The Globe and Mail has a story, based on a NATO report, which describes how a platoon of French soldiers advancing up a hill in Afghanistan, with high ground on three sides, were hit by snipers and RPGs and wiped out as a unit. Of the 30 French paratroopers, 10 were killed and 18 were wounded. Michael Yon, who has access to the classified NATO report, confirms the Globe and Mail article correctly reflects the report, without adding any additional details. The Globe and Mail story suggests the enemy which attacked the French received training and weaponry from sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan. “Two Western security officials said … that the attackers cannot be described as purely Taliban; they likely included fighters from the Taliban movement, but also from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-i-Islami network, and perhaps from other groups. Senior officials said they suspect the involvement of Hazrat Noor, an extremist leader from South Waziristan, in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan.”
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s biography encapsulates not only the history of Pakistan’s involvement in Afghanistan, but also underscores the interplay of geopolitics on the fighting. Hekmatyar began his career as a leader of the Muslim Youth organization, throwing acid in the faces of women who ventured out without covering. He later fled to Pakistan where he established Hizb-i-Islami (”Islamic Party”) under the patronage of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir’s dad, who provided training camps in which they could sharpen their killing skills. After the USSR invaded Afghanistan, the CIA paid Hekmatyar to return to his homeland and harass the Soviets. But Hekmatyar was willing to take money from all comers provided it suited his book. Wikipedia writes that “at various times, he has both fought against and allied himself with almost every other group in Afghanistan. He ordered frequent attacks on other rival factions to weaken them in order to improve his position in the post-Soviet power vacuum.”
After alternately trying to defy and ally with the Taliban after the Soviet withdrawal, Hekmatyar lost his training camps in Pakistan to them and fled to Iran, where he remained for 6 years awaiting events. After September 11, he saw an opportunity to return and decided to join the “global Jihad” against America. In early 2002 he was reportedly forming an alliance with al-Qaeda, who probably needed help from any quarter they could get it. Once again he was back in his element. Hekmatyar is currently “thought to have at least assisted in a April 27, 2008 attempt on the life of President Karzai in Kabul … responsible for include the January 2, 2008 shooting down of a helicopter containing foreign troops in the Laghman province; the shooting and forcing down a U.S. military helicopter in the Sarubi district of Kabul on January 22; and blowing up a Kabul police vehicle in March 2008″. Now he is believed to have assisted in the deadly attack on French paratroopers.
The attack on the French illustrates how much of the fighting in Afghanistan originates from planning cells and training camps in Pakistan. None of this is news. Bill Roggio says that not only are new attacks on NATO being planned in Pakistan, it has long been suspected that the ‘next September 11′ is brewing in the Pakistani tribal areas. American commanders are caught between standing by and watching it happen or acting to prevent it and precipitating the disintegration of Pakistan.
“You might as well paint the entire Northwest Frontier Province red,” one senior military intelligence source said ….US Special Operations Forces have stepped up attacks inside Pakistan’s lawless tribal agencies in part of an effort to prevent the next major attack inside the United States, senior military and intelligence sources told The Long War Journal. …
The cross-border raids are designed to disrupt al Qaeda’s training camps and safe houses that aid in preparing for attacks against the West, sources say. The US is also targeting al Qaeda’s Taliban allies in Pakistan, such as the powerful Haqqani family in North Waziristan and the Taliban forces of Mullah Nazir in South Waziristan … in the tribal areas [who] not only facilitate attacks against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, they play a critical role in facilitating attacks against the West by providing safe havens and sponsoring camps that train foreign terrorists,” a military intelligence source said.
But the problem is not only whether UAV strikes and Special Forces raids can accomplish this goal alone, but also for how long even this limited form of disruption can continue. US strikes, amplified by hysterical reporting such as this article by Robert Fisk have generated Pakistani political demands to cut off logistical supplies to NATO. Bill Roggio writes:
US military and intelligence officials wonder how long the strikes can continue. The Pakistanis may get serious and close the Torkham and Chaman crossing points to NATO traffic for extended periods. The strikes may cause the current Pakistani government to collapse, leaving a political vacuum that can be filled with Taliban sympathizers such as Nawaz Sharif. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” one official said in desperation.
But how can Americans fight al-Qaeda in Pakistan if they are engaged in the “War in Afghanistan” or the “War in Iraq”? Al-Qaeda itself draws no such distinctions, although they are the obsession of Western politicians and journalists. Perhaps the greatest strategic error of the Bush Administration after September 11 was to subsume its campaigns under the name the “War on Terror” without explaining what this term meant. By failing to describe the relative roles of Islamic ideology, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and Russia in the transnational terrorist phenomenon, it gave the unfortunate impression the campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan and counterterror ops in numerous countries were all separate events, instead of interrelated efforts. This allowed the Left to politically delegitimize individual components of the “War on Terror” without ever acknowledging the existence of an interrelated nexus of terrorism. Obama could say he was not against all wars, just dumb ones in Iraq. As if there were a war soley for Iraq. For a time Afghanistan became the “good war” while Iraq remained “the bad war”, although that has changed lately as America’s various enemies redeploy to Afghanistan/Pakistan. But as Michael Totten writes in Commentary that they are all part of the same war.
Obama could, perhaps, argue that fewer resources were available for the fight in Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq. That would be true. But that’s also true of Al Qaeda’s resources. They also deployed manpower and material to Iraq that otherwise could have been sent to Afghanistan. … If Al Qaeda hadn’t poured all those resources into Iraq, they likely would have poured them into Afghanistan. …
Obama is rightly worried about the safe havens Al Qaeda has created in Pakistan, and it’s to his credit that he refuses to let up about it. But for years he’s been entirely blasé about the safe havens Al Qaeda created in Iraq–in Ramadi, Fallujah, Baqubah, Mosul, and parts of Baghdad. For years he has aggressively promoted a policy of abandoning the fight in that country which quite obviously would have allowed Al Qaeda to preserve those safe havens and possibly even expand them.
Events in Afghanistan both before and after the Soviet invasion; prior to and subsequent to 9/11 were heavily influenced by global events. Events in Afghanistan were a reflection of larger developments rather than a driver of them. The War on Terror is really a global fight against a complex of virulent ideologies, oil money, crime, drugs, rogue states and alliances among super-gangs. Hekmatyar’s own life illustrates this and there is no reason to think that overall success is exclusively tied to any particular geographical place name. If US forces succeed in making the Northwest Frontier Provinces too hot for al-Qaeda they will simply go elsewhere or withdraw deeper into Pakistan. The Cold War possessed a strategic coherence which the War on Terror, due to its failure to name the enemy, has so far failed to achieve. During that long struggle, nobody spoke of deterring the Statsi in East Germany or the North Vietnamese Army in Indochina. None were so foolish as to assume these were all disconnected events, as we often do with Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. It was well understood that what needed to be deterred around the Inner German Border or in Southeast Asia was the Soviet Union or China. Michael Totten described how the pulse of terror rose or fell in proportion to the perception that America would go after them wherever they hid.
Last year the Pew Research Center surveyed Muslims in 16 different countries. Support for suicide bombers has declined in nearly every country that was also surveyed in 2002, and the decline is dramatic almost everywhere. The only Muslim communities surveyed where support for suicide bombers remains at greater than 50 percent are, unsurprisingly, the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.
The United States could not have prudently allowed itself to yield the field to Al Qaeda in either Iraq or Afghanistan by being wholly distracted from one or the other. Both fronts were crucial for Al Qaeda, which means both were crucial for the United States. It doesn’t matter if we like the fact that we have been embroiled in a hot war with Al Qaeda in two countries at once. That’s just how it is.
The often-reviled idea that “either you are for us or against us” isn’t a newly minted brainwave proceeding from the idiotic or demented mind of George W. Bush. It is simply an overly timid restatement of the basic strategic idea of the Cold War. Adopting the correct strategy is important because without it, no number of tactical improvements can compensate for the lack of a guiding conception. The heavy casualties suffered by French paratroopers described by the Globe and Mail is already being attributed to a “lack of ammunition” or of a paucity in tactical radios. Undoubtedly those factors were important in determining the outcome on the tragic occasion. But in a very fundamental sense the French losses were the result of the operation of enemy sanctuaries in Pakistan, whose existence is in turn partly due to lack of belief in the proposition that you are “either for us or against us”. No leader in the Western World — with the exception of the tentative GWB — has conveyed this message convincingly. And what remains of this message is diluted day by day by the tireless propaganda of the Left. Eventually the sting of al-Qaeda’s defeat in Iraq will be forgotten; their boldness will return and they will reconstitute in a place which America will have no specific reason to lean on. And if from that place another 9/11 attack is mounted Robert Fisk may be among the first to say that ‘it was all our fault’. In a sense he will be right even had he the wit to realize he was pointing at a mirror which our public intellectuals have shattered into parts. The myriad reflections in that crazed reflection don’t represent different things. They represent the same confused Western society attempting to see itself through a kaleidoscope of lies.
Tip Jar.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
58 Comments
1. Asher Abrams:‘Of the 30 French paratroopers, 15 were killed and 18 were wounded.’
Not to be flip, but I’m having some trouble with the math here.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:14 pm 2. wretchard:Sorry for my typo. It was 10 dead and 18 wounded. It’s been corrected.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:22 pm 3. Charles:I posted these two in the last thread but likely they more properly belong here. My wag is that this info is merged with a bunch of other data bases before they get the shoot ok.
this is a follow up on an earlier wretchard post about a new kind of device for “seeing through buildings” that’s beging deployed along the border with Pakistan. the piece is in the la times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan12-2008sep12,0,6177879,full.story
here’s a pdf with details on the technology for reading a human’s signature. a lot of the technical info is redacted out. but the intro gives the following brief:
The radar signature of the human body is currently a research topic of great interest to defense
agencies. The detection, identification and tracking of humans constitute essential components
of sensor systems operating in a battlefield environment characterized by asymmetric threats.
The low-frequency ultra-wideband (UWB) radar has proved great potential for detecting
concealed targets, such as in foliage penetration (FOPEN) or sensing through the wall (STTW)
scenarios. For all these applications, operating the radar in the low frequency microwave range
(200 MHz to 3 GHz) has the advantage of good penetration through both natural and man-made
structures that conceal the target.
http://www.arl.army.mil/arlreports/2008/ARL-TR-4403.pdf
……..
You can believe that sometime in the next year or so someone will be paid many millions for a stinger missle or three to shoot down one of the UAV’s to get hold of the black boxes in them.
They better have a very good self destruct mechanism for the black boxes installed soon.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:27 pm 4. Asher Abrams:Great article though. Seems to be a pathology of the left that they must consistently diminish the reality and coherence of the external threat. Wasn’t it the case during the Cold War, too, that many leftists and liberals repeated the “Communism is not monolithic” refrain?
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:29 pm 5. hdgreene:“Obama is rightly worried about the safe havens Al Qaeda has created in Pakistan, and it’s to his credit that he refuses to let up about it.”
I think Sen. Obama’s antiwar supporters believe he is lying when he speaks of redoubling the effort in Afghanistan and launching incursions into Pakistan. They believe he is lying, and I tend to believe that, too.
Given the nature of our enemies, circumstances will likely force him to act on his politically motivated hawkish pronouncements. But we can expect these actions to be half hearted and halting (but wholly proportional) — not near enough to kill our enemies but quite enough to make them stronger. It will mightily increase their street cred, their ability to raise funds and their support from enemy security services — including, no doubt, the newly frisky KGB.
Since our media will have gotten him elected, they will spend a lot of time trying to make him look good — until long after that is no longer possible.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:34 pm 6. rumcrook:asher you said it first…. I thought the same thing but didnt want to say anything.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:37 pm 7. Wadeusaf:As part of a larger international force, the French platoon was one of many platoons conducting perimeter defensive patrols, while a part inspected a village for suspected insurgents. The French left their vehicles and advanced on foot about a kilometer to the spot where they were hit.
This from a report supposedly marked “secret” but obviously it isn’t. The the After action report is supposedly of french origin intended to assess what went right and what went wrong. The Guardian addresses none of the conclusions of the report, just the dirty details. I read on Michael Yon’s sight that the report included photos and other details. An ugly business, were I a Frenchman, I would be sick with rage if any of the photo’s were published without permission and guaranteed I would already be seeing red about the leak as it is.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:40 pm 8. whiskey:The Problem with Western Society is that it is rich and comfortable and old. It does not want to fight and mostly screams that it will not. Because fighting would cause power to flow FROM community organizers, Wall Street financiers, Hollywood moguls and actors, washed up celebrities, feminists, lawyers, and computer moguls TOWARDS soldiers, sailors, marines, engineers, cops, machinists, defense contractors, auto makers, construction companies, and so on.
This is true all throughout the West. Where the coastal elites have seized power, and do not want to give it back, even if it means the cities they live in die. They’d rather all be dead in a nuclear flash than give power to people they really hate — their internal rivals.
This is why feminists hate Sarah Palin but make excuses for, defend, and like folks like Osama bin Laden. To use one example.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:40 pm 9. rumcrook:asher they (the left) also seem to like to ignore real threats and focus on imaginary threats. im reminded of a movie with tim robbins called eric the red, great comedy, where an island sinks around the ears of the native inhabitants but try as they might, the outsiders cant get the islanders to admit they are immanently about to drown.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:42 pm 10. Josh:you are “either for us or against us”. No leader in the Western World — with the exception of the tentative GWB — has conveyed this message convincingly.
It can’t be a convincing message, in general. When Bush first said it, it was aimed 98% at Pakistan, maybe with a little brush-off at our friends the Saudis, and a bit at the American public.
I mean seriously, are we going to start bombing Sweden if they don’t commit to us? Or are we going to turn down an offer of intelligence from Russia, just because their position is ambiguous, or worse?
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:44 pm 11. cedarford:My initial comment is that we really screwed ourselves dicking with Russia from late 2002 onwards. They were initially cooperative with us – sharing all their intelligence from the Afghan War, spotting us their cave and tunnel maps and useful allies still in region or in exile in neighboring ‘Stan’s after the Taliban drove out Soviet allies. Significant assistance came from Soviet allies in working with Special Ops in targeting positions they knew of.
Most importantly, the Russians gave us a 2nd, highly useful land and air logistics link to move fuel, ordnace, supplies, and heavy equipment in-area.
The Iranians were also supportive….
Then Bush really blew it by going with a series of decisions that royally fucked Russia – recognizing Kosovo, blowing off Russian objections to putting NATO on their Borders or war with Iraq. Then launching “Freedom! Democracy!” coups in what Russia regarded as border buffer nations it wanted gov’t friendly to Russia in – rather than the anti-Russian ones the US backed. Then it found out that America was trying to reroute oil going to Russia from the Caspian nations, something that had been status quo since the 20s – away to pipeline routes the US would control.
That did it. End of logistics.
All during the process of infuriating the Russians and losing their cooperation, the Bushie idiots could care less. Afghanistan was a done deal, only a little mopping up was needed, and we could lose cooperation and logistics from all other nations around Afghanistan, and through Russia – because Bush had a Great and Loyal friend in Musharraf.
How wrong we were!
We are a gnats ass away from having the new Paki Gov and the rising masses of radicals sever the last logistic line into the Hindu Kush. Then we would only have limited air supply on a logistics fleet Bush has happily been burning out airframe limit time from, and not replacing unairworthy planes.
Leaving:
1. NATO retreat and abandoning it’s heavy equipment in place or blowing it up so conquering Taliban can’t use it. New happy USA homes for Karzai and 50,000 other corrupt Afghans who sided with Freedom! Democracy! (or at least shouted it graciously as their bundles of 100 dollar bills were handed over).
2. War with nuclear Pakistan and 24 million Pashtuns who have been massacring foreigners like the French in 700 valleys and mountain slopes like they have been doing for 3,000 years. War so Obama or McCain can take Vietnam level or higher casualties so they can “follow one individual – bin Laden – to the gates of Hell”, and reestablish the logistics line so we can fight and die and continue to dispense bribe money for “Noble Afghan heroin suppliers and committed Freedom Lovers!!”
3. Do some serious bootlicking with Russia and the ‘Stans to rebuild the bridges Bush and his Neocons burned to reestablish a solid logistics line so our Afghan project can survive Pakistan becoming our enemy and cutting us off – over cross border strikes, just raw Muslim hatred rising to the point it is unsafe to ship through Pakistan, or us working with the rising future superpower and much more natural ally – India.
Serious booklicking to Russia for all the provocations we inflicted..
I fully expect Pakistan to go real bad and maybe breakup. We don’t want to be anywhere near that, or have our guys ambushed and killed and maimed by the thousands traipsing around Pashtun lands and the equally dangerous Baluchis. Playing “Find the Arch-Evildoer we gladly want to take massive casualties to find an hopefully put on trial”. What happened to the French will happen many, many more times as long as we stay bumbling about in Pashtun areas to serve our “friends”.
If Pakistan goes really bad, our best strategy is to stand back, ensure their nukes, nerve gas don’t get to terrorists, do our best to ensure a Pak civil war doesn’t escalate to a regional war.
Sep 20, 2008 - 3:52 pm 12. wretchard:My initial comment is that we really screwed ourselves dicking with Russia from late 2002 onwards. They were initially cooperative with us
A lot of people believe that Russia was pushed too far by the Color Revolutions. Opinion varies about when, some saying it was the Ukraine and some saying it was Kosovo. Without arguing the point the reliance on Russia or Pakistan was always subject to change without notice. In the case of their goodwill one can only hope for best, but not rely on it.
Far more serious, I think, are the failures to fix what largely lie within our control: the reliance on energy that pumps trillions into the coffers of hostile cultures; a paralyzing political correctness that makes the criticism of Wahabism a literal crime. Just recently an Australian academic has been charged with misconduct for pointing out the link between Saudi Arabian funded and the orientation of counter-terrorism studies. We all know about Mark Steyn. Overleveraging the financial system was neither Putin’s fault nor Musharraf’s. It’s a self-inflicted wound. There will be factors beyond our control in future, but on the treacherous path ahead the only thing we can actually control is our own footing. And we just seem determined, whatever else Putin or Musharraf may do, to hurl ourselves headlong off the cliff.
Sep 20, 2008 - 4:09 pm 13. whiskey:Cedarford ignores the elephant in the room: Beslan.
Pre-Beslan, Russia cooperated with the US because we both had the same enemy, Islamic Jihad. Afterwards, including the bombing of airliners the same day, Putin addressed the nation saying the weak get beaten and Russia was weak.
Two things were done to address this weakness. FIRST: Russia made deals with Iran (who were hostile from the beginning to even removing their enemy the Taliban) to support their nuclear ambitions, in exchange for Iran cutting off and betraying Chechen jihadis, and then secondarily AQ. Second was crushing Chechnya with proxies and rebuilding the Russian military.
The Color revolutions did not help things, but the real issue was Russia’s weakness requiring a deal, temporary, but a deal nevertheless, with Jihad in Tehran and Pakistan. Russia overtly hopes that the US is nuked by Pakistani or Iranian nukes so they are the Last Man Standing.
Next, Cedarford ignores the internal realities of Iran, and Pakistan. Iran’s path to power since 1979 has been clear: each faction can win and liquidate (literally) the other rival factions if it can launch hostilities with the US and paint rivals as stooges of the US. There is therefore no ability whatsoever to reach any “deal” because there is not a strong central authority to create one. Even Khameni has rivals, and he’s the Supreme Imam. There was no lasting deal with Iran because of this internal power dynamic.
Wrt Pakistan, it has 100 nukes. It is fracturing since it is an agglomeration of tribes and clans and ethnicities that all hate each other, and use Islam as both glue and crowbar to bind and split apart groups.
ONCE PAKISTAN WENT NUCLEAR IN 1998, IT WAS INEVITABLE THAT US CITIES WOULD DIE.
Because there is no central authority in Pakistan either. Non-coms care more about their tribes, clans, and family ties, since that’s all they have in the chaos of Pakistan, than law and chain of command. If cousin Hamid pays enough and has the family demand enough, cousin Rashid will give him a nuke or two. Eventually, this will happen. Since Pakistan is a set of tribes with a flag. And nukes.
In that sense, arguing about Pakistan and Afghanistan is pointless. In order for US cities to be safe, pretty much EVERY tribe down to local AQ-affiliated members, or Taliban members, must feel that their entire clan, tribe, and existence will be wiped out if NYC dies. Obviously, this is not the case, as we argue here if Bush has the actual authority to arrest AQ members in the US.
It’s obvious — a US city will die, Dem leadership will dither and grovel, because they fear fighting back will marginalize their power (it will). Another city will die and the US will go into survival mode and wipe out pretty much everyone in Pakistan, and perhaps also Iran. A tragedy. Avoidable but for craven political leadership more interested in partisan advantage than country.
This is not anything new btw. I’ve read predictions of this going back to 1991-2 in the LA Times.
But to be clear. There is no “deal” to be made with anyone. Since it is local tribal leaders who will decide if NYC lives or dies another day. Or various Iranian factions, for that matter. It’s as if the Plains Indians had nukes, and Crazy Horse could “borrow” one if he’s persuasive enough.
Sep 20, 2008 - 4:57 pm 14. NahnCee:“…were I a Frenchman, I would be sick with rage if any of the photo’s were published without permission and guaranteed I would already be seeing red about the leak as it is.”
I think if it was not published, the thought would be to brush it under the rug and pretend it never happened, especially if you’re French and already touchy about your fighting image around the world.
The issue I see, especially for the French, is whether they ran out of bullets because of a supply problem or if they ran out of bullets because France can’t afford to send enough bullets.
And the question is “will there be enough bullets next time?” I doubt that question would be being asked if the report hadn’t been leaked, and Americans weren’t poking the French in the ribs and asking pesky little questions like that.
Remember Mohammad al-Dura for an example of a French cover-up and the lengths they will go to not to admit culpability.
Sep 20, 2008 - 5:26 pm 15. NahnCee:Second comment is that in Iraq, the bad guys were fleeing back and forth to Iran and having a hidey-hole over the border ultimately didn’t save them. I just don’t see how killing Al-Queda where they’re holed up inside the border of Pakistan is going to destabilize Pakistan’s goverment because said government has absolutely no say over what goes on there any way.
I heartily support chasing them into and over the border on foot, in the air, and by drone until Pakistan’s armed forces actually physically show up and demonstrate that *they* are prepared to bag a Taliban or two themselves. As long as it’s just Paki diplomats and hurted feelings, tough. They’ve had five years and several gazillion dollars to get their act together and demonstrate proper ally activities and they just haven’t.
So now they’re being introduced to another Western saying which is “lead, follow or get out of the way” … and they are expected to get out of the way or perhaps become dead in their continued effort to do nothing and get paid for it.
BTW, can anyone tell me why America should care that a hotel got blowed up in Islamabad, other than the obvious fact that some Americans died in the explosion?
Sep 20, 2008 - 5:39 pm 16. fred:I remember reading about the near wiping out of that French unit a while ago shortly after it happened. Clearly, the enemy had planned this ambush better than the French military unit had planned its expedition into the mountains. Two things came to mind when I first read about it. The first: ambushes usually do not take place ad hoc. The islamists knew the French were coming. Security breach? Poor planning of the expedition and telegraphing to the enemy that you were coming into a place perfect for an ambush?
Second: Maybe they should not have had such a small unit funneling into a place like that without air support? Maybe they needed a larger force with flankers to guard against ambush?
I cannot imagine a reasonably combat trained U.S. officer planning and executing such a f**k up. In fact, I know a couple of Army officers and we’ve exchanged views about this very incident. Without even Monday-morning quarterbacking it, these guys said that they would have done things very differently. Hell, an experienced and seasoned U.S. noncom would have done it differently.
If you are going into Indian country that you reasonably suspect is inhabited by the baddies, you DON’T go into a kind of funnel like that in the manner it was done with such a small force.
I feel badly for the French soldiers and their families. If the enemy knew about their plans, it makes it even worse.
Sep 20, 2008 - 6:37 pm 17. Charles:If the bomb that blew up the hotel in pakistan kills a bunch of ISI people–the effect may be the same as the Zarquawi killing that Jordanian wedding party a couple years back. That bombing drained a lot of support away from aq in the region.
Sep 20, 2008 - 6:45 pm 18. exhelodrvr:http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/09/21/asia/AS-Pakistan-Explosion.php
Nahncee,
“I just don’t see how killing Al-Queda where they’re holed up inside the border of Pakistan is going to destabilize Pakistan’s goverment”
Because Pakistan’s government has a very tenuous hold on power, the Islamists are firmly entrenched in the government and military, and can/will use U.S. incursions as a reason to incite the masses against the government.
Pakistan’s government is also caught between a rock and a hard place, for the same reasons.
India’s importance is increasing daily.
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:01 pm 19. programmer:Link at NRO says this:
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/senior-cia-officers-were-target-of-islamabad-blast_10097943.html
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:14 pm 20. programmer:Actually, NRO Corner (KLO) posted that link.
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:18 pm 21. sirius_sir:I just don’t see how killing Al-Queda where they’re holed up inside the border of Pakistan is going to destabilize Pakistan’s goverment because said government has absolutely no say over what goes on there any way.
Which renders said governments claims that we are violating Pakistani sovereignty by going in and eliminating Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters absurd. Pakistan has already ceded sovereignty in these regions, but with luck and our help they may eventually regain it.
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:29 pm 22. E. Nigma:“I think Sen. Obama’s antiwar supporters believe he is lying when he speaks of redoubling the effort in Afghanistan and launching incursions into Pakistan. They believe he is lying, and I tend to believe that, too.” – HDGreene
There is always the possibility that he is speaking the truth, just not the same truth that we are talking about.
In Obama’s recollections of Pakistan, he was appalled at the squalor and class structure of Pakistan. He might very well contemplate invading Pakistan as a ‘liberator’ of the oppressed underclass, justifying it as a fight against the Jihadis, which it may not be. (Also Sudan and Zimbabwe; this guy could make the Bush intervention strategy seem mild by comparison. What will Europe think of that!)
Unhinging the already tenuous cultural threads in Pakistan may bust it up beyond our ability to fix. Pakistan has ~ 7x the population of Iraq.
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:34 pm 23. programmer:Too much overt interference in Pakistan could throw it into revolution, with militant Islamists rising to power (as they are the most ruthless among the factions).
We could make no bigger mistake than to get involved in a large scale fight in/with Pakistan. The place is a quagmire waiting to happen. Headhunting in Waziristan is one thing, engaging the more organized parts of Pakistan is quite another.
Spinning off exhelodrvr’s comment on India, I found the following web page:
http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries_comparison.asp
It permits you to compare the military strength of two nations, for example: Pakistan and India
It is interesting. Can’t vouch for accuracy, just interesting.
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:42 pm 24. Lowell:Cedarford left out another option if Pakistan cuts off our supply lines into Afghanistan. Iran. One aspect of the Bush administration that has impressed me is its ability to come up with “outside the box” solutions. I could see a set of strikes that remove Iran’s major weapons (i.e. missiles, boats, airplanes, etc.) then, their nuclear installations get taken out. Finally, a corridor from the sea (perhaps very near the strait) to Afghanistan gets carved out and pieces of the rest of the country get left to do what it will.
Sep 20, 2008 - 8:29 pm 25. fred:The head of the snake for Islamic militancy is Iran, not Pakistan, however pestilential that country may be. Obama wants to focus on Pakistan, but he fails to disclose the connections he has with prominent Iranians who all want him to keep hands off the Mullahocracy. That is a disastrous policy. Iran can project power in ways Pakistan cannot. Besides, we have Iran pretty well surrounded and it would be the height of stupidity to not deal their nuclear weapons’ program out of the game. I’m not saying Paki Land is unimportant, but weighing our strategic options and relative threats, I think the case can be made that Iran is the big dog that has gotten away with murder for far too long.
Sep 20, 2008 - 8:39 pm 26. cjm:so what if the pakistani government is destabilized? what the hell good are they doing anyone anywhere anyway? and if the pakistani army wants to get into it with the u.s. army then they can suffer the consequences. they are no ally in the wot and after getting bloodied a bit will keep away while we clean up the hinterlands. just clear a path to the sea and call it “New Afghanistan”. quit pussyfooting around and give a real lesson in total war to the savages.
Sep 20, 2008 - 9:47 pm 27. Mad Fiddler:Some of you may have noticed recent articles about athletic clothing which includes circuits woven into the fabric which, when connected to the appropriate device, provides vital statistics such as pulse rate, respiration rate, etc.
Reality? Sometimes I post things that are meant to be ridiculous they’re so extreme. I’ve never worn the “intelligent” athletic clothing, just saw a news article.
Regarding the targeting drones, I suspect there is no longer any “black box” to be retrieved. Consider that the sturdiest hulls are now made of epoxy & woven / spun / wrapped fiber of various materials. Consider also that there are pilotless drones smaller than a couple of handspans, and autopiloting devices weighing less than 20 grams, and gimble controls for video cameras smaller than a ping pong ball, allowing the camera to keep a man-sized designated target in view for as long as the uav can keep flying. The uavs known to be available are small enough to provoke territorial attacks from ravens.
At some level, I hate mentioning these things in these precincts, but on the other hand, the terrorists are of a culture that has so thoroughly trashed its vaunted brilliance that they can not even forge the knives they use to saw the necks of their beheading victims.
On still another hand, they have so many friends – both co-religionists and leftward-hurtling moral lepers in the West – that no technology can be assumed beyond their grasp.
One has much sympathy for the brave French soldiers, but one wonders why they were wandering around in the broad mid-afternoon light, apparently eschewing remote viewing drones, insufficiently armed and supplied, with only a single radio. Is this standard for Western forces?
Well, you can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers.
Sep 20, 2008 - 9:55 pm 28. Wadeusaf:“I just don’t see how killing Al-Queda where they’re holed up inside the border of Pakistan is going to destabilize Pakistan’s goverment because said government has absolutely no say over what goes on there any way.”
But the fellows along the border have a lot of, ah input, lets say, into the government of Pakistan.
“Too much overt interference in Pakistan could throw it into revolution, with militant Islamists rising to power (as they are the most ruthless among the factions).”
Well we’ve had a lot of the overt with little positive but also not too much negative impact, that is till the last two years. The Pakistani’s will have to decide to estabilish the rule of Pakistani law in the NW. Once they have come to that conclusion they will accept our help, but not until. I think it is becoming evident to the majority of Pakistanis what the problem is. The solution will require some very tough decisions. No matter what they decide Pakistan is in for a rough ride, a very rough ride. IMO.
I think if it was not published, the thought would be to brush it under the rug and pretend it never happened
I am afraid that it will have the opposite effect. Also, The french generally are not so sure about the support of their troops efforts in Afghanistan, and equipment that our troops list as essential, a spare radio, have not easily deemed as essential by the french troops. This should change, if they choose to stay engaged.
When Putin poisened the Ukranian President, I had no doubt. Belsan was not the result of being weak, but rather of being militarily and politically stupid. The Chechnians producing Sunni Jihadi’s have a greater affinity for Bin Ladin and certain citizens of the KSA. It was the House of Saud that gave approval for the very rough tactics of the Russians in putting down the Chechnian insurgency, Iran and it is KSA that Putin owes not Iran. What the significance of the more permanent relations between Russia and Iran concerning Pakistan and Iran are not so obvious.
Sep 20, 2008 - 10:17 pm 29. chiral:“The often-reviled idea that “either you are for us or against us” isn’t a newly minted brainwave proceeding from the idiotic or demented mind of George W. Bush. It is simply an overly timid restatement of the basic strategic idea of the Cold War.”
It is also nearly identical to the bumper sticker so loved by every democrat: “If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem.”
When neutrality is not “allowed”, both statements are intended as threats against those who really don’t care and just wish to be left alone.
Sep 20, 2008 - 10:26 pm 30. NahnCee:“We could make no bigger mistake than to get involved in a large scale fight in/with Pakistan.”
We won’t have to. We’ll merely give the nod to India and India will leap into it with great glee and gusto, and take care of it for us, knowing that we have their back.
It’ll be fun to watch, I promise.
Sep 20, 2008 - 10:49 pm 31. NahnCee:As a matter of fact, giving India the signal to go after Pakistan might be part of the same overall umbrella plan as America/Israel nuking Iran back to the Stone Age the day after the elections in November. There just doesn’t seem to be any care or attention being paid to Pakistan any more, and what happened to Musharref could certainly be termed as being “thrown under the bus”.
Sep 20, 2008 - 10:52 pm 32. DougS:As appealing as it is to let India deal with Pakistan, I’m not entirely sure it would work well. We sold the Pakistanis a lot of military hardware over the years, while the Indians are still largely working with Russian stuff. Edge to Pakistan; No one except our own military could take out our 1980’s-vintage hardware.
Also, India has its own restive Muslim minority, and I’m not sure they want to deal with striking directly at and perhaps occupying Pakistan (at least not without knowing that the nukes are locked down). India has not had a pretty history with its restive minorities. I’m guessing that what the Sikhs did to Mrs. Gandhi has not been forgotten.
Sep 21, 2008 - 1:20 am 33. Fletcher Christian:Fred; the head of the snake of Islamic militancy is not Afghanistan, it’s not Pakistan, it’s not any part of Iraq, and it’s not Iran.
The head of that snake is Saudi Arabia, and specifically Mecca and Medina. Time, and past time, the head was cut off. Thirteen hundred years of war is enough.
Sep 21, 2008 - 4:02 am 34. Steve Skubinna:Between the lines of the information available here are some direct connections between al Qaida, the Taliban, and Iran.
Shia cooperating with sunni. Something that we are told ad nauseum by supposedly intelligent and informed people can never happen. These are the same ones, incidentally, who won’t miss an opportunity to point out that secular Saddam Hussein never had any ties pre-9/11 to terrorist groups. The huge body of evidence to the contrary is ignored.
Something is very, very wrong with the “smart” people on the left.
Sep 21, 2008 - 4:06 am 35. Starko:wretchard wrote:
“Overleveraging the financial system was neither Putin’s fault nor Musharraf’s. It’s a self-inflicted wound.”
One of the primary reasons the financial system was overlevered was a misalignment of incentives. In the short term, bankers make hay while they can, because that’s how they get paid. They don’t know what the future will bring, so they eat, drink and are merry for tomorrow they may die. There’s simply not enough incentive to focus on the long view.
Unfortunately the same is true of politics. Getting reelected is the short term incentive that drives a huge portion of political acts. So the only reason the long view matters to a short term focused politician is if the long view matters to the electorate. Hence, a host of bad decisions about how to prosecute the “real” global war on terror Wretchard so skillfully describes.
Sep 21, 2008 - 5:28 am 36. 3Case:The head of the snake is Saudi Arabia.
As to the Catch-22 (”We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” one official said in desperation.), I prefer the option which leads to the most expeditious killing of the most bad guys.
Slaughter now or slaughter later.
Sep 21, 2008 - 6:44 am 37. E. Nigma:Slaughter later = slaughter more.
A bad peace is better that a good war. For us, the Indians, and a lot of others. I seriously doubt that the majority of Indians would back an open war with Pakistan. There is surely a political faction that would like to deal with them once and for all, but that time has not yet arrived, and maybe never will. And there is no telling what the Chinese would do if that sort of war broke out in their backyard.
There is no telling what real open warfare may release. The US profits by having orderly world trade, banking and finance. Dispruptions in trade and crooked trade, such as all the under the table Oil-for-food deals, etc., never work out too good for most American companies. We play into the hands of the entropy masters (the Russians, among others) when we promote that kind of chaos.
Pakistan is not ‘fixable’ by any known means at this time. It is reminiscent of previous rotten almagamations, such as the Turkish domination of Arabia before WWI, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the same era. It will probably fall apart on its own accord in a few more years. Then would be the time to be ready to re-organize the valuable parts into something of a reasonable set of nation states.
Sep 21, 2008 - 7:17 am 38. Geoffgo:Mad Fiddler,
Thanks for the excellent update on “smart skin.”
Think Michael Phelp’s swimsuit as combat underwear. Our new low-frequency Xray-vision thingie, coupled with JSTARS systems (manned or not) overhead, will provide us with a level of individual/team 3-D situational- awareness no amount of enemy ferver can overcome. And it’s not like we’re not going to be faced with more such confrontations.
Smart skin will permit real-time monitoring of condition/location of each pair of boots in play. Hopefully becomes “climate controlled” underwear for our warriors someday soon.
We can already buy ski clothes that change color when subjected to changes in exposure to light. Smart outer skin will permit real time changes to the individual’s camo, depending on lighting conditions in any locale. Networks of tiny sensors, woven in.
Making the technology available in exercise clothes for consumers ramps up production of the new components to meet higher volume, and thereby lower cost requirements.
Don’t scoff, buy in. Make our troops ever-closer to invisible. B^)
Sep 21, 2008 - 8:31 am 39. cjm:a rump pakistan would be a fie place to relocate the remaining indian muslims.
Sep 21, 2008 - 8:36 am 40. Michael D. Giles:Besides the nukes – which may or may not still be in Pakistani possession – how exactly would the US (or India) suffer by the disintegration of Pakistan? Not only are the inhabitants of the Sindh, Baluchistan and the Punjab are not particularly fond of each other – the only thing in common being religion – but an independent Baluchistan immediately becomes a problem to Iran. A fractured Pakistan – composed of smaller, weaker states, which could be played off against each other, would strike me as advantageous to the US.
Sep 21, 2008 - 9:22 am 41. RDS:See this hypothetical map of a new Middle East and environs…
Sep 21, 2008 - 9:56 am 42. NahnCee:“We sold the Pakistanis a lot of military hardware over the years, while the Indians are still largely working with Russian stuff. ”
This is not true. We’ve been loading India up with nuclear technology for several years now, and the Paki’s have been moaning and groaning and seething that *they* are not getting similar Really Good Toys. The thought occurred to wonder if the quid pro quo on us arming India might be that they use these really neato things on their misbehaving neighbor once they get the nod to do so.
I think that thought probably also occurred to Pakistan, which is why they’ve been trying everything they could think of to finagle the same stuff that India has been getting. It didn’t work.
From what I can see, India’s Muslims understand that they are outnumbered and aren’t inclined to tip over their canoe in support of Pakistan. Last time the Muslims went mano-a-mano with the Hindu’s, trains got burned up, villages became rampaged and many Muslims died. Indians aren’t afraid to fight back.
Sep 21, 2008 - 10:17 am 43. slade:There’s simply not enough incentive to focus on the long view.
Paper profits are quarterly. Long term business growth via investment in tech, people, and infrastructure (the kind that’s missing in energy and transportation) occurs over years. There is a kernel of truth to McCain’s much maligned “corporate greed” statements. A kernel.
Sep 21, 2008 - 11:13 am 44. Bob Murphy:E. Nigma-Interesting thoughts, thanks. I tend to agree that Pakistan will fall apart by itself which will resolve many intractable problems and perhaps leave ones that can be fixed.
India has enough internal problems to resolve without letting itself get pulled in to anyone else’s agendas.
Personally, I would like to see the US and India become much closer without any expectation amongst Americans that India should dance to their tune.
India is a natural counterweight to Han China and bulwark against Islamic imperialism and I think it has the cultural and population density to remain very viable on its own.
But India is a democracy of sorts and should know where it’s natural allies are. That certainly does not include Russia and China.
Sep 21, 2008 - 4:08 pm 45. Bob Murphy:@Fletcher
Sep 21, 2008 - 4:20 pm 46. NahnCee:But the UK cannot effectively project power East of Suez any more after abandoning the area.
I tend to agree with you but what are the Brits capable of doing here? They can’t even control Londonistan and they left Basra with their tails between their legs after unilaterally signing an appeasement truce with the savages.
My gut feeling is that the US should discretly inform the Jihadists that should there be a catastrophic attack on the US or any of its allies including Israel and the UK that Mecca and Medina so-called holy places will cease to exist. Getting right down to the molecular equivalent of “not a stone shall be left upon a stone”.
I suspect the Israelis did that years ago.
Bob Murphy – why do you see India being America’s poodle if its asked to assume some responsibility for its part of the world? It seems to me that if India wants to play with the Big Boys and get some respect for being a Big Boy, then it needs to assume some responsibility for itself when the time comes. I don’t see sitting on a next-door neighbor which has been actively attacking and assassinating Indian people and politicians for years now as being anything more or less than responding to multiple acts of war. If India happens to have advanced weapons to hand when it responds to those previously-committed acts of war is merely the happiest of coincidences.
Sep 21, 2008 - 5:42 pm 47. slade:I don’t understand this poodle thing. We had a wonderful smart black miniature poodle when I was a kid. Best dog I ever had.
He’s buried in our back yard.
So what do the Europeans consider a “proper” dog?
I guess cocker spaniel or english sheepdog or daschund or shi’h tzu doesn’t have the same verbal punch.
Sep 21, 2008 - 5:51 pm 48. JFSanders:@Bob
There in lies the rub. Mr.Thingambob BELIEVES with all his little heart that the destruction of the house of Saud and Medina and Mecca with it will bring the 12th Imam into this world.
Wars are good for the international banking syndicates. But I fear they have left the cork in the relief port too long. The American street is becoming just as touchy as the Arab street.
The whole thing may just simmer down if the oil producing nations see their cash flow dropping. Now how do we make that happen?
Jim
Sep 21, 2008 - 5:55 pm 49. Bob Murphy:@NahnCee. India’s biggest issue, the one that dwarfs all others, is the grinding poverty of its masses.
Sep 21, 2008 - 6:03 pm 50. E. Nigma:It’s overwhelming priority must be to generate enough wealth to lift the standard of living.
It probably is true that to effect the social reforms that will generate the wealth needed to end the grinding poverty India has to end the caste system in fact as well as legally, to dismember more of the aftermath of the socialism that has made India a financial basket case, to unleash the economic potential of women there, to get clean water and power to the villages.
If I lived there those would be my greatest priorities.
Looking at the size of India, its resources, the size of its armed forces, its rapid economic growth at present and its probable capacity to absorb a couple of nukes without coming apart at the seams (aided and abetted by a traditional fatalism), what can that pissy little country next door do to really raise it as a top priority issue for India.
Their priorities are different to ours because we have solved our most basic problems.
We have roofs over our heads, fresh water coming out of our taps, public schools, a highway system that works, and the ability to entirely destroy anyone or any country or combination of countries when and if that takes our fancy.
I forgot to mention with India 11% or so of the population are Muslim and god only knows how many Hindu fundamentalists, let along fundamentalist Sikhs there are there.
They don’t need anyone else telling them what to do.
Hell even the Kyoto Protocol recognised that.
Pakistan has already fallen apart once. Remember when there was “East Pakistan” and “West Pakistan”? Of course, East Pakistan became Bangladesh.
Sep 21, 2008 - 7:40 pm 51. Wadeusaf:The Punjab part of Pakistan will remain a rather ordered country. They might even come to an agreement with India over the Vale of Kashmir, which they have been fighting over since partition in 1947.
It’s the “Wild West” of Pakistan, the frontier provinces, that have always been the wild cards in the deck.
Waziristan. Home of Ramzi Yusef, the first WTC bomber.
A thousand years for revenge. That sort of stuff.
What of China’s deep sea port in West Pakistan near Iran, (Baluchistan?). The Baluchi’s of Iran, like the Pashtuns in Pakistan, do not like their status as a oppressed minority part of a larger state, but unlike the Pashtuns the Baluchi’s are not oppressing more than they are oppressed. I am wondering if there is any progress there that can be of assistance both to the legitimate Pakistani government and to the Iranians stuck with Achmedeadterrorist, President of Iran. There is always a way.
Sep 21, 2008 - 8:40 pm 52. ledger:Fred notes:
“The first: ambushes usually do not take place ad hoc. The islamists knew the French were coming. Security breach? Poor planning of the expedition and telegraphing to the enemy that you were coming into a place perfect for an ambush?”
I read the Globe and the Mail stories. I noticed a picture of a Taliban fighter with a captured French weapon taken by a “stringer.”
My gut tells me that that certain “stringers” are embedded with the Taliban and may have provided the critical information need to execute the ambush.
If you review the war in Lebanon where some Israeli units were effectively ambushed many pointed to a hacking of the Israeli communication system (there was some fairly high tech radio interception devices found in a house).
It was found that the terrorists did not actual hack the Israeli telecommunication system but probably just monitored an unencrypted cell phone – and possible a cell phone from and embedded “stringer.”
Sure, it is likely that Iran and its new comrade Russia may have supplied high quality equipment to the Taliban but I sense that the French were sold out by a stringer or other person close to both sides.
Btw, I believe that the Taliban took more losses than the French – which is of some consolation.
Sep 21, 2008 - 8:49 pm 53. Doug:Totally Wrong?
Now the French military and NATO claim that the Globe and Mail article is wrong. The headline over The Associated Press story reprinted in the International Herald Tribune reads:
“France denies troops ill-equipped in Afghanistan.”
—
“The French military would be well advised to use circumspection before making such comments. And NATO’s statement that there is no formal ISAF or NATO report of which they are aware, sounds like a classic non-denial denial, leaving them plenty of room to re-explain themselves when presented with additional evidence. If NATO and the French persist in making these claims, the secret report, written by American Special Forces who were present, could find itself on the internet. Certain embargoed details in the report are even more troubling than the facts that were published in the Globe and Mail article.
The loss of ten French soldiers is bad enough. Let’s not make it worse with cover-up. Truth leaks faster than helium. It happened with the mythologized death of Pat Tillman. And it will happen in this case.”
Sep 21, 2008 - 9:31 pm 54. Mad Fiddler:Another memory dredged up from my childhood: I’m sitting in the waiting room at the music studio where I take violin lessons from Betty Dayton, reading a Life Magazine, some spring morning 1961 or so. The magazine features a picture of thousands of Indian workers in sandals and loincloths carrying loads of sand and cement up bamboo ladders and scaffolds. They’re using stoneage methods to build the concrete cooling tower of a nuclear power plant.
On reflection, this says a lot about their determination. I also remember that by the 1980’s the Indian government had begun installing solar-powered satellite telephones in isolated villages dotting the subcontinent, leap-frogging past the wasteful technology of copper-wire land lines.
By the mid 1950’s, Canada had already given a small working nuclear power plant to India to help its entry into the family of nuclear-capable nations. That was when India was the leader of the so-called “non-aligned” nations.
India has its problems, not the least of which is the caste system. They also have so many distinct languages that newspapers and magazines are published in over a hundred languages, and movies in almost thirty (or so I heard from a member of the Indian embassy at a film conference some years ago.)
Imagine how the U.S. would be if we had such things to deal with.
India must be some sort of dynamic culture.
Sep 21, 2008 - 9:34 pm 55. NahnCee:Doug – here is Yon’s response to that particular article:
“The French military would be well advised to use circumspection before making such comments. And NATO’s statement that there is no formal ISAF or NATO report of which they are aware, sounds like a classic non-denial denial, leaving them plenty of room to re-explain themselves when presented with additional evidence. If NATO and the French persist in making these claims, the secret report, written by American Special Forces who were present, could find itself on the internet. Certain embargoed details in the report are even more troubling than the facts that were published in the Globe and Mail article.
The loss of ten French soldiers is bad enough. Let’s not make it worse with cover-up. Truth leaks faster than helium. It happened with the mythologized death of Pat Tillman. And it will happen in this case.”
Here is the link to Yon’s site which includes photo’s of the aftermath of the fight under discussion: http://www.michaelyon-online.com . . .
Of course, if Yon has seen the report and “carefully” read it, tht might mean that he has a copy of it. But it would be wrong, very wrong indeed, to conclude that what he says about it ending up published in its entirety on the internet is a veiled threat towards certain people of the French persuasion who are trying to cover their butts by making these denials.
Sep 21, 2008 - 10:25 pm 56. Mad Fiddler:It is also good to recall that East & West Pakistan were the result of the partition of the British Raj – the full span and legacy of Indian subcontinental culture and history from centuries of British Rule.
British misrule may be criticized, but the tensions and seething hostilities that resulted in the butchery between Hindu and Moslems antedates British clumsiness by many centuries, and would have occurred with or without British involvement.
Just as surely as the continuing savagery that has gone on for fourteen centuries between Islam and all the rest of its neighbors.
But Pakistan in the current mess is conspicuously an artificiality – a sovereign nation ex nihilo – cobbled together as Iraq was as a quick solution that saved appearances for “major powers” who wished to extricate themselves from complicated situations and decamp before things exploded.
Sep 21, 2008 - 10:39 pm 57. Doug:Pakistan
“It had therefore to be a name born of all the elements of our life spiritual and fraternal, moral and ethnical, historical and geographical, supra-regional and supra-national.
In other words, it had to be charged with an irresistible, eternal appeal to the heart and head of all our people, and possessed of elemental power to seize on our being and make us all go out crusading for the Millat’s Mission.
For nothing short of that could generate those mighty forces which alone could ensure the liberation of us all, the transformation of some of the most important parts of India and Asia, and the fulfillment of our Millat’s Mission in India and its Islands.”
- Ch.Rehmat Ali
—-
“Pakistan” is both a Persian and an Urdu word. It is composed of letters taken from the names of all our homelands – “Indian” and “Asian”.
That is, Punjab, Afghania (North West Frontier Province), Kashmir, Iran, Sindh (including Karachi and Kathiawar), Tukharistan, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan.
It means the land of the Paks-the spiritually pure and clean.
It symbolizes the religions, beliefs and the ethnical stocks of our people; and it stands for all the territorial constituents of our original Fatherland.
It has no other origin and no other meaning; and does not admit of any other interpretation. Those writers who have tried to interpret it in more than one way have done so either through love of casuistry, or through ignorance of its inspiration, origin and composition.”
Sep 22, 2008 - 12:56 pm 58. Wadeusaf:I would be interested in reading what the folks on the ground thought of the French forces movements, including the movements of the ANA troopers with them. Why so far in, why into such an untenable position? Why the lack of fire power? Why the separation from their vehicles?
There is much for the French and NATO to digest and learn, I will have to bide my time to learn of the fates of these french troops. And that is okay so long as the French troops and NATO are allowed to learn the lessons of this encounter. If It means more stuff, more funding, for the purpose of governing, the french will have to decide how much is necessary for the press to know.
I do not want to give the Taliban and Al Q any easy PR victory’s.
Sep 24, 2008 - 6:33 amSorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.