COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Plan A was a Freak Accident Waiting to Happen

Plan A is shot to hell, Musharraf is all but finished, Pakistan is at a cross roads and the US and UK planners are looking like bungling incompetents.

Plan A, Benazir Bhutto propping up and providing backbone to Pervez Musharraf so that he could finally get tough on the extremists, has been shot to hell and the experts tell us that there is no Plan B. Leaving aside (for now) the questions about the incompetence of implementing Plan A, we are now forced to scramble for Plan B which could include the Islamist connected Nawaz Sharif.

The problem is that we no longer know what to believe. Take the initial reports of the attack - A gunman/suicide bomber attacked Ms. Bhutto shooting her in the head and neck before detonating his bomb. Initial reaction; that's unusual, a trained, professional suicide bomber. Cool and calm even in the face of death. A real assassin. It makes more sense that the shooter and the bomber would be two different people. Considering how "doped-up" some of these bombers have been you wouldn't expect them to be marksmen and even if they were, you could understand that they might have a case of the nerves which precluded hitting the side of a barn.

The point is, the initial reports coming out a chaotic scene are merely initial reports coming out a chaotic scene. A bomb goes off, people are lying dead or dying and after a momentary stunned silence, the screaming begins and out of the smoke comes the initial signals. The problem is these reports are heard and filed away in the back of the mind. Everything heard after that is weighed and filtered against the "initial reports" and this sets a high hurdle for the truth.

The medical finding about the cause of Bhutto's death may well be true but too easily dismissed as too coincidental. When you first heard the news, didn't you think to yourself something like the following: "She was attacked by a gunman and a suicide bomber but you're telling me that the cause of death was a "freak accident? Give me a break!"

One day after Benazir Bhutto's death, the Pakistanis tried to pin the blame on al-Qaeda. From the Telegraph UK:

Here is a translation of the transcript of the alleged telephone conversation from senior al-Qa'eda leader Baitullah Mehsud to another militant said to have been intercepted after the assassination.

Maulvi Sahib (MS): Asalaam Aleikum (Peace be with you)

Baitullah Mehsud (BM): Waleikum Asalam (And also with you)

MS: Chief, how are you?

BM: I am fine.

MS: Congratulations, I just got back during the night.

BM: Congratulations to you, were they our men?

MS: Yes they were ours.

BM: Who were they?

MS: There was Saeed, there was Bilal from Badar and Ikramullah.

BM: The three of them did it?

MS: Ikramullah and Bilal did it.

BM: Then congratulations.

MS: Where are you? I want to meet you.

BM: I am at Makeen (town in South Waziristan tribal region), come over, I am at Anwar Shah's house.

MS: OK, I'll come.

BM: Don't inform their house for the time being.

MS: OK.

BM: It was a tremendous effort. They were really brave boys who killed her.

MS: Mashallah (Thank God). When I come I will give you all the details.

BM: I will wait for you. Congratulations, once again congratulations.

MS: Congratulations to you.

BM: Anything I can do for you?

MS: Thank you very much.

BM: Asalaam Aleikum.

MS: Waaleikum Asalaam.

My first reaction after "walleikum Aleikum" was "Sounds fishy to me." I thought it was a little too timely. Too "johnny on the spot". Suddenly the ISI was the FBI and the bad guys were just dumb asses blabbering all on the telephones. How convenient. I don't totally discount it but I think that if the Pakistanis could produce the translated intercept so quickly, there's a lot more that they could have done and didn't do. A lot more that they knew and weren't telling us. The Musharraf Government has no credibility against Mr. BM's denials:

Bhutto Aides Reject Government Claim

By RAVI NESSMAN, AP

Sat Dec 29, 4:22 AM EST

An Islamic militant group said Saturday it had no link to Benazir Bhutto's killing, dismissing government claims that its leader orchestrated the assassination.

Bhutto's aides also said they doubted militant commander Baitullah Mehsud was behind the attack on the opposition leader and accused the government of a cover-up.

The dispute and conflicting reports about Bhutto's exact cause of death were expected to further enflame the violence wracking this nuclear-armed nation two days after the popular former prime minister was killed in a suicide attack.

Musharraf is done. His goose is cooked. He has no credibility anymore. He should have stepped down when his book was just released and he was being feted at Davos. He would have been lauded as a courageous and honorable man. He should have quit when he was ahead but he didn't do that, he clung to power and now, no one believes him.

Once again, we've shot ourselves in the foot and Osama is frenetically playing bongo drums in a Waziristan motel room. Considering the disaster that was Plan A, one has to wonder about the competency of its planners who seem to be the products of outcome based education. Its time for new planners.

77 comments:

  1. yawn...

    these players, all of them, are major players with armed groups supporting them, the newest dead martyr was infact an ex-soviet supporter far from a friend of the west she was an independent..

    the military rules the pakis, another fake created state carved off another nation to appease the moslems...

    so forget plan a, b or z this is what we call "organic" developments...

    let's turn up the fire and watch the frogs dance in the skillet....

    ReplyDelete
  2. the military rules the pakis, another fake created state carved off another nation to appease the moslems...

    Carved off by the same body and at about the same time as Israel. Interesting contrast.

    so forget plan a, b or z this is what we call "organic" developments...
    I agree but apparently too many think we can defeat the "extremists" on the cheap.

    let's turn up the fire and watch the frogs dance in the skillet....

    I said that about the Palis years ago but our leaders never fail to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

    ReplyDelete
  3. How many Pakistani's are going to decide who the next US president should be? There are 160 million Pakis, many who can't stand each other. They have nuclear weapons and they love their nuclear weapons. It is an illiterate swamp of fear and superstition, because the leadership of people like Bhutto, kept it that way. Musharraf has the worse job on the planet. The only thing that cam make it even worse, is for the US Government, who is always so very helpful to its own citizens, in its own country, (Think Ted Kennedy, John Murtha, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, one and all very helpful people) is for that same US Government to help straighten out Pakistan.

    Why do those that rightly learned from experience, and have so little confidence in the belief that our government can't do much right with our own taxes, laws, courts and immigration, morphs into enlightenment and Genius when they cross our own undefended national borders.

    "President Musharraf, the US Government is here, Praise Allah, they are here to help."

    Do nothing. Leave them alone, until asked.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Deuce, I agree. I also now understand why Huckabee apologized.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carved off by the same body and at about the same time as Israel. Interesting contrast.


    actually, no, UN created Israel (actually the league of nations) whereas it was my understanding that pakistan (unlike israel and several other post colonial arab nations) was TAKEN from an existing nation (india)

    pakistan was an appeasement to islam, it was historic indian lands...

    ReplyDelete
  6. We were attacked by a force that made camp and trained from southeast Afghanistan. We regularly took pictures of their camps. The savages in those camps, killed our people and destroyed our property. We rightly hunted them down and killed a bunch, foolishly captured others, and let the leaders walk to the shit holes and caves of western Pakistan.

    We did not follow them and kill them there. Missed opportunities are usually much cheaper when they first appear. They often become far more expensive, even exponentially, when you hesitate. The entire planet was prepared for the hell released by the US against her attackers after 911. That opportunity is gone. The next time it appears, pluck the fruit.

    ReplyDelete
  7. If a civil war breaks out in Pakistan, watch and see who will win. If the side you want is winning, let them. If not, help them kill their enemies. They make the first moves. Move too quickly and all sides will blame you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Walid Phares
    December 27, 2007

    Mrs Bhutto has been criticizing the Islamists constantly during her political campaigns, since her return to the country. Senior neo Taliban and Jihadist commanders had threatened to kill her. Last October, Baitullah Mehsud, a a Taliban commander in South Waziristan threatened to kill Bhutto upon her return.

    ReplyDelete
  9. After Bhutto: A Nation in Crisis

    By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
    National Review Online
    December 27, 2007

    Benazir Bhutto’s assassination is a tragedy, and likely a strategic setback as well. It is tragic because, despite the notorious corruption of Bhutto’s administration, in many ways she represented the best that Pakistan has to offer. Bhutto boldly opposed the fundamentalists’ dark vision for Pakistan and was openly pro-West. After the unsuccessful attempt on Bhutto’s life in October, she called out by name the figures whom she believed were complicit.

    The most likely culprit in Bhutto’s death is al-Qaeda and aligned militant groups — the same groups who swore they would kill Bhutto when her return to Pakistan was announced, the same groups who tried to kill her in October. If al-Qaeda was indeed responsible, this is another stark reminder of the group’s regeneration in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has returned to the levels of power they enjoyed in Afghanistan before U.S. forces toppled the Taliban, and Bhutto’s death has to be considered a major victory for them. There is also evidence that Bhutto’s assassination, much like the October attempt on her life, may have been assisted by Islamic militants who have infiltrated Pakistan’s military and intelligence services.

    Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has never risen to the occasion in the face of danger. He has attempted to broker compromises even following assassination attempts that targeted him. The Waziristan accords, consummated in 2006, were one sign of how Musharraf has attempted to negotiate away Pakistan’s problem with Islamic militancy: those accords essentially formalized al-Qaeda’s safe haven in the country’s Waziristan region. In no way were those accords an isolated event: Pakistan’s further concessions in 2007 included the Bajaur, Swat, and Mohmand tribal agencies.

    Bhutto’s death also makes former prime minister Nawaz Sharif Pakistan’s top opposition figure. Sharif has attempted to appeal to Islamic militants, arguing that Pakistan needs to pare down its cooperation with the United States. Sharif has already capitalized on Bhutto’s death, visiting the hospital where she was declared dead, blasting Musharraf for providing Bhutto with insufficient security, and calling for a reunification of Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party and his own Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

    Bhutto’s assassination once again spotlights the need for the U.S. to formulate a feasible Pakistan policy, something I have called for previously.

    ReplyDelete
  10. India, a British protectorate, granted independence, as two Sectarian States. That division causing a Civil War, mass population relocations and generations of sectarian strife.

    TransJordan, a British protectorate, granted independence, as two Sectarian States. That division causing a Civil War, mass population relocations and generations of sectarian strife.

    The League of Nations never fielding a single rifle.
    Political power grows from the barrel of a gun, as we all know.

    The British held the ground, militarily. In both locales they ceded what was "right" to the threat and application of terror tactics against them. In both locales the terror threat wielded by sectarian minorities within the greater country.

    British hubris and thoughts of Empire and attendent decisions causing great problems for future generations in both regions.

    Prior to the establishment of the minority sectarian States, the minorities had existed, integrated within the majorities of both of the Regions.

    With little sectarian violence and strife, if the reports of once and future Israelis living throughout the Middle East, with attendent property rights, are accurate.

    It was not until the British ceded control of portions of India and TranJordan to religious minorities for the establishment of Sectarian States did the status que of civil comity breakdown.

    ReplyDelete
  11. The Pakistani nuclear warheads, secure in the hands of the Pakistani Army.

    The Pakistani Army, firmly in the hands of the Pakistani Army.

    Dictators with nuclear weapons, more than just a problem of image management for the Dictators, present or future.

    ReplyDelete
  12. I had read in the past, with regards the bodies of those killed in Haditha, Iraq, that to exhume a body is a grave problem under Islamic dogma.

    Do not really know the accuracy of those reports, as only the freedom of US Marines was at stake, in the Haditha case.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Lest You Go Astray Things are halal, unless they are haram. And one better know the difference. Ham is haram. Jihad halal.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "Musharraf is done.
    His goose is cooked.
    "
    ---
    I propose:
    TURDUCKEN!

    ReplyDelete
  15. "Ham, ham haram,
    Bannana fanna furam,
    Ham, ham haram!
    "
    PBUHam

    ReplyDelete
  16. "to exhume a body is a grave problem under Islamic dogma.
    "
    ---
    To exhume a body under ANY system
    is a "grave" problem.

    ReplyDelete
  17. from the previous thread:

    bobal said...
    I recall reading about that Stan Petrov fellow some time ago, and thinking, Jesus. Do we really believe Israel and Iran are going to be able to avoid such a scenario without the cat slipping the bag? Missile flight time there is, what, two minutes or something. We think we are ruled by fools here in the United States. There are fools everywhere, and our fools at least aren't driven, fanatic fools. The situation does not look good.

    Sat Dec 29, 12:06:00 PM EST


    2164th said...
    No Bob it does not. In 1968 or 1969, I happened to be attached to an over the horizon radar system in Europe that was headquartered at Aviano AB, Italy. I was a crew chief and senior analyst at a reporting site. I had recently returned from an advanced training course at Aviano designed to detect and identify multiple missile launches from specific Soviet launch sites at Plesetsk, Baykonour (tyuratam), and Kapustin Yar.

    Control Data company prepared some simulated computer renditions of what a mutiple launch would look like. We monitored the entire range of possible Soviet missile sites, but studied the three I named as that is where all the test action came from.

    Within days of my training, at 3:00 AM an ashen faced Captain, called attention to an event developing rapidly on our radar screens. The data was identical to what CD had trained us to expect in a high density mutiple missile launch. Every radar screen was lit up and the triangulation from multiple sites confirmed the launches.

    What we did not realize was that we were seeing the SL-8 launch system that was a bunch of SS-5 strapped together, being launched at the same time. Aviano reported a high probability launch to NORAD. Someone at NORAD either did their job very well or very badly and we dodged the bullet.

    The level of sophistication in the late 1960's in detection and control was greater than Pakistan has today.

    Sat Dec 29, 12:46:00 PM EST

    ReplyDelete
  18. The Pakistani Army has it all in hand.

    Fear not.

    They are worthy of trust and further funding, based upon that trust.

    If the Pakistani Army were to factionalize, we can pick choose the individual players, with total sincerity and knowledge as to their intentions.

    Pakistani Army, the world's premier nuclear proliferator.
    Doc Kahn not a free agent, operating alone, on a Pakistani Army base

    General Gul, to the rescue?

    ReplyDelete
  19. "We did not follow them and kill them there."

    Perhaps if the "prize" sought, from the beginning, had been something other than Kabul and the whole of bloody Asscrackistan (New Client State, Woo Hoo!) we would have done that. Priorities, priorities.

    ReplyDelete
  20. From our experts at State:

    MICHAEL HIRSH
    Is Rice Rushing to Elections?

    Washington moves to anoint a Bhutto 'successor' and push for an immediate vote after the assassination

    By Michael Hirsh | Newsweek Web Exclusive
    Dec 28, 2007 | Updated: 8:19 p.m. ET Dec 28, 2007

    It was a decidedly odd moment. On Thursday, within hours of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters in Washington that his boss, Condoleezza Rice, had quickly made two calls. One was to Bhutto's bereaved husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Rice's other call, Casey said, was to the man he called Bhutto's "successor," Amin Fahim, the vice chairman of her Pakistan People's Party. Casey couldn't even quite master this obscure politician's name, but he said, "I'll leave it up to Mr. Amin Fahir—Fahim—as the new head of the Pakistan People's Party to determine how that party is going to participate in the electoral process."

    ReplyDelete
  21. "Why do those that rightly learned from experience, and have so little confidence in the belief that our government can't do much right with our own taxes, laws, courts and immigration, morphs into enlightenment and Genius when they cross our own undefended national borders."

    Well that's a discussion that's looooooong overdue in the Grand Old Party. I'll set up a luncheon with Heritage and AEI. You bring the grenade launchers.

    ReplyDelete
  22. BENAZIR BHUTTO always understood Washington more than Washington understood her.

    Ms. Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader and two-time prime minister, who was assassinated in Rawalpindi on Thursday as she campaigned for the office a third time, had a more extensive network of powerful friends in the capital’s political and media elite than almost any other foreign leader. Over the years, she scrupulously cultivated those friends, many from her days at Harvard and Oxford. She was rewarded when her connections — at the White House, in Congress and within the foreign policy establishment — helped propel her into power in Pakistan.

    But in the end, with yet another American administration behind her, Ms. Bhutto’s Washington network only underscored how little the United States fathomed the feudal politics of South Asia, and its own ability to control events in the cauldron of Pakistan. NYT

    ReplyDelete
  23. The Queen of Pakistan has spoken, let US listen:

    Clinton said the Pakistani government does not have enough credibility to investigate Benazir Bhutto's death and is calling for an international probe into it.

    "I'm calling for a full independent international investigation," Clinton said in an interview with CNN.

    She said the probe should perhaps be along the lines of what the UN is doing to look into Rafik Hariri's death in Lebanon. Clinton declined to call for Musharraf to step down, but said he should meet certain conditions.

    "We should immediately move to free and fair elections," she said.

    Clinton noted that Bhutto's party would need time to choose successor and that Nawaz Sharif, another opposition leader, has said he would not take part in the election.


    And all this time, I thought we had "free and fair" elections.
    At least within the McCain - Feingold definitions of "free and far".

    Gotta stay inside those lines, of course.

    ReplyDelete
  24. I Move that we immediately have Free and Fair Elections at the Bar!

    ReplyDelete
  25. Qaeda Network Expands Base in Pakistan

    The Qaeda network accused by Pakistan’s government of killing Benazir Bhutto is increasingly made up not of foreign fighters but of homegrown militants.
    Sharif Seeks a Political Alliance Against Musharraf

    Audio and Photos

    Timeline

    Times Topics:
    Bhutto
    Pakistan

    ReplyDelete
  26. From one of Trish's favorites:

    Victor Davis Hanson
    We don’t know exactly who assassinated Ms. Bhutto, but, given the infiltration of the Pakistani secret services by Islamic extremists, it seems likely that al-Qaeda-like jihadists, with the deliberate blind eye of the government, were responsible. Same old, same old in the Middle East: The jihadists are cruel and crazy, the dictatorial alternative is duplicitous and illegitimate, and the democratic third way is weak and vulnerable.

    Pakistan is a nuclear dictatorship, with a thin Westernized elite sitting atop a vast medieval Islamist badlands that it cannot control. Today’s events show that the very notion of a pro-Western politician coming to power legitimately is unlikely for the immediate future.

    Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, among others, have suggested that it’s about time to consider incursions into Pakistan to strike al-Qaeda. That would be like putting a needle into a doughboy: The problem is not a particular region, or a particular Pakistani figure, but Pakistan itself, founded as an Islamic state, and by nature prone to extremism. It is the most anti-American country in the region and we should accept that and move on.

    Our relations were always based on the flawed idea its Islamic and autocratic essence made it a good bulwark against communist Russia and socialist India. But the world has changed, and we should too. It is long past time to smile and curtail aid — and quit arming it with weapons that are more likely to be used against our friend India as bin Laden.

    I would imagine once most of the “reform” candidates are killed or cowered, the emboldened terrorist animals will turn on their government feeders — even as the Pakistani street somehow blames us.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I wonder if the lawyers in their Armani knock-off suits will be storming the barriers any time soon? To tell the truth, they could have been Canali knock-offs.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Shorter Rice: Here're your bull's eyes, Amin. Afix to head and rear passenger doors of official and private transport. May we suggest a couple of body men from Bhutto's detail? Vetted and ready to go.







    There're better ways to execute a bad idea.

    ReplyDelete
  29. No need for them to now, the civilian masses are mobilized, energized, vitalized.

    The para-military all that stands between chaos and reform.

    The US just has to decide which side those paramilitaries are on, chaos or reform.

    Either could be the case, depending upon the perspective taken. Both of the history and the current events in Pakistan.

    The Army not taking to the streets, yet

    ReplyDelete
  30. "Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, among others, have suggested that it’s about time to consider incursions into Pakistan to strike al-Qaeda. That would be like putting a needle into a doughboy..."

    Not if we were allowed to target their motherfucking families, it wouldn't. Extremely effective, that one. Hanson can't think in narrower terms than an entire country, but other people can.

    In any case, nobody wants to have that conversation. And here we are, dicking around like the high profile fools that we are with their domestic politics.

    ReplyDelete
  31. And, hey, it ain't torture. It's just killin'. In all things, stick to what you know best.

    ReplyDelete
  32. ala dougal--it takes a grave man to exhume a body

    ReplyDelete
  33. I got nothing to add to what I said at Belmont:

    The "Talibanization" of Waziristan is a Pakistani scheme to prevent independence from Pakistan. AQ is a tool of the Pakistani Secret Service. You want to put an end to AQ, end American financial and military support to Pakistan.

    Concerned with Pakistani atomic weapons and their proliferation? Make diplomatic support for Pakistan contingent on Pakistan giving up all such weapons and the scientists that worked on them.

    ReplyDelete
  34. From Box(ballot) To Box(coffin) Across the muslim world, jihadis court voters with the bullet.

    ReplyDelete
  35. "The "Talibanization" of Waziristan is a Pakistani scheme to prevent independence from Pakistan. AQ is a tool of the Pakistani Secret Service..."

    ...Lady Liberty is a whore, Greater Kurdistan is an idea whose time has come, Israel's secret squirrels scored an Osirik in northern Syria, and the US military is led by taqiyya generals.

    Go, mat, go!

    ReplyDelete
  36. Trish,

    Do I detect a tone of sarcasm?

    ReplyDelete
  37. Israeli soldiers are Barbie Dolls, but it's not their fault.

    Let's not forget that one, either

    ReplyDelete
  38. The western border of Pakistan has seven tribal areas, North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Bajaur Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai and Mohmand, all of which are inhabited by Pashtun tribes. Pashtuns make up 40% of Afghanistan.

    Prior to the Russian invasion, and then Charlie Wilson's war, the Pashtuns made up 50 plus percent of the Afghan population. Pashtuns are overwhelmingly Sunni. 85% of the 6.2 million Afghan refugees who fled to Iran and Pakistan were Pastun. The Taleban is their choice of party.

    That said, make a deal with the Taleban. Use Petraeus to broker the deal with some of his new found Sunni allies. Part of the deal is they have to give up bin Laden. That can be done and it simplifies part of the Paki problem.

    ReplyDelete
  39. dRat,

    When our soldiers are forced to fight like barbie dolls, then they're little more than barbie dolls. I feel sorry for you, that this simple argument still escapes you.

    ReplyDelete
  40. That you have so little respect for men better than yourself, belittling their service with such simplistic name calling, not requiring any further argument, simple or otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Since I can't solve the world's problems, I'm going to the casino, where there is a special drawing today, and one might have a 1 in 600 chance, or 1 in 400 on a slow day. I call these fighting odds. Besides, the coffee is free, and I'll bump into someone I know. Later.

    ReplyDelete
  42. dRat,

    I have a lot more respect for my countrymen and soldiers then you ever will. And when they're forced to be made into barbi doll soldiers, I will not hesitate for a second to call it like it is.

    I will not accept injury to them, and have their lives cut short, because of PC rules and scam-bag politicians that value the enemy's propaganda over the life of their countrymen and soldiers. I would rather a million "innocents" of the enemy be killed than sacrifice even one of my own countryman or soldier to injury by the enemy.

    ReplyDelete
  43. "Part of the deal is they have to give up bin Laden. That can be done and it simplifies part of the Paki problem."

    No offense, dear host: Five years tryin'. No takers.

    ReplyDelete
  44. "No offense, dear host: Five years tryin'. No takers."


    That's a garbage answer. Change the terms of the arrangement.

    ReplyDelete
  45. We did not offer the right deal, nor did we have the right dealers.

    ReplyDelete
  46. The Khyber pass was the door to the original Walmart. Send rug dealers.

    ReplyDelete
  47. 2164th wrote -

    Prior to the Russian invasion, and then Charlie Wilson's war...

    Sorry, Charlie. This Is Michael Vickers's War.

    h/t Westhawk

    ReplyDelete
  48. We did not offer the right deal, nor did we have the right dealers.

    Sat Dec 29, 05:27:00 PM EST

    Who were the dealers, and what were the deals?

    ReplyDelete
  49. "I will not accept injury to them, and have their lives cut short, because of PC rules..."

    Oh yes you will.

    Those PC rules are the military's way of protecting itself from those craven politicians and international opprobrium in the Great Game of Gotcha. JAGed up and good to go, shooter. I'm sure Israel has its own variant.

    And good luck on the million "innocents" part.

    Now you can fuck off.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Great Game of Gotcha? Played by who?

    ReplyDelete
  51. Alright, first drop the missionary position. No talk of democracy. No cultural changes expected or required. Strictly business, AQ is not bargain-able. Everything else is on the table. Use Sunni negotiators.Let the Pashtuns have their own Loyal Jerga and pick a government of their own choosing including the Taleban. Finance the repatriation of all back to Afghanistan, the price and resettlement is negotiable. They give up AQ and enter into a truce with other parties and a very loose federation based on tribal groups. They make their own deals with each other.

    ReplyDelete
  52. "Now you can fuck off."

    Why? Because I call your condescending sneers for the intellectual garbage that it is?

    ReplyDelete
  53. Petraeus got the Sunnis to turn on AQ in Iraq. let him work his magic in Afghanistan. He is an ambitious guy. Such a success could have interesting prospects for a very ambitious man. Send him lots of money and let the State Department and Condi get lost. The Pakis are blaming AQ for the Bhutto hit. Seize the momentum.

    ReplyDelete
  54. Wow. That's a fair bit of nation building there, friend. Just cuz it don't have the word democracy in it don't mean it wouldn't do W. Wilson proud.

    And sunnis can't negotiate for a political order of which we would be the guarantors - against Islamabad, no less. For the head of one man, no less. (And what better way to say 'bugger you' to Kabul than massive Pashtun resettlement?)

    Between that proposal and mine, I'll take mine.

    ReplyDelete
  55. "Petraeus got the Sunnis to turn on AQ in Iraq."

    Petraeus would be startled to learn this.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Deuce,

    How about this for a deal? Kill AQ or be fed to Russia China and India.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Not nation building. It is carving up turf. Family business. Islamabad is already on board. They need a fall guy and AQ is it.

    ReplyDelete
  58. "Petraeus would be startled to learn this."

    Oh? Did our friends the Saudis fail to inform him?

    ReplyDelete
  59. "Islamabad is already on board."

    OK. We're gonna go to dinner and I'm gonna pop in later and see if you aren't off this tremendous pile of BS.

    ReplyDelete
  60. trish said...
    "We did not follow them and kill them there."

    Perhaps if the "prize" sought, from the beginning, had been something other than Kabul and the whole of bloody Asscrackistan (New Client State, Woo Hoo!) we would have done that. Priorities, priorities.

    ---
    There was also that little 1 Trillion Dollar Affair in Saddam's Old Playhouse.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Cats & Pants.

    http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=17278

    ReplyDelete
  62. What is the objective?

    For the answer to that, look to the actions that are taken.

    Do not project your own feelings or desires, but judge the actions, not just the rhetoric. In Israel or the US or Pakistan. Anywhere.

    For US, a perpetual state of low intensity conflict, marketed as war, is both the reality and it's even matched by the rhetoric.
    Bill Roggio even renaming his site "The Long War Journal", based upon both reality and rhetoric.

    Conventional US Army officers whose objective is to manage battlespace, not win battles. Which is not really needed, in a "Long War", almost by definition.

    Success can be claimed by a lack of casualties, all around, not the achievement of Strategic Goals. Especially when those Goals are not made public, beyond a rhetorical Presidental flourish.

    The real objective seems to be turmoil, but less than combat. That balance of forces that requires arms and aid, but not a military solution.
    The US Military telling US that there is no strictly military solution to the problems.

    The idea that 100 A-Teams will win a war, against 100 million plus non-reconcilable mussulmen, a tad outside the lines of reality. Butone that fits in perfectly with the idea of perpetual low intensity conflict.

    A steady flow of funding for more technology and the other tools of war. Most of which cannot be deployed, for fear of their use.

    100 A-Teams and the change in Strategic thinking required to deploy them, it will allow the majority of the conventional Army to return home though, so, it's all good.

    In mat's treasured Israel, the reconcilables on both sides agreed to disagree, saying that it does not matter, the US will be judge and jury.

    The Palestinians want a halt to all Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which also was captured in the 1967 war.

    Israel committed to freeze all construction in West Bank settlements under the recently revived 2003 "road map" peace plan, but it has never honored that obligation.

    During Thursday's meeting, Olmert reiterated pledges not to build any new settlements or expand existing settlements beyond their current borders, an Israeli official said.

    But he maintained the right to build in east Jerusalem and within the existing limits of major West Bank settlements to account for natural growth, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

    Qureia said Olmert's pledges to limit settlement activity were "satisfactory," though he also said the Palestinians were seeking U.S. intervention. At the Annapolis peace summit, Israel and the Palestinians said the U.S. would judge implementation of the road map.


    Ken coming to the rescue of mat's Barbie Dolls!?!?

    ReplyDelete
  63. The Austrailian

    After the shock
    Greg Sheridan, foreign editor | December 29, 2007

    The West is failing to keep alive its friends in the Muslim world. Foreign editor Greg Sheridan writes that Thursday's murder also underlines the failures of Pakistan's dictatorial President

    ReplyDelete
  64. "Do not project your own feelings or desires, but judge the actions.."

    And I judge it to be a scam. A fraud, perpetrated by scum in the pay of Jihadi oil. And if you had any respect for our soldiers you'd agree.

    ReplyDelete
  65. Not jihadi oil, amigo.
    Reconciled oil in the case of the Sauds and the US. Reconciled oil for Israel as it buys it from Eygpt. Peace be upon them, both.

    Your mental projections and prejudices not matching reality, not for the US, nor for Israel.

    Ken and his Uncle Sam coming to save Israel, one more time, mat. It'll all be good, especially for those Israelis residing in Canada.

    ReplyDelete
  66. dRat,

    You're being played. That's no mental projection. You might think it the other way round, but it's not. You're full of hubris and swagger and you don't understand nor appreciate the enemy. I do.

    ReplyDelete
  67. Nobody is playin' me, at least not in that game. I am not the decider, nor are you, amigo.

    You even further from the game, than me.

    You could always go on back, get in the thick of things, not me though.
    I do not have dog in that fight, beyond bein' a spectator.

    If there ever was a real existential threat, to US, we'd deal with it.
    But as it is, Entertainment Tonite.

    ReplyDelete
  68. Bush got played by Sharon pretty good...mind you, many played him pretty good.

    ReplyDelete
  69. "If there ever was a real existential threat, to US, we'd deal with it."

    The "go with the flow" attitude already did you in.

    ReplyDelete
  70. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  71. There was also that little 1 Trillion Dollar Affair in Saddam's Old Playhouse.

    Sat Dec 29, 07:18:00 PM EST

    Hope *somebody's* gettin' their money's worth out of that.

    "The idea that 100 A-Teams will win a war, against 100 million plus non-reconcilable mussulmen, a tad outside the lines of reality."

    Who said anything about 100 million plus non-reconcilable musselmen? Or 100 A Teams? Not I. No, I leave it to the Podhoretzes to think in such grandiose terms, preferring to bite off what can actually be chewed, swallowed, and more or less comfortably digested. (Not to be confused with the operations of that minor, giddy pre-Balkan epoch of in-by-nine-out-by-lunch.) But I also would have called it the War on al Qaeda, which would have done our probably well-intentioned but dismayingly led CIC, and therefor the nation, a world of good.

    Fuck-all to be done about it now.

    ReplyDelete
  72. Being 5 years later and all.

    ReplyDelete
  73. "The entire planet was prepared for the hell released by the US against her attackers after 911. That opportunity is gone."
    ---
    That's W's Legacy, in my book, as well as Outlaw/Traitor regarding the border and the current 4 Mil/yr illegals, criminals, and terrorists taking advantage of his corrupt and treasonous free-for-all.

    ReplyDelete
  74. "The entire planet was prepared for the hell released by the US against her attackers after 911. That opportunity is gone."

    - Doug

    Absolutely gone. Window closed. Unfortunately (and with some wild irony) that righteous bloody-mindedness was funneled into a ramp-up for the biggest damned boondoggle we've ever seen.

    ReplyDelete
  75. Here's the assassination from a new angle. which shows Bhutto's hair being raised as she is hit. Not too much left to the imagination here.

    Why would the government put out ridiculous lie about bhutto hitting her head.

    ReplyDelete