Well, well, the Washington Post climbs on board with Epaminondas?
As long as they can whack Bush simultaneously...not quite
AFTER THE attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there was a painful and sometimes bitter debate in this country about how two administrations could have failed to take decisive action against an obvious threat -- al-Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that it was partly a "problem of imagination": Few U.S. officials considered the possibility that al-Qaeda was capable of reaching out from its remote base to stage devastating strikes on New York and Washington.
We know now that allowing al-Qaeda a safe haven can have terrible consequences for U.S. homeland security. And yet the Bush administration appears to be letting the threat develop again. For several months U.S. intelligence officials and independent observers have been telling journalists -- most recently at the New York Times -- that al-Qaeda has established several camps in the Pakistani territory of North Waziristan, along the Afghan border. Those camps are populated by Pakistani, Afghan and foreign militants; some may be Westerners who are being trained for attacks in Europe or the United States.
So what? What is the recommended path, oh great WaPo?
Waziri 'Resistance' flag
The camps have operated unhindered since at least September, when Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, agreed to a separate peace deal with local Taliban leaders. Since then, cross-border attacks by the Taliban into Afghanistan have tripled, according to the U.S. military. Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders in Waziristan have developed a "complex cooperative relationship," Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the outgoing U.S. commander in Afghanistan, testified before the House Armed Services Committee last week. Yet no action has been taken, either by the United States or by Pakistan, its nominal ally in the war on terrorism.
Stop complaining and suggest a course, boys.
But they won't ....
The provincial governor who brokered the deal held a news conference last weekend at which he said the truce was a success and called the Taliban's terrorism against U.S. and NATO forces "a resistance movement, sort of a liberation war."
The administration's response to such statements -- and Pakistan's failure to act -- has been to heap praise on Mr. Musharraf and to express sympathy for the pressure he is said to be under. Such indulgence, which has gone on for five years while the general has tempered his action against Islamic extremists and suppressed Pakistan's pro-Western democratic parties, will be hard to defend if the consequences of allowing al-Qaeda a safe haven are unchanged. "Direct intervention against the sanctuary in Afghanistan apparently must have seemed . . . to be disproportionate to the threat," said the Sept. 11 commission report. Is that how the administration thinks of Waziristan?
Is that a hint of regret that pre-emption was not used in 1996, or 1998 , or 2000 after the Cole?
Is that a way of suggesting without taking responsibility for it that action across the border in Waziristan be taken now?
I absolutely reccomend it. We cannot be in worse shape, even were Musharraf to fall. What can be the consequences? Would a new MMA led pakistani government, which more fully reflected the people's feelings towards us as they despise us now, give away their nukes to Al Qaeda? Would they turn their own nation into a safe haven? Isn't it right now?
Avoidance of these issues and choices is a wink and a nod to the forces which benefit from lack of american action. Who would that be?
It's just ANOTHER front in ONE WAR.
Get used to these things. You will see them again.
Categories
Huntington is unassailableNo TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: http://vwt.d2g.com:8081/mt-tb.cgi/3777
Leave a comment