What Else Would Anyone Expect?

The NYT seems surprised to discover from its usual unnamed sources that the Pakistani army chief of staff, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, will not cooperate with US demands that his army crack down on their allies in terror.  The general is also of a mind to ramp down relations with the US to the bare minimum necessary to assure the American cash cow keeps producing its billions every year.

The reasons for Kayani's position are made clear by the paper's source(s).  They distill to internal  pressures within the armed forces of Pakistan.  As every observer of that sorry country has known for years, there are many, many members of the army's officer corps who are soulmates of the adherents of violent political Islam.  Then there are others, more secular perhaps, who take the view that the terror groups constitute a strategic asset against India.

The linkage between the two components of the officer corps is simply that Islam defines Pakistani identity, and without the forever war with India, the justification for the army as custodian of the nation and redeemer of lost land is lost.  With that loss would come the collapse of the rickety system which is the government of Pakistan.  The continued symbiosis between the instruments of state and the advocates of violent political Islam is existential for the Pakistani status quo.

The American Great Abbottabad Raid rocked both the military and the larger society.  It is impossible to overstate this.  The hypernationalistic Pakistanis took a blow in their over inflated national ego.  This consideration alone makes it necessary for the army--and its chief of staff--to cock a defiant snoot at the US. Any less would assure deligitimazation of the army and its commander.  It would even raise the credible threat of internal conflict far surpassing that already existing.

Over at the WaPo, a (relatively speaking) conservative op-ed writer bemoans the fact that the US and Pakistan have been engaged in a stereotyped dance of American warning followed by a sincere sounding Pakistani promise of decisive action which results in no real action whatsoever.  This dynamic has been repeated numerous times over the past several years.  It shows no sign of changing, Mr Ignatius sighs in conclusion..

Of course it can take no other direction.  If the game is to continue it must do so in the well worn grooves and well understood moves of the past few years.  The governing ideological, political, and mythic imperatives of the Pakistani polity and society will allow no other course of action.

It does not matter that by any set of objective considerations the US gained significant potential leverage from the Great Abbottabad Raid.  The objective realities do not outweigh the subjective ones operating on the minds of Pakistani decision makers both military and civilian.  Nor do the objective considerations count for more than a rat's feces in the estimate of the profoundly anti-American majority of the Pakistani population.

No American administration can undervalue the pervasive and deep nature of anti-American sentiment infecting the average Pakistani.  The assorted Pakistani governments over the past twenty and more years have carefully fostered the hatred and distrust of the US held by most Pakistanis.  The blame-the-US gambit has been played heavier since 9/11 and heavier even subsequent to the development of warm ties between the US and India during the second of George W. Bush's terms in office.

The government efforts at propagandizing the Pakistani population have been enhanced by the nearly universal message of hate-the-infidel-crusaders preached from the overwhelming majority of the mosques and madrasses in Pakistan.  The Pakistani identity is heavily dependent upon Islam.  With the Zia imposed program of enhanced political cohesion through Islam, it has become more so.  This means that for Pakistanis under thirty, the view of the US and its Western partners is seen through the same distorted theological lens as that of Osama bin Laden.

When this last and very important factor is added to the others, the only conclusion supported by the facts is that the US gained no leverage by the Great Abbottabad Raid and arguably lost some of its very tenuous influence to the wave of religiously exacerbated nationalism.  This means that General Kayani (and everyone else in the chain of command) can flip off the US and its demands with impunity.

The conventional wisdom in Pakistan right now is that we need them much more than they need us.  This conclusion is predicated upon the belief that without Pakistan's cooperation and assistance, we will not be able to get Taliban to the negotiating table.  Without that as cover, it will be impossible for us to withdraw forces from Afghanistan rapidly enough to assure Obama's reelection.

There is a great deal of truth to the Pakistani contention that without Islamabad the chance to ramp down our war in Afghanistan is virtually nil.  The Pakistani army and ISI do have a very great deal of influence with both Afghan Taliban and, even more, the Haqqani network.  Of course, the Paks have not yet demonstrated that they have the capacity to turn that influence into the useful result of getting both insurgent groups to agree to a power sharing deal with the Karzai regime.

Simultaneously, the movers and shakers of Islamabad are certain they can replace the US in whole or major part with China.  This is no doubt the case.  The Chinese are eager to extend their regional presence so as to place more of a squeeze on India.  They are also keen on gaining access to the mineralogical resources recently proven in Afghanistan by American geologists.  Thus, they would leap at the opportunity to enlarge their already extensive relations with Pakistan.

Two arguments are presented as to why the US has little choice but to go along with the Pakistani game.  The first is the war in Afghanistan.  The second is the Pakistani nuclear arsenal and production capacity.

The first contention is accurate at the moment.  It would be obviated by an American force reposturing.  Should we abandon the manpower and money heavy nation-building approach in favor of the special operations force predicated counter terror and counter insurgent (note the difference, counter insurgent rather than counter insurgency) one, the needs for Pakistani cooperation would be reduced to the vanishing point.

The nuclear bogyman is rather more shadow than substance.  Yes, the Fire Breathers of Islamabad have entirely too many weapons.  They have a large and expanding production base.  The stockpiles and production facilities, particularly the latter, are not perfectly secured, nor can they be.  It would do the Pakistanis well to meditate upon all the ways by which the US could neutralize both weapons stockpiles and production facilities.  True, some of the means would have the collateral effect of splattering substantial amounts of finely distributed plutonium and highly enriched uranium around quite a few square kilometers of Pakistani soil, but, such is the cost of abating an unacceptable nuisance.

Perhaps the Pakistanis have counted on President Obama continuing to be the poster boy for peace, love, flower power, and submission to the will of others.  But, in the aftermath of the Great Abbottabad Raid, they might have a few doubts about the cravenness of the current American president.

The US would be well advised to hang tough in the face of Pakistan's exercise in ego building, status quo preserving defiance.  This can be best expressed by a steep cut in the military aid to the army and an ending of all but the most essential humanitarian assistance on the civilian side.  These measures would be enhanced by the reconfiguration of American strategy and operational doctrine in Afghanistan accompanied by a quick reduction in conventional forces.

Meanwhile, in the back room, get the folks working on how to go about an exercise in unilateral and quite involuntary nuclear disarmament--of Pakistan.  And, in a gesture of friendship to the Boys of Islamabad, it might be nice to advise them to learn Chinese as the Trolls of Beijing will appreciate the effort.

Stop The Sketch! It's Getting Too Silly!

The Great Abbottabad Raid is generating more fall out than the Japanese nuclear reactor--combined with Chernobyl.  Everyone is getting in on the act.  The Pakistanis, of course, keep on changing their story.  The Iranians are of the view bin Laden wasn't killed.  The Arab press is in a frenzy of angered denunciations.

In a quirky twist, the Taliban has taken the position that bin Laden died of "natural causes" and the US simply took advantage of its knowledge of this unfortunate act of Allah.  Well, that is no more over the edge than the massive outpouring of "deather" conspiracy theories which are littering the web like spam on growth hormone.

Over on the sidelines stand spokesmen for the Native American community.  These worthies are severely twisted in the panties department over the use of the name "Geronimo" in connection with the killing of bin Laden.  Being proud of the three eighths of his genome which comes courtesy of the Hot Springs Apache (of which Geronimo was a member), the Geek has to allow he was a bit bent out of shape at first.  Geronimo was an outstanding example of the irregular warfare leader who with a handful of his fellows waged protracted conflict against both the Americans and Mexicans before finally being captured.  He was held as a "POW" first in Florida and then at Fort Sill until his death in 1909 which captivity was both unjustified and legally questionable by standards of the day.  But, a bit of reflection removed the Geek's initial consternation as it should the Native American organizations as well.

The use of the name Geronimo was simply a piece with the usual cultural blindness of the white eyes.  As such it was microscopic in effect compared with the more lethal expressions of the same defect as the reservation system, the boarding schools, and the compulsory conversion to Christian religion.  To the outraged Native Americans, the Geek can only advise, "Get a grip.  It's not that big a deal.  Worry about the things that really matter."

In the things-that-really-matter department one also finds the contretemps over to whom belongs the most credit for the elimination of The Great Sheik of Sheiks, The Martyr of All Martyrs, Oh, Osama.  Here the partisans of George W. Bush square off with the advocates of President Obama.  This is akin to asking who deserved the credit for the first manned lunar landing, JFK or Richard Nixon.  In each case, the former committed the US to the effort but the culmination occurred on the latter's watch.  Most importantly, that which is never started cannot be finished.  That rather settles the matter from the point of view called rational, but politics, particularly the divisive sort associated with both presidents W. Bush and Obama, are not given to rational argument.

Far more serious is the outpouring of negative views of the successful American take down in Europe.  It is not surprising that the Archbishop of Canterbury has joined with the Vatican in being disquieted by the killing. Nor is it exactly shocking that a British historian specializing in US history would conflate the conduct and outcome of Boat Six's operation with the Wild West traditions of vigilante justice or even Pat Garret shooting Billy the Kid in the back as the Kid slept in a semi-drunk stupor.

At least one French outlet riffed on the Wild West theme, but with somewhat more positive implications.  The writer of this article correctly equated what happened to bin Laden with the endgame for Japan in World War II.  The Greatest Warrior Hero Of All Muslims made the same fatal error as did the Japanese high command before Pearl Harbor--grossly underestimating the long term will of the American people to avenge an outrage of humiliating proportions.  Back then it took us nearly four years and tens of thousands of killed to wreak a terrible vengeance.  This time it took almost ten years but, thankfully, far fewer good men dead to do the same to bin Laden.

Nipping across the Rhine to Germany and the rhetorical atmosphere turns dark, cold, and filled with dank disapproval.  The online version of a major circulation newspaper of purportedly center-right persuasion took the US to task in tones which were more than mildly condemnatory.  The left-wing Spiegel took precisely the same line in wording that was no harsher, no nastier, and showed no less comprehension of both the requirements of international law and the realities under which special operations forces conduct high pucker factor actions.  Indeed all along the continuum of political orientation in the German media, the situation was the same--the US committed a war crime by not assuring bin Laden was taken alive and brought to trial.

Unstated in this silliness is the reality that had the members of Boat Six been ordered to take bin Laden alive regardless of risk, that would have been done.  The men of Boat Six as well as all the other SEAL teams and special operations forces generally are so well disciplined, so highly motivated, so well trained that they carry out orders to the letter even when doing such exposes them to great risk.  However, we can be sure that the same people who now criticize the US for killing bin Laden would have carped at his receiving a fair trial in the US.

These same High Minded and Lofty Thinking people--including popes and archbishops, Islamic scholars and German media moguls--would have griped unendingly about the impossibility of the Americans providing a fair, open, and impartial trial.  They would have denounced any use of the military tribunals.  At the same time they would have alleged that no jury could be assembled anywhere in the US which could be considered impartial.

The demands for an international tribunal would be filling the ether today had we taken the Heroic Protector of the Koran alive.  Some would be urging that a special shariah compliant court of authentic Muslim scholars of Islamic jurisprudence be assembled to guard against cultural chauvinism.  The condemnations and demands would have accelerated to and beyond ludicrous speed.

The ever ready to dump on the US crowd in Germany and elsewhere in Europe need to get a grip on a ground truth: Bin Laden attacked the US in a most dastardly fashion.  The president of the time committed the US to a policy of vengeance.  His successor was obligated by the chains of political reality to carry forward with that commitment.  He, after the usual dithering, picked the only viable option.  The men of Boat Six had permissive orders which put the priority on saving American lives.  They did their job with perfection.  The perfection is underscored by the simple fact that only one hostile managed to fire at the assault force.

The core of a successful commando raid is that of giving the target no chance to shoot and no chance to run.  This was done.  Period.  The presence of weapons in easy reach coupled with permissive orders means the shooting of bin Laden was a "good shoot."  Period.

Just remember, all you critics out there in virtual land, all bin Laden needed to do to stay alive was to raise his hands.  Had he done so, we would be facing a host of other criticisms and complaints right now, but bin Laden would not only be alive--he would have access to the very best medical care--at no cost to him or his organization.  What a deal!  He should have taken it.

But, he didn't.  He chose to go out the way he had always wanted ever since courting death at Soviet hands.