If there is one element of moral and political certainty that cements the liberal consensus more than any other, it is the complacent view that while Iraq is "a war of choice," it is really and only Afghanistan that is a war of necessity. The ritualistic solidity of this view is impressive. It survives all arguments and all evidence. Just in the last month, as the Iraqi-based jihadists began to beat a retreat and even (according to some reports) to attempt to relocate to Afghanistan and Pakistan, it still seemed to many commentators that this proved that no U.S. forces should have been wasted on Iraq in the first place. This simplistic view ignores, at a minimum, the following points:
1. Many of the al-Qaida forcesmost notably the horrific but now deceased Abu Musab al-Zarqawimade their way to Iraq in the first place only after being forcibly evicted from Afghanistan. Thus, if one did not want to be confronting Bin Laden fans in Mesopotamia, it was surely a mistake to invade Afghanistan rather than Iraq.
2. The American presence in Afghanistan is not at all "unilateral"; it meets every liberal criterion of being formally underwritten and endorsed and armed and reinforced by our NATO and U.N. allies. Indeed, the commander of the anti-Taliban forces is usually not even an American. Yet it is in these circumstances that more American casualtiesand not just American onesare being experienced than are being suffered in Iraq. If this is so, the reason cannot simply be that our resources are being deployed elsewhere.
3. Many of the most successful drives against the Taliban have been conducted by American forces redeployed from Iraq, in particular from Anbar province. But these military victories are the result of counterinsurgent tactics and strategies that were learned in Iraq and that have been applied triumphantly in Afghanistan.
In other words, any attempt to play off the two wars against each other is little more than a small-minded and zero-sum exercise. And consider the implications. Most people appear now to believe that it is quite wrong to mention Saddam Hussein even in the same breath as either a) weapons of mass destruction or b) state-sponsored terrorism. I happen to disagree, but just for an experiment, let us imagine that some regime did exist or did arise that posed such a combination of threats. (Actually, so feverish is my imagination that I can even think of one whose name also begins with I.) Would we be bound to say, in public and in advance, that the Western alliance couldn't get around to confronting such a threat until it had Afghanistan well under control? This would be rather like the equivalent fallacy that nothing can be done in the region until there is a settlement of the Israel-Palestine dispute. Not only does this mean that every rogue in the region can reset his timeline until one of the world's oldest and most intractable quarrels is settled, it also means that every rogue has an incentive to make certain that no such settlement can ever occur. (Which is, of course, why Saddam threw, and now the Iranians throw, their support to the suicide-murderers.)
It would also be very nice to accept another soft-centered corollary of the Iraq vs. Afghanistan trade-off and to believe that the problem of Afghanistan is a problem only of the shortage of troops. Strangely, this is not the view of the Afghan government or of any of the NATO forces on the ground. The continued and, indeed, increasing insolence of the Taliban and its al-Qaida allies is the consequence of one thing and one thing only. These theocratic terrorists know that they have a reliable backer in the higher echelons of the Pakistani state and of its military-intelligence complex and that while this relationship persists, they are assured of a hinterland across the border and a regular supply of arms and recruits.
So, the question for Sen. Barack Obama and his glib supporters is this: Would they solve this problem by removing the American forces from Iraq and putting the thereby-enhanced contingent there to patrol a frontier where one of our main "allies" is continually engaged in stabbing them in the back? (At one point last year, Obama himself appeared to accept the illogic of his own position and spoke hotly of the possibility of following the Taliban onto Pakistani soil. We haven't heard much of that lately. Did he mean to say that, come to think of it, we had enough troops to occupy three countries instead of the stipulated and solitary one? Or would he just exchange Iraq for Pakistan? At least we do know for sure that Pakistan has nuclear weapons acquired mainly by piracy and is the host and patron of the Taliban and al-Qaida.)
Another consideration obtrudes itself. If it is true, as yesterday's three-decker front-page headline in the New York Times had it, that "U.S. Considering Stepping Up Pace of Iraq Pullout/ Fall in Violence Cited/ More Troops Could Be Freed for Operations in Afghanistan," then this can only be because al-Qaida in Iraq has been subjected to a battlefield defeat at our handsa military defeat accompanied by a political humiliation in which its fanatics have been angrily repudiated by the very people they falsely claimed to be fighting for. If we had left Iraq according to the timetable of the anti-war movement, the situation would be the precise reverse: The Iraqi people would now be excruciatingly tyrannized by the gloating sadists of al-Qaida, who could further boast of having inflicted a battlefield defeat on the United States. I dare say the word of that would have spread to Afghanistan fast enough and, indeed, to other places where the enemy operates. Bear this in mind next time you hear any easy talk about "the hunt for the real enemy" or any loose babble that suggests that we can only confront our foes in one place at a time.
#1
world's oldest and most intractable quarrels is settled
Hitchens is suggesting the problem is one of religion. Some Morrocans I worked with (1978) insisted the problem was not religion, but land - noting "Arabs and Jews had lived together for a thousand years." I see their point, tax and all.
So when the Jooos left Gaza, that wasn't a step in the right direction?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/15/2008 6:49 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Hitchens being intelligent again. Good to see.
Posted by: Menhaden S ||
07/15/2008 8:07 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The problem in the Israeli theater is religion. It was land and power under Arafat but the religion became radicalized and Hamas the main antagonist now.
#4
Arabs and Jews have lived together for a long time - as long as the Jews were in a submissive condition, ghettoized low-caste perpetual victims to the Arabs, and the pre-designated targets whenever anyone needed to blow off steam.
Interestingly this underdog position was probably the most extreme in Morrocco, which had by far the largest Jewish population.
For a view of the Jewish condition in Morrocco under Arab rule, I recommend Douglas Porch - "The Conquest of Morrocco". This is not specifically about the Jewish condition, but well worth a read anyway.
#6
"But now deceased ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI" > IMO thats should be ALLEGEDLY DEAD/DECEASED Zark, as that MSM photos of Zarkey are NOT the same personage + no death pic. I'M PERSONALLY NOT CONVINCED ZARKEY IS ACTUALLY DEAD DESPITE CONTIN MSM-NET REPORTS TO THE CONTRARY.
FOR a variety of reasons, Pakistans policymakers have either not fully realised where the potential of the economy lies or were forced into taking decisions that were not in the economys long-term interest.
They did not make use of the impressive endowments of the country to develop an economy that would have grown rapidly without interruptions and could have become a vibrant part of the global system.
Had they promoted the development of agriculture, in particular high value-added crops; encouraged the growth of small and medium-sized industries using the skills traditionally available to the economy; invested in educating and training the countrys large and young population; focused on using trade to better integrate the economy with the global system; and created a political structure that provided a voice to the diverse segments of the population, the country today would be in a happier economic, political and social situation. Instead it faces perhaps the worse economic crisis in its history.
While a number of structural weaknesses low level of domestic savings, poorly developed human resources, inefficient attention given to the countrys endowments, and a system of governance that did not give a voice to the people have been present since the countrys birth more than six decades ago, another structural fault line developed gradually over time. I am referring here to the system of economic governance.
Even under the British who ruled for 99 years from 1848 to 1947 there was much greater autonomy available to the provinces than is the case in modern Pakistan. Since Pakistan was managed most of the time by bureaucracies with strong command and control traditions, power has shifted to the centre. For the first 11 years, members of the civil services (in particular the Civil Service of Pakistan, the CSP) were important policymakers; since 1958, the military has governed for 32 years.
Both institutions believe in highly centralised systems of economic and political management. That approach left little room to the provinces even when as was the case with the Constitution of 1973 the political structure was built on two pillars, the central and provincial administrations.
The model of economic development followed in the past, particularly during the period of President Pervez Musharraf, had one other consequence. Since there was a high level of dependence on external flows, the economy plunged and went into a crisis whenever external support was reduced or withdrawn. This happened in the late 1960s and in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, when the United States reduced its support for the country.
The crisis that now engulfs the economy is not the result of withdrawal of official flows. It has been produced by a combination of external developments over which Pakistans policymakers have no influence and because of the serious failures of public policy, especially over the last decade. The situation has been exacerbated by the process of transition from military rule that is currently under way. As several observers have noted, policymaking in Islamabad is adrift with nobody really in charge.
An analysis of the flow of official assistance to Pakistan reveals not only large transfers during the periods Pakistan was needed by the United States for strategic reasons. Also apparent from the data is a seeming association between economic stress and official capital flows. This correspondence remains even if we factor out the resources provided by the International Monetary Fund, an institution that provides assistance to countries in economic difficulties. What the capital flow data therefore suggests is that Pakistan was able to tap friendly countries during critical periods.
I can testify that this is the case from my own experience as finance minister in 1996-97 when I took leave of absence from the World Bank to join the caretaker administration that took office following the dismissal of the government of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. After I assumed office it was revealed to me that foreign reserves had declined to well below $100 million.
The State Bank of Pakistan, the countrys central bank, did not have enough in its reserves to pay the bills that were due to such preferred creditors as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. Pakistan faced default. I travelled to Beijing (where I met the prime minister) and to Abu Dhabi (where I met the governor of the UAE central bank) and was able to raise close to a billion dollars, enough to pay the bills during my brief tenure in office.
I was able to do this not because I had any special negotiating skills. It was clear to me that several friendly governments would not allow Pakistan to go under. The Chinese and UAE decisions were similar in a way to the rescue operation launched in March 2008 by the US Federal Reserve Bank, the Fed, to rescue Bear Stearns, the investment bank, from collapsing under the weight of the debts it had built up.
The Fed acted to prevent contagion in the financial markets. Similar logic applies to countries in Pakistans situation where serious economic problems could produce unpleasant social and political effects in sensitive areas such as those in which the country is located.
This experience of the donors launching rescue operations during periods of extreme distress has created a situation of moral hazard for Pakistan: the belief that even if the policymakers dont take corrective measures and change the structure of the economy, the country will be saved by its friends across the globe. If Pakistan is to be helped out of its present predicament, as it should be, the donors should attach some conditions to the help they are providing.
Given the way the situation is evolving in and around Pakistan, this may be a good moment for the community of international donors to step in vigorously with the aim of guiding the country and its citizenry towards a better and a more certain economic and political future. The donor response should be well developed, based on a strategy of economic reform and political development along with the promise of a large infusion of funds. But the donors will step in as a group only if Pakistan appeals to them for help. At the moment it seems to be approaching individual countries for assistance.
Such an approach is neither good for Pakistan nor for those in the world who would be willing to help the country out of a difficult situation. What is needed is a concerted, collective action based on a promise of reform by Islamabad.
Posted by: ||
07/15/2008 09:51 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Posted by: john frum ||
07/15/2008 15:08 Comments ||
Top||
#3
As a countryman I am filled with dismay at this abject state of affairs - where o where is the promised land of opportunities that our forefathers sacrificed to attain this !???
Posted by: john frum ||
07/15/2008 16:04 Comments ||
Top||
#5
As V. S. Naipaul, an expert on the history of the region put it in his book, Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples
It was Muslim insecurity that led to the call for the creation of Pakistan. It went at the same time with an idea of old glory, of the invaders sweeping down from the northwest and looting the temples of Hindustan and imposing the faith on the infidel. The fantasy still lives; and for the Muslim converts of the subcontinent it is the start of their neurosis, because in this fantasy the convert forgets who or what he is and becomes the violator. P. 247
The Indian subcontinent had been bloodily partitioned to create the state of Pakistan. Millions had died, and many more had been uprooted, on both sides of the new frontiers. More than a hundred million Muslims had been abandoned on the Indian side, but virtually all the Hindus and Sikhs had been chased away from Pakistan.
Islam is in its origins an Arab religion. Everyone not an Arab who is a Muslim is a convert. Islam is not simply a matter of conscience or private belief. It makes imperial demands. A converts worldview alters. His holy places are in Arab lands; his language is Arabic. His idea of history alters. He rejects his own; he becomes, whether he likes it or not, a part of the Arab story. The convert has to turn away from everything that is his. The disturbance for societies is immense, and even after a thousand years can remain unresolved; the turning away has to be done again and again. People develop fantasies about who and what they are; and in the Islam of the converted countries there is an element of neurosis and nihilism. These countries can be easily set on the boil.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/15/2008 16:14 Comments ||
Top||
Back in 1947, as Pakistani irregulars battled in Jammu and Kashmir, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid out what remains the principal doctrinal challenge before New Delhis security strategists. India, Prime Minister Nehru said, was confronted not just with tribal irregulars, but "a well organised business with the backing of the State." As such, it had "in effect to deal with a State carrying out an informal war, but nevertheless a war."
Last week, infuriated by mounting evidence that Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate organised the bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan proposed a solution:. "I think we need to pay back in the same coin". "Talk-talk is better than fight-fight," Mr. Narayanan concluded, "but it hasnt worked so far."
No Indian official has ever used language that even approaches that deployed by the NSA -- but more than a few in its covert services, including the former Intelligence Bureau chief, Ajit Doval, and his Research and Analysis Wing counterpart Vikram Sood, have long made a similar case.
Exactly what is it, though, that advocates of retaliation have in mind?
Liberated after six years of jungle captivity, Franco-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt exclaimed: "I think only the Israelis can possibly pull off something like this." If only.
Tomorrow, the Israeli government is scheduled to release five Lebanese prisoners, including a man named Samir Kuntar more on him in a moment in exchange for two of its kidnapped soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, and information concerning the fate of airman Ron Arad, missing since 1986. The exchange might seem semiequitable, if only the three Israelis weren't all presumed dead.
Israel is also trying to negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by Hamas and held in the Gaza Strip since June 2006. Cpl. Shalit is almost certainly alive. The asking price for his freedom, should terms ever be met, will be high: Hamas has already turned down cold an Israeli offer to release 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for their one hostage.
Israel's predicament is a self-inflicted wound. In 2004, Israel released some 400 prisoners, including Hezbollah cause célèbres Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustafa Dirani, in exchange for the remains of three Israeli soldiers and a living former army colonel named Elhanan Tannenbaum, described in press reports as a "businessman." It later became public that Mr. Tannenbaum's business was drug dealing.
It was clear what was coming next. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah welcomed his returning comrades by saying he was "more determined than ever" to wage war on Israel. He added that more kidnappings would be in store for Israelis unless they promptly released Kuntar. Israel refused. Sure enough, in July 2006 Regev and Goldwasser were kidnapped by Hezbollah, sparking a war in which 163 Israelis were killed.
Now Kuntar, 45, is about to be freed. In 1979, he took an Israeli family hostage in the northern coastal town of Nahariya, shot and killed father Danny Haran and dashed the skull of his 4-year-old daughter Einat against a rock with his rifle butt. Danny's wife, Smadar, managed to hide from Kuntar in a crawl space of their apartment with two-year-old daughter Yael, whom she accidentally suffocated while trying to keep the toddler quiet. A policeman was also killed in the attack.
Kuntar was sentenced to 548 years in prison. In 1985, Palestinian terrorists seized the Achille Lauro cruise ship to win Kuntar's release. Wheelchair-bound U.S. passenger Leon Klinghoffer was murdered along the way. Kuntar has never repented and recently vowed to continue fighting once released."My oath and pledge," he wrote Sheik Nasrallah in a letter reprinted in a Palestinian newspaper, "is that my place will be at the battlefront, which is soaked in the sweat of your giving, and the blood of the most beloved among men, and that I shall continue down the path, until complete victory." Tomorrow's plans call for Kuntar to be flown to Beirut in a Lebanese Army helicopter, to be festively received by the heads of the Lebanese government. Such are their heroes.
Barring the surprise that Regev and Goldwasser are alive, the most Israel gets in return for this exchange is a decent burial for the soldiers, no small thing for their families. As for Arad, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has deemed Hezbollah's 80-page report about his fate "absolutely unsatisfactory," a point that might yet delay or abort the exchange.
But whatever happens, Israel has once again demonstrated to its enemies that their strategy of taking hostages works. Worse, it works even when those hostages are killed. If Regev and Goldwasser are dead, the situation of Cpl. Shalit and any other Israeli who might be taken alive by Hezbollah or its ilk becomes infinitely more precarious.
This is more than just a problem for Israel. With its July 1976 raid on Entebbe, Israel demonstrated there was an alternative to negotiating with terrorists. That didn't mean that every hostage rescue attempt would end happily. But it did offer the possibility that, eventually, hostage takers would realize they're in a bad business. Instead, business has boomed. In Iraq in 2005, Germany paid $5 million for the freedom of a kidnapped aid worker. The results were predictable. As Britain's Guardian reported last year: "Because it is known that the German government like those of Italy and France is willing to pay ransoms, the 'value' of German kidnap victims has risen in the Middle East." The three German tourists recently kidnapped by the Kurdish PKK are only the latest "beneficiaries" of past German largess.
Maybe it's par for the course that European governments should act this way: The notion of moral hazard is nearly as alien to them as that of national honor. It's a different matter when Israel behaves the same way, not only because it is the prime target of attack, but because, in the face of terrorism, Israel still defines the standard of democratic courage by which the rest of the free world must, sooner or later, measure itself.
If Israel is no longer prepared to hold the line, will America be far behind?
#1
May God damn Olmert to everlasting Hell for releasing Kuntar. That murdering son of a syphilitic she-camel deserved the most painful torture and death anyone could possibly devise for him.
#2
May God damn Olmert to everlasting Hell for releasing Kuntar.
It's not Olmert's fault that Kuntar wasn't sentenced to death and executed, as he should have been. Olmert has some part of the blame for carrying out the exchange. But so does the Israeli electorate for abolishing the death penalty in 1954. And for giving Kadima the biggest block of votes in the election.
#3
So-o-o IIUC, Israel is responsible for the German, etc. $$$ payout to Terrorism, as oppos to the 1972 MUNICH OLYMPICS or even ACHILLE LAURO response???
#4
"But so does the Israeli electorate for abolishing the death penalty in 1954."
Well, they didn't abolish it for everything, thankfully. They're the one death-penalty abolishing country I'm willing to cut some slack to, all things considered.
From the comments thread of a post at Watts Up With That on unmelted Arctic Ice, by a commenter who identifies himself as "JP":
This enitre "waiting for Godot" mentality has become quite boring. It is now big entertainment for those in the AGW camp to write stories, publish studies and generally fill the airways with tripe concerning the melting ice cap(s). The same thing occured in 2005-2006 concerning tropical cyclones, and when Mother Nature refused to cooperate, that faucet was shut-off quickly and a new faucet was turned on -namely the melting artic ice cap (or whatever they call it these days). So now from May through September the world must stop all activity as the Alarmists wait and hope against hope that for just a few hours the Northwest Passage might open up. One can just imagine the headlines on Drudge. In the meantime, scientists at the cryosphere and other insititutions will adjust the ice coverage and worry over the thinness of the ice, and perhaps a few oceanographers could say the Gulfstream is weakening and the sea levels are rising 100,000 times faster than the IPCC forecasted.
Most people forget this was all brought about when surface temp anomalies didn't do what they're suppose to do (flattened or went negative), and the next El Nino event is still at least a year out. How can an Alarmist alarm people with flat graphs, mild summers, and cold winters? For not even Hansen has the nerve to blame the California fires and drought on AGW (however, I wouldn't put it past him saying that AGW causes more extreme La Ninas).
If the next El Nino fails to materialize by next summer, look for some other phenomena (maybe coral bleaching) that will be used to hammer the masses. The folks at Hadely, NASA, and the UN are a very persistent bunch and barring any rapid drop in global temperatures can keep the narrative going until something like El Nino gives them a boost. He has _no idea_.
Investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe presented reports on the Barbury Castle pattern, ocean acidity, an abductee's account of non-human technologies, and the U.K's recent UFO flap... ...Increased acidity in Pacific Coast waters is occurring much faster than global warming climate models predicted— and is posing a threat to marine life. She interviewed Christopher Lee Sabine with the NOAA, who expressed surprise at the levels of acidity, which he associated with increased CO2 in the atmosphere. More here. I think I've explained before that the woo-woo fringe is where the Big Tranzi Aristocracy "tries out" various issues before taking them to big audiences. Look for this to be spammed in the mainstream media in about another three to four weeks.
#1
Looks pretty icy to me. Just like it should be.
The imagery doesn't give us any information about thickness, but you'd think the edges would be melting at least if it were getting thin.
#2
If you haven't gone to see the picture at the link, do so. It's a satellite picture of northern Canada and Arctic Ocean dated 7/12/08. Cool! Just not quite what the chicken little alarmst say it should look like.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/15/2008 9:44 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Northern Hemispheric ice coverage about 600k km**2 ahead of last year while SH is running about 1m km**2 ahead.
We are about 6 years into the negative phase of the PDO. The water in the North Pacific is about 2C cooler than the 30 year mean.
And depending on who you want to believe, we are headed toward a Maunder Minimum in the sunspot cycle...which some believe contributed to the Little Ice Age. I agree with NASA (for once) that the jury is still out on that.
The point is that the negative phase of the PDO is the 1st order effect on sea ice and the little warming we have measured with the rest likely attributable to variations in the solar constant.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
