Obama Extends Bush's "Covert" War Within Pakistan (Commentary Round-Up)

by Damozel | As I've pointed out before, people who know about these things call Pakistan the most dangerous place on the planet.  Currently, Obama is trying to take out the man who orchestrated the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and thus to take down a group of terrorists who are now trying to bring down the nuclear-weapon-having Pakistani government, to which we are friendly (or "friendly"). (NYT) 

The military and intelligence arms of that  particular "friendly" government, by the way, are well and truly controlled by military and intelligence officials who are friendly to the Taliban.

Just last week, Cernig wrote:

[O]n Sunday, news came of Pakistani attempts to sign a truce with the Taliban, one that would involve Sharia supplanting Pakistani national laws there. Pakistani officials deny any disconnect between Zardari's warning of an existential threat and the peace deal: "We are not compromising with militants, instead trying to isolate the militants, and for that I do not think America will have any objection," said Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi - but previous such truces, which were meant to end Islamist terror attacks which have plagued Pakistan, have swiftly collapsed because the Taliban know they are winning and can keep demanding concessions. Large chunks of Pakistan are now in Taliban control, and there seems to be no will in the ruling Pakistani feudal elite to seriously contest that.

Indeed, the will of the Pakistani elite may well be largely in favor of Taliban control. A disconnect between word and action exists whether Pakistani officials want to admit it or not and it shouldn't be forgotten that the Taliban and other regional Islamist militant groups are largely the making of Pakistan's ISI spy service and army in the first place. Pakistan has long conducted its foreign policy in the region by the use of these proxies and may now have "gone native", casting in their lot with their creations while pretending otherwise to ward of Western anger and to gain US military aid.

Is Obama wrong to continue -- and indeed to escalate -- the CIA's covert wars within Pakistan's borders?  "Under standard policy for covert operations, the C.I.A. strikes inside Pakistan have not been publicly acknowledged either by the Obama administration or the Bush administration," says The New York Times. "Using Predators and the more heavily armed Reaper drones, the C.I.A. has carried out more than 30 strikes since last September, according to American and Pakistani officials," it adds.

Policy or no policy, I object to the word "covert."  It's not as if the bombings haven't been widely reported   If I know about them, it seems probable that Congress and the Pakistanis know all about them too.  Other people from the Seventies remember the Doonesbury strip I have in mind.  Questioned about Nixon's "secret" bombings of Cambodia, the elderly curator of a destroyed museum replies:

"Secret bombings? Boy, there wasn't anything secret about them! Everyone here knew! I did, and my wife, she knew, too! She was with me, and I remarked on them!  I said "Look, Martha, here come the bombs"."  (Via)

Check out The Heretik's Doonesbury-style comment.  I'm very sure there are more accurate words than covert, such as "not-authorized-by-representatives-of-American-taxpayers."  I guess if the bombings are with the cooperation of the government, this isn't required. 

Let's have a look at the baddies in this case. If we've got to have a covert war, or any war, are these the right people to be fighting against? 

The attacks have killed a number of senior Qaeda figures, including Abu Jihad al-Masri and Usama al-Kini, who is believed to have helped plan the 1998 American Embassy bombings in East Africa and last year’s bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.  (NYT)

The most recent attacks were against "training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud." 

Mr. Mehsud was identified early last year by both American and Pakistani officials as the man who had orchestrated the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister and the wife of Pakistan’s current president, Asif Ali Zardari. Mr. Bush included Mr. Mehsud’s name in a classified list of militant leaders whom the C.I.A. and American commandos were authorized to capture or kill....

The Monday strike, officials say, was aimed at a camp run by Hakeem Ullah Mehsud, a top aide to the militant. By striking at the Mehsud network, the United States may be seeking to demonstrate to Mr. Zardari that the new administration is willing to go after the insurgents of greatest concern to the Pakistani leader...

So Obama is stepping up the missile strikes, as he said during the campaign he would do.

The missile strikes on training camps run by Baitullah Mehsud represent a broadening of the American campaign inside Pakistan, which has been largely carried out by drone aircraft. Under President Bush, the United States frequently attacked militants from Al Qaeda and the Taliban involved in cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, but had stopped short of raids aimed at Mr. Mehsud and his followers, who have played less of a direct role in attacks on American troops. (NYT)

As a Quaker-type religious person, I object to military solutions.  I don't really have to ask myself why I think this is wrong. 

But from a strictly pragmatic standpoint, I guess someone who doesn't share those religious objections might acknowledge that there can be judicious military action against people who aren't interested in talking, as Obama said he would try to do.

As an ignorant layperson, I'm trying to piece together an opinion -- one not informed by my religious objections to war -- about the political wisdom of all this covert action.  Of course the first question in such a case is whether we, by which I mean mostly "the Obama administration,"  have any alternatives.  Did we skip a step somewhere along the line?

Back in July, Cernig said:

[Obama] promises that his presidency will be one with a weather eye on long-term goals and long-term consequences, one that will talk to current enemies in an attempt to make them future non-enemies at least, if not allies. It's a perspective the U.S. has been sadly missing these last eight years, as the Bush administration, led by the neoconservative nose, has been far more inclined to contemplate what wars it could get into than those it could prevent.

I don't think the baddies who are scattered throughout Pakistan are looking for a reasoned debate, do you?  Consider:  while you were worrying about the economy, the situation "in a part of Pakistan once considered the country's most idyllic tourist destination" has been worsening as the Taliban tightened its grip.

The Taliban have...introduced a parallel legal system where makeshift Sharia courts order lashes and death sentences for those seen to be violating their brand of Islamic law, said Shoukat Saleem, a lawyer. (Balanced News Blog)

The impact on the future of young Pakistani women is dire:

Thousands of young women...have been prevented from going to school after an order from Taliban forces which have seized control of much of the area.

Fearful of violent attacks that have already seen the torching of over 180 schools in the Swat Valley, school administrators have announced that more than 900 private schools will remain closed until the security situation improves. Government officials, struggling to organise adequate protection, have appealed to schools to extend their winter holidays until at least March. The future education of around 125,000 young women is uncertain as a result of the order, said to come into effect on January 15.

In an echo of Afghanistan under the Taliban, the campaign against female education is the latest phase of a brutal and swift advance across the valley led by local Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah that has included the beheading of opponents, the closure of barber shops, political assassinations, kidnappings and the destruction of homes belonging to the wealthy. (Balanced News Blog)

In re: Afghanistan, just across the border,  The Wonk Room muses:

...President Obama has inherited a crisis in Afghanistan. The problems identified in the Center for American Progress’s December 2007 report still exist, and have gotten worse. There is a serious and growing debate within the progressive community over the U.S. and international mission in that country, and how best to complete that mission.... [T]here are no easy answers...

As we in the progressive community continue our debate over Afghanistan, and over national security more generally, it’s important for us to remember that. Neoconservatism is based in the idea that there’s no national security problem that can’t be overcome by the relentless application of the military force. Progressives understand that this is wrong, and that seeking international cooperation and consensus is a key force multiplier in the face of today’s challenges, of which Afghanistan is only one.

Unlike conservatives, who only seem to locate a concern for human rights when they need an excuse to bomb someone, support for human rights is central to progressives’ worldview, which is why we support a conception of national security that encompasses real human security. ...

When the American people put Barack Obama in the White House, they rejected the base militarism and unilateralism of the last eight years, and they provided an opportunity for the emergence of a new consensus on national security. It’s important that progressives grasp this opportunity, and draw strength from our values as we develop ways to meet these challenges.

In other words, the progressive view comes down to this: we approve the use of military force with great reluctance, maximum caution, as a last resort, against people who have made it clear they won't respond to diplomacy, and only after weighing the collateral damage against the long-term interests of those who are on the receiving end of military force.

It's a daunting prospect.  But it's exactly what Obama undertook to do and what we undertook as well when we voted him into office.

So the question is:  is that what's happening now?  Is military force the right thing? 

Cernig, quoted above on the Pakistani threat, suggests that it is not.

[R]eaching for the military as the right hammer for every nail, especially every Pakistani nail, is unwise. Over 80% of Pakistanis see the "War on Terror" as a Western concern, one their feudal leaders have un-necessarily enmeshed themselves in. Poking the hornets nest with a stick accomplishes nothing except stirring up hornets and if the US keeps poking Pakistan, intelligence analysts have warned, its most likely just to turn that disaproval into outright anger and hasten an extremist takeover....

Meanwhile, across the border in Afghanistan, the hawks' plan for a generations-long occupation there is hitting some snags too. President Karzai has lost patience with Western leaders who talk about caring but don't seem to care enough to stop causing civilian casualties...

He concludes:

The Af/Pak knot isn't getting any easier to unentangle, but one thing is for sure - saying "trust us, we're the good Romans", as Admiral Mullen and others advocate, isn't going to help cut it.

I don't believe there ever were any good Romans.  I am not so blinded by religious conviction that I can't see that we live in a violent world and that sometimes it might be thought necessary by those who think the threat of violence is best answered by even more violence.  I am worried about those young women in Swat and the people who are being beheaded and lashed under Sharia law.

The question, as Cernig points out, is whether our interests -- or theirs -- are served by these slaps at Pakistan. 

More at Memeorandum.

RELATED BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS

Another "Suspected" U.S. Missile Strike in Pakistan Kills 26 (2-17-2009)

Pakistan & The Dance of Denial (12-09-2009)

RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS

Republican Senators Paying Big Bucks for Coleman's Seat to Remain Empty

Did Forensic Doctor and Dentist Create Evidence of Guilt?

Gonzales Plans to Cooperate with Investigators, Says He "Always" has Been Cooperative?

Marijuana Sales Reportedly Stable Despite Economy

Bristol Palin on Reproductive Rights & the Temperate Joys of Teen Motherhood

Obama Unveils Welfare Plan for Homeowners

Greenspan and Other Free Marketeers Favor Nationalization of Banks (or "Some Banks")

Michele Bachmann for the Stark Raving Looney Party: "We're Running Out of Rich People"

Mini-Madoff: SEC Charges Stanford International Bank in $8 Billion Fraud Scheme

A Different Angle on the Tax-Cuts-Equal-Economic-Growth Myth

Comments

[student]

If government prohibits rape, can men expect government to pay for travel and expenses to a Nevada brothel?

Why does the expectation to be responsible also require funding the requested “responsibility” with tax money?

[flowerplough]

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," Obama told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, "The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," he said. "They are plotting to strike again. . . . If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

Barack "Cheyney" Obama, kicking ass and listing names? If Musharraf won't act, we will? Or is this like the "renegotiate NAFTA" campaign noise that ABC's Tapper tried to call B-rock on, recently? Bammy told Tap, "About that NAFTA, I know what I done said befo' but campaign stuff don't matter no mo'." Or words to that effect. Same thing here with attacking inside Pakistan?

[Ron Russell]

The situation Obama finds himself in, having to deal with Pakistan and Afghanistan is quite troubling for his administration. During the election he repeated said that part of the world was the central front of the "War on Terrorism", a phrase he recoils from now. With the looming victory in Iraq the war in those regions is indeed becoming the central front---a front that he will have to send more American troops to. I feel that he does NOT have the political will to mount a full scale surge in those areas like Bush did in Iraq. What he is doing now is only tokenism. I doubt if the American people will tolerate a defeat in Afghanistan---the place where 9/11 originated. Obamas base on the left will increasingly oppose U.S. involvement in that area as troop casuality rise as they are sure too, with the influx of more men into that conflict. So what will Obama do. If we leave and another attack comes from there he will be a "lame duck" for whatever time he has left if office. There would also be calls for his resignation or removal. Things could really go downhill fast for the high-flying man from Hawaii. What he does in Afghanistan and Pakistan will in the end define his administration more than the ecomonic mess we find ourselves in now. Look at histrory--the victory in WWII defined the Roosevelt years more that the failed New Deal (the war saved it).