Very interesting article about Pakistan/Osama/WMD in New Yorker

[sam h]

In this week's New Yorker there is a Seymour Hersh piece that starts with this puzzle: Why is it that A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, could go on Pakistani TV a month ago, confess to running the world's biggest black market exchange in nuclear weapons production material (one many informed people believe supplied Iran with the equipment for their nascent weapons program), and get pardoned by Pervez Musharraf without so much as a peep from the Bush administration?

The answer Hersh gives is that the administration cut a deal with Musharaff. Khan gets pardoned, we don't make a stink about the fact that he and his ISI buddies (Pakistani intelligence officers) have been engaged in activities that from a WMD proliferation standpoint are in a completely different league than anything Iraq was ever guilty of, and Musharaff allows us to bus in a few thousands soldiers to the Hindu Kush to hunt Bin Laden this spring with (supposedly, har har) help from Pakistani intelligence.

Musharaff, essentially an illegitimate leader to begin with, is in a very precarious position. He is not that popular, and a lot of that stems from his close ties with America and a general fear that we will intervene militarily in Pakistan (at least this is what a Pakistani friend of mine claimed today). Hersh opines, and my friend agrees, that allowing a large US military push in the mountains is a huge risk. It is a very scary situation, because if there is a palace coup, it will likely be perpetuated by an Islamic faction in the military or defense community there. And who knows what kind of contingency plan the Bush administration has for that eventuality.

It should be obvious to anybody that our administration is playing a very dangerous game and lying to the American people about how that game is being conducted. In some ways, that's par for the course of international relations. But I for one have some pretty deep reservations about their strategy. The influence of Islamic factions in Pakistan has skyrocketed since the bombing in Afghanistan began, and if there is a regime change there and a quasi-fundamentalist group comes to power, only the most deluded coud fail to conclude that the Bush administration's foreign policy, en toto, has been a disaster. That the push for Osama (who Pakistani intelligence or their contacts could probably find for us within a couple weeks if they really wanted according to some people) may be coming at the cost of A) letting the world's worst nuclear proliferation network off the hook and B) rolling the dice with the future of a nuclear country of 150M people, is bad enough. That the timing seems part of an electoral calculus is even worse.

How much of a threat could Osama really be to us right now, boxed in a small desolate region of the Hindu Kush? As much of a threat as AQ Khan brokering the sales of nuclear equipment to Iran, other states, and possibly non-state actors? As much of a threat as a hostile Islamic Pakistan?

[andyfox]

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040308fa_fact

[ACPlayer]

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How much of a threat could Osama really be to us right now, boxed in a small desolate region of the Hindu Kush? As much of a threat as AQ Khan brokering the sales of nuclear equipment to Iran, other states, and possibly non-state actors? As much of a threat as a hostile Islamic Pakistan?


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Who in the war on terrorism is a threat to us anyway?

We know that Iraq was not a threat at a cost of 550 odd US lives, 10K plus Iraqi lives and $500B in money -- anybody with half a brain (Dean is case in point) knew better before the war.

We know that our friends in Saudi, Egypt etc are continuing to run their fuedal dictatorship with our explicit and implicit support. No doubt breeding more Atta's in the process for use by the extremists. And of course, the Saud family has been known to funnel money into the terrorist networks (see redacted report from the administration).

We know that our friends in Israel are using the War on Terror as a front to conduct their own terrorist campaign against innocents in Palestine, feeding the extremist Islamists with additional men and women to be used as human missiles.

We know that our friends in Pakistan have been spreading the Nuclear knowledge throughout the Islamic world (and non-Islamic), while we give them tons of financial and moral support in return for a facade of support in the search for Bin Ladin. Anybody that thinks that the Pak army brass, the ISI etc, would not hide him if they could has been smoking some bad crack. Also, when Musharraf gets purged out of office (as will happen) Islamabad will go back to the fundamentalist mentality that is prevalent in that country.

So, no doubt Bush finally got to wear a flight suit and look like a warrior, but what exactly has the American public gained. Conditions for recruiting terrorists continues in those countries where terrorists target us. The extremists, whether Bin Laden or not, will continue unless we address the root causes of the problem (and no 6M the religion Islam, per se, is not the problem, despite your ignorant protestations).