Today on Talk Of The Nation, host Neal Conan led a discussion titled Afghanistan: War Of Choice Or Necessity? And Ted Koppel was on hand for the show.
I can usually just turn off Ted Koppel, but I had to hear what neo-con talking points he was going to spout.
Here we go!
KOPPEL: And if Pakistan were to fall to the Taliban, consider what is at stake here. You have heard a great deal, as we all have over these past few months and years, about the danger of Iran, which parenthetically is also a neighbor of Afghanistan, receiving or achieving a nuclear-weapons capability. Pakistan, you have to remember, has more than 100 nuclear warheads, and if the Pakistani government were to fall into the hands of those sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida, it would be a nightmare of almost inconceivable proportion.
How 'bout some more?
KOPPEL: Neal, let me jump in with just one more thought. I would argue, in fact, taking Richard's point one step further, that Pakistan is not only critical to the national interest of the United States and what happens there, and the security of those nuclear warheads is critical, but in point of fact, I think what is being done right now is creating a base in Afghanistan from which we can at least hope to influence events in Pakistan.
Still not satisfied?
KOPPEL: Yeah, if I could jump in just for a second, Ambassador. I think we are tiptoeing ever so delicately around the central issue here. Back in 2001, the perception of the Bush administration, which you served, was that the United States faced an absolutely fearsome possibility, and that was that the same kind of terrorism which struck this country on 9/11 could strike again, but this time with nuclear weaponry. There is, in fact, only one country in the world where that threat is greater than it has ever been before, and that is in Pakistan. And yet every part of this conversation focuses on nation-building in Afghanistan and whether or not we can deal with the corruption there, all important issues but none of them existential issues.
The notion that Pakistan and the Pakistani government might fall to Muslim fundamentalists and that they would then get control over 100 nuclear warheads is, after all, a greater problem than any one I can think of anywhere else in the world.
Maybe you didn't hear him correctly, the first time, or sumpin'?
KOPPEL: I must say, I'm sitting here with increasing frustration because I can't seem to get anyone to focus on nuclear weapons.
We are unbelievably concerned about what's happening in Iran. They don't have them yet. They may have one or two of them in a couple of years. We are unbelievably concerned about North Korea. And yet somehow the notion that what we are doing in Afghanistan has far more to do with the situation in neighboring Pakistan and the danger that those nuclear weapons - I mean, don't forget for a moment, the father of the nuclear program in Pakistan, A.K. Khan, was responsible for the dissemination of nuclear technology to some of the greatest rogue regimes in the world.
The notion that a Pakistani government controlled by Islamic fundamentalists would be the greatest danger to the United States and its allies that exists anywhere in the world somehow always seems to get swept under the rug in some measure, I suspect, because it is such a delicate issue as far as the Pakistanis are concerned. They are paranoid that the United States is going to try and control their weapons because, as I said before, they want to have some kind of military equity vis-a-vis India. But Pakistan is the issue.
I'm sure that some little old lady, somewhere, is scared stiff right now.
SHAME on you, Ted Koppel, you pompous disingenuous ass!
Now, let's see what folks who actually know this part of the world have to say, such as Juan Cole and Shahan Mufti, being interviewed by Bill Moyers:
SHAHAN MUFTI: I think you're right on. And I think it's problematic because this really harks back to the period right before the Iraq War, as well, where there was this hype that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
We were- we could have been convinced in a second that Iraq was about to use them. And it's unfortunate that the press did play its part in that problem. And the press is, once again I think, playing its unfortunate part where it is relaying all of these opinions that are coming from intelligence sources or whatever, and ruling this as information. And all of a sudden we're seeing the same sort of almost hysteria.
BILL MOYERS: Do you agree with Shahan, that you're seeing a repeat of the-
JUAN COLE: Yes. Yes.
BILL MOYERS: -official propaganda being disseminated as news?
JUAN COLE: Yes. I think that's exactly what's going on. I mean, especially with regard to the nuclear issue. There is no way on God's green earth that these scruffy tribal fundamentalists, in the North-West Frontier Province, are having anything to do with Pakistan's nuclear weapons. Which, by the way, are stored in secret places, and they're not assembled. And assembling them is a complicated process which requires various high-level military and civilian authorizations. And to put that nuclear issue front and forward is just a way of scaring the American public and putting pressure on Pakistan to do something they didn't want to do.
On his own blog (listed on the Dkos front page) Juan Cole is not frightened a bit:
The Pakistani Taliban are largely a phenomenon of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas west of the North-West Frontier Province, and of a few districts within the NWFP itself. These are largely Pushtun ethnically. The NYT's breathless observation that there are Taliban a hundred miles from Islamabad doesn't actually tell us very much, since Islamabad is geographically close to the Pushtun regions without that implying that Pushtuns dominate or could dominate it. It is like saying that Lynchburg, Va., is close to Washington DC and thereby implying that Jerry Falwell's movement is about to take over the latter.
The Pakistani Taliban amount to a few thousand fighters who lack tanks, armored vehicles, and an air force.
The Pakistani military is the world's sixth largest, with 550,000 active duty troops and is well equipped and well-trained. It in the past has acquitted itself well against India, a country ten times Pakistan's size population-wise. It is the backbone of the country, and has excellent command and control, never having suffered an internal mutiny of any significance.
So what is being alleged? That some rural Pushtun tribesmen turned Taliban are about to sweep into Islamabad and overthrow the government of Pakistan? Frankly ridiculous. Wouldn't the government bring some tank formations up from the Indian border and stop them?