A major incident occurred today that will probably not receive much discussion in the US press or even on this venerable site, engrossed as we all are in the latest election news. But yesterday was a significant turning point in the history of America's undeclared war against a former ally, Pakistan. A year after Obama called for unilateral incursions into Pakistan, two months after Bush authorized ground operations in Pakistan and two weeks after America's first acknowledged helicopter assault on a Pakistani village killed at least 15 villagers, including 6 women and children, the Pakistani army finally began defending their country from the escalating American aggression.
According to local reports, yesterday Pakistan troops allegedly fired upon 2 American helicopters invading Pakistani territory and turned them back.
As has now become abundantly clear, America is losing the war in Afghanistan. When the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff say we are not winning, and that sending more troops in will not help, that is pretty much an official admission of defeat. The Taliban are cutting the roads by ambushing vital convoys, and gearing up for a siege of Kabul itself. But, as we all know, these colors don’t run.
As a reaction to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the US has been steadily widening the conflict expanding the war into Pakistan. This has a nice chronology of the mounting US aggression against Pakistan. Since the US destabilized the region during the invasion of 2001, Pakistan has lost thousands of soldiers, tens of thousands of civilians, has lost control of its Frontier Tribally Administered Areas, and is suffering from an ever growing refugee problem due to the constant conflict in its northern tribal areas. But as we all know, 9/11 changed everything, and the US is determined to pursue the War on Terror to the last drop of Pakistani blood, and we won’t take no for an answer. The US insists that Pakistan is not doing enough to win America's War on Terror for us. They must do more. They must kill more of their own people. They must send more of their young men to die. The unspoken reason as to why they should do these insane and criminal things to their own people, is because if they don't, we'll kill them ourselves. And finally, the threat has been made reality, and yet another of America's righteous wars has begun, in defense of our freedom, democracy and the liberty of the whole world, amen.
As I diaried here back in June, the US has been steadily expanding aggressive operations against Pakistan. Over the years, Pakistanis were forced to become used to regular US Predator drone attacks in their territory, targeting militants but invariably leaving pieces of children's bodies behind in what has become a familiar American calling card throughout the region. Soon, clandestine Special Forces teams were operating in Pakistan in earnest. This was followed by cross-border incursions by regular American troops operating along the frontier with Afghanistan, which raids were always "in hot pursuit" and so as far as the US is concerned, no big deal, as cross border acts of provocation and aggression go, even though our soldiers had actually begun killing Pakistani soldiers. Naturally, this slaughter was brushed off by Pentagon spokesmen, and applauded by an American public eager for action against the bad guys. What are these cavedwelling savages gonna do, send their tribal armies into Afghanistan and close their border? However, sadly, this friendly nudge failed to push Pakistan far enough.
Even though Pakistan recently initiated several costly offensives against the militants on their side of the border, in the Bajaur and Swat tribal agencies, the US decided to step the heroic defense of our homeland up a notch. On September 3rd, a brazen helicopter assault miles into Pakistani territory took place by an elite team of Navy SEALs. It went great:
The raid on Angor Adda on September 3 was the first overt ground incursion by American troops into Pakistan since the deployment of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in late 2001.
At least 20 people, including women and children, were killed in that South Waziristan raid, sparking outrage in Pakistan and prompting a diplomatic protest.
Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kayani said in a strongly worded statement last week that Pakistan would not allow foreign troops on its soil and Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity would be defended at all costs.
But what's a little outrage between friends. America is the greatest country in the world because of our never say die attitude and true grit. And so, yesterday, less than two weeks after that raid, US helicopters crossed into Pakistani territory and tried disembarking troops at the same exact village which they had hit on September 3rd! This time they received a somewhat chillier reception.
Two Chinook helicopters appeared set to land when troops began shooting, alerting tribesmen who also opened fire on the intruders, said a senior government official in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.
Naturally, this never happened. Unless they manage to get tapes of bodies on European or Canadian news, nothing ever happens in this war.
I've checked into that and find it to be a spurious report," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. "Did not happen. I've checked all the places that would know about something like that and it doesn't appear to be accurate."
Strangely enough, the Pakistanis see it differently. Instead of seeing our relentless assaults on their defenseless population as a touching gesture of friendship of a kind of which only the kind hearted and generous American people are capable, they think we are trying to destroy their country.
Pakistani policy analysts are convinced that United States has been a duplicitous ally during the past seven years, using the sincere Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan to gradually turn that country into a military base to launch a sophisticated psychological, intelligence and military campaign to destabilize Pakistan itself.
The objective is to weaken the control of the Pakistani military over geographical Pakistan and ignite an ethnic and sectarian civil war leading to changing the status of Balochistan and NWFP, possibly even facilitate the break up of both provinces from the Pakistani federation.
I know that the reader, being a proud American and a supporter of Obama's bold plan to end the violence in Afghanistan by committing it in Pakistan (following the logical theory that if American soldiers are busy butchering Pakistani civilians, they will kill less Afghan civilians) is now sick with worry that this "resistance" by the "Pakistani army" and "the outraged reaction" from the "Pakistani government (as if there ever was such a thing since the British left) and the colonials of Pakistan will somehow derail our bold new initiative in the War on Terror and keep us from stopping 9/11, but have no fear, as we speak, our brave men and women in uniform are defending our freedom. And the best part is that we don’t even have to wait and pray for Obama to get into office to really escalate this righteous war! It turns out that the current stage in the conflict is merely phase one of a three phase plan to involve us in an unwinnable and criminal land war in Asia against a huge nuclear country which was once our most steadfast and valuable ally in the region. As NPR reports:
The plan calls for a much more aggressive military campaign, said one source, familiar with the presidential order, which gives the green light for the military to take part in the operations. The plan represents an 11th-hour effort to hammer al-Qaida until the Bush administration leaves office, two government officials told NPR.
"Definitely, the gloves have come off," said a source who has been briefed on the plan. "This was only Phase 1 of three phases."
The source also said that CIA personnel from around the world were being pulled into the Afghan-Pakistan border area, an intelligence-community "surge" to go after bin Laden and other al-Qaida figures.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress this week that he is drafting a new military strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But my personal favorite quote from this excellent story from NPR, the voice of the loyal opposition, is in regard to the questions being raised about this new strategy on Capitol Hill:
Both sources say those in the intelligence community and on Capitol Hill are raising questions about the political intent of this new aggressive stance.
"The question is," said one of the sources, "Why wasn't this done a year ago?"
Yes, why, why have we waited this long and let so many Pakistani children grow up without seeing the torn and mangled remains of their families? You got to love this country. A country where the liberal party calls fro aggression against an ally a year before the conservative party does. A country where the choice offered in a pivotal election is: "How quickly and with how many troops will our country commence another illegal war of aggression, and what the hell are we waiting for?" The answer, from the public on the left and the right, from the press, and from every politician of repute (sorry, Kucinich and Paul, go sit in the corner you wackos) is a resounding "Yeehaw!" And today we have our answer from the Pakistani side as well, so it looks like we got ourselves another good and righteous war on our hands. Now let's go out there and kill some bad guys.