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Title: The US Edges Closer to Invading Pakistan
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URL Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis208.html
Published: Oct 5, 2010
Author: Eric Margolis
Post Date: 2010-10-05 06:48:12 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 178
Comments: 12
This writer has been warning for years that US and NATO efforts to defeat resistance to Western occupation by Afghanistan’s fierce Pashtun tribes would eventually lead to spreading the conflict into neighboring Pakistan, a nation of 175 million. We’ve seen it all before in Vietnam. It was then called, "mission creep." The focus of the Afghan War is clearly shifting south into Pakistan, drawing that nation and the United States forces ever closer to a direct confrontation. This grim development was as predictable as it was inevitable. This week’s fevered warnings from Washington of supposedly imminent terrorist attacks in Europe may be aimed at justifying intensifying US military operations against Pakistan. If attacks do come in Europe, they will most likely be linked to anti-French militant groups in North Africa and the Sahara – nothing at all to do with Afghanistan or Pakistan. Last week, Pakistan temporarily closed the main US/NATO supply route from Karachi to the Afghan border at Torkham after the killing of three Pakistani soldiers by US helicopter gunships. Three US/NATO fuel supply convoys were burned by anti-American militants. Eighty percent of the supplies of the US-led forces in Afghanistan come up this long, difficult route. Along the way, the US pays large bribes to Pakistani officials, local warlords, and to Taliban. The cost of a gallon of gas delivered to US units in Afghanistan has risen to $800. US helicopter gunships have staged at least four attacks on Pakistan this past week alone, in addition to the mounting number of strikes by CIA drones that are inflicting heavy casualties on civilians and tribal militants alike. US Special Forces and CIA-run Afghan mercenaries are also increasingly active along Pakistan’s northwest frontier. Pakistan’s feeble, discredited government has long closed its eyes to CIA’s drone attacks. Washington does not even seek permission for the raids or give advance warning to Islamabad. Pakistan’s media claims over 90% of the casualties in US air raids are civilians. The failing government in Islamabad is caught between two fires. Pakistanis are furious and humiliated by the American attacks. Each new assault further undermines the inept, US-installed Zardari government. Even Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the government’s strongman, protested last week’s US attacks. But Pakistan is on the edge of economic collapse after its devastating floods. Islamabad is now totally reliant on $2 billion annual US aid, plus tens of millions more "black" payments from CIA. Washington has given Islamabad $10 billion since 2001, most of which goes to renting 140,000 Pakistani troops to support the US-led Afghan war. CIA also has 3,000 mercenaries operating inside Pakistan. As Osama bin Laden just pointed out in a new audio tape, the Muslim nations have been derelict in coming to Pakistan’s aid. He blamed the massive flooding in Pakistan on global warming. An influential former Pakistani chief of staff, Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, just demanded Pakistan’s air force shoot down US drones and helicopters violating his nation’s sovereignty. His sentiments are widely shared in Pakistan’s increasingly angry military. Pakistan’s senior generals are being blasted as "American stooges" by some of the media and are losing respect among Pakistanis. A video this week of the execution of six civilians by army troops has further damaged the army’s good name. However, Washington’s view is very different. Pakistan is increasingly branded insubordinate, ungrateful for billions in aid, and a potential enemy of US regional interests. Many Americans consider Pakistan more of a foe than ally. The limited US financial response to Pakistan’s flood was a sign of that nation’s poor repute in North America. Fears are growing in Washington and in Europe that the nine-year Afghan War may be lost. American popular opinion has turned against the war. The Pentagon fears a failure in Afghanistan will humiliate the US military and undermine America’s international power. In short, just what happened to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. America’s foreign policy establishment is venting its anger and frustration over the failing Afghan War by lashing out at Pakistan and, as well, the US-installed Karzai regime in Kabul. Pakistan’s President, Asif Ali Zardari, is seen in Washington as hopeless and incompetent. Full US attention is now on Pakistan’s military, the de facto government, and its respected but embattled commander, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, whose tenure was just extended under US pressure. Kayani is still regarded as an "asset" by Washington. But like Zardari, he is caught between American demands and outraged Pakistanis – plus concerns about the threat from India and Delhi’s machinations in Afghanistan. The recent upsurge of violence in Indian-ruled Kashmir has intensified these dangerous tensions between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan. The neoconservatives in Washington and their media allies again claim Pakistan is a grave threat to US interests and to Israel. Pakistan must be declawed and dismembered, insist the neocons. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is reportedly being targeted for seizure or elimination by US Special Forces. There is also talk in Washington of dividing Afghanistan into Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek mini-states, as the US has done in Iraq. Could Pakistan be next for this divide and conquer treatment? Little states are easier to rule or intimidate than big ones. Many Pakistanis believe the United States is bent on dismembering their nation. Some polls show Pakistanis now regard the United States as a greater enemy than India. Now that America is in full mid-term election frenzy, expect more calls for tougher US military action in "AfPak." Already unpopular politicians are terrified of being branded "soft on terrorism" and failing to maximally support US military campaigns. Flag waving replaces sober thought. If polls are right and Republicans achieve a major win, it’s likely there will be more and deeper US air and land attacks into Pakistan. The Pentagon is convinced it can still defeat resistance by Taliban and its allies "if only we can go after their sanctuaries in Pakistan," as one general told me. Where have we heard this before? Why in Cambodia and Laos, that’s where, during the Vietnam War. Frustrated US commanders expanded the war into Cambodia and Laos to go after Communist base camps. The war spread; these two small nations were largely destroyed, but the war was ultimately lost. Victory in war is achieved by concentration of forces, not spreading them ever thinner and wider. But our imperial generals seem determined to blunder into a nation of 175 million hostile people without any clear strategy. Unable to subdue the Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan, they are now attacking the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan. America does not need more enemies.
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
India is waiting for the US to seize the Paki nukes.
this with the Nobel Peace Prize winner at the helm...
Oh, great. There's another wretched orifice to march our men into. India may go to hell also.
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
Actually they would be acting in concert.
India can go to hell.
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
I think Pakistan has invaded Afghanistan. Today marks the 6th straight day the U.S. supply line has been attacked with the destruction of everything capable of delivering oil & fuel to our troops in the South.
Most likely will but you need your thinking cap on.
You're mean, you just don't support social promotion for disadvantaged minorities :p
__________________________________________________________ My thinking cap says that it is not the most salubrious thing to have a country like Pakistan in possession of a nuclear arsenal. On the other hand, Pakistan was making strides toward a stable system of government, with the military under civilian control. It has a parliamentary and judiciary system on the British model, and a growing urban middle class. Although there are wild regions in the north, the country is, or was, inching towards the kind of stable democracy and civil society found in India. It seems that the nuclear weapons that Pakistan has may have staved off another war with India because the consequences of an intensifying conflict might have been more than either nation was willing to bear. Everything WE are doing over there humiliates the government of Pakistan, weakens the forces of moderation and strengthens the hand of the military, intelligence forces and political and religious extremists. In trampling on the territorial sovereignty of an ostensible ally by sending drones and men into its territory to carry out raids that kill more civilians than enemy, we destabilize that nation. We destabilize Pakistan for one reason and one reason only. We want to say, "You are weak. You are weak and irresponsible and we are going to take your weapons away." We will say this with all the contemptible hypocrisy known to perfidious Albion, as we are the party who has done so much to destabilize that country in the first place. We are doing this as Israel's proxy. We are doing this because no nation in the region may have independence or power except for that little fascist state. We also may be doing this because we are playing the opening gambit in a wider Asian land war, I don't know. If we cannot beat China economically, perhaps we can tempt them to put their masses in the field and best them that way. I put nothing past those that run this country like their private ant farm. Yes, if India wants to assist Washington in this enterprise, it can go to hell. Israel and Washington can go to hell also. Not one more drop of American blood over there for any other nation's benefit.
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
You think Pakistan has invaded Afghanistan. OK, but where is your corroboration of that assertion? All I see in the news from all sources is that they're not letting our convoys through at the moment. Perhaps Pakistan has had enough of us sending in drones that fire missiles into its territory that blow up city blocks full of noncombatants - men, women and children - in order to bump off a lousy one or two enemy leaders. Perhaps these attacks make it impossible for Pakistan's leaders to stand before their own people and look like anything but fools and puppets. Men, materiel, and weapons are let through and bombs and bullets come back at them. What are the Pakistani people to think? How are their politicians to respond? How would we expect our politicians to respond? You don't have to love Pakistanis or Muslims or ragheads or anyone else to see how our shit resonates. This is bad ju-ju and is being rigged not to solve any of our current problems over there but precisely so as to irritate and inflame the situation. All of this is being organized to widen the war that we are in.
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
Pakistan is nothing, a litle fake country. We are very much involved with India. Go, get the nukes, problem neutralized for India.
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable." - Thomas Jefferson
So, when and where are you signing up, chiselchest??
I would like to direct this to the distinguished members of the panel: You lousy cork-soakers. You have violated my farging rights. Dis somanumbatching country was founded so that the liberties of common patriotic citizens like me could not be taken away by a bunch of fargin iceholes... like yourselves. Thank you. - Roman Moroni
#2. To: Ada (#0)
America does not need more enemies.
#3. To: Cynicom (#1)
India is waiting for the US to seize the Paki nukes.
#4. To: randge (#3)
There's another wretched orifice to march our men into.
#5. To: Cynicom (#4)
#6. To: randge (#5)
#7. To: randge (#5)
India can go to hell.
#8. To: christine (#2)
this with the Nobel Peace Prize winner at the helm...
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?"
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#9. To: Cynicom (#7)
(Edited)
Most likely will but you need your thinking cap on.
#10. To: Jethro Tull (#6)
#11. To: Cynicom (#1)
India is waiting for the US to seize the Paki nukes.
#12. To: Turtle (#11)
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