[Peace-discuss] "Believe nothing until it's officially denied"

[C. G. Estabrook]

And it's rather hard to deny that Afghans and Pakistanis have a right to resist 
an invading army. --CGE


Robert Naiman wrote:
> Perhaps even more troubling than Obama's speech was last week's NYT 
> report in which US officials are now openly accusing elements of the 
> Pakistani military not just of "links" but of active collaboration and 
> support of terrorist acts inside Pakistan, such as the bombing of the 
> Indian Embassy in Kabul. I don't have any reason to doubt that the 
> accusation is true. But making it openly may imply momentum for certain 
> kinds of action which could be quite explosive.
> 
> For example, clearly they want to step up the drone attacks inside 
> Pakistan, for which it seems they currently have a "secret" 
> understanding with the Pakistani military. From the point of view of 
> those taegeting the strikes, if you hit a meeting, that's a jackpot. Now 
> suppose they have intelligence that such a meeting includes Pakistani 
> military intelligence officials. Is that "back off, too hot?" Or is that 
> "double jackpot?" If the latter - which seems likely - it's easy to see 
> how there could be a nasty backlash.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On Mar 29, 2009, at 2:17 PM, "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at illinois.edu> 
> wrote:
> 
>> I think you're right, and of course I hope you are, but the trouble is 
>> that there are people in the Pentagon and the State Department working 
>> hard this weekend on the contingency plans for taking effective 
>> control of Pakistan. The administration has made it clear in its 
>> peculiarly misleading media blitz this week (you pointed out the 
>> significance of the Friday announcement) that Pakistan, not 
>> Afghanistan, is the real problem. The "stopping terrorism" excuse is a 
>> front -- the real task is neutralizing opposition to effective US 
>> control of the region.
>>
>> They're looking at how taking control of an insufficiently active 
>> comprador government was done in S. Vietnam, how the US client 
>> Zia-ul-Haq arranged for martial law in Pakistan, and how Musharraf did 
>> it.  The consequences of such a move were set out by Tariq Ali (author 
>> of "The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power" [2008]) 
>> and Steve Cohen (formerly of UIUC) in a discussion a year ago:
>>
>>   "Tariq Ali: I think it is a dysfunctional state rather than a failed 
>> one, but the notion of jihadi terrorists capturing the nuclear 
>> facility is nonsense. They would have to capture the Pakistan army 
>> first. This consists of half a million men. The nuclear facility is 
>> the most heavily guarded place in the country. A handful of senior 
>> officers know the codes. So its safe. And its worth repeating that 
>> except for a short period following the break-up of the country in 
>> 1971, the command structure of the army has never been broken. Even in 
>> 1971, the generals responsible for the debacle were asked politely to 
>> resign, which they did. Jihadis could only capture the nuclear 
>> facility if the army wanted them to and there is no likelihood of that 
>> at the moment.
>>
>>   "Stephen Cohen: I can provide a gloss on Tariq Ali’s answer - I’ve 
>> looked at the question of failure closely in my recent book on 
>> Pakistan and concluded that it had failed in pieces, but not 
>> comprehensively, as had Afghanistan (which was in some ways a 
>> murdered, not a failed state) and several African states, which are 
>> hardly states in any sense of the word. Yet, the nuclear assets are 
>> perhaps still vulnerable, one scenario for Pakistan would be a falling 
>> out among the military, or perhaps a politician trying to divide the 
>> military - in these cases, short of total state failure, nuclear 
>> assets could be important in a power struggle, and who knows what 
>> would happen to them. This is, of course, a distant possibility, and 
>> Ali is correct in emphasising the unity of the armed forces. However, 
>> there’s a lot of concern that under stress unpredictable things could 
>> happen, and Pakistan’s earlier record as the wholesaler of nuclear 
>> technology to other states does not inspire confidence.
>>
>>   "Tariq Ali: Cohen is right to say that a split in the army could 
>> have catastrophic results, but this is unlikely unless the US decided 
>> to invade and occupy the country. That would split the army but it is 
>> as long a shot as jihadis capturing the nuclear weapons. True that 
>> Pakistan sold nuclear technology in the world market on the assumption 
>> that everything was now for sale. They weren’t alone. Yeltsin’s Russia 
>> did the same.
>>
>>   "Stephen Cohen: The fact that we are even talking about this is 
>> comforting to me in a perverse sense: the last sentence of my Idea of 
>> Pakistan stated that Pakistan could, soon, become America’s 
>> worst foreign policy nightmare - I’m not pleased to have anticipated 
>> this catastrophe."
>>
>> http://www.brookings.edu/interviews/2008/0213_pakistan_cohen.aspx?rssid=cohens 
>>
>>
>>
>> Robert Naiman wrote:
>>> I don't think U.S. ground troops fighting in Pakistan in any numbers 
>>> in the
>>> forseeable future is a likely prospect. There are people in the U.S.
>>> government who would very much like to do this, but the Pakistani 
>>> government
>>> and military have made very clear that this is a red line that they 
>>> have no
>>> intention of allowing the U.S. to cross.
>>> There are many bad things ahead, but this is not likely to be one of 
>>> them.
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>>> On Mar 29, 2009, at 10:52 AM, "C. G. Estabrook" 
>>> <galliher at illinois.edu> wrote:
>>>> [That maxim is ascribed to a number of experienced journalists, from 
>>>> the
>>>> late I. F. Stone to Alex Cockburn's father, Claud.  Like the 
>>>> psychoanalyst,
>>>> the observer of governments should always ask why something is denied.
>>>> --CGE]
>>>> Obama Rules Out US Troops In Pakistan
>>>> WASHINGTON (AP) — As he carries out a retooled strategy in Afghanistan,
>>>> President Barack Obama says he will consult with Pakistan's leaders 
>>>> before
>>>> pursuing terrorist hideouts in that country...
>>