I confess that it took me awhile to get clear on the nature of the thugs we were sponsoring (yes, WE) in Afghanistan. Barnett Rubin set me straight sometime around 1989 - nine years too late. But that puts me a few years ahead of you two. Let's make it plain. Pakistan is the patron and sponsor of both Taliban and al-Qaeda. If you're serious about going after the source of the terror, then you take on Pakistan, you don't make it your ally in the fight against terror. The principal target of al-Qaeda and its associated organizations is not the United States, but India. After our war started, just to show they were still in business, two of these organizations, Jaish-e-Mohamed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, mounted two terrorist attacks on India: an Oklahoma City style bombing on the state legislative building in Srinagar, and an armed assault on the parliament building in New Delhi.
If you hearken back to the early days after 9/11, you'll remember that the government of India was chomping at the bit to sign on to the war against terrorism. Vajpayee and company were convinced that now, finally, the U.S. was going to dump Pakistan as an ally - since, after all, Pakistan was al-Qaeda's sponsor - and ally with India instead. Grand geopolitical dreams of a U.S.-India-Israel anti-Muslim alliance danced in their heads.
Didn't happen, of course. Instead, we decided against all reason that Pakistan was our ally in the war against terror. Go figure. The al-Qaeda-linked camps in Pakistan and Kashmir are in full operation and we have no plans to go after them. Osama bin Laden, the person we were supposed to be after, is almost certainly in Pakistan or Kashmir, and we have no plausible plan for extracting him.
In other words, removing the Taliban is one thing ad going after the al-Qaeda network is another. 9/11 has almost nothing to do with the former, and the war that removed the Taliban hasn't achieved the latter. So, my manly men, are you up for a real war? Since Osama has now taken refuge in Pakistan and since Pakistan was, all along, his real patron, do you extend the war or not?
Or, like Bush, are you two just cynically posturing?
Michael McIntyre
>>> delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU 05/04/02 08:01 AM >>>
> > So does that mean we go after ISI next? Our valiant erstwhile Pakistani
>allies in the fight against terror? The ones we let flee down a rathole in
>Kunduz (taking substantial numbers of al-Qaeda and Taliban cadre with them)?
>Track Osama through NWFP and Azad Kashmir? Or perhaps go to the source and
>join with our glorious Indian allies in a drive on Allahabad? Wouldn't
>anything less be inconsistent, cowardly, morally idiotic, and craven
>appeasement?
>>
>> Michael McIntyre
>
>I'm guessing by your witty tone that you think we shouldn't pursue these
>thugs. Is that about right?
>
>Would you be as glib if you were talking about Nazis fleeing their bunkers?...
>
>DP
I suspect he would.
The Nazis were a powerful force struggling against Empire, y'know...
Brad DeLong