The information in short based on reports:
- 92,000 documents dating back to 2004 were released by the whistle-blowers’ website Wikileaks.
- They allege that Iran is providing money and arms to Taliban.
- There are details about how widespread corruption is hampering a nine-year war.
- New York Times becomes the keeper of morals and analyses “in mosaic detail why, after US spent almost $300 billion on the war, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001”.
- The Guardian paints “a devastating portrait of the failing war”.
Formally, the US says it is concerned about the safety of its soldiers. If that were the case, it would not have sent them in the first place. How many strikes have been conducted by the Taliban against the US and how many against its own people? How many civilians have died in the drone attacks and how many militants in the American war on terror? If the reports are to be believed, then the money the US is spending is not going to the right place for the right cause. What sort of corruption is taking place? It has to be within the establishment.
Iran’s role has to be considered with some degree of scepticism. The US has been gunning for Iran for a while now and needs a strategic reason to attack it.
According to the Times, Pakistan agents and Taliban meet regularly “in secret strategy sessions to organise networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.”
The ISI works on its own most of the time, therefore what worries the White House is that its partnership with Pakistan’s democrats and Afghan democrats, both set up by Big Brother, have not been as successful as it had hoped. Clearly, American foreign policy makers do not understand that the Pathan belt and people are not Zardaris and Karzais.
Pakistan’s envoy to US, Husain Haqqani, said the leaks consisted of “unprocessed” field reports that “do not reflect onground realities”.
It just does not matter. There is bound to be a slip between the cup and the lip but they aren’t too far from each other. The fact is that despite elections and an elected government in Afghanistan, there are documents pertaining to an Afghan war. The question is: whose war is it and why?
The "Leak" is more like a fire-hose and like any good fire-hose, is well positioned and strategically located. This opens all sorts of possibilities for escalation and expansion of the war to the next level. One report points to the Taliban having heat seeking missiles - thus justifying the use of high altitude carpet bombing - Americans have realized the only way to the victory is by killing everyone. The timing of the "leak" hardly seems coincidental, one wonders if it isn't a part of the new strategy. Than there is this small matter of "teaching Pakistan a lessen" which given all the military and technological superiority, Americans still have to figure out - made increasingly difficult due to the co-dependency of the American imperialist interests and those in the Pakistani military and political elite with a highly skeptical populace in the middle. But more than that, the leaks are what the yellow cake and the mushroom cloud were, a pretense to exert military force - with the New York Times being the common link as the independent arbitrator of the truth behind the smoke screen. We know what happened than - Judith Miller sent to prison for 90 days. So this time around, the inside leak had to be exported to prevent unnecessary imprisonment of an embedded journalist. The only lingering question is, will there be a Pulitzer prize ... this time around.
ReplyDeleteWell analysed. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI don;t think there is room for a Pulitzer, but I see a Nobel Peace Prize being negotiated for the subcontinent after 'peace' has been bought, not brought, following large-scale devastation.
This just got a little bit more hilarious with US government urging WikiLeaks to not to publish any more secrets in the interests of National Security. Here is the Yahoo news link : http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100731/364/twl-us-urges-wikileaks-to-not-publish-mo_1.html
ReplyDeleteAs if published in "The Onion" .
Cheers,
Mahesh.
Farzana,
ReplyDeleteAddendum to my earlier post :
Have a Nice of "whatever is left of it" weekend.
Cheers,
Mahesh.
Hi Mahesh:
ReplyDeleteIt looks like this is the silly season that can, unfortunately, have drastic repercussions outside of the opps, I slipped gallery.
A friend has sent a few links that might be of some interest:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/ma-hes-looking-at-me-funny/
about a media mogul (Mort Zuckerman) doing his version of Breitbart by
quoting half of a sentence from an Obama speech to give the exact opposite
impression to what the full sentence does,
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/28/newt-gingrich-plays-loose-
with-the-facts-to-bash-muslims/
about Newt Gingrich lying about Muslims in the US,
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/28/caddell_schoen_obama
_race_baiting/
about rightwing democrats accusing Obama of being divisive,
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024935.php
about Fox promoting a modern poll tax (only people who pay the federal
income tax should be allowed to vote)
PS: Please remember to wish me 'Haf a naas Jumma' from now on :)You enjoy your Sunday, sodden as it appears to me from my window.
So FV has nothing to say about her country's intelligence service, the ISI, supporting the taliban. Of course, we know she's always been a closet islamist...she even told us the taliban blowing up the bamiyan buddhas wasn't a big deal because there are no Buddhists in afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you doing in FV's closet, hanh?
ReplyDeleteAs far as FV knows Indian Science Institute has got nothing to do with the Taliban...although it is rather magnanimous of you to imagine she would have anything to do with any 'intelligence'.
FV has also said that the Babri Masjid demolition had, for her, less significance as a destruction of a mosque and more due to the pugnacious motives of the Hindutva parties in making Muslims answerable; she has stated that it was an unused mosque and commented on the deviousness of its opening. She is more into people than structures. She does not like playing doctor-doctor with statues and she has not reneged on her position when she first stated what she did about the Bamiyan Buddhas; in fact, she repeated it in her book where it has been imprinted forever, since no one thought of burning it and making her famous!
FV is touched by Arjun's record-keeping of her stand on various issues, however, and as she knows she can depend on him to fish out something for her as and when required, inshallah.