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

[C. G. Estabrook]

 From Tariq Ali, in the current London Review of Books:

"...the United States ... is now seeing the results of its failure to have an 
exit strategy from Afghanistan. On 25 February Richard Holbrooke showed up at a 
Brookings Institution event optimistically titled ‘Pakistan: Dream Deferred or 
Denied?’ Stephen Cohen, an expert on the Pakistan military and a senior fellow 
at the institution, painted a grim picture of the situation in Pakistan. The 
country, he said, was unravelling at a rapid pace and the US could lose control. 
If Cohen’s analysis was accurate, Holbrooke commented there and then, the policy 
the new administration had agreed on was largely misguided. He promised to be 
there for the follow-up discussion, but didn’t show up..."

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n06/ali_01_.html

C. G. Estabrook 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...
> 
>