Virgil
09-06-2008, 08:50 AM
http://counterpunch.org/leupp09062008.html
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Weekend Edition
September 6 / 7, 2008
A Precursor to More War Crimes?
The September 3 Attack on Pakistan
By GARY LEUPP
In the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, September 3, three U.S. helicopters carrying U.S. Special Operations Forces swooped down onto the Pakistani village of Musa Nika, in South Waziristan, killing fifteen to twenty people according to early reports. The U.S. press noted that this is the first known ground assault of U.S. troops in Pakistan. The provincial governor said twenty civilians including women and children were killed. The Foreign Minister denounced the attack, declaring that “no important terrorist or high-value target” was hit. The chief spokesman for the Pakistani Army registered its “strong objection.” Gen. Athar Abbas declared that the attack could provoke a general rebellion of local tribes against his government, and threaten NATO supply lines from Karachi into Afghanistan. The Foreign Minister angrily declared that “no important terrorist or high-value target” was hit. The U.S. ambassador was summoned to receive Islamabad’s official protest.
This is heavy stuff. But this news got sidelined by the star coverage conferred by the mainstream media on Sarah Palin, whose ringing oration, dripping with ignorance and contempt for the world, brought down the house Wednesday night in that celebration of stupidity in St. Paul. That speech, authored by George W. Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully for whatever vice presidential candidate McCain selected, asserted among other things that Bush’s “surge” had prevented al-Qaeda from taking over Iraq. The message is clear: all U.S. military action is designed to protect the U.S. from al-Qaeda terror.
Why would the mainstream media, pronouncing “a star is born,” want to highlight the little news story about remote Waziristan? Palin was splashed all over the front page of the Boston Globe on Thursday; the Pakistan story was on page A-3. On Friday a follow-up AP story made page A-26. It emphasized how the raid had “complicated life for presidential front-runner Asif Ali Zardari.”
But this largely ignored event holds potentially horrifying significance. “Top American officials” have told the New York Times that this raid “could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months within President Bush’s war council.” The plan of course enjoys the support of John McCain, who never met a warlike action he didn’t like, as well as his opponent in the presidential race. Barack Obama has been saying for over a year that is the U.S. has “actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets” in Pakistan and the chance to hit them, it should do so. The hell with Pakistani sovereignty! Why should such a detail matter after “we were attacked”?
Why should the outraged opposition of the Pakistani government constitute a major news story? Pakistan’s only a nuclear-armed Muslim country of 165 million people, which has at great cost to itself agreed---under duress, indeed the threat of being “bombed back into the Stone Age”---to abet U.S. objectives in neighboring Afghanistan. It’s just a country that having helped create and nurture the Taliban in order to stabilize Afghanistan, broke with that organization at the demand of the U.S. in 2001 and then found its frontier provinces flooded with Islamist militants fleeing across the border.
According to a White House “fact sheet” issued in August 2007:
o Pakistan has worked closely with the United States to secure the arrest of terrorists like Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, Abu Zubaydah, and Ramzi bin al Shibh. Pakistan has killed or captured hundreds of suspected and known terrorists, including Mullah Obaidullah, who ranked second in the Taliban hierarchy at the time of his capture.
o About 100,000 Pakistani troops are deployed in the region near the Afghan border, and hundreds of Pakistani security forces have given their lives in the battle to combat terrorism post-9/11.
o Pakistan provides vital logistical support to coalition forces in Afghanistan.
o President Musharraf has a comprehensive strategy that combines three critical components--strengthened governance, increased economic development, and improved security--aimed at eradicating extremism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
<snipped>
=================
Weekend Edition
September 6 / 7, 2008
A Precursor to More War Crimes?
The September 3 Attack on Pakistan
By GARY LEUPP
In the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, September 3, three U.S. helicopters carrying U.S. Special Operations Forces swooped down onto the Pakistani village of Musa Nika, in South Waziristan, killing fifteen to twenty people according to early reports. The U.S. press noted that this is the first known ground assault of U.S. troops in Pakistan. The provincial governor said twenty civilians including women and children were killed. The Foreign Minister denounced the attack, declaring that “no important terrorist or high-value target” was hit. The chief spokesman for the Pakistani Army registered its “strong objection.” Gen. Athar Abbas declared that the attack could provoke a general rebellion of local tribes against his government, and threaten NATO supply lines from Karachi into Afghanistan. The Foreign Minister angrily declared that “no important terrorist or high-value target” was hit. The U.S. ambassador was summoned to receive Islamabad’s official protest.
This is heavy stuff. But this news got sidelined by the star coverage conferred by the mainstream media on Sarah Palin, whose ringing oration, dripping with ignorance and contempt for the world, brought down the house Wednesday night in that celebration of stupidity in St. Paul. That speech, authored by George W. Bush speechwriter Matthew Scully for whatever vice presidential candidate McCain selected, asserted among other things that Bush’s “surge” had prevented al-Qaeda from taking over Iraq. The message is clear: all U.S. military action is designed to protect the U.S. from al-Qaeda terror.
Why would the mainstream media, pronouncing “a star is born,” want to highlight the little news story about remote Waziristan? Palin was splashed all over the front page of the Boston Globe on Thursday; the Pakistan story was on page A-3. On Friday a follow-up AP story made page A-26. It emphasized how the raid had “complicated life for presidential front-runner Asif Ali Zardari.”
But this largely ignored event holds potentially horrifying significance. “Top American officials” have told the New York Times that this raid “could be the opening salvo in a much broader campaign by Special Operations forces against the Taliban and Al Qaeda inside Pakistan, a secret plan that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has been advocating for months within President Bush’s war council.” The plan of course enjoys the support of John McCain, who never met a warlike action he didn’t like, as well as his opponent in the presidential race. Barack Obama has been saying for over a year that is the U.S. has “actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets” in Pakistan and the chance to hit them, it should do so. The hell with Pakistani sovereignty! Why should such a detail matter after “we were attacked”?
Why should the outraged opposition of the Pakistani government constitute a major news story? Pakistan’s only a nuclear-armed Muslim country of 165 million people, which has at great cost to itself agreed---under duress, indeed the threat of being “bombed back into the Stone Age”---to abet U.S. objectives in neighboring Afghanistan. It’s just a country that having helped create and nurture the Taliban in order to stabilize Afghanistan, broke with that organization at the demand of the U.S. in 2001 and then found its frontier provinces flooded with Islamist militants fleeing across the border.
According to a White House “fact sheet” issued in August 2007:
o Pakistan has worked closely with the United States to secure the arrest of terrorists like Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, Abu Zubaydah, and Ramzi bin al Shibh. Pakistan has killed or captured hundreds of suspected and known terrorists, including Mullah Obaidullah, who ranked second in the Taliban hierarchy at the time of his capture.
o About 100,000 Pakistani troops are deployed in the region near the Afghan border, and hundreds of Pakistani security forces have given their lives in the battle to combat terrorism post-9/11.
o Pakistan provides vital logistical support to coalition forces in Afghanistan.
o President Musharraf has a comprehensive strategy that combines three critical components--strengthened governance, increased economic development, and improved security--aimed at eradicating extremism in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
<snipped>