A minor border incident

[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...