Time's Up For Pakistan

Ayn Rand Institute ^ | 6/3/02 | Robert Tracinski

[RJCogburn]

Interesting thoughts with which I do not agree.

[swarthyguy]

Thanks for finding and posting this. This hits the nail on the head.

[Fish out of Water]

*Index Bump

[swarthyguy]

Voice of Sanity ping!

[neutrino]

; we must subject the country to a de facto occupation

Occupation? No. The US casualties would be horrible.

And, as Patton said, one does not win wars by dying for one's country. One wins by making the other fellow die for his. Ergo, to win, one must cause a great many terrorist fellow travelers die...

[Jim Noble]

Pakistan was created by Britain in 1948 in service of the highly dubious premise that Moslems living in India should have "their own country".

Since then, Pakistan has been nothing but trouble. It is an impoverished, unstable, ungovernable mess and a breeding ground and haven for our worst enemies.

I favor undoing the error of 1948, and reunifying India.

Pakistan delenda est.

[keri]

You know, probably, what I think. The US can finish off Pakistan now, or support India while she does. One way or the other, Pakistan is a ticking time bomb and Mush can't do anything about that even if he wanted, which frankly I doubt.

Do we want to wait 10 years and hand our kids the problem to solve? I don't.

[swarthyguy]

Exactly. All this make nice just puts off the inevitable; increasing the chances of the pakistani islamic bomb going to other countries, including saudi. The stakes get a lot higher then. People freaked out about India will then start saying why wasn't something done?

[Aaron_A]

I agree with the following:

- Musharraf is nothing more than an Arafat with nukes
- Terrorism is ingrained in the Pakistani psyche and establisment
- Their help in the war against terrorism has been marginal at best; in many cases they have have created major stumbling blocks.
- No more coddling of terrorists; be they in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Middle East, Africa or at home.

I don't agree with:

- American invasion of Pakistan...not yet. I would prefer a joint Indian/US/British/Russian effort to neutralize the nukes, but China will not take that lying down.

[Sunsong]

Good grief, I'm glad this writer is not in a decision-making position. A devastating world war is a particilarly stupid idea.

I'm amazed sometimes at the usually sensible conservatives who want an all out war -- whether in this instance or the Middle East.

War is always a tragedy. If there is another way, it is conservative and sensible to find it.

[Dog Gone]

There's nothing sane about this article. It's chock full of distortions, half-truths, and irrational conclusions. I'm sure the Indian hardliners love it, because it recommends that America do what India can't.

But America can't do this, either.

[aristeides]

War is always a tragedy. But sometimes it is the best of a lot of bad options.

[mikeIII]

"A dictatorship whose powerful intelligence service is sympathetic to a holy war against the United States is not an ally in the War on Terrorism."

It can't get anymore blunt and mater-of-fact than this! The longer we coddle this "ally", the deeper we dig our own grave. Musharraf should be dropped like a ton of bricks. He is the cover to Al Qaida, thru the ISI.

[PsyOp]

Works for me. Though I think the occupation would go a little easier after a little nuclear population reduction. Kinda hard to resist when you're dying of radiation poisoning. Meanwhile, I sure hope our guys over there are being moved back into Afghanistan to brush up on their MOPP training.

[mikeIII]

The fact that Britain gave birth to Pakistan and fostered it, gives it a vested interest to see its conitued existence. That may expalin why we haven't dumped Pakistan - yet.

[Jim Noble]

>>The fact that Britain gave birth to Pakistan and fostered it, gives it a vested interest to see its conitued existence<<

Yes, I agree.

The results of our empire-busting policy since 1919 have been poor. I think the Arabs (and we) would be much better off with them as part of a multinational state, and we would certainly be better off with India's western frontier being Iran.

[aristeides]

Britain's mistake in 1948 may have been to grant independence to both India and Pakistan. That is what Winston Churchill thought. But that mistake -- if it was a mistake -- is obviously beyond correction now.

(As an Irish-American, I can see the point of the Indian desire for independence. However, independence -- as opposed to dominion status -- may have been the wrong course for India, just as independence -- as opposed to home rule -- may have been the wrong course for Ireland. Without independence, it is possible Ireland might not have had to be divided, and the same might be said of India.)

It wasn't clear in 1948 what a disaster Pakistan would eventually turn out to be. Jinnah and his immediate successors were basically secularist nominal Moslems, and they ruled Pakistan accordingly. The Moslem officers who came to command the Pakistani Army were much more clearly gentlemen than their Indian counterparts, and the British ruling class, with their class prejudices and their historical policy of divide and conquer, judged them accordingly. Unfortunately, those gentlemen have no more proved able to resist a totalitarian ideology than the Prussian gentlemen who dominated the German officer corps through the Nazi time.

[RightWhale]

America is powerful. But Pakistan has little to offer, not enough to justify a whole-scale invasion. You'll end up with an expensive liability and a drain on resources that even the most powerful country cannot afford. Not an option.

[PsyOp]

It's chock full of distortions, half-truths, and irrational conclusions.

Care to back that statement up Dog Gone? Got any "facts" you care to present? Got any kids in uniform? Ever wear one yourself?

The analysis in that article is correct. I have worn the uniform. In a month, after her graduation from high-school, so will my daughter. Her chances of not becoming a casualty in the war against fanatical Islam is greatly enhanced if one of the primary breeding grounds for it is a smoking hole in the ground by the time she finishes basic training. Not only does that remove the "islamic bomb" from the geo-political chessboard, but it will serve as a wake-up call to the rest of the world that there are severe consequences to allowing terrorism, of any kind, anywhere, to persist. Then, and only then, will europe et off its fat ass and take it seriously. It might also let the supporters of terror in Iran and Iraq know what awaits them if they don't knock it off.

I say we pull our troops out of Pakistan tomorrow, run interference on the Chinese, and tell India to end it once and for all. Because if they don't, sooner or later some Islamic nutburger is going to punch the button in pakistan and start it on far less favorable terms.

"The side whose capacity for retaliation was vulnerable must react in a crisis in ways which would heighten the likelihood of cataclysm; a country whose strategic forces were not secure could be driven, even against its will, to strike first rather than await the opponent's attack which it would know it could not survive." - Henry Kissenger, to Senate Foreign Relations Committee, July 31, 1979.

"In the final analysis the military profession is the art of prevailing...." - Henry Kissenger.

[Dog Gone]

What does military service have to do with my statement? The only thing I can think of is that you believe that only veterans are entitled to opinions on foreign policy. Weird.

But here's an example of what I'm talking about:

For example, how did the sponsor of Kashmir's terrorism, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, react when an Afghan warlord declared holy war against the United States on Thursday? Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, told reporters: "There is certainly a lot of sympathy for him in ISI, but that doesn't necessarily translate into material assistance."

Gul is a very vocal, pro-Taliban Pakistani who has been out of a job at the ISI for over a decade. How is he a spokesman for how the ISI reacted today?

Here's another:

Under U.S. pressure, Musharraf announced a "crackdown" on the terrorist groups he sponsored, and he rounded up 200 Islamic militants. This proved every bit as effective as the occasional crackdown Yasser Arafat announces against his terrorist friends. Musharraf kept the militants in jail until the world's attention wandered — which doesn't take long — then let them out again.

The actual figure was 2000. Maybe he made a typo. It is true that about 1200 were eventually released after swearing an oath not to participate in jihadi activities. But it ignores the fact that some 800 hardcore types are still being kept in detention. And it assumes that the all the original 2000 were terrorists and that the Pakistanis couldn't have arrested anyone who was just a terrorist wannabe. Which is absurd.

The idea that the USA could send troops to occupy a country of 140 million people and somehow clean it up is just plain nuts. If we suddenly tell Musharraf that he hasn't been a good partner, sorry, and we're taking your nukes, we can frickin' forget getting any cooperation from any Islamic country ever again. I mean NONE.

This article is stupid. It's some sort of fantasy for the reality-impaired.