Don’t Ask, Just Tell: Pakistan and Blowback in the Making

by Dennis Loo 

What an Obama (or for that matter, McCain)
presidency would look like can be seen right now unfolding in
Pakistan.  As I pointed out in “To Those Who Put Their Faith in Progressive Democrats and Obama,” the Bush regime has adopted Obama’s view on what should be done about Pakistan: Don’t Ask, Just Tell –  bomb and invade. 

This
is the logical working out of the foreign policy stance that Obama – in
consultation with his national security braintrust that includes Zbigniew
Brzezinski, who gave us al-Qaeda (blowback from their efforts to foil
the Soviet Union’s 1979 invasion of Afghanistan) and Madeleine (half
a million dead Iraqi children was “worth it” during the Clinton years’
sanctions on Iraq) Albright – has been consistently articulating.

According to Obama, what’s wrong with the war and occupation of Iraq is
not that it’s a war of conquest and illegal and immoral. What’s wrong
with it is that it isn’t properly doing the job of the “war on terror.”
What Obama has called for is moving some troops out of Iraq, stepping
up the war on Afghanistan, and attacking Pakistan.

For some indications of what this new invasion of Pakistan is provoking see the following: 

The leading English language newspaper in Pakistan The News, as reported by The Australian on September 13, 2008:

“What
amounts to a dramatic order to ‘kill the invaders,’ as one senior
officer put it last night, was disclosed after the commanders – who
control the army’s deployments at divisional level – met at their
headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi under the chairmanship
of army chief and former ISI spy agency boss Ashfaq Kayani.

“Leading
English-language newspaper The News warned in an editorial that the US
determination to attack targets inside Pakistan was likely to be ‘the
best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had,’ with even
‘moderates’ outraged by it.”

The Australian goes on to report:

“The
‘kill’ order against invading forces, and the sharp deterioration in
relations with the US, has far-reaching implications for the war on
terror.

“Anger at all levels in Pakistani society was summed up last night in The News, not normally sympathetic to the militants.

“‘There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan,’ the newspaper said.

“‘Many
– perhaps most – of them are strongly opposed to the spread of
Talibanisation and extremist influence across the country: people who
might be described as “moderates.”

“‘Many of them have no sympathy for the mullahs and their burning of girls’ schools and their medieval mindset.’

“‘But
if you bomb a moderate sensibility often enough, it has a tendency to
lose its sense of objectivity and to feel driven in the direction of
extremism.'”

— 

Apparently, this is not, for even
moderate Pakistanis who despise the Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists,
the “change they can believe in.”

From the Daily News , another Pakistani English language paper, on September 14, 2008:

Tribesmen say they are with army, warn US

Staff Report

MIRANSHAH:
Tribal elders in North Waziristan on Saturday vowed to defend the
country’s frontiers by fighting alongside security forces against any
“possible American attack”.

Malak Nasrullah, Malak Qadar Khan,
Malak Mamoor, Malak Muhammad Afzal Khan, Malak Mumtaz and Malak
Habibullah welcomed Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani’s statement,
adding that it was the voice of eight million tribesmen.

They
said that if the American forces did not stop attacking the Tribal
Areas, they would feel the repercussions of such attacks in Kabul,
Bagram and Kandahar.

The elders said that their tribal
brethren living on the Afghan side would also join the fight, as the
foreign troops were subjecting them to gross injustices.

And finally, from The Guardian on September 15, 2008:

Pakistani tribal chiefs threaten to join Taliban

US warned of uprising if armed incursions continue
New counter-terror policy backfires on Washington

The article begins:

“A
controversial new US tactic to mount counter-terrorist operations
inside Pakistan has met with fresh hostility, it emerged yesterday, as
Pakistani tribesmen representing half a million people vowed to switch
sides and join the Taliban if Washington does not stop cross-border
attacks by its forces from Afghanistan.

“Reacting to American
missile attacks in north Waziristan last week, which followed an
unprecedented cross-border ground assault earlier this month, tribal
chiefs from the area called an emergency meeting on Saturday.

“‘If
America doesn’t stop attacks in tribal areas, we will prepare a lashkar
[army] to attack US forces in Afghanistan,’ tribal chief Malik
Nasrullah announced in Miran Shah, north Waziristan’s largest city. ‘We
will also seek support from the tribal elders in Afghanistan to fight
jointly against America.'”

“The development threatens to widen
the conflict, with previously moderate people from Pakistan’s tribal
border region with Afghanistan in danger of joining Taliban militants
based in the area. They have reacted furiously to intensified American
missile attacks on targets in the tribal territory in recent weeks.”

…

“‘If
the Americans are coming to sort it out with force, they would create
more enemies. The Americans might have supersonic jets and we might
have to fight with stones in our hands, but we will stand up.'”

—

In
the name of fighting extremists and terrorists, the US is engaging in
war crimes and state terror, creating enemies among those who hate
al-Qaeda and the Taliban, but who now, in what should come as no
surprise to anyone, are deeply offended, angered, provoked and
victimized by the US’s willful attacks on their country and people.

These attacks upon and in Pakistan were advocated by Obama beginning in August 0f 2007. The Bush regime adopted it in July 2008.

Is this the change we can believe in?