Another claim of negligence

[Dennis Perrin]

> (1) Consider the immediate sequence of events after 9/11.  The US
announces a no-holds-barred war on terrorism, everywhere in the world.
India is first out of the gate to align with the US.  The US spurns India's
offer to serve as a staging area for the coming war on terrorism, allies
instead with Pakistan, and modifies its war on terrorism to a war on
terrorism "with global capabilities" - excluding the "local" terrorism of AQ
in Kashmir.
>
> (2) Colin Powell travels to Pakistan ca. October 10, just days before the
Srinagar bombing.  During the visit he, in effect, endorses the Pakistani
position that the Kashmiri conflict should be settled by plebiscite.  This
was front-page news in FT - the US media missed the story.  The Srinagar
bombing occasions only formulaic condemnation, but no real U.S. pressure on
Pakistan to reign in this part of the AQ network.  The December attack on
parliament in New Delhi gets a similar response.
>
> (3) The most recent AQ attack in Kashmir is timed to coincide with the
visit of a US envoy to India, while India has troops massed on the border.
As U.S. envoy, what do you do?  (A) Quietly caution India against going to
war. (B) Hold a press conference and announce that the struggle against AQ
is one and indivisible, and that India has the right to retaliate against AQ
no less than the US.  The latter is consistent with the "war against
terrorism" thesis.  The former is what happened.
>
> (4) Outside of Afghanistan, where are the AQ militants most strongly
concentrated?  In descending order of importance: Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt.
Who is harboring bin Laden and Omar now?  Pakistan.  What happened when the
U.S. lifted the siege of Kunduz long enough for the ISI to airlift out its
officers?  The ISI also airlifted out Taliban and AQ cadre.  So tell me: if
this is fundamentally a war against terrorism rather than extension of
imperial might, then why isn't Pakistan denounced as part of the "axis of
evil" rather than a country whose links with AQ are minimal if they exist at
all (Iraq), a country violently opposed to AQ and Taliban (Iran) and a
country which has nothing at all to do with this (N Korea)?


> MM

Very well put, and I agree with you about the US and Pakistan. Doesn't
change my view about the necessary action taken in Afghanistan, but it does
show the contradictions and hypocrisy that are involved when a great power
"says" it's gonna wipe out "terrorism." Well done.

DP (the "malignant fuck")