It appears that Petraeus' insurgency advisor expresses similar concerns as I have over attacks inside of Pakistan. The commentary confuses me however, as the author tends to agree with Kilcullen (who's warnings dad posted earlier) over the negative impacts the strikes have for the Pakistani government but concludes by saying we should do things the old fashion way (face to face killing)? Stupid. "Face to Face killing" (humans in planes, ground troops, etc) will do nothing to quell the outrage the Pakistani people have over the violation of their sovereignty and civilian deaths. I don't think the benefit of honor in tribal eyes is worth the blatant escalation of military operations in Pakistan, something that will surely plunge it into chaos.
I think the only military operation that we should keep on the table in Pakistan is to destroy Pakistan's nuclear arsenal if the country were to fall into chaos. But I've already beat this drum.
What people need to realize is that Pakistan is the Center of Gravity, not the Talibani leadership. We need to focus our planning on strengthening their government and getting the people to become not necessarily pro-US, but anti-Taliban. If we can not develop a coherent strategy to do this (and by coherent I mean, we cannot simultaneously give them guns to support them, but then over rule their protests by bombing their country) then we will not be able to win the war on terrorism.
Yeah, I saw your Facebook comments and I was wondering what exactly you were getting at. I'm not sure I understand Killcullen's statements either. We've got more or less three options in Pakistan: Continue as we are, run away, or go in big. I feel like you do: who cares what the people think as regards fighting fair; war isn't about fighting fair, it's about winning (see Patton's famous quote). We are never going to win over the Taliban's support base in the NW territories of Pakistan. If Kilcullen is talking The Empty Suit into a massive invasion of Pakistan, then I guess I'm about to become a dove. We only attack Pakistan to remove nukes, as you say Melkor. We are punishing Al Qaeda with these drone attacks. Out of site, out of mind in the remoteness of the NW provinces, their policy of hiding in the population to protect themeselves is not working in a way it did in Iraq.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure arming the Pakistani army in a big way is a good answer either, because I think most of the arms would just end up in the hand of the Taliban because of all their sypmathizers in the ranks and leadership.
The way that the Taliban have been humiliating the Pakistani army shows that defeating that army would be a piece of cake. But, even worse than Iraq, the aftermath would be tough.
Running away will not solve the problem either. The population will not love us any more than they do now, but instead they will hate us and not fear us. Not a good situation.
So, keep popping the Al Qaeda scum, President Obama. You may get your third 'good job' post on the Robinson Talking Points if you do!
Killcullen isn't the one advocating for a larger invasion, that's the commentator (the idiot). Killcullen is saying the strikes are breeding more Taliban sympathy inside of Pakistan and as per your earlier post, he states that the stability of the Pakistani state should be our main focus.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the strikes are a good policy at all and would strongly urge against a "good job" post.
We could make the Pakistani Gov't look really good if we elaborately and showily acquiesce to their demands to stop the attacks. At that point, people (who wouldn't otherwise support the taliban, i.e. the non-fundamentalist crowd) are no longer sympathetic to the Taliban for standing up to the US but turn to their government. In addition, by removing us as a "foreign threat" we no longer give validation for the Taliban or their actions. The Taliban will continue to violate agreements made with the government and continue to attack non-fundamentalist centers. At the point we are no longer in the picture, the people will view the Taliban as the real threat and will demand their government to respond.
The problem with the current Pakistani Gov't actions is that the people are unwilling to commit to operations against the Taliban. They don't view it as their war, thus whenever the military suffers losses, it makes it very difficult for the Gov't to justify continued operations or, more importantly, to move critical forces along the Indian border (the "real enemy" in the eyes of the people) to combat the threat. The reason the gov't has only done half assed ops is because their is no legitimacy for their anti-taliban operations. The people need to shift, but we aren't going to do that by our continued strikes inside of their country.
The only critique of this is the success that the Taliban has had in non-fundamentalist areas based on a psuedo marxist redistribution of wealth strategy that is targeted at the desperately poor in Pakistan (this is what scared me so much when I wrote my second Pakistan update). This is reflective of a larger systemic problem with Pakistan itself and I don't know how well the Gov't will be able to reform in order to counter this strategy. Thus, even if we stop striking the taliban, its possible the people will continue to be sympathetic to the Taliban and not regain faith in their government.
Obviously, the only way to counter this is for the government to actually get aid and money to its poorer regions. Thus we return to the original question of how to strengthen the Pakistani Gov't. Aid going to poorer areas is perceptively stronger if it isn't accompanied by US strikes, we give the aid the greatest chance to succeed by stopping the attacks.
I doubt Obama is going to stop due to the need for him to remain strong on terrorism. Like Kennedy in Vietnam, he will need to look "tough" for a domestic audience, which is only going to land us into a devastating quagmire.
I agree. We should leave Pakistan alone so that the people wonder what the hell the Taliban are causing ruckus for. I don't really have any interesting insight though. Good article.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the downside of the Predator attacks is happening or is very plausible. However, right now, they're the only thing we've got and the only thing we're ever going to have. The Predators keep Al Qaeda and the Taliban off balance. Stopping will...let them get back on balance...keep their leadership intact...be portrayed as a victory by the Taliban and sold to the Pakistanis that way. The NW provinces are lost and won't be regained. The Taliban will then have completely free reign again, and the last time they got free reign, the Trade Centers came down...not New Delhi. You and Kilcullen are dreaming if you think that stopping will result in a turn-around for the people of Pakistan. So you are advocating stopping our one semi-effective option and offering a dream, at most, in return.
ReplyDeleteIt's a bad situation, but you and he have not come up with an answer that will result in anything good I don't think.
However, based on your opinions, I'll certainly refrain from awarding Obama a 'Good Job #3'!
Robinson Talking Points is all about a diversity of opinion, Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom!
The Taliban were supported by Pakistan for years as a type of "strategic reserve" in the event of a war with India and was well infiltrated by the ISI (Pakistani version of CIA) during the Soviet War in Afghanistan which then occasionally used them for terrorist operations against the Indians (which may still be going on into the present: See controversy of the Mumbai attackers). Pakistan was also only one of two countries to recognize the Taliban in Afghanistan as a legitimate government (the other being Saudi Arabia) and facilitated much of our negotiations with the Taliban before 9/11. There weren't attacks in Pakistan before 9/11.
ReplyDeleteThis is why Musharraf's decision to support the US was so controversial both within the gov't and without.
The problem with Taliban attacks currently is that they're coupled with US attacks. It's hard for people to say that attacks from people "not like us" are not more egregious than attacks from people "like us." Thus, even if Kilcullen is wrong and we haven't killed hundreds of civilians, people are prone to believe reports to the contrary from the Taliban or from conservative media outlets that we're slaughtering innocents. Minus US attacks however, Taliban attacks aren't obscured by our external threat.
Just like the surge in Iraq, the key to winning is not an increased capacity in US arms & material to kill terrorists, but the willingness of the people to stand and fight (Sunni Awakening). This is the ends that we should be tailoring our means to create. I don't think there are arguments in this thread that have shown that this isn't the case, or that some how increased UAV attacks assists us in getting closer to this end. Coupling UAV strikes with aid diminishes the value of such aid (to counter-act marxist appeals), and impairs the gov'ts ability to get the people to be willing to sustain the losses necessary to destroy the Taliban.
If I'm dreaming and the people of Pakistan will never be willing to do this (which I'm not saying is certain either, just saying its more likely this will happen without attacks than with), or it will be impossible for them to regain the NWFP than our remaining options are simple: leave or expand our level of attacks inside of Pakistan because UAV's certainly can't do it alone. If your argument is that we need to kill terrorists and that's the primary lens we need to be looking at Pakistan from, than your position isn't to keep up the UAV strikes; its for an escalation of our level and range of attacks in Pakistan.
Keeping them off balance is not a strategy to winning, its a strategy for those who don't know what to do. Who don't know the answer.
This thread is justification for this blog. What a great discussion!
ReplyDeleteI do agree 100% with your last paragraph. The Predators are a holding action, keeping the enemy off balance and unable to marshall his strength, but it's certainly not enough to ever defeat him, though not very many weeks ago there was an article out saying that the missile strikes had Al Qaeda on the verge of collapse, so they must have been doing some good. I don't believe they're on the verge of collapse, and of course it would hardly affect the Taliban at all. Still, it is somewhat effective, and is low cost in terms of American blood.
It's a holding action waiting for the right answer to a very difficult question. Maybe your answer is right, but I'm not convinced, and think that continuing the holding action until a better strategy is found is better than abandoning the holding action for a bad strategy.
Also, see Jeff's remarks about the Taliban in Pakistan before the War, and also, during the early phase of the war. And finally we got upset enough that we decided to do something about it. The Pakistanis weren't doing anything about the Taliban before the Predators and they don't appear capable of doing anything about them now, in fact, may be defeated by them. Maybe arming up the Pakistanis and ceasing the Predator attacks will motivate them to defeat the Taliban. That doesn't sound impossible, just hard to believe.
Also, this is an apples/oranges comparison to the Surge in Iraq: Americans were everywhere in the country ready for the contact that the Sunni tribes wanted to make once they finally got fed up with Al Qaeda (and we sure were there popping any Al Qaeda leader we could identify!). There won't be any Americans to turn to in Pakistan. Will the tribes trust the Pakistani army? I doubt it. Will the Pakistanis be in any position at all to help the tribes even if they wished to? I doubt that too.
I am not saying that using predators should be the end all and be all of America's policy towards Pakistan and the Taliban threat.
ReplyDeleteSo the predator attacks need to stop and the aid and training needs to continue. By doing this the Pakistan people will see the Taliban for what they are and turn against them. Unless America wants to completely take over the country they need to have the support of the local population in defeating the Taliban.
I saw a Fox News report that there were demostrations by the Pakistani people against the Taliban in the capital. So maybe there is outrage against the Taliban.
If the Pakistan government supported the Taliban before the American predator strikes then their support for the Taliban is not caused by civilian deaths from predator strikes. But maybe the attacks are preventing the Pakistani people from turning against the recent Taliban aggression.
I don't know if America stopped the killing of the terrorist in Iraq in order to garner the support of the Sunni, but maybe American wasn't killing the Sunni either.
Waiting for the Pakistan government and people to decided to get rid of the Taliban gives the Taliban time to plan terrorist attacks. I don't know the history or character of the Pakistani people so I don't if they will some how support or start liking America and turn against the Taliban. So in the mean time, I think keeping the terrorist off balance by taking them out is a good ideal until we can see if the Pakistan government is going to be willing or able to defeat the Taliban. Either Pakistan will be willing and able to defeat the terrorist and if not then America will have to decide if it is willing to do what is necessary to prevent a safe haven for the terrorist to plan and carry out attacks.
America is in two wars and I don't know if able to have any significant military operations in Pakistan so supporting the Pakistan government and using predators seems to me to be a good plan of action until we can see what the Pakistan government will do. But I don't know the effect that the strikes are having on the local population's support for the Taliban and I don't know if by not using the predators that this will cause the population to turn against the Taliban or support America.
This is a complex issue and I will have to read up on this in order to have any intelligent discussion on the subject.
Well Melkor, it looks like we're going to see your idea tested. I hope it works! If so, then Obama will get his first 'smart diplomacy' victory. And that'll be a good thing!
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