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What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

nytimes.com

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Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#11

Post by firstOrder »

...and the US government does and always has supported the right wingers in Pakistan who are bemoaned in this article. Who do you think the US supported - the PPP and the Bhuttos? The PPP, whose founding manifesto was written by the self-described communist Jalaludin Abdur Rahim? These right wing ISI generals and military establishment with ties to religious fundamentalism have always been who the US backed - going back to the 1960s and up to today.

Also, speaking of the boogeyman of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan never could have afforded to back bin Laden and the nascent Taliban and Al Qaeda. It's the US who bankrolled the mujahideen's war against Afghanistan's PDPA government, and sent billions of dollars to flow through ISI's hands into the madrassas in an attempt to oust the secular PDPA government from Afghanistan.

Nothing has changed either. The US government still backs, as it has always backed, governments like Saudi Arabia, a country where women can't drive, and opposed secular, vaguely pan-Arab socialist Nasserite governments like Libya, Iraq and Syria.

It's a strange news article that points fingers at the people running Pakistan, as if they could successfully defy the United States. They're exactly who the US wants in there, to oppose the PPP, cause friction with India etc.

It's strange how Americans don't know that via the ISI the U.S. armed and bankrolled Osama bin Laden to help overthrow Afghanistan's secular government. Then I guess Americans were shocked to learn that bin Laden didn't appreciate the US militarily occupying his country for a decade. One well planned suicide mission solved that problem for him, when 9/11 happened, Bush withdrew troops from Saudi Arabia almost as fast as Reagan pulled troops out of Lebanon.

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#12

Post by enscr »

Agree with : This is perhaps an unpopular opinion, but to pull out now is, undeniably, to leave with the job only half-done

It amazes me to think about how can people be so radically different, based on their upbringing. Sometimes I give up thinking and accept the fact that what seems correct & logical to you may be absolute nonsense in another part of the world. Being born in the right place is a BIG privilege. It's something you can't simply appreciate by not being there physically.

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#14

Post by tptacek »

firstOrder wrote: post #11

...and the US government does and always has supported the right wingers in Pakistan who are bemoaned in this article. Who do you think the US supported - the PPP and the Bhuttos? The PPP, whose founding manifesto was written by the self-described communist Jalaludin Abdur Rahim? These right wing ISI generals and military establishment with ties to religious fundamentalism have always been who the US backed - going b…

What does this have to do with anything? The US does not bankroll the ISI. The US is in an undeclared war with the ISI.

My guess is 100% of HN readers know about the US's role in bankrolling the Afghan insurgency, using a terrible Pakastani dictator as a vector. There are no good guys in that story: the Soviet occupation was horrifically violent and repressive, and there was never any chance that the Afghani warlords who replaced them would form a just and stable government. The state of Pakistan is one of the most paranoid and aggressive in the world, owing to a longstanding and seemingly permanent conflict between their giant neighbor to the east; not least because the state of Pakistan was in part a reaction to genocidal violence against Muslim Indians.

There are no good guys in the history of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now what?

Prior to World War 2, the US forcibly annexed territory and orchestrated the mass murder of Native Americans. How does this factor into your consideration of Nazi Germany?

If you're looking for good guys in any of these stories, you're thinking wrong.

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#16

Post by wdvh »

tptacek wrote: post #14
firstOrder wrote: post #11

...and the US government does and always has supported the right wingers in Pakistan who are bemoaned in this article. Who do you think the US supported - the PPP and the Bhuttos? The PPP, whose founding manifesto was written by the self-described communist Jalaludin Abdur Rahim? These right wing ISI generals and military establishment with ties to religious fundamentalism have always been who the US backed - going b…

What does this have to do with anything? The US does not bankroll the ISI. The US is in an undeclared war with the ISI. My guess is 100% of HN readers know about the US's role in bankrolling the Afghan insurgency, using a terrible Pakastani dictator as a vector. There are no good guys in that story: the Soviet occupation was horrifically violent and repressive, and there was never any chance that the Afghani warlords…

Please, Pakistan is warlike and aggressive because they have been manipulated by the US into believing they can take on India (with US support).

> genocidal violence against Muslim Indians.

What's this about? Partition killed as many Hindus and Sikhs as Muslims and pre-Independence India had little communal violence that wasn't explicitly fomented by the British in order to serve their own ends.

If you're so well read in south asian history, you should also know that there are more muslims in India than in Pakistan and that pretty much none of them would like to switch places with their Pakistani siblings.

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#17

Post by olenhad »

As a Pakistani I find this report alarming. However I also believe that the situation, especially the army's view of the Taliban, in particular groups under the TTP, has drastically changed. The TTP's brazen attacks on the Pakistani military in recent months have prompted the army to respond with force. In particular, the army actually is waiting for the govt's green light to clean up North Waziristan. It recently launched air strikes [1] on Taliban positions, and until a couple of weeks ago a full scale military operation similar to the a successful one conducted in Swat in 2009 seemed imminent.

Ironically though the Sharif administration is not entirely in favour of an operation. Some of the complexities include the fact that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is governed by PTI which disagrees with a military operation entirely.

Currently there is a shaky ceasefire between the govt and the TTP. However a new splinter group called Aharar-ul-Hind, forked off from the TTP and carried out a daring attack on a court in Islamabad a few days back [2].

Interestingly enough, the new TTP chief Maulana Fazlullah is supposedly based in Afghanistan, and there is a worrying, ironic prospect of TTP raids from Afghanistan into Pakistan after NATO withdrawal.

1. http://edition.cnn.com/2014/02/25/world/asia/pakistan-airstr... 2. http://www.geo.tv/article-139849-TTP-splinter-faction-Ahrar-...

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#18

Post by tptacek »

wdvh wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this have to do with anything? The US does not bankroll the ISI. The US is in an undeclared war with the ISI. My guess is 100% of HN readers know about the US's role in bankrolling the Afghan insurgency, using a terrible Pakastani dictator as a vector. There are no good guys in that story: the Soviet occupation was horrifically violent and repressive, and there was never any chance that the Afghani warlords…

Please, Pakistan is warlike and aggressive because they have been manipulated by the US into believing they can take on India (with US support). > genocidal violence against Muslim Indians. What's this about? Partition killed as many Hindus and Sikhs as Muslims and pre-Independence India had little communal violence that wasn't explicitly fomented by the British in order to serve their own ends. If you're so well rea…

Sorry, I was wrong. The government of Pakistan are the good guys.

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#19

Post by unsupak »

Mainstream media with its uncorroborated sources, strategic, timed, unsubstantiated and anonymous "leaks", often serving the interests of lobby groups policy makers, think tanks and intelligence agencies is hard to be believed. Even if the writer as good at the art of writing.

Re: What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden

#20

Post by rrrazdan »

tptacek wrote: post #14
firstOrder wrote: post #11

...and the US government does and always has supported the right wingers in Pakistan who are bemoaned in this article. Who do you think the US supported - the PPP and the Bhuttos? The PPP, whose founding manifesto was written by the self-described communist Jalaludin Abdur Rahim? These right wing ISI generals and military establishment with ties to religious fundamentalism have always been who the US backed - going b…

What does this have to do with anything? The US does not bankroll the ISI. The US is in an undeclared war with the ISI. My guess is 100% of HN readers know about the US's role in bankrolling the Afghan insurgency, using a terrible Pakastani dictator as a vector. There are no good guys in that story: the Soviet occupation was horrifically violent and repressive, and there was never any chance that the Afghani warlords…

The US funds or gives aid to the Pakistani State. The Pakistani state diverts its own money to fund the ISI. So the US does bankroll ISI.

Pakistan is not really one of the most paranoid and aggressive in the world. And that is coming from an Indian here. It is much more civilized than many nations and has much of the institutions that make a modern nation. Just that the military and religious extremism( which incidentally was helped along the way by a desperate general who wanted to hold on to power) has destroyed the idea of the state.

The longstanding conflict with us, is fueled by the United States, who in their quest to have an ally in the region against perceived Russian expansion to the Persian Gulf supported successive military regimes against a presumed 'communist' but democratic India. The United States, replaced a reformist and yes a repressive government, with the most regressive government anywhere in the world in Afghanistan in 1991. And didn't care about it till 9/11. The hindsight of history tells us that maybe communist totalitarianism is what the country needed to break hundreds of years of warlordism.

Maybe what US does on the whole balances out their excesses here. Maybe stopping the spread of communism and totalitarianism required this. But looking at it at a theatre level, US policy in the region has been short sighted and should have been directed at promoting democracy in Pakistan. Not in helping the military. Along with being short sighted it has also been hypocritical. And that is what makes it sad.

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