#1
"The economy is still in the gravitational pull of the Great Recession," said Robert Reich, former US labour secretary. "All the booster rockets for getting us beyond it are failing."
And Reich is a donk.
The American people sense the feel-good propaganda charade out of Washington. I sense a massacre in the November 2010 elections.
#4
And we are in a 1932 situation for the same reason we were in one in 1932. Government is treating the symptoms and not addressing the cause. We had a program whose purpose was sold as buying toxic assets that bought no toxic assets. It simply dumped cash into bank reserves and left them holding the under water mortgages.
Here is a program that could fix things:
Allow banks to modify under water mortgages for current market value +20%. Allow the banks to write off the difference in principal. BUT you attach a lien to the deed that says that if the property is sold for more than the mortgage value, the bank gets any amount in excess of the mortgage value up to the original mortgage value. The banks would then pay a 10% tax on any windfall they collect.
For example:
You have a mortgage for 600,000 on a property that is now selling for $300,000. Bank adjusts the loan to a $360,000 mortgage and places a special lien on the deed for $240,000. You pay on the mortgage. Now lets say you get the mortgage paid down to $200,000 and sell the property for $400,000. The bank gets $40,000 (400,000 - 360,000 ... the difference between selling price and adjusted mortgage) and pays $4,000 to the govt in tax. The owner walks away with $160,000 (360,000 - 200,000) of equity to use to purchase a new home.
We are currently in a situation where people can not sell a home that they can no longer afford or no longer need (maybe they have taken a job in another town). This would remove the incentive to walk away from mortgages, allow a homeowner to pay down the mortgage and build equity will allowing the mortgage holder to benefit from a future rebound in the market.
#5
Could smart rantburgers like this Crosspatch with the plan, please please please write some very high up folks with your ideas, not just here. Just don't entitle it "Gov't For Dummies, A Reference for the rest of Us." :-D
The not so smart in the higher echelons can't fix the problems because (among other reasons) they ain't smart enough to know how. Seriously, write somewhere besides here. One never can tell when a politician might just adopt an idea they weren't smart enough to think up themselves.
Posted by: Ford Maude Elle ||
07/05/2010 21:24 Comments ||
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#6
One never can tell when a politician might just adopt an idea they weren't smart enough to think up themselves.
Recent research shows a key difference between those who call themselves Liberal/Progressive and those who call themselves conservative is that the former have absolutely no understanding of finance and economics, unlike the latter, regardless of profession or field of endeavor. Unfortunately, those at the top of America's executive branch are all L/Ps for a few more years, and sending them good advice isn't likely to break through their preconceptions. On the other hand, the more clever Congresscritters might just find a felicitous explanation useful as they work to persuade their fellows.
Wachovia bank, now part of Wells Fargo via a merger, has laundered countless sums of Mexican cartel drug money and will get off with a slap of the wrist. The reason ...Wells Fargo is too big to fail.
#4
the question will be whether they put a stop to this and reprimand, or worse, those who carried it out.
Surely you jest. Events since 2007 have shown the big banks can get away with anything as long as they are able to threaten the national & world economy.
#5
My former co-workers at Wells say that Wachovia was one of the leaders in making risky real estate mortgages. As those deals went bad, Wachovia went into more and more risky ventures, figuring "Heads I win, tails the Feds will bail us out." This is what Wells Fargo aquired when they bought Wachovia.
Fixing the Wachovia portfolio is Wells' biggest secret project, and believe me it is a mess!
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/05/2010 11:37 Comments ||
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#6
I noticed Bank of America in that article but no further details.
Is Bank of America still to big to fail?
The U.S. economy is in shambles and Americans will continue to see high unemployment and lower living standards in the years to come, Howard Davidowitz tells Henry and Aaron in the accompanying clip.
Davidowitz lays much of the blame for the economy's woes at the feet of the Obama administration, which he calls "the worst of my lifetime."
Davidowitz says that the key to Obama's success is his ability to sell his policies to the public. He can confidently read from a teleprompter and appear competent and in control, when in reality, "it's one big bag of empty words," Davidowitz says of Obama's messages.
Davidowitz contends that the President's spending, including the health-care bill, is creating massive deficits that will take the U.S. years to dig itself out of. "He is Mr. Mass Destruction," Davidowitz says of Obama. "I mean he is a human destroyer. This guy has spent his way into oblivion and we don't have a budget. He is surrounded by a bunch of complete incompetents, led by himself. "
As far as the actual economy goes, Davidowitz's chief concern is the strained state of the housing market, from which the bad news continues to pour in. According to Davidowitz, Americans are facing an $8 trillion negative wealth effect from the bursting of the housing bubble.
"We're talking about some serious money here," Davidowitz exclaims. "I mean this is a complete disaster and that's why we are going to have a double dip. We're guaranteed a double dip in housing."
Davidowitz says that the job market is also in ruins, noting for every new job there are six applicants. As a result of the intense competition for positions, employers can offer lower wages. Young people entering the work force today can expect to make less money in their lifetime than previous generations.
Considering the majority of new jobs are created by small businesses, Davidowitz argues that new regulations governing loans to small businesses are only making matters worse -- both for the entrepreneurs and the millions of people out of work.
"We have this insane new regulation," Davidowitz says. "Community banks will not even be able to fill out the forms. They'll pack up and quit. They're already underwater. Commercial real estate is still terrible."
Asked whether he thought the U.S. would experience another Great Depression, Davidowitz said the coming years will look more like Japan today vs. the U.S. in the 1930s.
People will be making and spending less money and the nation as a whole will be dealing with the consequences of the deficit, he says. "We are in a struggle, day by day it's ugly. At the core, when we look at our debt, we are going to have to deal with it."
A few months ago, while other analysts claimed that the economy would continue to follow a V-shaped recovery path, Davidowitz seemed out of step by insisting the nation's problems were still dire. Regardless of what you think of his message or style, Davidowitz's doom and gloom outlook now appears much more credible.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, you refuse to fix the mark to market, freddie mack, fannie mae, and all the "swaps" you complain about are not fixed as the US government forced all that debt into the market in the first place.
Conditions have not been fixed so you have a market waiting for the next bubble which will be reserve currency"" and that will wreck us all.
Something about economics and history, it always seems to end the same way
Hey America, you are Argentina now!
Eliminate the electoral college, and you may call yourself Romans for about a year, but then no food will be on the shelves.
God speed!
If your representatives are stupid, YOU are stupid. And broke.
#3
He can confidently read from a teleprompter and appear competent and in control, when in reality, "it's one big bag of empty words," Davidowitz says of Obama's messages.
Anyone with half a brain knew this prior to the election.
#4
when your economic policy is based upon how many new voters you can muster, you know that spells disaster. The country needs Nov. to come ASAP to start phase 1 of Obamdecktomy.
#5
I can't blame Obama for getting us into this mess. I can blame "Buddha Temple" Clinton for his atrocious 1994 China WTO and MFN sellout, directly breaking a campaign pledge. You can see the progression of our decline in this graph:
I do blame him for piling on fraudulent spending gimmicks that pays off his constituency while taking capital from the productive side of the economy and digging us deeper into the economic hole.
Posted by: ed ||
07/05/2010 11:37 Comments ||
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#6
Anyone with half a brain knew this prior to the election. The rest of the electorate voted 0 in.
By Matthew Rothschild, July 3, 2010
It's July 4th, my least favorite holiday. "That's because those around me are enjoying themselves."
And I'm not referring to the bugs, or the crowds, or the traffic on the highways. "I don't like those, either, because I'm so sensitive..."
I'm talking about the mindless patriotic bubble bath we're all supposed to soak in all weekend long. Well, not me. "Love of country's got nuttin' to do with me."
My heart does not beat faster at the strains of the Star Spangled Banner, much less at the sight of F-16s flying overhead to kick off the show. "Nope. Leaves me cold."
You see, I don't believe in patriotism. "I am without love of country, without love of my countrymen. American accomplishment leave me cold, since I am unaccomplished myself. I stand alone, an unrepentant unwiped anus."
You can call me unpatriotic if you'd like, but really I'm anti-patriotic. That's kind of a quibble, isn't it? You are or you're not. If you are you can be kinda patriotic or you can be a super-patriot, or you can be quietly patriotic or even just a little bit patriotic. If you're not patriotic you're unpatriotic by definition.
I've been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism. "Studying fascism, I'm familiar with all the works of Gabriele d'Annunzio, to include his poetry and his plays. I have perused the works of il Duce in the original Italiano, and I have read the Spanish theorists of fascism. Having studied European history, I'm aware that fascist dictatorships such as Italy and Germany were quite happy to overthrow or overshadow nationalist regimes in Austria or Romania or Bulgaria or Hungary. I'm quite familiar with the differences between your common garden variety dictatorship and a fascist regime."
And patriotism is but the father of nationalism. "Such as for instance in Britain in the late 1700s."
Patriotism is not something to play with. It's highly toxic. When ingested, it corrodes the rational faculties. Yet without it the body politic becomes anemic and is easily knocked over by some other, more robust entity, like maybe a gang of brownshirts.
It gulls people into believing their leaders. Occasionally people have leaders who speak to them truthfully.
It masks those who benefit most from state policy. I'm not too sure how patriotism does that...
And it destroys the ability of people to get together, within the United States and across boundaries, to take on those with the most power: the multinational corporation. Like Glaxo Welcome, Panasonic, people like that...
Plus, it's a war toy, wheeled out whenever a leader needs to improve his ratings by attacking some other country--often after invoking God's name, too. It's been so since the Spanish-American War and World War I and right up through the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. Forget about the Maine. What was our beef with Kaiser Bill? Hawaii wasn't even a state when Pearl Harbor got bombed -- we shoulda ignored it. Korea? Why not let the industrial north reclaim the agrarian south? Vietnam? Guess Jane Fonda and Wally Cronkeit settled that question, didn't they?Iraq?... Ummm... What were you saying about fascism? Afghanistan? 9-11? What's 3000 dead out of a population of 330 million?
American patriotism has also gotten in the way of solving global warming. Many in the United States, which consumes 25 percent of the world's resources but has just 4 percent of the world's population, believe we have the God-given right to use up all the resources we can. And there is an all-too-common attitude that we don't need to listen to any other countries, or the U.N., or obey any international agreements because we're Americans, and we're better than everybody else. Until we got the current president we used to have 25 percent of the world's productivity, which is a more accurate guage of our resource requirements.
We've got to get over patriotism, and we've got to cure the American superiority complex. The current administration's doing its best to do that. We the people are waiting for the next election because we kinda liked being exceptional.
So celebrate the 4th if you like. I have and I will.
But as for me, between God, country, and apple pie, I'll take the apple pie. Sounds more like the posings and posturings of a stunted, childish personality.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
But as for me, between God, country, and apple pie, I'll take the apple pie.
#5
"It masks those who benefit most from state policy."
Most people who benefit from state largess have left of center politics like this guy - welfare, affirmative action, public broadcasting at NPR and PBS, education grants and subsidies, the entire public sector union industry, the entire grievance and victim industry, rent seeking "businesses" that wouldn't exist without draconian and useless regulation, bloated bureaucracies which care more about protecting their income stream than doing the job they were supposedly hired to do.
In other words, all of the left in this country, and certainly more than 90% of Democrats.
Is he outing himself and all of his philosophical fellow travellers as deceptive evil people in a fit of honesty?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/05/2010 7:15 Comments ||
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#6
He is not even a good Jew.
Don't be stupidly offensive, newc. Unless you know the man, you cannot know his religion, let alone whether he is good at it. We won't go into the "even" in your statement, because I don't want to start this beautiful day in a towering rage.
#7
Sophist
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin sophista, from Greek sophistēs, literally, expert, wise man, from sophizesthai to become wise, deceive, from sophos clever, wise
Date: 14th century
3 : a captious or fallacious reasoner
The historical viable alternative to patriotism is tribalism. When the great International USSR collapsed, it collapsed into 'national identities'. China has gone through periods of centralization and warring states. There is no viable 'international' model to take its place.
By the way, that pie is mostly full of additives, the flag is now made in China, and mom are having sex change operations. You've got to believe in something. I, however, don't believe in you. If you have no loyalty to me, expect no loyalty back. You've declared yourself not part of the tribe. Enjoy the free ride while it lasts.
#11
Same shit, different year. The progressive eqivalent of "mailing it in". Hopefully, he already has his "National Day of Shame" opus on file for Thanksgiving so he can beat the traffic...
#12
#10 Why is 'progressivism' considered a rational part of our political discourse? Their ideas and beliefs strike me as lunatic-fringe.
Posted by: Free Radical 2010-07-05 10:29
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2010 12:06 Comments ||
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#16
The vast majority of the comments on the article site itself are very much against this clown and his little eruption of intellectual onanism. One of the best, short and sweet:
"Oh I see the problem; he's 'been studying fascism lately.' Must be sophomore year."
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/05/2010 12:54 Comments ||
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#17
I've been studying fascism lately, and there is one inescapable fact about it: Nationalism is the egg that hatches fascism.
Matthew Rothschild, I think you may need to study a bit more. You see eggs don't hatch, they are hatched, by birdy type thingies, although Platypuses also hatch, although I don't know if they hatch Fascists along with bunyip aristocrats.
So who are fascists?
I don't like fascists, so anyone I don't like is a fascist. I don't like Matthew Rothschild, QED Matthew Rothschild is a fascist. Simple really.
#18
By its very nature, there has never been a sovereign country that did not encourage patriotism. Relatively few of them have become Fascist in a real sense (as opposed to left-conformist hyperbole).
Rothschild really only decries American patriotism, out of malice toward this country specifically, or more likely out of ignorance of the kind of jingoism and nationalism that are a way of life in Europe, the communist countries, and the rest of the America-hating parts of the world. The degree of nationalistic boasting we hear from European visitors would be embarrassing to Americans if it werenÂ’t so infuriating in its transparent hypocrisy.
Among American themselves, one usually hears this from people I call hinterland elitists, college grads or students who had high status in the back-of-beyond towns where they grew up, but who find themselves struggling to maintain that status when they get out into the big world.
If you’re around students much at all, this is as characteristic as a finger print. The loudmouthed lefties are invariably children of local muckety-mucks and small business owners. When they get to college, or to their big city career-starter jobs, they find themselves in shock at not being anything special anymore, hence the attention-grabbing embrace of contrarian politics. As Dennis Miller said, “Contrarianism is distinction for the untalented.”
LOlz - there are more people reading old National Geographic magazines
Matthew is the editor of the Progressive and it's based in the Collective of Madison, WI. I think we know what kinda tool he is
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2010 15:32 Comments ||
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#20
Dudes need to let up... He went to Harvard and the rest of us RB knuckleheads are "flyover state school" products at best!
Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine, which is one of the leading voices for peace and social justice in this country. Rothschild has appeared on Nightline, C-SPAN, The O'Reilly Factor, and NPR, and his newspaper commentaries have run in the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times, the Miami Herald, and a host of other newspapers. Rothschild is also the author of a book entitled You Have No Rights: Stories of America in Our Repressive Age (New Press, 2007). A graduate of Harvard University, Rothschild prior to coming to The Progressive worked as the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader. Rothschild came to The Progressive in 1983, and has worked for the magazine in many different capacities, first as associate editor, then managing editor, then publisher, and since 1994 as editor. Rothschild brought on distinguished social critics as columnists, including Barbara Ehrenreich, Eduardo Galeano, and Howard Zinn. He added monthly original poetry from the likes of MartÃn Espada and Adrienne Rich, and he added the humorists Kate Clinton and Will Durst. On the magazine's website, Rothschild contributes several times a week with his "This Just In" commentaries. And he keeps a running tally of civil liberties infringements in his "McCarthyism Watch." Rothschild writes monthly in The Progressive. He has interviewed Senator Russ Feingold, singer Ani DiFranco, Robert Redford, and the journalist Robert Fisk. He also hosts Progressive Radio, a syndicated weekly half-hour program, and he does radio commentaries Monday through Friday. Rothschild is also the co-founder and director of The Progressive Media Project, which since 1993 has been distributing opinion pieces to newspapers around the country in an effort to diversify and democratize the national debate. In 2007, Rothschild published his first book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression (The New Press). In 2009, he edited Democracy in Print: The Best of The Progressive, 1909-2009 (Univ. of Wisconsin Press)
#21
Oh, and in case you missed the multiple mentions in his Bio... " In 2007, Rothschild published his first book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression (The New Press)."
I am pretty sure it was an NYT best seller.
#22
I'm a Cornell alum, capsu. This does not quite have the social cachet of Harvard, at least not among hinterland status-seeker families, but we did have cooler professors (Carl Sagan et al), a better football team, and even wilder hippies.
I also have a doctorate, which I see Rothschild does not.
Otoh, Rothschild appears to be a veritable lion of the socialist society set, having interviewed Robert Redford no less. Woo woo!
And heres a little story for the poor little author who will not receive pie. Good apple pie makers are hard to come by. Some chefs cannot even make a passable apple pie.
On a top chef dessert episode air yesterday, only about 50% of so called "CHEFS" could make a pie that had a crust, held together, wasn't burned, and tasted and looked appetizing.
Non pie able snobby chefs on the show "Top Chef" yesterday share a lot in common with this author. One even whined (upon being a loser) that "he is not a pastry chef." The judge promptly told him: "and my mother is not a chef at all, but she can make a pie" Its this type of do-nothing whining the author shares in common with the asshattery seen on top chef. These types of idiots are all too common.
#27
Another point in our favor, Bart. In contrast, the Harvard Faculty Club was for many years the only licensed restaurant in the US to serve horse meat. They still do but several other institutions have joined them in this degenerate European practice in recent years.
#28
Btw, people who sell horses for slaughter should themselves be roasted and served up to the Harvard faculty, with fava beans and a good chianti. They could call it a multicultural innovation.
#29
A graduate of Harvard University, Rothschild prior to coming to The Progressive worked as the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader. Rothschild came to The Progressive in 1983
Based on the above, we can estimate Mr. Rothschild obtained his BA (no doubt not with honours, as it wasn't mentioned) in 1980 or '81. In other words, it took him twenty-seven years to come out with his first book, and he a professional in the writing biz -- and as publisher and editor he could order his projects to suit himself. And even then the book is touted as a pastiche of the kind of stories that must have come across his desk by the dozens, the kind of thing he could write in his sleep... and probably did.
No wonder none of the major or elite publishing houses were interested! The biggest thing the gentleman ever did was graduate from Hahvahd -- his life since has been an illustration of the kind of successful failure the over-educated, properly precious graduates of prestigious universities can be.
Separately, Cornell's agricultural school is not part of the ivy league, but rather a member of the New York state school system. If I recall correctly, the ag-tech students pay about a third as much tuition as the lib. arts private university students.
#30
see: Olbermann, Keith "Ivy Leaguer, Ag School"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/05/2010 20:25 Comments ||
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#31
Charles Emmerson Winchester III and Thurston Howell III went to Harvard. I don't think I'd care to spend time with either. Andy "the Nard-dog" Bernard went to Cornell and although wimpy he's still kind of funny.
Many may find July 4th an odd time to discuss the events surrounding the BP oil spill, and, in particular, President Obama's visit to the devastated area.
However, after viewing a photo of the president kneeling next to an oil-stained duck, I decided I could be silent no longer.
(Warning: If you own an Obama bobble-head doll, T-shirt and/or matching notepad and ink pen, stop reading now. I repeat, STOP READING NOW!) Snip. Be sure to read the rest of this. It's a start, but I challenged her with my own comments (assuming they remain posted).
#1
No, I don't believe all black people who voted for Obama did so because he was black. There were more white people who voted for him. But I do believe there were those who were caught up in the hype.
Got to cling to some myths. Percentage of whites who voted for Obama, percentage of blacks who voted for Obama? Here's what CNN shows. In the old statistical meme of + or - 5%, it appears to be a solid block compared to any other grouping.
#6
After some Google Fu: June 23, 2010 Confidence Waning in Obama, U.S. Outlook Approval for Mr. Obama has dropped among Hispanics, too, along with small-town residents, white women and seniors. African-Americans remain the firmest part of Mr. Obama's base, with 91% approving of his job performance.
I defer to Hammerhead.
Posted by: ed ||
07/05/2010 12:01 Comments ||
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#7
Well, when people of a certain color realize that obama isn't going to pay their mortgage or put gas in their cars or mail them checks that let them quit their jobs, (and no, I don't think that group is a majority of the minority) they will decide it is somebody's fault, and that somebody won't be obama...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/05/2010 12:56 Comments ||
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Who is the summer's hottest American matinee idol? Robert Pattinson? Taylor Lautner? Or is it Chris Christie?
OK, one of them is mainly the crush of fiscal conservatives. But it's a breathless, paste-his-picture-in-your-locker kind of frenzy. "Christie Almighty," read the title of a blog post at National Review. Glenn Beck called a highlight reel of Christie's most in-your-face remarks "Common Sense Porn" -- and meant it as a compliment. I never would have guessed one guy could turn the GOP into the party of porn and blasphemy. But I sure am proud.
Christie has done a couple of big things -- he pushed through the smallest budget in five years in a spending-drunk state, making no major concessions to the Democrat-run legislature. And he broke with 63 years of tradition by failing to reappoint a judge (a liberal) to the state's meddlesome Supreme Court and naming a Republican replacement.
But what really impresses conservatives nationwide is his frank, funny, in-your-face style, which he frequently deploys in unscripted, passionate defenses of bedrock conservatism. He makes little effort to sprinkle the artificial sweetener of "compassion" over his ideas.
Chris Christie may look like Chris Farley, but in terms of conservative principles he's as sexy as Christie Brinkley.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2010 00:00 ||
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"Chris Christie may look like Chris Farley..."
As somewhat of a--ahem--full-figured gentleman myself, I consider that a feature rather than a bug.
The strategy that served the purpose of forcing the former Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan was foolishly perpetuated to serve the narrowly defined designs of our hawkish security structures on both the eastern and western fronts
Now the holiest shrine of the most revered saint Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh in the heart of Lahore has been sacrilegiously bombed by the ideologically motivated terrorists of Pakistani origin. This is not a lone and unimagined ghastly act, as some people in Punjab may assume, but a continuation of a mad drive against all spiritual, cultural, democratic and material values by those who out of their megalomaniac and barbaric misconception of Islam are bent upon pushing Pakistan and the Muslim world into the bloody degeneration of a contemporary inquisition. Everyday terrorist assaults on the innocent people by these self-appointed warriors of (anti-)Islam warrant an unambiguous and resolute collective response at the ideological, social, political and military levels.
Yet there are those apologists of terrorism, and they are plenty, who shamelessly and hypocritically shift the blame on to some "foreign hand" or somebody who is "alien to Islam". Out of their own ideological perversion and hatred for the west and western civilisation and/or India, they are not ready to accept it as the handiwork of a Muslim or Pakistani. They irrationally find lame excuses and concoct cover-ups for the jihadis by citing the reaction to the numerous injustices committed by the west or infidels against the Muslim world without realising the fact that they are only eulogising a suicidal course at the expense of their own country and the Muslim world. The most convenient way for the incompetent or compromised investigating agencies and a section of the media wired to the powers-that-be or obsessed with conspiracy theories, is to shift the blame on the ubiquitous 'foreign hand', RAW and Blackwater in particular. So far, not a single terrorist case in Punjab has been established against RAW and despite the arrests of many culprits, the investigations have moved nowhere. Even if they have found some credible leads in some cases, they have not been able to lay hands on the real perpetrators of the suicide bombings.
Most glaring is the view of the so-called security and defence experts, who are as many as you can imagine, who consider the disparate terrorist outfits, especially those fighting in Kashmir or in Afghanistan, as a reserve or 'strategic asset'. Not long ago we were told that almost all of them were Pakistan's 'strategic assets', but gradually it was revealed that most of them have turned hostile and joined the jihadi internationalist solidarity front. Terrorism and terrorist outfits as a tool of national security policy have been central to the twin strategic designs of an India-centric policy and 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan. The roots of this counter-productive strategic paradigm are rooted in General Zia's and President Regan's crusade against the former Soviet Union which, after the exit of the Soviet Union, was to serve the purpose of keeping Afghanistan as a surrogate of Pakistan and, subsequently, its extension to Indian-administered Kashmir.
The strategy that served the purpose of forcing the former Soviet Union to leave Afghanistan was foolishly perpetuated to serve the narrowly defined designs of our hawkish security structures on both the eastern and western fronts. No lessons were drawn despite the 'betrayal' of almost all Afghan surrogates who turned Afghanistan into a chaotic ground for an internecine conflict among the brutal warlords called Afghan Mujahideen. The same policy continued and the Taliban were created and brought into power, who went berserk and put Pakistan in an unenviable position. It was only after 9/11 that under General Musharraf the military establishment had to beat a reluctant and partial retreat.
But the institutional constraints and his own interests kept Musharraf on the road of duplicity and he continued to cling to the Mullah-Military alliance, resulting in the loss of almost all agencies in FATA to the Pakistani Taliban, who were allowed to turn into a monster challenging the writ of the state. Benefitting from the revival of US client status, the Musharraf administration exploited its 'disadvantages', as seen by the international community, such as on terrorism, nuclear proliferation and drug trafficking, to its 'advantage'. Not only General Musharraf but also others developed the art of calculatingly using these 'assets' of national disadvantages and incrementally cashing them in as an advantage. And this zero-sum-game continues to this day without realising the strategic disadvantages and extremely destabilising fallouts of continuing to harbour one proxy or the other, who are now targeting everything in their way to turn Pakistan into yet another Afghanistan.
Everybody wants the back of the US and its allies in Afghanistan -- some out of hate for the US, others for "national liberation" or "Islamic glory" against foreign occupation and still others for regaining strategic (soft or hard) depth. What is not realised is the vexing question of who will fill the void created by the exit of the real world powers? Indeed, the masters of our security are still too keen to have a foothold in the treacherous, costly and dangerous quagmire of Afghanistan. Could an economically, nationally and institutionally fragile underdeveloped country hold together a critical mass of instability as its strategic depth against an emerging big power on our east, an enterprise that could not be tackled by the two superpowers in succession?
The NATO allies, especially the US, are only interested in the neutralisation of al Qaeda or those with international terrorist reach. If the Taliban and others break their links with Osama and company, the US will have no problem in doing business with the Taliban while closing their eyes to what havoc a resurgent Taliban will bring to the region, especially Pakistan and Central Asia. The victory we are pursuing in Afghanistan and being facilitated by the US stupidities and inconsistencies may result in such a great anarchy that may consume the whole of Pakistan and Central Asia with a variety of sectarian warriors killing each other in every street and village of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For the civilian and also other Pakistan, the Taliban and the militants of all varieties are a real threat. Who has the intellectual or strategic guts to convert them into our strategic depth? And those powerful sections who are still pursuing the goal of bringing the Pakhtun Taliban back in power in Kabul are only digging the grave of a democratic Pakistan. By building an 'excessively' Pakistani nationhood on the ideological basis of Islam while Islamists continue to reject nationhood or nation building as repugnant to the theoretical world of the Ummah, we are paying the heavy price of growing sectarian extremism and jihadi terrorism that is going to tear us apart as a people and as a nation, if we are one. Time has already run out and we are yet to wake up to a threat that may leave nothing to defend or relish.
Imtiaz Alam is Editor South Asian Journal. He can be reached at imtiazalampak@yahoo.com
Posted by: Fred ||
07/05/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
"...megalomaniac and barbaric misconception of Islam"
until people realize that the Taliban and Al Q represent a Koranic based conception of Islam, we aren't going to make much progress
Posted by: lord garth ||
07/05/2010 11:24 Comments ||
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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.
