Nothing like having someone’s foot on your windpipe to concentrate the mind. Having a key supply route for its expeditionary army in Afghanistan cut off by the Pakis for a month now has apparently prompted the U.S. to decide, You know, bombing your military outpost and killing two dozen Paki soldiers really was our fault, kind of. (Source: Wall Street Journal, 12/22/11, p 1, “U.S. Erred in Deadly Attack.”) The long and short of the new U.S. report on the incident is that a group of U.S. and Afghan commandos came under fire from a ridge. They called in airstrikes on the ridge, which killed 24 Paki soldiers (originally the Pakis were claiming 25, then 26.) The Pakis denied firing on the commandos, which is probably a lie. Also, according to the report, the Pakis have a history of warning the terrorists about upcoming NATO ops when the U.S. has given them heads ups in advance. And soldiers told the military investigators that terrorists are allowed to operate from unmanned Paki military posts at times.
The U.S. has had to change some of the particulars of their original story, which sought to place more blame on the Pakis. The Pakis themselves refused to cooperate in the investigation and spurned the U.S. invitation to participate and investigate jointly.
I don’t necessarily agree it was the U.S.’ fault. The Pak army has been supporting terrorists launching attacks from sanctuaries in Pakistan for years. Over the last few months Pakistani artillery has shelled Afghan villages, with a remarkably low-key response from the U.S. and the Karzai Kleptocracy, as reported in the NY Times recently. (I say Kleptocracy because it cannot be called a “government” with a straight face, unless one is a cynic, as are U.S. Government officials, media staff, and the bourgeois commentariat. They of course invert reality and say calling it by its right name is cynical. Au contraire.) Pakistan has sponsored terrorist attacks in Kabul, even on the American embassy according to the previous Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen. (Other U.S. officials have rushed to repudiate what he said, since they are desperate to preserve the “relationship” with Pakistan- i.e. the Paks have the U.S. by the balls because of that supply line through their country.)
U.S. soldiers on the ground, having to put up with the Pak army running interference for the terrorists attacking them, has them really cheesed off. I can imagine U.S. forces getting fed up with having their hands tied behind their backs, and going “out of bounds” and then dissembling about it to higher ups in the chain of command about what happened. I wouldn’t even blame them for it- they have a right to fight back against soldiers helping terrorists trying to kill them.
The U.S. gets one-third, or one-half, of its supplies in Afghanistan through Pakistan. (The media can’t seem to decide on the percentage- those are the two most commonly given numbers.) Critically, tens of thousands of tanker truckloads of fuel traverse Pakistan annually to supply U.S./NATO forces, of which a few score a year are allowed to be torched by Paki religious terrorists. Sometimes they gouge the eyes out of the drivers, or murder them outright.
Pakistan has been the world’s greatest proliferation of nuclear technology, both know-how and equipment. It is one of the top state sponsors of terrorism, the ISI having planned and controlled the massive terrorist assault on the Indian city of Mumbai (in which American Jews were deliberately targeted for murder- can you imagine the reaction if Iran, or Palestinians, say, had done that?), a terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament, and numerous other terrorist attacks over the years. By the U.S.’ definition of terrorism, Pakistan seems to be the number one state sponsor of terrorism in the world.
Yet the U.S. considers it an ally. Nor is it on the U.S. State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism (the politico-ideological Shit List) as is Iran and, get this, Cuba. (Huh?!)
Of course, as the old slogan of those U.S. cutthroat commandos, the Special Forces, goes, When You’ve Got ‘Em By The Ball, Their Hearts And Minds Will Follow. The Pakis have the U.S. by the balls, so the U.S. plays along with absurd, lying-through-their-teeth-denials by the Pakis. Oh, Osama bin Laden killed in Pakistan? Is the U.S. mad at the Pakis for harboring U.S. Enemy Number One all these years? No, the Pakis are enraged at the U.S. for violating their sovereignty and “embarrassing” them! (The “embarrassment” being that the Paks weren’t able to shoot down the SEALs helicopters!)
Once again, the Pakis prove: He who gets Madder, Wins. Since the bin Laden assassination, it’s been the U.S. trying to appease the Pakis, not vice versa. That big scary U.S. that was gonna tear a new asshole in any nation that didn’t line up on its side in the never-ending “War On Terrorism” has mostly rolled over. Sure, some Congressmen growl, for effect. And the U.S. is holding back some portion of the billions in military aid that feeds the problem, namely Paki militarism and the rule over that country by the Pak army. But mostly the Pakis continue to roll the U.S., as they have done ever since 9/11/01.
Pakistan has been clearly signaling for years by its behavior that their plan is to reinstall the Taliban in power in Afghanistan after the U.S. and its lackeys leave that country. They’ve arrested Taliban members involved in negotiations. Most recently, they refuse to show up at the international conference in Europe staged to plan Afghanistan’s future. As nothing can work in Afghanistan if the Pakis decide to sabotage things, this shows they plan on yanking the rug from under the Karzai Kleptocracy as soon as U.S. forces exit. (They used their snit-fit over the deaths of those measly 24 Paki soldiers as an excuse to snub the nations at the conference. But the Paks claim to have lost 4,000 soldiers fighting internal jihadist fanatics, which only seems to make them mad at America. The Paki media and public think that’s “fighting America’s war.” Terrorists murdering Paki civilians is hailed by the Paki public, somehow. And the Paki military keeps supporting the violent Islamic fundamentalist movement. Of course that is a movement founded by the Pak military, under dictator General Zia Ul-Haq, a favorite of Reagan and his regime, who started the system of madrassas, the brainwashing centers/terrorist preparatory schools which generates the bodies for these fanatics.)
I want to close on an irony of history. The U.S. did everything it could to keep the Soviet Union bogged down in Afghanistan, including rebuffing overtures by Gorbachev, who was trying to extricate their forces. The U.S. wanted to bleed the Soviets as much as possible. Now, with the shoe on the other gfoot, the U.S. is increasingly dependent on supply routes through Russia and the –stan nations in Russia’s orbit. The Russians have been awfully nice about helping out the U.S., which is more than the U.S. deserves.
But hey, the U.S. is the “exceptional” nation, so it’s come to expect exceptional treatment.
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