Death n’ Things

The news has report two recently important deaths in the Islamic world in recent days: Muammar Qaddafi and the positive relations between Pakistan’s sort of positive relations with United States. Whether he was going to be killed or captured, there had been virtual certainty that the Colonel (never got a promotion in those 42 dictatorial years!) and Libya were destined to part company in most significant ways. That he perished in such a violent and awful way was truly horrific. That Muslim monarchs, fearing similar occurrences, did not have to deal with his exile may have been their only blessing in these eventual days.

The other death is far more problematical. As the Taliban-linked, Haqqani terrorist network moves its forces back and forth between safe havens in Pakistan, transporting weapons, troops and explosives directed at American targets in Afghanistan, inflicting heavy U.S. casualties, while seemingly working hand and glove with Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence Agency (their CIA and NSA combined, known as the ISI), Americans are duly outraged: “‘This is a time for clarity, [U.S. Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary] Clinton declared in Kabul, Afghanistan, where she met President Hamid Karzai before leaving for Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. ‘No one should be in any way mistaken about allowing this to continue without paying a very big price.’

“‘There’s no place to go any longer,’ Mrs. Clinton added, referring to Pakistan’s leaders, whom the administration has accused of equivocating by supporting the Afghan insurgency.” New York Times, October 20^th. Yet no Pakistani leader could survive an election in his or her home country by openly supporting American anti-terrorism policies. Rightly or wrongly, America is viewed as a Judeo-Christian nation making war on Islam, and Pakistan is one of the largest Islamic nations on earth. Our efforts in support of Israel and in drone strikes with lots of collateral damage across the Afghan border into Pakistani territory are immensely unpopular with the Pakistani electorate.

Indeed, the lines seem clearly drawn in the sand: “The Haqqani network uses Pakistan’s tribal areas as a base and has become the most potent part of the insurgency in Afghanistan. Before stepping down last month, Adm. Mike Mullen, General [Martin] Dempsey’s predecessor [as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], called the Haqqanis ‘a veritable arm’ of Pakistan’s intelligence service… The public accusation added to tensions in America’s relationship with Pakistan, which plummeted to a new low this year as Pakistan arrested a C.I.A. contractor and American commandos killed Osama bin Laden deep inside the country in May.” NY Times.

When, based on intelligence reports, U.S. military officials requested Pakistani military aid to stop a possible Haqqani-controlled truck laden with explosives and destined to an unknown American target, they were rebuffed. In mid-September, 77 Americans were subsequently injured and 5 Afghans killed when that truck surfaced in an attack on a U.S. military position in eastern Afghanistan.

American aid to Pakistan has averaged about $2 billion a year of late, although in July the military portion of that aid (about $800 million) was temporarily (??) suspended over clashes concerning Pakistan’s commitment to America’s anti-terrorism concerns. But what is really at stake here? Do we really believe that government officials will tow the American party line and then face almost certain defeat in the next election? We’ve made it clear to Pakistan that if they won’t stop the anti-American extremists within their border, we have every intention of continuing to pursue our enemies well-within Pakistan.

But the “big threat” is one that hovers above and below the drama in the press: Pakistan is an unstable nuclear power with an estimated 100 active warheads ready for use. Pakistan also has a nasty history – through father of the “Islamic bomb,” Dr. A.Q. Khan (who only suffered short-term house arrest for his “indiscretion”) – of furnishing anti-American governments with the know-how to extract explosive fissionable material and manufacture nuclear warheads accordingly. One recipient of such technology information, North Korea, has already built and tested nuclear weapons, and the other, Iran, seems ever-closer to that same goal.

So we are between that proverbial “rock and a hard place.” We effectively are bribing Pakistan not to spread anymore nuclear technology to terrorist nations, and without that aid, the Pakistani military is severely impacted, but they are also supplying and encouraging our terrorist enemies to wreak havoc in the Afghan war. While I have consistently maintained that there is virtually no benefit to us from our efforts in that war in Afghanistan – a tribal land that will deteriorate into chaos whether we leave tomorrow or in a decade – the thought of paying Pakistan such vast sums during our recession is beyond galling. Yet to stop the aid is to open the door to Pakistan’s sharing the nuclear wealth with anti-American extremists worldwide.

To make matters infinitely worse, the ingrate, mega-corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai – who owes his very office and billions of allegedly purloined wealth to the U.S. that effectively created his presidency – has absolutely no allegiance to the United States: “‘If fighting starts between Pakistan and the U.S., we are beside Pakistan,’ Karzai said in an interview with private Pakistani television station GEO that aired [October 22^nd]. ‘If Pakistan is attacked and the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan's help, Afghanistan will be there with you.’…He said that Kabul would not allow any nation, including the U.S., to dictate its policies.” HuffingtonPost, October 23^rd.

Our ill-conceived military expeditions have once again placed our nation in a difficult and compromising position in implementing our bona fide goals (this time, proliferation of nuclear weapons to extremists via Pakistan), a strong argument for limiting American under-planned knee-jerk military responses to international incidents in favor of diplomatic solutions, quick-strike surgical attacks or covert activities aimed at creating clear liabilities for attacks on America or Americans wherever they may be… instead of commencing prolonged wars with untenable consequences.

Note how the United States is now actually withdrawing its troops from Iraq by reason of a failure to reach an agreement with the Shiite-controlled government to maintain some defensive presence in that country. Seems that their government doesn’t want to grant U.S. troops immunity from things such as collateral damage: “When the Americans asked for immunity [from lawsuits or criminal prosecution], the Iraqi side answered that it was not possible,” according to Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki. Although total withdrawal is the right result, it would seem pretty obvious that Iraq – a majority-Shiite nation with profoundly strong ties to fellow-Shiite Iran – wouldn’t really want Americans there against Iran’s wishes anyway. No matter that it was American forces that crushed the Sunni rulers and installed what had to be an inevitably pro-Iranian government in its place.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we need to stop pulling the military trigger to start things that we really cannot contain… and we haven’t won a major war since World War II even with the largest and most power military on earth, bar none!