A minor border incident

[Fuchs]

This is an ugly world...but others wouldn't be less so.


The Islamic Republic of Iran appears unimpressed by U.S. complaints about a minor incident at the U.S.-Mexican border. 25 U.S. soldiers were reportedly killed and 14 more wounded when Iranian attack helicopters opened fire on U.S. soldiers in a Texan border village a few days ago.

The Iranians have helped the Mexican government to suppress the rising drug cartels in a decade-long civil war. There are repeatedly complaints about how little the U.S. does about its huge pool of drug abusers who create the world's greatest demand for drugs and pull Mexico deeper and deeper into drug crime-driven chaos.

U.S. officials complain that the attack on the border post was unprovoked and dozens of other U.S. troops have supposedly already been killed by such attacks since summer, but the media in Iran and the entire Muslim world dismiss this as typical propaganda claim of a government that isn't trustworthy due to its tolerance of drug demand and the overt corruption of its political elite.

Iranian representatives declare that they will investigate the incident.
A report is expected to be finished once nobody cares any more.

[Stan]

Hey Fuchs,
Could you provide a link to the source ? I can't find anything on this article other than being linked to your blog.

[Fuchs]

It's mine.

The source of the satire shouldn't matter (nor should its accuracy - it's all about assuming a different perspective.

[carl]

Fuchs:

You forgot the part about how the CIA is training, funding and directing the cartels.

[Stan]

... it's all about assuming a different perspective.

I 'd go along with you on the perspective approach but my thoughts are that such an incident would be far more fatal than a bunch of political bantering if 25 US Soldiers were actually killed on the Mexican border regardless of where the helicopters originated from.

I'll bite, but I don't know where you're going with this. Pakistani soldiers die on the border following US aircraft bombing ?

[Hippasus]

Great post! In mature normative ethics, the actors on either side of an action don't make a difference. If we believe it is wrong for actor A to commit action X against actor B, then it doesn't become right is we swap the actors. Of course, this is a big problem when you're really powerful and want to do whatever the hell you want without regard to others.

[carl]

Great post! In mature normative ethics, the actors on either side of an action don't make a difference. If we believe it is wrong for actor A to commit action X against actor B, then it doesn't become right is we swap the actors. Of course, this is a big problem when you're really powerful and want to do whatever the hell you want without regard to others.

We don't know the details of what happened yet, but I would call attention to the following.

In Big Boys Rules, if you are an army that allows people who are shooting at guys who can call up fighter bombers and Apaches to hang around in your vicinity; you got no complaint coming if your people get killed.

[Stan]

Great post! In mature normative ethics, the actors on either side of an action don't make a difference. If we believe it is wrong for actor A to commit action X against actor B, then it doesn't become right is we swap the actors. Of course, this is a big problem when you're really powerful and want to do whatever the hell you want without regard to others.

Thanks for the lesson on ethics and philosophy as if everything was simply based on right and wrong when dealing with world super powers and politics :rolleyes:

Although I'm waiting for Fuchs to support his post, I gotta wonder where you're going. I don't have to look far to see that applied ethics in this theoretical scenario just won't work other than in a text book.

[Hippasus]

Actually, I think that practical application is the best place for applying theories - when they are right, as I believe thie one is. As for the "our might makes us right" argument, well, that explains why a great deal of the world does not support us. Napoleon lost for similar reasons...piss enough of the world off, eventually they gang up you because you're a bully. But that's a consequentialist argument...one for juviniles. I still believe that adults should make decision based on logical and just rules (the ultimate "Big Boy Rules") - our Constitution was a pretty good step in that direction....which I why I swore the oath. Good discussion for a Monday....takes my mind off the staff work for a few moments, which is much appreciated!

[Fuchs]

I 'd go along with you on the perspective approach but my thoughts are that such an incident would be far more fatal than a bunch of political bantering if 25 US Soldiers were actually killed on the Mexican border regardless of where the helicopters originated from.

I'll bite, but I don't know where you're going with this. Pakistani soldiers die on the border following US aircraft bombing ?

It's in the news, apparently not at your place?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8917495/Nato-helicopter-strike-kills-25-Pakistani-soldiers-at-Afghan-border-post.html

[Fuchs]

Great post! In mature normative ethics, the actors on either side of an action don't make a difference. If we believe it is wrong for actor A to commit action X against actor B, then it doesn't become right is we swap the actors. Of course, this is a big problem when you're really powerful and want to do whatever the hell you want without regard to others.

I never got much positive reaction from anglophone audiences for my older satire about Iran invading Ireland as part of its war of terror, though. ;)



...piss enough of the world off, eventually they gang up you because you're a bully.

That didn't work for Germany so well either.

[jmm99]

INTJ - does the theory work in practice ?

The "facts" presented in this thread are totally inadequate for any sort of reasoned discussion - chaff.

Cross-border incidents are very fact intensive - and the facts have to determined. That determination most likely will require analysis of two or more competing set of facts.

Coincidentally, I just linked several decent resources that address those issues in this post, Kill or Capture - the McNeal View (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=129285&postcount=111).

This particular cross-border incident most probably was not a pre-planned operation; but rather one where troops were in an emergency situation requiring close air support (CAS) or close combat attack (CCA). In both CAS and CCA in Afghanistan, the pilot may not deploy a weapon without ground commander direction, usually through a JTAC. Same idea for arty. But, I'll wait for the "fourth" after action report, which is more likely to have the facts right.

Nuff said by me here.

Regards

Mike

[Fuchs]

You didn't get the point.

Would you really care about details if Iranian helicopters had killed 25 U.S. soldiers on Texan soil ???

[Stan]

It's in the news, apparently not at your place?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8917495/Nato-helicopter-strike-kills-25-Pakistani-soldiers-at-Afghan-border-post.html

Thanks, but that was the story I thought you were using in your theoretical version above.

I heard it on the news last night and I get your point (if that's where you were going with this border issue).

Now, I won't go calling it "indiscriminate" and I'm sure some soldiers or airmen are in deep Kimchi as we correspond :wry:

[Stan]

Actually, I think that practical application is the best place for applying theories - when they are right, as I believe thie one is. As for the "our might makes us right" argument, well, that explains why a great deal of the world does not support us. Napoleon lost for similar reasons...piss enough of the world off, eventually they gang up you because you're a bully. But that's a consequentialist argument...one for juviniles. I still believe that adults should make decision based on logical and just rules (the ultimate "Big Boy Rules") - our Constitution was a pretty good step in that direction....which I why I swore the oath. Good discussion for a Monday....takes my mind off the staff work for a few moments, which is much appreciated!

I'm happy we could get you out from behind the desk and staff work ;)

How can we be practical and apply theories ? 200 kilometers from where I sit is a boiling pot of discontent and we hope Putin does not get elected (Georgia comes to mind right this second and deplores any logic other than just plain old pissed off). What in creation is practical ? That he has at his disposal over a million untrained idiots that will overrun a tiny country, all the while the political rhetoric is flung like cow dung ?

It's not that I completely agree with the "biggest baddest SOB in the valley" routine, but there are some fine examples that I ended up with over the last 3 decades that tell me "that's the way it is".

Africans (from my time) and Russians defy theory and practical application.

Your thoughts as I ponder sleeping :)

[carl]

I still believe that adults should make decision based on logical and just rules (the ultimate "Big Boy Rules") -

I don't know what a consequentialist is and I also don't know what mature normative ethics are. But I agree that people should make decisions based upon logical and just rules. One of the foremost logical and just rules is that you have the right of self defence. With this in mind I think that if some of our people were being attacked from the Pakistani side of the border it was eminently logical and just to destroy the people who were attacking them, the border be ...disregarded. If some Pakistani troops were killed in a mix-up they should keep better company.

[Hippasus]

Self defense is indeed recognized universally as a just cause for violence. Tactically, its a good answer - and in answer to JMM's post I hope the facts, once known, show that the Troopers on the ground made good tactical calls based on the conditions (made many myself, some good, some not).

But I don't think that's Fuch's point - we have placed our guys (and their CoC) in positions where they have to make such decisions and therefor disregard Pakistan's sovereignty and take the lives of thier soldiers. And claiming self-defense in a land thousands of miles away from our borders starts to sound a bit shrill after 10 years - no matter how justified we were (and I think we obviously were) going after our enemies after 9/11.

We would not stand for Iran providing security assistance in Mexico even if Mexicans launched an attack on Tehran. And if such security assistance resulted in American deaths, we wouldn't give a tinker's damn if the Iranians were taking fire from our side of the border. Fuch's point, I think, is that we demand respect for our sovergnty while disrespecting the sovereignty others - and such double standards should make us pause and think.

And with that, time for a beer to reflect further upon this, just because Im home now and can. For those not home yet....may you get there soon....

[carl]

I don't care much about the big picture. I'm just a flyover person. I do care that our guys be able to shoot back at thems that shoot at them. That is the little picture. How that fits exactly into the big picture doesn't concern me too much because the little picture has American bodies in it.

Pakistan gave up the protection of sovereignty when the Pak Army/ISI decided to assist, train, direct, finance and guide Taliban & Co. If they want to claim sovereignty as a protection against our people exercising the right of self defence they should stop attacking us through Taliban & Co.. Like I said, if somebody was shooting us up from near a Frontier Corps outpost, and the Frontier Corps soldiers died because of return fire, they should blame themselves for allowing bad company to hang around.

[Fuchs]

a) Border security can be enforced a mile or two away from the border. That bit of no man's land would hardly matter.
People need to learn to think rationally.

b) Helicopters do not fire in self defence, nor do fighter bombers.
I'm so tired of this "F-16 fired in self-defence on wedding party" bull####.
It takes longer to acquire targets and fire for effect than to speed away. It's NOT legitimate self-defence if you choose to fight despite this means greater risk for you. That's combat, but not self-defence.
Aviation assets turning loose on "muzzle flash" sightings are not exercising a right to self-defend - they are using an excuse to unleash their firepower, period.

That being said, I have not yet read a detailed report about whether ground forces or only aviation assets were under fire, but the killing appears to have been done by helicopters.



And again, I do not believe that you guys would accept "self-defense" as an excuse if 25 U.S. troops had died at Iranian hands on the Texan border.



Oh, and before I read again a dismissive text regarding Pakistans sovereignty:
It's a nuclear power and they can read English, damnit!

[Uboat509]

b) Helicopters do not fire in self defence, nor do fighter bombers.
I'm so tired of this "F-16 fired in self-defence on wedding party" bull####.
It takes longer to acquire targets and fire for effect than to speed away. It's NOT legitimate self-defence if you choose to fight despite this means greater risk for you. That's combat, but not self-defence.
Aviation assets turning loose on "muzzle flash" sightings are not exercising a right to self-defend - they are using an excuse to unleash their firepower, period.


Who is saying that the helicopters fired to defend themselves? The helicopters were called in by troops on the ground who were under fire and were therefore defending themselves by using available assets.

[jmm99]

from Fuchs
Would you really care about details if Iranian helicopters had killed 25 U.S. soldiers on Texan soil ???

Yes, I would really care about details.

Regards

Mike

[Madhu]

I don't care much about the big picture. I'm just a flyover person.


Carl,

I actually do feel a bit sorry for the Pakistani people, even in this instance of "he said, he said". NATO country policies are so contradictory and passive-aggressive that I don't wonder people are in a frenzy of anti-americanism and anti-NATOism (media operations directed against the Pakistani people by elements of the state certainly doesn't help).

NATO is rather protective of Pakistan as a potential strategic asset against the Russians. There are complicated trade, aid and military sales relationships between various members and Pakistan. So on the one hand, NATO member nations are in a kind of proxy war with Pakistan, while on the other hand, various delegations from the EU and NATO member countries visit Pakistan, each making its own promises for future aid and long term developmental and strategic engagements. Australia has recently upped its aid because, I take it, the Australians are trying to develop a strategic relationship with Pakistan.

The situation is a genuine multinational "multicultural" international mess created by an alliance past its prime and the geopolitical games playing of multiple nations. Americans are not responsible for all the problems, although we certainly deserve blame for our counterproductive policies and strategies. But this really is an international project, both the Afghan war and Pakistan's proxy war against its neighbors conducted under a nuclear umbrella. There is too much money to be made for people to behave responsibly.

Indians and Afghans can read, too, and I bet what they read into all of this is that they are sitting ducks with regard to the NATOists (and no thanks to feckless Indian and corrupt Afghan governments).

I am going to shock you given my previous comments around here by saying we Americans should just pay up our protection money to the PakMil and get out. Indian analyst B. Raman reported on his blog today or yesterday that sources tell him mid level Pakistani military personal are very upset by this incident and that a mid level military coup is not an entirely outlandish thought. I think all of our attention is making things worse. So many other countries are interested in helping the Pakistani military develop weapons that we are in a bind. Our own arms sellers want a piece of the action, too.

And by get out, I don't just mean Afghanistan. I think Americans should seriously reconsider NATO.

Some day, Americans have to think about a foreign policy that places a primacy on American interests but I fear no one in our foreign policy community knows how to do that anymore. Heck, maybe even the American people have forgotten after all these years of a Eurocentric and Middle East centric foreign policy.

Speaking of NATO, thought you might find the following interesting within the context of the thread:


The statement by Germany came on the eve of the annual meeting of NSG members, which is taking place this week in Nordwiijk, Netherlands. The controversial Chinese-Pakistani reactor deal, which was revealed last year and discussed at the 2010 NSG meeting at Christchurch, New Zealand, will be among the key issues discussed at this week’s meeting. Presumably, Germany has come to the conclusion that the deal between China and Pakistan cannot be prevented anyway and that sticking to nonproliferation principles would not only be futile but also harmful to Sino-German trade relations.

Uta Zapf, chair of the subcommittee on disarmament, arms control and disarmament in the Bundestag, one of those members of Parliament behind the inquiry called this behavior “reckless”. She said that “German Foreign Minister Westerwelle’s talk about strengthening nonproliferation rules is contradicted by his deeds. If we don’t oppose this deal between an important NSG member and one of the most notorious proliferators of nuclear technology, which deal will Germany stand against in the future?”

http://tinyurl.com/3o2slsn

You see? Am I making any sense? There is just too much money to be made and we stupidly allow ourselves to be scapegoats when everyone is in on the take.

[carl]

a) Border security can be enforced a mile or two away from the border. That bit of no man's land would hardly matter.
People need to learn to think rationally.

I agree with you and I expect the Pak Army to announce that all the Frontier Corps outposts will withdraw that mile or two back into Pakistan within a few days.


b)

Uboat509 took care of b.


Oh, and before I read again a dismissive text regarding Pakistans sovereignty:
It's a nuclear power and they can read English, damnit!

I guess I'll just have to run the risk of the Pak Army/ISI being cross with me for not being properly deferential.

[carl]

Madhu:

I feel sorry too for the Pakistani people. The poor saps are subjects to feudal lords and a mendacious rapacious military. There is a very real chance that they will die in very great numbers because of the foolish ambitions of their lords.

There is nothing you say that shocks me. All of it makes sense and there are only two points of disagreement. I think it may be quite sensible to get out of NATO. They haven't shown much inclination to pull their weight and may not be worth the trouble.

I think no money can be made selling the Pakistanis much of anything, especially sophisticated weapons. They don't have any money and as their economy deteriorates there will be less.

The problem with paying protection money to the gang of criminals that is the Pak Army/ISI for criminal behavior is that it will encourage more criminal behavior. Here is some money please be nice to us never works with crooks. They just see it as weakness and an opportunity to do it again. Those mid-level officers are going to find something to be upset about because they want to be upset about something. Paying them will only give them more resources with which to make mischief.

Pakistan is going to be made or broken by the feudal and military elites. They are on the way to destroying their country and there may be nothing much anybody can do about it. I just want us to stop paying them to hurt us, allow our people to defend themselves and be the plain spoken Americans I was taught as a kid we were and stop pretending the Pak Army/ISI are our friends.

(I do think the Pakistani feudal and military elites are so greedy that if we really honest to goodness stopped the money they might get desperate enough to change their ways in the hopes the spigot would open up again. In that case it we could pay them for actual good behavior not the promises we get now.)

[Bob's World]

This is a tragedy, but from tragedy good things often emerge.

In the law there is honored concept of "the slippery slope." It is easy to step onto the slippery slope, and even to take those first few steps, at some point one begins to pick up speed and may well confuse that for progress. At some point, however one realizes that they cannot stop, cannot go back and are faced with an impending fall to some unfavorable fate.

I remember when Reagan made the decision to bomb Libya. It was a BIG deal. It was also a step onto a slippery slope. Same with the little intervention in Grenada a few years before that. a BIG deal. How far down the slippery slope are we today? It is a fine line between exercising reasonable control in support of our sovereign duties as a nation, and being out of control in a manner that we overly impact the equally sovereign rights of others in the process. It's a line we should be mindful of. It is also a line that is not static and is probably growing more constrained at this point in time, as we slide down the slope to meet it.

[Dayuhan]

I remember when Reagan made the decision to bomb Libya. It was a BIG deal. It was also a step onto a slippery slope.

We stepped onto that slippery slope long before Reagan was President, no?

[Fuchs]

Yeah, sure. You would care about details. Like the other 300+ million people who cared so much about the details after 2001.



This reminds me of my basic training. We were about 50 recruits in a room and a educator-NCO began a lecture about STDs and stuff.
He described a scenario about a hot new girlfriend teasing us in front of a hot chimney. It's all cold outside, we're on vacation, she's got the right curves...but you got no condom. Who of us would have sex?
We all said we wouldn't.

And we all did so much not believe it.

[Dayuhan]

(I do think the Pakistani feudal and military elites are so greedy that if we really honest to goodness stopped the money they might get desperate enough to change their ways in the hopes the spigot would open up again. In that case it we could pay them for actual good behavior not the promises we get now.)

That won't happen while we need their territory to supply our forces in Afghanistan. Until that changes, we need them as much as they need us, and the threats don't bite. We'll see how long the current situation lasts. I expect the supply routes will re-open; they want to keep us hooked.

[motorfirebox]

It seems really problematic to me to say that the Pakistani army got what it asked for by not clearing out the Taliban and LeT elements around it. For one thing, we haven't managed to do that. For another, we wouldn't accept that reasoning if, as Fuchs's parody lays out, any other country's troops accidentally killed ours within our own borders while attacking non-American insurgents in the area. For a third, it necessarily spotlights the questions of whether or not we should be there at all, at this point.

[carl]

That won't happen while we need their territory to supply our forces in Afghanistan. Until that changes, we need them as much as they need us, and the threats don't bite. We'll see how long the current situation lasts. I expect the supply routes will re-open; they want to keep us hooked.

You're right. Would that we had leaders who had the nerve to give up the supply line and reduce the effort to what could be supplied from the north and by air. But we don't. Ironically our best chance for that to happen might be if the Pak Army/ISI let emotion get the better of them and kept the Karachi supply line closed. That may not be likely either.

[carl]

It seems really problematic to me to say that the Pakistani army got what it asked for by not clearing out the Taliban and LeT elements around it. For one thing, we haven't managed to do that. For another, we wouldn't accept that reasoning if, as Fuchs's parody lays out, any other country's troops accidentally killed ours within our own borders while attacking non-American insurgents in the area. For a third, it necessarily spotlights the questions of whether or not we should be there at all, at this point.

I'll give them a pass on LeT. They don't get a pass on Taliban & Co. since Taliban & Co. to the Pak Army/ISI is like the calf to the cow.

[jmm99]

The only thing you've established is that, in one instance, you and 49 others prevaricated. Now, let's quit this.

Regards

Mike

[omarali50]

Pakistan's national security state was built up with American help at every step, but at least since Zia's time, they have grown up. Unlike the early bumblers and goofs (Ayub Khan, Ghulam Mohammed) with their near perfect understanding of their role as a "Western ally", Zia and company had an agenda of their own and used the US more than the US used them. That agenda was far too ambitious and was never fully worked out or agreed upon. Touble was inevitable..within the "Paknationalist" agenda, there was a purely India-centric/Two-nation-theory capitalist faction (very shallow and very short-sighted, with no deep cultural roots and no hope of success) and a more Islamist faction (with deeper roots and greater clarity, but even less compatible with global capitalism or regional peace). Both factions were united in wanting to use Jihadists in some crazy scheme of defeating India and dominating Afghanistan and central Asia; the islamists with clearer understanding of what that means, the "secular" paknationalists with their usual shallow cluelessness.
But that use has become problematic since 9-11. Since Mumbai, even the use of "India-specific" Jihadists is being frowned upon in some circles. Unwilling or perhaps, truly incapable of giving up their "assets" and devising a new narrative, the paknationatlists have bet the house on a US defeat in Afghanistan happening before the confused narrative becomes impossible to sustain.
That timing may not come off as hoped for...We are now in the position of hoping that the Americans, GHQ and India will all work this out before it blows up....Even writing that down seems insanely optimistic. But its 1.5 billion people. One must remain optimistic...