The Victorious Opposition

I’ve been listening to the pros and cons argument over the last couple of weeks and I am really wondering if helping Pakistan is worth it.

(1) Build trust in governance and institutions. This is a part of the world where the government is mistrusted and often despised, which fuels public support for the insurgents who are seen as a preferable alternative. As both Dawn’s Huma Yusuf and journalist Amil Khan explain, the Pakistani government’s insufficient flood response has both reiterated and worsened the mistrust in institutions that fuels so much of the regional militancy. This is part of why the Pakistani military spy service sponsors some Taliban factions: It fears that it cannot compete with Taliban influence due to the state’s weak hold. If the government could step in with our help and aid flood victims, it would give the state both credibility and sovereignty in regions where it has little of either.

(2) Counter anti-Americanism. In much of Pakistan, especially the troubled border regions, predator drones and Blackwater are the face of America. A recent Pew survey reported 93 percent of those aware of the U.S. drone program call it “bad” or “very bad” and 90 percent say they kill too many innocent civilians. Only 17 percent of Pakistanis view the U.S. favorably. However, 64 percent want improved relations. The U.S. recently pledged $500 million in additional aid to Pakistan, but this is our chance to give Pakistanis a more tangible sign that the U.S. commitment to Pakistan goes beyond blowing up the occassional wedding party.

(3) Show that the Taliban doesn’t have Pakistani interests at heart. This is one of the best ways that the world undermined al-Qaeda: Showing Muslims that the terrorist group doesn’t care about the people they purportedly fight for. This was especially effective in Iraq, where even virulently anti-American community leaders such as Moktada al-Sadr learned that their interests aligned much more closely with the U.S. than with insurgents. However, the opposite approach—standing by idly and allowing extremist groups to spearhead relief—is how the world allows terror groups like Hamas and Hizbollah to become stronger and more popular. A relief effort led by the U.S. and Pakistani governments would do much to convince Pakistanis to reject groups like the Taliban.

(4) Counter Baloch extremism in Iran. Much of the flooding is in Balochistan, an unofficially semi-independent ethnic region spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. Humanitarian disaster in Pakistani Balochistan would send many fleeing across the Iranian border, where Baloch insurgent groups are already at a state of undeclared war with Iran. An influx of angry and desperate Balochs would worsen the Baloch violence in Iran, which in the past has led the regime to strengthen its already oppressive police state. This would be a setback for the long-held international push for Iran to liberalize, which is expected to increase the influence of U.S.-friendly politicians and to reduce the regime’s desire for nuclear weapons, which is driven in part by its insecurity. Preventing a humanitarian crisis in Balochistan would make convincing Iran to liberalize much easier.

These antiquated reasons for helping out Pakistan aren’t really reasons to me. Please allow me explain why I wouldn’t favor any of the above line by line.

1 and 2. Building trust in governance/dismantling Ant-Americanism. Why should we as Americans be interested in this? the first thing that comes to mind is Pakistan’s nukes, and we probably would have a vested interest in securing those. However, how can we hope to abolish an idea that is instituted in the religion most Pakistanis adhere to anyway? For many Pakistanis, nothing short of a strict religious governance will be acceptable, and I don’t think there’s much we could do to influence that. Our presence will most probably be viewed as Western meddling, or at the very least reiterating the idea that the Pakistani government is in cahoots with the evil westerners.

There’s something to be said about quelling militancy, but our drone operations would do more to prevent than we could ever hope to gain through aid to the region. I’d be interested to see a case where our continued aid to a region, military intervention or otherwise would help relations. Our aid to Korea has only really fueled Anti Americanism in that region. Our intervention in Kosovo didn’t really pan out very much, Mogadishu was a disaster, et cetera. “Winning the hearts and minds” seems to me to be something out of a fable. Meaning, it sounds good in a fairy tale, but that’s where the story ends.

3. Discrediting the Taliban. This one really takes the cake as far as things that we can’t really achieve. Our Western mindset would have us believe that the Taliban, since we’ve declared them a terrorist organization, can be thwarted with humanitarian aid. What I don’t think many people are willing to talk about is why the Taliban is considered credible by the people of Pakistan in the first place. I would place my bet on the religious aspects of the Taliban, and what they represent in the region.

The Taliban is considered (now) less corrupt than the Kharzai government in Afghanistan, and the people of Pakistan probably believe that the Taliban is less corrupt than the government of Pakistan, for reasons outlined in the first blurb. I’ve read that the Taliban has said they’re probably going to target foreign aid as well. If that’s the case, leading aid as lambs to the slaughter doesn’t seem like a wise use of resources. We’d be much better off publicly announcing that we have to stay out due to the presence of the Taliban, and see how the Pakistani people react to that development. Would they care more to receive aid, or sit idly by while the Taliban threatens to shoot aid out of the sky?

4. The Baloch argument. This seems to be a new development, as I’ve never really heard of it before. Again, I would air on the side of caution making any new fair weather friends out of anyone who might or might not be terrorists given the circumstances. Using them as puppets to anger Iran sounds charming, but what to do with Iran is a bigger picture plan than sending in aid to someone who might rebel against them. The Iranian elections showed all Twitter users that these regimes don’t really give a fuck about what the rest of the world thinks of them, and are perfectly capable of smacking down a resistance movement on live television.

If we ratchet up an Iranian rebellion would we be compelled to help them in an armed conflict? If we didn’t we’d immediately be branded the enemy ourselves for not helping them, and that would be the real danger to me. I can’t envision us getting into a full blown war with Iran over some angst ridden tribe in Southern Pakistan anymore than our interventions in, say, Georgia as it would pertain to a full scale conflict if we did. Saying we’re there to “help” these people because they don’t agree with a government we don’t like is a recipe for disaster.

Should we come to the aid of people strictly for humanitarian reasons? Sure. It’s the right thing to do. However, Pakistan doesn’t seem to me to be the nation in the region that we would benefit from for doing so. I would favor delivering aid to the Pakistani government and monitoring where it goes. As for putting our soldiers and foreign aid workers into the line of fire for some feel good purpose of warming relations; that’s a really bad idea.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been reading up on the legal issues surrounding “targeted killing”, primarily by use of Predator drones. Today my brother forwarded me this NYTimes Op-Ed on the subject, perhaps under the impression that I’d be as outraged over this as I have been over the Bush administration’s torture policies:

I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me 20 years ago that America would someday be routinely firing missiles into countries it’s not at war with. For that matter, I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me a few months ago that America would soon be plotting the assassination of an American citizen who lives abroad.

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Students of the law might raise a couple of questions: 1) Doesn’t it violate international law to fire missiles into Pakistan (especially on a roughly weekly basis) when the Pakistani government has given no formal authorization? 2) Wouldn’t firing a missile at al-Awlaki in Yemen compound the international-law question with a constitutional question — namely whether giving the death penalty to an American without judicially establishing his guilt deprives him of due process?

Speaking of “students of the law”, one of the authors at The Volokh Conspiracy, Prof. Kenneth Anderson, has been writing about this subject for a while. I started reading with an op-ed he wrote, intriguingly titled Predators over Pakistan, which discusses the international law issues surrounding the targeted killing issue in more-or-less layman’s terms. There is a plethora of articles at The Volokh Conspiracy in their Targeted Killing topic archive, including pointers to more legalese papers by Prof. Anderson and discussions of current events.

My brother wasn’t familiar with Harold Koh, who’s mentioned in the NYTimes op-ed as “the state department lawyer assigned the job of justifying Obama’s strategy”, which isn’t strictly wrong. However, the issues around Harold Koh run much deeper. You only need to look back a year to Harold Koh’s confirmation process for that position at the State Department to see the right wing decrying him as a horrible candidate. Harold Koh is well known for, shall we say, “pushing the envelope” on the topic of International Law and its application in US jurisprudence. I doubt highly that either side expected the position Harold Koh took in a speech at the end of March, defending the use of targeted killing:

First, the George Will column that has conservatives in an uproar:

Mullen speaks of combating Afghanistan’s “culture of poverty.” But that took decades in just a few square miles of the South Bronx. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, thinks jobs programs and local government services might entice many “accidental guerrillas” to leave the Taliban. But before launching New Deal 2.0 in Afghanistan, the Obama administration should ask itself: If U.S. forces are there to prevent reestablishment of al-Qaeda bases—evidently there are none now—must there be nation-building invasions of Somalia, Yemen and other sovereignty vacuums?

U.S. forces are being increased by 21,000, to 68,000, bringing the coalition total to 110,000. About 9,000 are from Britain, where support for the war is waning. Counterinsurgency theory concerning the time and the ratio of forces required to protect the population indicates that, nationwide, Afghanistan would need hundreds of thousands of coalition troops, perhaps for a decade or more. That is inconceivable.

So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck’s decision to halt German forces short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more American valor, such as Allen’s, is squandered.

Let me say that I am not a big fan of George Will.  I disagreed with him on Iraq and I think it would be easy to dismiss him now on the same grounds—which many of my fellow conservatives seem to be doing now.  Be that as it may, one editorialist who I do highly respect on these matters, Ralph Peters, has been saying the same thing for some time now.  In his most recent article:

As Post readers know, I believe that our present approach to Afghanistan is wrongheaded. And more troops aren’t the answer—we should maintain a smaller, ruthless force on the ground that concentrates strictly on killing our enemies.

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Meanwhile, Iraq—which genuinely matters—goes ignored. Make no mistake: Obama’s made Afghanistan the real “war of choice.”

Yet Afghanistan is worthless. Worthless. Repairing Afghan irrigation ditches has zero effect on al Qaeda’s will to win. Killing terrorists is the only thing that works. And there isn’t a single al Qaeda terrorist left in Afghanistan.

As for all those dire warnings that we mustn’t allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist haven again, that’s why we should maintain a compact, lethal force on the ground that backs our national interests—not a predatory Afghan government that’s turned out to be the Taliban’s best friend.

Instead, we’re squandering blood and treasure to prop up a fantastically corrupt government in Kabul that’s despised by the population. We’ve allowed the Taliban to dominate the information war by bowing to their exaggerated or fabricated claims—seconded by the unscrupulous Karzai government—about civilian casualties from our air attacks.

The Taliban wants to deny us the use of our airpower—and we fell for it. Unable to think beyond the last century’s counterinsurgency theories, McChrystal severely restricted air and indirect fire support to our troops.

I don’t usually like to base my posts off of editorials, but I’m finding the viewpoint that these two are advancing to be incredibly seductive.  Particularly because of a point that Peters makes elsewhere in his article about the nightmare of increased logistics that comes with more troops that would be at the mercy of Russian manipulation and Pakistani instability.

Obama campaigned on an Afghan surge and at the time, I agreed with him.  Unfortunately, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Afghanistan may not be worth “fixing” (how do you fix what never really worked?) and it may not even be possible to create anything resembling a real nation.  I really believe that it’s time we adopt a “less is more” strategy.

We do not want to impose war, but we are fully prepared in case war is imposed on us,” said Mr Qureshi.

“We are not oblivious to our responsibilities to defend our homeland. But it is our desire that there should be no war.”

Indian officials say the hardline Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, which is based in Pakistan despite being banned by the government, is behind the bloodshed, and Indian media have suggested there could be Indian strikes on militant camps.

Mr Qureshi said he was sending “a very clear message” that his country did not want conflict with India.

“We want friendship, we want peace and we want stability - but our desire for peace should not be considered Pakistan’s weakness.”

The minister also said that India’s demands for the extradition of suspects in the Mumbai attacks were out of the question and that Pakistan, which has arrested 16 people since Saturday, would keep them on home soil.

Personally, I don’t feel that Pakistan’s authorities can be counted on to really investigate this matter as much as it needs to be.  The possible connection to the ISI will not be explored and I suspect that many over there would just as soon pin a medal on the planners of the attack as they would prosecute them.

We could see any or all of the following scenarios:

1. Pakistan releases primary suspects, citing lack of evidence, and still refuses to extradite.  India gets really, really pissed.

2. Pakistan places primary suspects on trial, but they are acquitted.  Pakistan again refuses to extradite them.  India is pissed, but doesn’t take action because tensions have had several months to relax.

3. Pakistan tries and convicts primary suspects, but gives them ridiculously light sentences.  India is pissed, but what can they do?

4. Pakistan tries and convicts primary suspects and gives them harsh sentences.  India is appeased, but the noticeably huge population of fundamentalist lunatics in Pakistan get pissed.

5. Pakistan gives into India’s demand that the suspects be extradited, purges the ISI of militant Islamic sympathizers, destroys its nuclear weapons, and relentlessly hunts al-Qaeda to the last man; meanwhile, Sasquatch delivers a keg of Sam Adams to my residence.

Given that Pakistan is currently holding 16 people, I would say that we’ll see a combination of 1, 2, and 3 for all of them.

Daily Telegraph

Security forces overran a militant camp on the outskirts of Pakistani Kashmir’s main city and seized an alleged mastermind of the attacks that shook India’s financial capital last month, two officials said Monday.

The raid was Pakistan’s first known response to U.S. and Indian demands for the arrest of the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks, which have sharply raised tensions between South Asia’s two nuclear-armed powers.

Backed by a helicopter, the troops grabbed Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi among at least 12 people taken Sunday in the raid on the riverbank camp run by the banned group Laskhar-e-Taiba in Pakistani Kashmir, the officials said. There was a brief clash in the camp near Muzaffarabad before the militants were subdued, the officials said.

The officials - one from the intelligence agencies and one from a government agency - spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Indian officials say the sole Mumbai attacker captured alive has told them that Lakhvi recruited him for the mission and that Lakhvi and another militant, Yusuf Muzammil, planned the operation. The three-day siege of India’s commercial capital left 171 people dead.

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It was not immediately clear what Pakistan intended to do with Lakhvi.

Pakistan and India do not have an extradition treaty. Last week, President Asif Ali Zardari indicated anyone arrested in Pakistan in connection with the attacks would be tried in Pakistan.

Great.  Zardari is too frightened of public opinion (in a country where dissatisfaction is generally expressed with car bombings) to extradite Lakhvi to India, where his crime was actually committed and instead will try him in Pakistan.  Call me cynical, but I doubt any jury in that cesspool-of-extremism country is going to find this guy guilty no matter what.  Let’s see how insistent India is on getting their hands on Lakhvi and what the stakes are. 

Fox News

India has accused a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating last week’s terror attacks that killed at least 172 people here, and demanded the Pakistani government turn him over and take action against the group.

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U.S. officials agreed that Mr. Muzammil was a focus of their attention in the attacks, though they stopped short of calling him the mastermind. “That is a name that is definitely on the radar screen,” a U.S. counterterrorism official said.

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Mr. Muzammil’s name is on a list of people—numbering about 20 in all—that India gave Pakistan earlier this week, demanding their immediate extradition, a senior Pakistani official told the Journal. The official said Pakistan was examining India’s list of suspects and has assured New Delhi that action would be taken against them if there is evidence of involvement in the attacks.

India now finds themselves in the same position with Pakistan that we were in with Afghanistan on 9/12/01.  Evidence pointed to UBL and the Taliban just was not going to extradite him; no way, no how.  Zardari is in a tight spot: should he hand over Muzammil and further infuriate the extremists in his country to appease the nation’s greatest enemy or should he refuse (or let Muzammil run loose in the “Tribal Areas” the way Musharraf had been doing with us and UBL for the past seven years) and give India the grounds for war?  We know what the Taliban chose and we made our choice in that situation, but if the Pakistanis and Indians follow the same script, it’s going to be brutal.

It’s a tough one, but whichever occurs, it will benefit the terrorists; who will thrive on the chaos.

Wall Street Journal

Witness the young face of terror.

The only terrorist captured alive after the Mumbai massacre has given police the first full account of the extraordinary events that led to it - revealing he was ordered to ‘kill until the last breath’.
Azam Amir Kasab, 21, from Pakistan, said the attacks were meticulously planned six months ago and were intended to kill 5,000 people.
He revealed that the ten terrorists, who were highly trained in marine assault and crept into the city by boat, had planned to blow up the Taj Mahal Palace hotel after first executing British and American tourists and then taking hostages.

Highly trained in marine assult, armed with plastic explosives, and given a lofty goal of 5000 people to kill through either execution or the destruction of the hotel structure. India is calling this an act of war, and it’s hard to say it isn’t given the training, act, and weapons involved.

Mercifully, the group, armed with plastic explosives, underestimated the strength of the
105-year-old building’s solid foundations.
As it is, their deadly attacks have left close to 200 confirmed dead, with the toll expected to rise to nearly 300 once the hotel has been fully searched by security forces.
Yesterday, Kasab chillingly went through details of Wednesday night’s killing spree across the city, which ended when he was cornered by police.
He pretended to be dead, which probably saved his life. It was only when he was being transferred to hospital by ambulance that his accompanying officer noticed he was still breathing.

Once inside Nair Hospital, Kasab, who suffered only minor injuries, told medical staff: ‘I do not want to die. Please put me on saline.’

And as Indian commandos ended the bloody 59-hour siege at the Taj yesterday by killing the last three Islamic gunmen, baby-faced Kasab was dispassionately detailing the background to the mayhem.

He described how its mastermind briefed the group to ‘target whites, preferably Americans and British’.
Some of the militants, including Kasab, posed as students during a visit to Mumbai a month ago, filming the ‘strike locations’ and familiarising themselves with the city’s roads.

So as we sleep, we see the detail with which our enemies are planning to kill our innocent civilians. To the tune of 5,000, Allah willing.

Kasab and the nine other terrorists, who communicated using BlackBerry mobiles, began their journey to Mumbai on November 21.
Initially unarmed, they left an isolated beach near Karachi in a small boat, before being picked up the following day by a larger vessel.
At this point they were each given eight hand grenades, an AK-47 rifle, an automatic pistol and ammunition. And in anticipation of a lengthy siege, they also carried dried fruit.
Kasab told police that the group then hijacked a fishing trawler bearing the name Kuber near the maritime boundary between Pakistan and India.

Four of its crew are missing while the fifth has been found dead, apparently beheaded. Its owner and his brother are being questioned by police.
On November 23, after reaching Porbandar in the Indian state of Gujarat, 310 nautical miles from Mumbai, the insurgents were intercepted by two coastguard officers. The group hoisted a white flag and allowed the two men to board their boat.According to Kasab, one of the militants then attacked one of the officers, slitting his throat and throwing him overboard. The other man was forced to help the group reach their destination before being executed as the vessel drew near to Mumbai.

For most of the journey, Kasab’s friend, 25-year-old Abu Ismail, a trained sailor, steered the vessel using GPS equipment. Three speedboats met the Kuber a mile and a half from the Mumbai seafront on Wednesday. After waiting for the light to fade, they moved off, later transferring to two inflatable dinghies to go ashore.

The two groups then split up. Four men went to to the Taj hotel, two to the Jewish centre of Nariman House, Kasab and another man set off by taxi towards the railway station, and two headed for the Leopold restaurant.While his colleagues were executing hostages at the Taj, Kasab and Ismail first opened fire with their assault rifles at around 10.20pm, killing dozens of people standing at Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station.Then they hijacked a police 4x4, killing the two officers inside. Kasab told investigators they continued their killing spree by attacking a petrol station and blowing up a taxi before being stopped.

‘I have done right,’ he told investigators. ‘I have no regrets.’

Remember, there is only one way to combat terror. Everyone fly to Pakistan and show these people you aren’t afraid of them. That’ll learn ‘em to plan an attack to kill 5,000 American/Britons, sail for days to the destination with GPS positioning, carry plastic explosives to drop the hotel structure, and then explain the situation in complete detail with no remorse. /libtard

Update:

Three thousand was the number dead on 9/11/2001. These guys only aspired to a number, ohhh, almost twice that size. Let’s talk to them and find out why they are so infatuated with killing us in the most disgusting fashion, and in numbers that would make Jeffrey Dahmer smack his chops, and get his cookbook out for his Indian Smorgasbord Thanksgiving.

The underlying point here is that this was planned months prior to Obama’s election, and would have happened regardless of who stands as leader of the free world, liberals. There is a real evil in this world. It is does not bear a cross, is not in the sole democracy of the Middle East. It doesn’t threaten to celebrate Christmas year after year, and isn’t patriotic or noble in cause (remember, the little shit who remains alive is begging for his life).

Keep this in mind, and remember, there is a young boy who is now an orphan let alone an entire family destroyed. Sleep well all liberals travelling and laughing off the idea that there are people who are out to get us. The real travesty is that they are out to get you first. The unwilling. The people who are so arrogant as to not accept these people as a true military power and respect worthy enemy.

We should be preoccupied more with the plight of the whales that the Japanese hunt with impunity, and Europe who feeds and fosters the problem, and China who can’t be bothered to take a side in Africa while impoting labor to wring oil from the poorest of people without the burden of bolstering an economy there.

Lovely job, there, my caring ones. Yeah, I am really pissed off. How could one not be?

Bill Roggio writes that local elements of the Pakistani government are placing themselves in the “against us” category in a surprisingly bold way:

Peace agreements have been signed with Hafiz Gul Bahadar in North Waziristan and Mullah Nazir in South Waziristan. Bahadar controls a significant Taliban force in the Miramshah region, while Nazir controls Taliban forces in the western regions in South Waziristan.

The deals were crafted by Owais Ghani, the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province. Nazir and Bahadar agreed to stop fighting the Pakistani military and said they would permit tribesmen to “provide shelter to foreigners,” a clear reference to al Qaeda.

“We will not fight the Pakistani forces because by doing so we will be helping the Americans in Afghanistan,” Bahadar said in a press statement issued by a Taliban spokesman. “We will not let the deal collapse,” Bahadar said, referring to an agreement signed with the military in February.

The agreements directly contradict with the government’s conditions for negotiations. The Taliban are required to “to surrender arms unconditionally” and “appear before [the] political administration,” Daily Times reported.

Nazir and Bahadar have not surrendered their weapons, nor have they appeared before the tribal political administration.

The Taliban have blatantly violated similar peace agreements in the past. The Taliban have refused to lay down their weapons and continue to shelter al Qaeda operatives in the tribal regions. The Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied terrorist groups have established 157 training camps and more than 400 support locations in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.

What irritates me most about this is that Obama is increasingly beginning to look like a visionary and even a champion of the Bush Doctrine (one of them anyway, take your pick) when he suggests that we should invade Pakistan.  I question how much longer we’ll be able to maintain the fiction that Pakistan is really an ally when it willfully allows al-Qaeda and its allies to take refuge within their borders and cross into Afghanistan to kill at will.

While Bahadar and Nazir are often described as “pro-government” Taliban leaders as they oppose fighting the Pakistani military and overthrowing the government, both men have extensive ties to al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

Bahadar and Nazir’s forces fight against Afghan and Coalition forces inside Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, in conjunction with Bahadar and Nazir, run terror camps inside their tribal areas. The US has been conducting strikes in Nazir and Bahadar’s tribal regions; the majority of the attacks have occurred in their areas.

On Oct. 16, Bahadar threatened to attack US forces in Afghanistan iattacks in his tribal regions were not halted.

Bahadar was one of the signatories of the Feb. 17 peace agreement that ended clashes in the region. He also signed the Sept. 2006 North Waziristan Accord, along with other senior Taliban leaders. Bahadar has opposed fighting the Pakistani military but sponsors al Qaeda camps and sends fighters into Afghanistan.

Nazir is a rival to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. He ejected Uzbeks from the al Qaeda-allied Islamic Jihad Union from the Wana region in 2007.

But Nazir openly supports al Qaeda and its leadership and admitted he would provide shelter to senior al Qaeda leaders. “How can I say no to any request from Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar under tribal traditions, if they approach me to get shelter?

How can you refuse such a request, you Taliban dirtbag?  You could start by recalling this and what happened to your buddies in Afghanistan immediately afterward:

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

As far as I’m concerned, Owais Ghani, acting in his official capacity as the governor of a Pakistani province is harboring those that “planned, authorized, committed,or aided” the 9/11 attacks.  What does the President propose to do about it?  As long as al-Qaeda has a safe harbor from where they can organize, recruit, and train; this war will never end.

Long War Journal

Pakistan demonstrates that their previous warnings on this topic were not just bluster after all:

Pakistani troops and tribesmen opened fire on two U.S. helicopters that crossed into the country from neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Monday.

The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said.

Pakistan’s army and the U.S. military in Afghanistan said they had no information on the reported incursion late Sunday, which will likely add to tensions between Islamabad and Washington.

A spate of suspected U.S. missile strikes into Pakistan’s border region and a raid by U.S. commandos said to have killed 15 people have angered and embarrassed Pakistani leaders while signaling Washington’s impatience with Pakistani efforts to clear out militant havens.

During a recent speech to Parliament, newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari, who is considered U.S.-friendly, warned that no country would be allowed to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty in the name of the war on terror.

That’s really all you need to know right there: al-Qaeda blows up a hotel in Pakistan and so the Pakistanis shoot at Americans for daring to chase after al-Qaeda in areas of their own country where they can’t seem to be bothered to do so themselves.  With friends like these, blah, blah, blah.

Fox News

This guy was well-positioned to take the spot and it shouldn’t be considered a big surprise:

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain former leader Benazir Bhutto, won a landslide victory to take over from Pervez Musharraf as head of state.

“I’m looking forward to working with him,” Rice told reporters as he flew from Tunisia to Algeria during a trop to North Africa.

Zardari, already head of the main ruling party, helped lead the coalition that forced Musharraf to quit as head of the nuclear-armed Muslim nation of more than 160 million people. Musharraf, a former general and army head, had seized power nine years ago in a military coup.

Here’s what we found out about him on my post when Musharraf resigned:

Comes from a good family, well-connected; but probably corrupt:

But in 1993, when Begum Bhutto again came in power, all the cases were withdrawn. During this period, Zardari took oath as the Minister for Environment, under Begum Bhutto. During this period too, Zardari was accused of embezzlement of millions of rupees. Zardari did this, under the planning of plantation movement throughout Pakistan. It is now wrong to say that Zardari was so much involved in the corruption, when he was Environment Minister, that he was called as Mr. Ten Percent. Zardari has to remain in jail from 1997 to 2004 because of the accusation of corruption & murder. Today Zardari is not only owner of a big & beautiful golf ground in Islamabad but has many industrial, residential & agricultural properties in Pakistan also. He has grand residential properties & farm houses in Dubai & Manhattan. He is accused of storing the 4.35 dollars property in England, through his corruption money.

Ouch.  Let’s stay away from that guy.

So he’s a crook.  Fortunately, he appears to have a score to settle with the jihadis, seeing as how they killed his wife and all.  Assuming that he can keep his obvious graft problem under control well enough to keep from being overthrown in a military coup, more power to him if he reforms the ISI and cleans out that nest of vipers in the tribal areas.

Anyway, congratulations Zardari, you corrupt bastard.

Fox News

I’m tempted to call this a positive development, but the truth is that there is a great deal of uncertainty about what will happen next:

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf announced Monday that he will resign, just days ahead of impeachment in parliament over attempts by the U.S.-backed leader to impose authoritarian rule on his turbulent nation.

An emotional Musharraf said he wanted to spare Pakistan from a dangerous power struggle.

“I hope the nation and the people will forgive my mistakes,” Musharraf said in a televised address largely devoted to defending his record.

Musharraf dominated Pakistan for years after seizing power in a 1999 military coup, making the country a key strategic ally of the U.S. by supporting the war on terror. But his popularity at home sank over the years.

But his influence has faded steadily over the past year. He quit the pivotal post of army chief in November and his resignation was widely forecast.

So true.  We mentioned it here.  Let’s get to the important part; who is going to take his place?

In his hour-long address, Musharraf said he would turn in his resignation to the National Assembly speaker Monday. It was not immediately clear whether it would take effect the same day. Mohammedmian Soomro, the chairman of the upper house of parliament, was poised to take over in the interim.

It remains an open question whom parliament will elect to succeed Musharraf, partly because the ruling coalition has vowed to strip the presidency of much of its power.

There is speculation that both Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, the leaders of the two main parties, are interested in the role. However, neither has openly said so.

Alright, let’s find some history on these guys.

More uncertain and dangerous events coming about in the world—as if we needed any more of that.  President Musharraf is on the way out and it’s about time:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Aug. 14—Faced with mounting pressure from former political allies and dwindling support from his international backers, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, once a top U.S. ally, is expected to resign in the next few days, according to Pakistani officials.

A week after leaders of the ruling coalition said they planned to impeach Musharraf, the capital was abuzz with speculation that he would step down before formal impeachment charges are filed in Parliament on Monday. Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup nine years ago, has survived at least two assassination attempts. But his opponents said Thursday that he was unlikely to withstand the current challenge to his presidency.

Musharraf has said he has no plans to leave Pakistan, although some analysts and political associates have suggested he could take up residence in Turkey, where he spent several years of his childhood. One senior Pakistani official said Musharraf’s opening position in preliminary talks about his future was a demand for “indemnity and immunity” from prosecution.

Immunity?  Sure.  The question should be whether or not al-Qaeda will give him any.  Just ask Benazir Bhutto.  Oh wait, you can’t.  Musharraf is unpopular, a dictator, and has failed to purge his intelligence service (ISI) of militants, so why should we care?

Musharraf’s possible departure has raised fears that it could further destabilize Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation, and hamper the multibillion-dollar U.S. effort to fight al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in the region.

They’re really going to have problems if Obama gets elected and decides to invade, too!  That aside, Musharraf was becoming a pain in our ass due to his incompetence in letting the ISI run wild and the tribal areas shelter AQ and the Taliban. 

“The vast majority of the U.S. government has moved beyond their original attachment to Musharraf,” one official said.

Good move.  Now, let’s hope that his successor is friendly to us and willing to let us fly over as well as more capable and willing to control his forces and territory or else the war in Afghanistan is going down the tubes for lack of logistics and the enemy having untouchable bases.  This is a critical time for Pakistan to make the right choice—for our sakes as well as theirs.

Washington Post

UPDATE: Musharraf is out, Soomro is in.  Read all about it here at the Victorious Opposition.

Hindustan Times

If Pakistan won’t take out the trash, we are going to have to come over and burn it:

NewsDaily.com

The Pakistanis are being increasingly uncooperative towards the US with regards to the GWoT.  The implications should be considered.