to fight the rogue army generals and their criminal partners in Taliban and the militant outfits like the LET or Jamaat Dawa. When Nawaz was PM, he dismissed one COAS and tried to dismiss Musharraf too.
The LeT and many other outfits in Pakistan are all front for the army and that is army's game to have these criminals to inflate the army numbers on the cheap.
Lets be clear on one thing; the Pakistan army is the reason for most of the troubles in Pakistan. Lets not forget Pak army's 60 yrs of history working with the US in multiple defense pacts and overall promoting the US agenda in that area.
Posted by: Hoss | Feb 15 2009 6:17 utc | 10
Disintegrating Pakistan™ certainly fits well into the merc's game plan. Every $ spent on the Obama Plan is a $ that slipped out of the merc's grasp. And those colonels were chumps compared to the broad arrested at the Canadian:US border here with "half a bale of unmarked $100 bundles", her soldier boyfriend's share of the diversion of what was it, $5B in money bales and helicopter lost in route to Tikrit? This latest troop surge deployment has only the stories of gravey train shakinah, if two of them were caught pistol whipping university students last week for their lunch money and cell phones! What a bring down! Def.con's winding their watches, waiting for P-Day, after BB-Day, just like WallStreet.con's winding it's watches, waiting for $T-Day, after $B-Day, singing http://mp3.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=tra.1977727 Everybody knows this is nowhere.
Posted by: Coolin Breezy | Feb 15 2009 7:53 utc | 11
r'giap, you know, such incidents really make me wonder: If the most advanced nations in the world are so corrupt, what chance do 3rd world nations have? I mean, aren't we expecting a little too much of underdeveloped nations in the corruption stakes when the U.S. invasion of Iraq was nothing more than one giant rip-off of the U.S. tax-payer on both a national and a personal level?
I mean, Cheney was till earning 250,000/year from Halliburton when the latter (and its subsidiaries) got awarded $ 20- billion of no-bid contracts, resulting in a rapid tripling of the share price from $ 20 to $ 60.
So if Iran's Mullahs transfer hundreds of billions into their personal offshore accounts, who can blame them? After all, the U.S.A. is "the shining light on the hill" and Iran is merely following the Shining Light's example.
Jeez!
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 15 2009 8:18 utc | 12
Well, lo and behold, no sooner had I posted than I saw the following NYT Editorial:
More Annals of Global Greed Inc.
Posted by: Parviz | Feb 15 2009 8:22 utc | 13
One of the most frustrating things about watching the implementation of USuk's illegal invasion of Iraq was that as it unfolded it was immediately blindingly obvious to any dedicated observer that the system had been designed precisely to encourage the type of mid-level corruption which the NYT claims to have just uncovered. If it were possible to delve into the old Whiskey Bar archives and look at posts from 03 and 04 we would see that the issue of the billion plus shrink wrapped dollars was referred to time and time again as being a deliberate construct to allow corruption.
Now the NYT disingenuously claims to have just uncovered something which we knew was institutionalised. And it wasn't just the Whiskey Bar which eventually became MOA where anyone with half a brain commented that the loose change was a deus ex machina which enabled greedy amerikans to indulge their greed thereby encouraging them to rub shoulders with 'rag heads'. Most of left blogdom in those pre dem days observed that the loosely supervised 'loose change' cannot have been accidental.
If there had been any doubt on that score the 2005 revelation that the last honest man at Westpoint shot himself precisely because he couldn't get anyone else including his boss, a fella by the name of Petraeus, to care about the massive frauds and corruptions which were occurring, confirmed that it had indeed become amerikan empire policy to ensure that everyone had the 'correct carrot' to keep them 'on message', on Iraq, even if that meant theft of taxpayer funds.
While it would be good to see the ringleaders such as Hirtle and Bell get what they deserve ie a lengthy prison sentence and confiscation of all assets, we know the asset confiscation won't be complete, after all you never know when that same method may be required again, and more importantly there is a real danger that peeps will see these arrests as getting to the top of corruption in Iraq.
The really big players the Halliburtons and Blackwaters wouldn't have gone within a million miles of a "Baghdad pizza" (the box stuffed with hundred dollar bills).
That dirty business would have been consummated in DC with every time serving brown nose, every lobbyist, fat assed congressman and combed over senator copping a 'large drink', while a million Iraqi men women and children died miserable deaths. While 4 million Iraqi people lost the homes their families had occupied for centuries, "international leaders" like the bliar or deputy howard would have had share options quietly added to the bulging portfolios they claimed to have "put in trust" (there's a contradiction) whilst they "did their duty" (and another).
Of course everyone is meant to 'put all that behind them' now the new broom, mr stepinfetchit, has come to town, but I'm buggered if I'm going to fall into line. Why should we? The people of iraq have had no relief from their lives of blinding horror interspersed with quiet despair, so why the fuck should we go "Oh that's all in the past this is the time for healing". That is especially so when you consider that exactly the same scam is being pulled on the people of Pakistan.
The Pakistani military and bureaucracy are going to be copping what they imagine are sweet earners as Pashtu are slaughtered, but little do they know that is just the petty cash. The real earners are being made by all of those listed above, plus a lot more now that both sides of congress have their snouts in the trough plus all 'the coalition of the shilling'.
We need to remember this stuff because if we do there will most likely come a time, maybe just an instant, for which people need to be ready, in order to make sure they act, when all of this inhumane filth can be scraped off our boots like the muck they are.
The NYT's 'catch-up football' approach to reporting the amerikan empire's endemic corruption suggests that Salzburger and co are far more than just spectators of the empire's filthy business. Yet I doubt there will be any tearful apologies over NYT complacency towards imperial corruption.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 15 2009 10:29 utc | 14
The News editorial: Dangerous flight paths
We have heard much rhetoric from our leaders about defending the sovereignty of Pakistan. The presence of US bases proves this is no more than meaningless rubbish. Pakistan must not be turned into a puppet state. The bases cannot stay. The demand that the US be asked to vacate the country has already come in from a number of quarters. The voices seeking this will undoubtedly grow more vociferous in the coming days. The cries of protest must be heeded. Citizens must not be fed a diet of lies regarding the drone flights and other events. Instead they need to be incorporated into the battle against militancy. For the government, these people would be a far more useful ally than the US. Closing down US bases is in fact essential to winning against terrorists. Their continued presence will only complicate the picture and make the battle one that may prove impossible to win. For the sake of Pakistan and its much damaged sovereignty, the bases must go.
Sulzberger not Salzburger if proper names are to be corrected. Good post debs. It is important for the media to give the impression of a new frankness, Change Yes We Can and all that. Plain to see at the NYT. Scoundrels, the lot of them.
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 15 2009 11:43 utc | 16
B, a most relevant and important topic. Thanks again for all you do. And thanks to Debs for an excellent post #14.
Like r'giap always says also: "We need to remember."
Debs, #14: "We need to remember this stuff because if we do there will most likely come a time, maybe just an instant, for which people need to be ready, in order to make sure they act, when all of this inhumane filth can be scraped off our boots like the muck they are."
We will all need to scrap at about the same time and need to organize where to put the muck. Otherwise, we will just step back into it.
Posted by: Rick | Feb 15 2009 12:08 utc | 17
DID'y 14) "Islamic Terrorists" is their swastika, and Pakistan the hill the Overlords will plant it on, because they're Def.con Mammonim. "Nuclear Rabble" is their Star of David, and Iran the door they'll paint it on, it keeps the oil supply tight, because they're Oil.con Mammonim. "Gypsy Thieves" is their Reichstag Fire, and Obama Bailout Plan their Swiss banks and stolen treasures. Wall Street prays to their fascist g-ds.
As MoAs have written before, you just need to imagine the NeoZi's had won in GWOTII, then everything you see loses perplexity and becomes "business as usual". Get over it.
"You see, it's like a soccer game. We won, you lost. Now get the hell off my land!"
Posted by: Pika Peppah | Feb 15 2009 18:18 utc | 18
Foregiving the inaccuracies between Roman and Papal calendars through the centuries, 2000 was a great Dot.con Last Supper, 2001 was a Def.con Second Coming of Christ's Arrest, and 2008, the real Second Millennial Year, was a Debt.con Final Crucifixion.
Before the Millennial, the Overlords needed US, they needed our faith and our credit.
After the Millennial, they no longer need us! We are chattel in their golden temple. Our women are raped, our treasure stolen, and our seed spilt into the sands.
We're deaf, dumb and blind, mutes, autists, solipsists, staring at the glass, darkly.
In the book of history, we are the forgotten, tumbleweeds, the splintered fencepost.
The first whose words will last for millenia, tho lost anew, like tears in a typhoon.
Posted by: Tommy Twostep | Feb 15 2009 18:39 utc | 19
The explanation of what is known about Predator stationing in Pakistan is given here, link courtesy of an anon commenter to Juan Cole:
Feinstein Didn't Give Away a Secret
It used to be that Predators were stationed in Pakistan, and bombed Afghanistan. Now it seems they are bombing Pakistan from Pakistan, but the former main base has closed down.
Posted by: Alex | Feb 15 2009 19:34 utc | 20
Just as an update. Pakistan agreed to implement Sharia law in Swat Valley.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090216/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan
Posted by: ndahi | Feb 16 2009 18:37 utc | 21
To read more about Pakistan and the region surrounding it, please visit
http://real-politique.blogspot.com
Posted by: sikander hayat | Feb 18 2009 10:24 utc | 22
The Times claims to have discovered everything themselves -
Secrecy and denial as Pakistan lets CIA use airbase to strike militants
Posted by: Alex | Feb 18 2009 12:05 utc | 23
The comments to this entry are closed.
Richard Holbrooke might be worst "diplomat" to get thrown into the mixture. He is the worst kind of one-trick pony: all he knows is to issue loud, bellicose demands to the alleged "bad" guy (not that the guy being bad is alleged, but that he is "the" bad guy is alleged), accompanied by threats to bomb if the demands are not met. The problem is, will anyone in Pakistan take his threats seriously? Can he credibly threaten to bomb those in or associated with varied factions of the official Pakistani gov't? Considering that border regions are already being bombed fairly intensely, will the factions in these regions bother?
Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | Feb 14 2009 19:09 utc | 1