I've been following the expansioin of the war in Afghanistan into Pakistani territory. To recap briefly, Pakistan held elections, and the newly elected national and regional government in the frontier provinces won on a pledge to talk to and make peace with the tribesmen in Pakistan's frontier provinces bordering Afghanistan. Pakistan has no further intention of killing its own citizens to pleae the US, and, predictably, the US is reacting violently.
Last week a major incursion and air strikes took place into the Pakistan border region, with 11 Pakistani Frontier Corps soliders killed in US airstrikes. The US is still denying this, but at the same time, US puppet Karzai just issued threats to cross the border with the Afghan Army and target Batullah Mehsud, the top Pakistani Taliban leader, and the US launched another strike into Pakistani terrotory, targetting Batullah, while the British have confirmed a large expandion of their Special Forces operations in Pakistani terrority. The sound you are hearing is the US being sucked into a major escalation of conflict with a nuclear Muslim power.
Read on for the Apocalypse Now update.
Even as the US continues to deny purposefully striking Pakistani targets last week, a new round of escalation took place over the weekend. To start things off, four Marines got killed and June is on track to be the second month in a row when Afghanistan inflicts more casualties on the occupiers than Iraq.
Then our friend, the democratically elected leader of sovereign Afghanistan, the former Unocal oil exec and Pushtun aristocrat Hamid Karzai, threatened an escalation of Afghan and coalition incursions into Pakistan in no uncertain terms:
‘‘Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house,’’ Karzai said.
‘‘And the other fellow, (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar of Pakistan, should know the same,’’ Karzai continued. ‘‘This is a two-way road in this case, and Afghans are good at the two-way road journey. We will complete the journey and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years.
Batullah Mehsud is the most prominent so called Pakistani Taliban leader, which is to say he is a powerful anti Western amir in Waziristan Province who leads an army called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and sympathizes strongly with anti US and pro Taliban elements. Last year he even made it as No. 17 into Time Magazine's Top 100 Most Inlfuential Leaders and Revolutionaries List for his alleged role in Benazir Bhutto's assassination. He was right between Sona Gandhi and Evo Morales. Despite having fought a few wars now with the Pakistan federal government, and despite being desperately wanted dead by the US, Batullah's (Meshud is the tribal name) power is steadily in Waziristan and along the Afghan border. Batullah has vowed repeatedly to fight the United States:
"Islam does not recognize boundaries," he told the journalists, in accounts published in Pakistani newspapers and reported by the BBC. "There can be no deal with the United States."
The Pakistanis see Karzai's rhetoric as an escalation of pressure on their country:
Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and security analyst, said Karzai’s statements were ‘‘an extension of the pressure that is being mounted by the U.S.’’
‘‘This obviously means that they (the U.S.) are pushing Pakistan to take military action instead of negotiating. There is pressure on Karzai as well, and Karzai is transferring his pressure on us (Pakistan). The pressure on Karzai is more for corruption, more for governance.’’
As to whether Karzai would really make good on the warning, Masood said, ‘‘I wouldn’t say it’s too serious, but it cannot be ignored.’’
But the Empire, not content with talk, is striking back in other ways as well. Unfortunataly, as we are unable to destroy the rebels' home planet because Cheney's Death Star remains incomplete, the US is forced to resort to symbolic missile strikes and clandestine but published operations to vent frustration.
Once again unmanned Predator and Reaper drones (George Lucas eat your heart out) were sent over Pakistani territory, circling over tribal areas and killing anybody who dared resist, and bombing Batullah's old hideout, which was empty at the time, but might have had a sentimental value to him.
Just a nice little fuck you to Pakistan, and a grim warning to our friend Batullah and the tribesmen of the frontier. But, this being the Great Game, that's not all. Here is the most interesting part of the story: in a bid to further intimidate and humiliate Pakistan, the details of the current cross border Special Forces operations, which have been ongoing now for years, have been released in the British press, and we should enjoy the rare release of infomration, even if is doctored for propaganda purposes. Under the strong headline "Get Osama Bin Laden before I leave office, orders George W Bush" the Sunday Times, even as the bombs were dropping and Karzai was blustering and turning out his tribal retainers all over eastern Afghanistan in an unimpressive show of force, reported on Special Forces operations in Pakistan:
The Special Boat Service (SBS) and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been taking part in the US-led operations to capture Bin Laden in the wild frontier region of northern Pakistan. It is the first time they have operated across the Afghan border on a regular basis.
The main operations in Pakistan are being undertaken by Delta, the US army special operations unit, and the British SBS.
Special forces are being sent to capture or kill Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters based on intelligence provided by the Special Reconnaissance Regiment and its US counterpart, the Security Co-ordination Detachment.
And here's the money quote:
One US intelligence source compared the "growing number of clandestine reconnaissance missions" inside Pakistan with those conducted in Laos and Cambodia at the height of the Vietnam war.
Nice. But this is all a part of the Hunt for Bin Laden (Day Two Thousand Something), so nobody can ocmplain.
So this is where the war stands at the moment. We are in the "expanding the conflict to neighboring countries after losing it in the original occupied zone" phase of the conflict. As coalition casualties in Afghansita overtake Iraq to make this the bloodiest and most senseless front of the War on Terror, the hunt for Bin Laden is justifying continuous border operations and bombing of Pakistani territory, now without the thinnest fig leaf of Pakistani approval or cooperation. We are now in the position of conducting hostile operations inside a gigantic nuclear armed Muslim country, in a desperate bid to forestall an undeniable defeat, while both American political parties cheer in full support of the expansion of the war. Not one Democratic or other politician made a single statement condmening or expressing concerns about this campaign of expansion of the war into Pakistan. At least when Kennedy started bombing Cambodia, he had the tact to do it secretly because at the time, most Americans could still be counted on to express disapproval of blatantly illegal aggressions. No longer, it seems.