US Drone Kills 10;
Mahsud Threatens DC;
A US predator drone strike on a Pakistani village in Orakzai killed 10 persons on Wednesday morning. The US maintains that it struck at a Taliban compound.
The leader of the Pakistan Taliban Movement, Baitullah Mahsud, again threatened on Tuesday to strike at Washington DC. He has made a string of such threats for some time, however. The FBI said that it had not evidence for any imminent such action. While small groups of terrorists can often strike at will, and I would not want to rule the possibility out, I would nevertheless like to ask what practical ability ability rural landlocked, desperately poor Pashtun tribesmen have to touch the United States.
At the international conference at the Hague on Afghanistan, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke met and talked with the deputy of Iranian foreign minister Manuchehr Motakki. The Obama administration appears to realize that they need Iran for various purposes, including getting out of Iraq cleanly and defeating radicals in Afghanistan. (As a Shiite country, Iran despises the Sunni Muslim radicals.)
Even as the US is attempting to find a new footing with Iran, new Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of the rightwing Likud Party appeared to threaten to bomb Iran unilaterally if Obama won't.
Aljazeera English reports on the poorest Afghans, to whom the development aid does not quite trickle down.
Riz Khan and guests discuss President Barack Obama's new Afghanistan strategy:
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/01/2009 03:21:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Another day, another drone attack killing innocent Pakistanis. The Bush doctrine continues!!
"what practical ability rural landlocked, desperately poor Pashtun tribesmen have to touch the United States. "
The same practical ability al-Qaeda was thought to have on 10 September 2001, professor.
Mr. Yglesias adds only another layer of gloss and twistification on top of whatever it was that M. de Netanyahu actually said. Neocomrade J. Goldberg's original has so much paraphrase and miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam in it that the title ("My Interview With Netanyahu") on top is not altogether suitable. Still, that scribble is as close to the horse's anatomy as one can get for the moment.
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One little bit of Yglesian value added is at least a curiosity: "as long as Israel is the biggest winner in the U.S. aid sweepstakes, Israeli actions are inevitably seen as the actions of American proxies" The suggestion -- as I take it, maybe wrongly -- is that if Uncle Sam would just arm all the natives and locals equally, why, then everybody would consider Sam a model of balance and fairness.
I don't think the real world works quite like that. Mais que sçay-je?
Happy days.
" I would nevertheless like to ask what practical ability ability rural landlocked, desperately poor Pashtun tribesmen have to touch the United States."
Umn... they COULD do a 'Manchurian Candidate' on Hamid Karzai...
Sorry, it's early and that's the best I can think of.
OK, I'll try something else and see if it 'sticks to the wall'.
Wasn't the Talib quite close to GW's friends early on? Didn't they visit Texas?
Perhaps as I've always believed, somehow, some way, AQ and the Talib are STILL working for some US international interests or another.
From that vantage point this WOULD allow the US federal government to solidify their police state at home and spend even MORE money on defense... Just, as the media's been puffing us lately, NOT ON WWII/Korea/Vietnam type equipment.
Presto! The Talib work for Ford who suddenly don't need their 'Auto Industry' anymore. They can build Hydrogen powered Predator-type UAVs for the Pentagon.
Don't you wish our Ford 'Exploders' used H-power?
It would also restore the recently retired phrase: "Global War On Terror"[tm] to the American nomenclature and psyche.
Is that better?
Really, it's a possibility so...Be afraid... Be very afraid.
Just as the bush snout in the trough economic policy bore bitter fruit, we can now see the ripening of his tragic foreign policy; a new and more belligerent Israeli government. The peace loving world calls for an end to conflict, wishing away the dark clouds that have long persisted and which now threaten hard rain...
Juan,
Fellows at the American Security Project have written prolifically on the negative effects of air strikes in Pakistan, and the wider implications of the policy in the scope of international law and American/Af-Pak relations.
See Dr. Bernard I. Finel’s recent post on this topic at ASP’s Flash Point Blog: http://www.americansecurityproject.org/theflashpointblog/bernard-finel/2009/03/19/escalation-in-pakistan/, and read ASP reports on international law and the so-called “War on Terror,” including Afghanistan-Pakistan border issues, here: http://www.americansecurityproject.org/publications
I would like to reply to anonymous's 8:08 contention: "what practical ability rural landlocked, desperately poor Pashtun tribesmen have to touch the United States. "
The same practical ability al-Qaeda was thought to have on 10 September 2001, professor.
Condoleeza Rice:
CLAIM: "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons."
FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa.
There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city's airport." In Full
Also see: National Security Archive... Bush Administration's First Memo on al-Qaeda Declassified Here
...and in other "Be VERY Afraid!" News: Planes Could Be Downed By DIY 'E-bomb'! (NewScientist)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/world/middleeast/02mideast.html
April 2, 2009
Israeli Minister Dismisses Peace Effort
By ISABEL KERSHNER
In a belligerent speech on his first day as Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman declared that “those who want peace should prepare for war.”
"The same practical ability al-Qaeda was thought to have on 10 September 2001, professor."
Always there is the crazed cry for war and always the same excuse, though there would be other excuses if necessary.
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