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Data Durbar - The target-in-waiting gets hit
The BBC is reporting 42 people died at the attack on Data Durbar shrine in Lahore last night.
During the last few months, everyone in Lahore would tell you it's just a matter of time before the place was bombed. The sufi Brehlvis who revere the place have been targeted before. And the Taliban spares no effort making the point that it doesn't approve of "shrine worship". The Taliban have hit shrines before. But they were smaller and in the northern Pashtun areas. Data Durbar on the other hand is a huge complex right in the middle of Lahore. It's a national icon. It is also difficult to police a place thronging with that many people at all hours of the day and night.
The attack comes less than a month after the Taliban attacked mosques in Lahore belonging to minority community that is seen as non-Muslim by he vast majority of Pakistanis. The attack on Data Durbar is a big step up the scale. This is a big, big deal. I would agree with the various respected analysts I have spoken to while in Pakistan who would say that the Taliban is trying to provoke sectarian warfare in Pakistan and then set themselves up as the protectors of the Sunnis.
But I wonder, if the Taliban are being prevented from realising their aims by the same thing that normally works for them; the Pakistani rumour mill. I have watched some Pakistani news channels on line. The line of questioning by the presenters seems to suggest, predictably, that the Indians/Israelis/CIA/Blackwater are being touted as the puppet masters as "obviously" they want to break up the country and that's what this kind of attack threatens to achieve. If the "real" perpetrators aren't Muslims, then that lessens the potential for communities turning on each other. But that's no reason to feel complacent. The communities being attacked have expressed anger that the section of Pakistan's religio political community sympathetic to the Taliban turn a blind eye when their people die. And I have heard leaders of these communities, in private conversation, talk about arming for "self defence".
I went to a very interesting conference earlier this week called Information Operations Europe. More than one speaker reminded the audience that al Qaeda's genius in part has been the placement of information and communication considerations at the heart of its activities. This is something other extremist outfits are learning too. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. My feeling is that the Taliban will hold back from doing so until they know whether confirmation will serve or damage their overall aims.
This would be a good time for the Pakistani state, or someone, to press home the point that this attack killed and maimed over a hundred Muslims, was carried out by people who claim to serve Islam and are Pakistanis (ie not Indians, Israelis etc) and targeted a site of worship, a national icon and somewhere that draws positive international attention to Pakistan. Unfortunately, the TV news I've seen has officials still repeating the "hidden hand" insinuation, which feeds into a sense of hostility, victimisation and tacit support for extremism.
UPDATE: It killed and maimed over a hundred people rather than hundreds of people.
Data Durbar:
"press home the point that
"press home the point that this attack killed and maimed hundreds of Muslims, was carried out by people who claim to serve Islam and are Pakistanis"
AMG the stupid it burns.
42 people. how many muslims have died over the past nine years in Afghanistan and Iraq?
200000? 300000? what is your estimate, Andrew?
The social network mass of people killed, wounded, made homeless, etc by AMERICANS in MENA swamps that drop in the bucket.
Im a sufi. we have always been persecuted. we are the jews of al-Islam.
when the fabric of culture and society gets shredded by war and occupation, the jews, the sufi, and the women always get the brunt of it.
bi la kayfah
Do you know what you could
Do you know what you could actually do, Andrew?
Use NGOs. Be subtle, be subversive, be opportunist and exploitive.
Its so much more fun to play soldier, but not effective...and it causes death. lots of death.
For example, take some of the drone funding and give to the PeerZada brothers to put on the annual Lahore International Arts Festival.
Now if you want to use memetic engineering and meme-warfare like al-Q does, you have to be a whole lot smarter.
And a whole lot more subtle.
Fund radio stations, tv stations, art festivals, youth programs, build mosques as well as schools.
Have a hiphop hour on al-Hurrah or whatever is the successor. I'll dj. ;)
Quit whining about why do they hate us and how awful Islam is.
We know why they hate us and Islam isn't awful.
Some avowed practicioners of al-Islam are awful.
But you are going to lose the meme-war to any groups that have al-Islam on their side, if you are anti-Islam.
You keep forgetting, Exum. We are the invaders.
If you actually took to the time to understand al-Islam instead of the Malkin/Spencer/Pipes Clash of Civilizations cartoon version, you could use enlist al-Islam to fight on your side. But al-Islam is all about justice. Might be a conflict.
As long as you conceive of al-Islam as your enemy you will lose the meme-war.
" how many muslims have died
" how many muslims have died over the past nine years in Afghanistan and Iraq?
200000? 300000?"
And now there's another 40 something to add to that list, many of which were killed by /other muslims, not americans/.
You should be ashamed of yourself, being a sufi, even if or if not part of this sect, for putting your outrage on 'occupation and war' when Pakistan is neither occupied nor at war (hell, the government there keeps signing peace treaties with the perpetrators of this attack), and for just throwing your hands up and saying 'its our lot to be persecuted'. Don't blame "destiny" or america, blame the near enemy thats /actually/ killing people!
I mean, really, if your reaction is at all typical of the reaction of pakistanis to this sectarian act of mass murder and intimidation, then the perpetrators are getting exactly what they want! Instead of mass anti-taliban demostrations, the americans are taking the blame.
Don't be too surprised one day when the blame shifts to the pakistani government, its overthrown, and something like the taliban comes to power and they just burn down the shrines and break up the sufi schools. MAYBE the refugess will be lucky enough to escape to India where they can practice openly like the other muslims and sufis there, but then again maybe the taliban will kill them before they get a chance.
(and the article was written, unless I have misunderstood, by Londonstani, not Mr. Exum.)
Oh pardon....I did mistake
Oh pardon....I did mistake the author.
"You should be ashamed of yourself, being a sufi,"
AMG like I haven't heard that before. I'm not that kind of sufi if you mean a fluffy meditation lovebunnie.
Im a sufi like Abd al-Qadir al-Jazai'rli. Look him up.
ONE: we are the invader/occupiers. everyone conveniently forgets that.
TWO: you can't divide and conquer the ummah, because of Bush's war on dar ul Islam. they trust us less than the Taliban. what did Iraq look like to the average person after the us invasion? what does afghanistan look like?
The only way COIN strats can work is to get al-Islam on your side. that means the rule of law we nuture must be rule of Islamic law, and democracies must be islamic democracies. as long as COIN is percieved by the Ummah as just a vector to deliver nasty creepy proselytizers and missionaries and democracywhiskeysexy ....muslims will prefer other muslims over the invaders even when they are being killed by other muslims.
If you go back to the origins of the Iraq invasion, its obvious that Bush was thinking instant mass conversion to xianity.
its that evangelical thing, the scourge of world peace.
"something like the taliban
"something like the taliban comes to power and they just burn down the shrines and break up the sufi schools"
and if that happens it will be YOUR fault, not mine.
Because you let a WEC president declare religious war without over questioning his motives or the IMPOSSIBILITY of the objective.
America built these reavers all by her bigself.
with operation ajax, and shah reza pah'lavi, and propping saddam and Mubarak and the Sauds and the rest of the coldwar tyrants.
Post 911, in abject pantswetting fear, we invaded MENA, bombed them and wrecked their social and physical infrastructure, and now we are whining about the reavers coming through the tears in the fabric of their ruined society to attack all us.
the taliban have ALWAYS tried to burn shrines and break up schools. that is what they do. like the christians that kill doctors and homosexuals and burn evolution books in America. there are two basic kinds of homo sapiens sapiens-- conservative minds and liberal minds. a functioning government maintains a tension between the two sides with the rule of law. we tore up the functioning government in Iraq.
and let the reavers out.
and Londonstani....you don't
and Londonstani....you don't get the ISI.
the ISI are just filling the Afghan moat with Taliban crocodiles.
Anything to keep the Americans from bring COIN to Pakistan.
Pakistan Army and ISI are
Pakistan Army and ISI are going to kick US butt.
Nobody likes a windbag.
Nobody likes a windbag. Post once if you have something to say. If you feel compelled to repeat something you've said many times before, just include a link to some past comment of yours.
In the here and now, Sufi's,
In the here and now, Sufi's, Christians and any other 'Kaffir' are being massacred by the same ideologues who carried out 911- fact. Blaming America may make people feel better and may sell more papers, but it only prolongs Pakistans agony by allowing the population to look away from the truth and make scapegoats. Or is Pakistan so feeble that they are always being cooerced by unknown dark forces, never able to chart their own course?
http://www.cbsnews.com/storie
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/01/world/main6636780.shtml
Interesting story... Perhaps the German's can teach the Afghan's and Paki's something?
If the Paki's and Afghan's re-wrote their constitutions to make Taliban, Al-Queda and extreme / fundamentalist Islam illegal and prohibit public displays of works or public support of extremism / terrorist ideology, then we may just have a start of salvaging the region.
Why doesn't someone place pressure on the President's of both countries to have them start legislation to make new law?
How would you like it, if I
How would you like it, if I stuck my big penis up your Arab ass, Rabi'a?
"How would you like it, if I
"How would you like it, if I stuck my big penis up your Arab ass, Rabi'a?"
nice.
im an american white grrl from an irish catholic family.
i reverted to Islam 2 years ago when i started studying arabic in college.
win a lot of hearts and minds that way do you?
Anal penetration will save
Anal penetration will save your virginity, thus saving it for Ahmad that fat, hairy, stingy Muslim guy from Egypt who will bear you many children and beat you up when you come back for more good old American anal penetration, ala Vivid porn.
@ Rabi'a I hope you find a
@ Rabi'a
I hope you find a good, pious Muslim man to beat you silly as written in the Koran.
Get this trash from 7:16 and
Get this trash from 7:16 and 10:33 off the blog. (and no I'm not Muslim, not that it matters. I'm headed for the sharp end of the conflict downrange)
Are you proud of being a
Are you proud of being a traitor, Raba?
Hey Rabi'a, Why don't you
Hey Rabi'a,
Why don't you move to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, and see for yourself how great being a Muslim wife is in Muslim lands. Can you say 'Wife Boxing'?
Comment by Visitor on July
Comment by Visitor on July 2, 2010 - 11:48pm
Get this trash from 7:16 and 10:33 off the blog. (and no I'm not Muslim, not that it matters. I'm headed for the sharp end of the conflict downrange)
You mean the U.S./Mexican border?
Rabi'a, I think it says a
Rabi'a, I think it says a lot about your cognitive skills that you went to college -- an institution for bolstering critical thinking -- and came out the other side at the opposite end of critical thought i.e. religious belief.
If you were born 60 years ago, you would have learned Russian and converted to Communism.
Happy 4th
Happy 4th
For some reason, the 2006
For some reason, the 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra comes to mind - but it's likely that attack was carried out with a different motivation in mind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/22/AR20060...
"This is as 9/11 in the United States," said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite and one of Iraq's two vice presidents."
It's still uncertain who was responsible in 2006, but they had an obvious goal, which was to increase tensions between Shia and Sunni groups. Initially, the insurgency against U.S. forces had been a more unified Iraqi affair. The al-Askari bombing was the culmination of a year-long rise in tensions after a series of assassinations of Shia leaders and bombings of Shia targets. You also had this:
"Two days earlier the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, vowed to wage an 'all-out war' on the country's Shia majority, calling its members collaborators of the 'Jews and Crusaders'." - Sept 2005
Zarqawi is an interesting case - the first time his name pops up is in Dec 2002 in association with the assassination of USAID employee Laurence Foley in 2002. Condi Rice says he's proof of a link between Saddam, Al Qaeda and 9/11 (Feb 2003), a claim repeated by Bush in Oct 2003. Hence, while Zarqawi was an Al Qaeda operative, he served an important propaganda role for Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney, as they attempted to make the case for removing Saddam and installing Paul Bremer's CPA. This elicited the following response from Saddam's government, Feb 2003:
We do not know Mr Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi. We do not know his whereabouts. And we continue to cooperate with the Jordanian authorities to put an end to his activities in Iraq.
BBC Friday, 7 February, 2003
You have to wonder if Zarqawi's propaganda role outlasted his life by some margin... and this fuels conspiracy propaganda in the Middle East. Such activities stink of Dick & Rummy, don't they?
You get the sense in Pakistan, however, that these are real Taliban attacks, intended to focus government concern on the central areas and the Indian border, anywhere but the Afghanistan - Pakistan border. However, the prior use of divide-and-conquer strategies in Iraq and the support of these strategies by think tanks and U.S. politicians (you can find many "divide Iraq" suggestions in the public record) has resulted in 'hidden hand' allegations over every new event - it's as if the propaganda strategy backfired on its original proponents.
gunboat. Sufis have been
gunboat.
Sufis have been historically persecuted within Islam.
And the sufi population is small....i guess you can say we are the intellectual elite of Islam.
The Taliban were doing the conservative, fundamentalist thing....killing intellectuals and liberals when they get the chance, burning down their schools.
Fundamentalists burn the ideological middleground to force moderates into their camp. (pascal boyer-- religion explained)
"which was to increase tensions between Shia and Sunni groups"
more likely al-Q than cheney because of their traditional affiliation with the sunni.
the US employment of Xe/Blackwater is another horribly non-cost viable strategy.
its compressed wax logs for the hidden hand fires.
Did you get your undergrad
Did you get your undergrad degree from the University of Phoenix, Rab?
I'd like to convert to Islam
I'd like to convert to Islam just so I can butt fuck ditzy, dumb white girl converts like Rabia, 4 at a time as provided for in the Koran. Then I'll hit them for not washing the dishes, again as provided for in the Koran. We should haul these idiots to Pakistan or Afghanistan so they understand what true Islam is all about.
Im kindof surprised that so
Im kindof surprised that so many people are ignorant about al-Islam still.
Do you get all your information from AEI, that wretched hive of JAFI scum and villany?
AEI is the Pipes/Malkin/Huntington/Spengler school of how horrible islam is.
That is why there is all the AEI hype about evuul Islam, and why Aayan Hirsi Ali gets six figures a year to bash al-Islam.
al-Islam is a religion just like xianity…for example the bombing and burning of a Sufi school?
That is what the Talis always do. The Taliban are conservative fundamentalists, like the xian religious right in America. The Sufis are the liberal intellectual elite of al-Islam…we dance, we drink wine, play music, and read the Qu’ran for ourselves. The Taliban will kill us and burn our schools whenevah they get the chance.
They have done it for centuries.
Just like the teabaggers would like to burn down liberal universities and kill the intellectuals and elites in this country.
But they can’t…because of the rule of law.
So the smart thing to do….is not engaging in religious (clash of cultures) war of the judeoxian west against a religion with nearly 2 billion adherents….but build sufi schools and mosques….fund the PeerZada brothers(Lahore international arts festival) in stead of the drone program….support islamic jurisprudence.....stuff like that.
If we are picking a fight with al-Islam on their own personal turf, we are going to get a righteous asswhupping.
Better to use ISLAMIC law to protect minorities and intellectuals, and develop a working relationship with Islam.
It would work better than what we are doing now.
"If we are picking a fight
"If we are picking a fight with al-Islam on their own personal turf, we are going to get a righteous asswhupping."
it's dubious there was ever a house of Islam, and there certainly isn't now. Also they picked the fight with us on our own personal turf. And got a righteous asswhuppin. The debate on near/far enemy within AQ was over to attack the apostate regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia or to attack the United States. The intent was to bring us to Afghanistan and then defeat us, then we would fall like the USSR did....not...working...yet....
"Better to use ISLAMIC law to protect minorities and intellectuals, and develop a working relationship with Islam.
It would work better than what we are doing now."
Protect minorities and intellectuals - from who, the Muslims?
Develop a working relationship with Islam: we are - it's called don't touch us or we're coming. To paraphrase Sheik Usama - the next one will be worse. And what we will do next when this COIN farce plays out will work better. For us. Not so good for Al Islam.
For know this, you fool: we have not yet used but a minuscule portion of our strength. As for the will to use it - just one more outrage and two elections away.
Thanks for the good intel on this bit: "Better to use ISLAMIC law to protect minorities and intellectuals, and develop a working relationship with Islam."
Yeah, I think we saw that coming from the UK, they flirted with it, and tossed it.
The internecine warfare
The internecine warfare between different Islamic sects is similar to the religious wars of Europe, the Protestant-Catholic-Puritan-Judaism splits, the repression of this group by that group, linked to this king or that king.
It was to escape such bull that the separation of Church and State was included in the U.S. Constitution, much to the ongoing dismay of certain fundamentalist churches in the U.S. who would prefer a Christian state modeled along the lines of modern Islamic states like Saudi Arabia.
Why is separation of church and state essential? Without it, the Bahai religion will continue to be repressed by the Iranian state, and the Saudi government will repress the Twelver Shia in their country in turn, while the Israeli state will treat all Islamic Arabs as second-class citizens at best, and the Egypt government will continue harassing Coptic Christians - it's a lot like the medieval era, isn't it?
To get out of that era, Islam should look to its own heritage, in particular, its scholastic tradition - drop the tenets of Al Qaeda in favor of those of Al Gebra. You also need some way to deal with people with other religions, other than "God's curse on all unbelievers", and it's nice if your own religion is secure from state persecution, too, isn't it? Separation of Mosque and State is good for both parties - why don't more Islamic countries consider it?
How about we air drop you in
How about we air drop you in the middle of Afghanistan, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, and you get raped by big, strong, smelly Muslim men, and we'll see how you like al-Islam then, Rab. al-Islam loves the women.
July 4th Londonstani...
July 4th Londonstani... Today we told your government to "suck it" 235 years ago. Viva la revolution!
We told Pakistan to "suck
We told Pakistan to "suck it" 235 years ago?
Londonstani hold's a British
Londonstani hold's a British Passport...... So I've been told.
Actually, I come from the
Actually, I come from the Independent Khanate of Wemblistan.. no one tells us to suck it.@Londonstani Germany 4 -
@Londonstani
Germany 4 - England 1. Revenge for Wembley 66 - served very cold ...
Suck it up ! ;-)
(at least England did better than Argentina ...)
Rabi'a, I think it says a
Rabi'a, I think it says a lot about your cognitive skills that you went to college -- an institution for bolstering critical thinking -- and came out the other side at the opposite end of critical thought i.e. religious belief.
If you were born 60 years ago, you would have learned Russian and converted to Communism.
+1
----
Cept to be specific, she'd probably be claiming she was a troskyist or maoist, or some obscure sect. Just to appear exotic and free-thinking. 30 years later there'd be a decent chance she'd turn into Norman Podhoretz or Michael Ledeen and raise the volume up to elevent!111!!11!! all over again due her inability to think below room temperature. The extra helping of suburban hipster dufus crap isn't helping either.
gunboat, the differnce is
gunboat, the differnce is they aren't HERE trying to change us, we are THERE trying to change them.
the difference between al-Islam and anglosaxon xianity is that Islam is local to MENA, and there is NO separation of church and law.
in MENA, the clergy ARE the lawyers.
That is why the Bush Doctrine was EPICFAIL from the start. The premise was that is that if there was self-representation for Iraqis, they would choose a semi-secular judeo-xian democracy. They can't, they won't ...its simply impossible.
There is no rule of law in MENA except islamic law. So there is shariah in the Iraqi constitution.
Colonialism imposed occidentalist dictators or monarchs....like Uncle Saddam was lol, and Ataturk.
But the Epic Fail Axiom of the Bush Doctrine is that "democracy promotion" in MENA doesn't lead to quasi-secular judeo-xian democracys....it leads to representative islamic states.
To put it in SNT terms, the RELIGIOUS influence of local networks is unchallenged by COIN.
COIN could work, if it exploited the religious component of local mosques and clergy, pre-built influence nodes and network structures.
But the military seems to have developed a pantswetting fear of Islam. Hard to exploit it when they're terrified of it.
;)
Soldiers are hurt in war.
Soldiers are hurt in war. But do they keep having to get hurt once they're home and trying to heal? Here's more evidence that VA hospitals can kill you. Ethic Soup has a good post on the VA Hospital in St. Louis that just sent out letters to 1,800 vets telling them that the hospital may have infected them with hepatitis and/or HIV by using contaminated dental instruments. Improper sterilization and almost 2,000 vets could have life-threatening disease:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2010/07/more-evidence-that-va-hospitals-can-kil...
Who's rooting for Paraguay
Who's rooting for Paraguay now?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/larissa-riquelme-lingerie_n_629...
Too bad they lost.
Too bad they lost.
The Bush Doctrine had
The Bush Doctrine had nothing to do with Islam, but I suppose if one was running nationalist propaganda for some Middle Eastern interest or other, you wouldn't want to talk about the economics either. The Bush Doctrine (the Cheney Energy Task Force / PNAC doctrine) was all about controlling Middle Eastern and Central Asian oil and gas supplies, period.
This has nothing to do with whatever religion you happen to espouse - if the oil and gas wasn't there, the Middle East and Central Asia would attract as much interest as Botswana does.
Killing for religious and ideological reasons - and out of fear - is apparently more acceptable than killing for economic reasons, hence the reluctance of any side in such conflicts to acknowledge the obvious...
It's called resource warfare, the leading theme in conflict in the 21st century, and it's not just about oil. For example, if Pakistan and India nuke each other, it won't be over religion - it'll be over who gets access to the Indus River.
Bush Doctrine--"the
Bush Doctrine--"the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a potential or perceived threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate; a policy of spreading democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating terrorism; and a willingness to pursue U.S. military interests unilaterally."
And COIN is a patch on the Epic Fail of the Bush Doctrine in MENA.
obviouso
I don't want to wade into
I don't want to wade into the substance of this, but for what it's worth: Rabi'a, using words like "evuh", "evuul", and "bigself" in an an adult discussion makes you sound like a fourteen year old on a sugar rush. It makes me want to gouge my own eyes out.
I don't want to wade into
I don't want to wade into the substance of this, but Rabi'a: when you use words like "evuh", "evuul" and "sowwy" in an adult discussion it makes you sound like a fourteen year old on a sugar rush. Take a deep breath and please, please stop.
Rabi'a, New NBER study
Rabi'a,
New NBER study confirms your point about civilian casualties creating new enemies.
I don't think this completely invalidates drone war, but it possibly constrains how it should be employed.
e.g. You would have to limit your hits to key, high-value targets, that are not easily replaced.
Or you have to develop more precise forms of weaponry, such as high velocity rounds rather than high explosive.
An example of this might be an RPV sniper platform.
This would greatly reduce the collateral damage problem.
Spock, after considerable
Spock, after considerable cogitation....i have concluded COIN is dead in Afghanistan unless Petraeus has conjured a way to bricolage islamic (clergy/lawyers/government types) nodes and networks into his strategy.
I think we be folding our tents now....talks with the Taliban will ensue, and we will take our broken teeth and empty pocketbooks and silently steal away......certainly sadder and sadly probably not much wiser.
;)
"Just like the teabaggers
"Just like the teabaggers would like to burn down liberal universities and kill the intellectuals and elites in this country."
Frankly, Rabia, sentence like this proves that you live in some parallel universe. Burn and kill? WTF?
Broke is the thing. The
Broke is the thing.
The greatest immediate risk to the West is economic decline, I think.
Military spending is a very tempting thing to rein in.
Broke is the thing. The
Broke is the thing.
The greatest immediate risk to the West is economic decline, I think.
Military spending is a very tempting thing to rein in.
Rabi, you're refusing to
Rabi, you're refusing to discuss the obvious, making me wonder what your real agenda is. You claim that Bush Doctrine is:
"the controversial policy of preventive war..."
That's bullshit. The Bush Doctrine was the Cheney Doctrine, or rather the Project For A New American Century Doctrine - written by a bunch of Cold Warriors who refused to accept that the end of the Cold War meant the end of superpowers, and instead turned to a neocolonial "to the victors go the spoils" mentality. Russia lost the Cold War, the thinking goes, so Russia should lose control of Central Asian oil - and of course, the Middle East is an American protectorate - dollars only, please! No euros for oil, thank you!
The fig leaf of "preventive war" was based on deliberate lies about Iraqi WMDs. The real doctrine was war for oil. Saddam was helpless and contained, militarily, but he was economically uncooperative, so Woolsey and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Chalabi cooked up a bunch of lies about Iraqi WMDs.
They also failed to capture bin Laden in Afghanistan (I think this was a deliberate failure engineered by Rummy and Cheney - bin Laden in a prison cell would not have been good for their Iraq adventure), and they then neglected Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to retake much of the country. When things didn't go their way in Iraq, they started a nasty torture, assassination and false flag terrorism campaign in Iraq to break up the joint Shia-Sunni insurgency - almost sparking a civil war, and allowing Iran to move in to Iraq in a big way. In fact, it seems that Iran, in the long run, will be the biggest beneficiary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq!
Cheney and Rumsfeld are thus war criminals who prosecuted an illegal war based on lies about WMDs - and incompetent, too, as they allowed the Taliban to regain power. That's an incontrovertible fact, isn't it?
gunboat, thing one.....they
gunboat, thing one.....they did believe in the WMDs. But Uncle Saddam was faking them to spoof the Iranians.
the thinktank guys work off of maths. After they muffed the OBL grab the kepler-trigo threat/risk matrix popped up Uncle Saddam as the next biggest threat that was the logical choice for nationbuilding.
Cheney and Rumsfeld (and Rove) were out for war profitteering and maintaining a republican political hegemony. GW lost the popular vote and got only a 5 ec margin in 2000. War is good for republicans.
But the Bush Doctrine and COIN have the same flawed heart. Western hubris that when people are empowered to selfgoven they will choose quasi-secular judeoxian style democracy. The BD was attempted nationbuilding, and COIN ditto. I thought we didn't do nationbuilding?
In MENA, the people (muslim people) won't vote for . The people will vote for more Islam, not less.
So making al-Islam the adversary in MENA turned the Bush Doctrine and COIN into "impossibility" problems.
It simply can't be done.
So...you guys were sukkered. It is sad to see that whole carreers have been devoted to executing on an impossible order.
That is what happened to McC.
And I have evolved my model on the spot. I started this discussion with the opinion that drones were counter-productive to COIN.
I see now that Bush Doctrine -based COIN, can simply never work in MENA.
bi la kayfah
"The people will vote for
"The people will vote for more Islam, not less."
In the first elections, maybe. But if Iraq is any indication, combination of Islam and politics produces a corrupt and power-hungry clergy, which attempts to hide its misdeeds behind cloak of religion. If - and this is a big IF - the people are allowed to vote freely again in 4 years, the support for religious parties is eroded.
In Iraq, elections of 2010 clearly showed increasing popularity of secular approach.
This is not anything new under the sun, the same painful process of separation of church and state took place in Europe in the 19th and early 20th century. Eventually, even the most pious people had to accept the fact that too close relation of religion and politics corrupts the former beyond reasonable levels, and that it is in their interest to have the two separated.
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