2012, here we come

What will be fun about the primary race, assuming it ever heats up, will be watching GOP presidential candidates leveling these attacks against their frontrunner. I picked this cartoon up at a well knownconservative website, Free Republic.

Philadelphia, Mississippi

The town appeared in this blog only a few weeks ago. How shocking and sad, then, to hear of the devastation that God has wrought there.

And there it is

Only took two weeks:

China has agreed to immediately provide 50 JF-17 fighter jets to Pakistan, a major outcome of a visit by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to Beijing this week, Pakistani officials said Thursday.

China and Pakistan have jointly produced the JF-17 aircraft, but the new planes would be equipped with more sophisticated avionics, the officials said. The latest jet fighters would be paid for by China, they said. [...]

Mr. Gilani’s visit to Beijing served as a pointed reminder of Pakistani suggestions that the government might seek to recalibrate relations with the United States, using China to offset what many here view as an overdependence on Washington. [...]

Animal torture in "Water for Elephants"

Next time you see "no animals were harmed during the making of this film" on film credits, think again.

Movie star electric shocked from Animal Defenders on Vimeo.

China and Pakistan

From an exceedingly thoughtful if occasionally problematic post-Bin Laden-execution piece in The National Interest by the New America Foundation and King College's Anatol Lieven.

Instead of economic pressure, what has been widely advanced as a means of U.S. coercion is a radical reduction in military aid to Pakistan. [...]

The problem here can be summed up in one word: China; for Pakistan is in fact China’s only real ally in the world, and energy land routes through Pakistan are regarded in Beijing as an important insurance against the possibility of U.S. or Indian naval blockade of the sea lanes from the Persian Gulf. Nonetheless, in recent years, Beijing has seemed to take a very cautious approach to Afghanistan and Pakistan, largely (or so I have been told by well-informed Chinese sources) because the Chinese government has genuinely not been sure how to proceed, given the hideous complexity of the issues, fear of antagonising the U.S., lack of confidence in the Pakistani state and economy, and its own concerns about Islamist militancy.

However, Chinese investment in Pakistani infrastructure has been considerable, and Chinese supplies of arms to Pakistan have also been growing steeply. Since the death of Bin Laden, however, Chinese statements have emphasised their support for Pakistan and their appreciation for Pakistan’s antiterrorism efforts. This raises the strong possibility that any reduction in U.S. help to Pakistan will simply be matched by an increase in Chinese help. That at least is the hope of the Pakistani establishment, and they may well be right. [...]

What then should Washington do? Firstly—unless, once again, there was a secret deal with the Pakistani military over Bin Laden—military assistance to Pakistan should be reduced as a sign of acute displeasure. Secondly, to try to ward off rivalry with China over Pakistan, the United States needs to begin intensive talks with Beijing on the subject of Pakistan, on the same level and with the same seriousness as those concerning North Korea.

In these talks, the U.S. side should stress that the U.S. and China share strong interests in maintaining Pakistan as a successful state, but among those interests are that Pakistan cooperate in preventing international terrorism—terrorism of which China itself is bound to be a victim in the long term, just as the United States eventually suffered from its appallingly misguided support for the Afghan Mujahedin and their Arab radical allies in the 1980s.

Finally, both Pakistan and China need to be told the following, very firmly indeed: A restrained U.S. response to the location of Bin Laden and the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 has only been possible because no successful terrorist attack based from Pakistan has in fact yet struck the United States. [...] If after what has now been revealed about Bin Laden’s location, the United States does suffer a major Pakistan-based attack, then all the political and moral constraints on U.S. retaliation against Pakistan which I outlined above will fly out of the window.

Intriguing quote

The Washington Post ran a poll of Virginia voters just before the Bin Laden death announcement, in which voters split 48% for the President and 46% for Romney Afterwards, Obama beat him 51 to 44. That's a net improvement of 7 points.

But this was what caught my eye:

The question heading into next year’s presidential election is whether the electorate will look more like the one that voted for Obama in 2008 or the one that showed up in 2010. The Post poll shows that the coalition of voters who turned out for Obama in 2008 is willing, at least in the wake of the bin Laden announcement, to consider doing so again.

“It reaffirmed my decision to vote for him in the first place,” said Kim Bentley, 29, a technology worker from Virginia Beach who is registered as an independent and leans Republican.

Even people who voted against Obama — and are likely to do so again — said they view him in a more favorable light now.

“Ever since Osama got killed, his speeches have been very authoritative,” said Michael Moran, 25, a truck driver from Virginia Beach who typically votes Republican. “I’ve seen a lot more power coming from the office in the last few days. . . . Like or hate his policies, you have to respect him. He’s in cred ibly intelligent and a strong leader and at times can bring the country together.”

A lot to chew on there... not only for students of American politics but the President himself.

The President on 60 Minutes

Blast from the past

Never less than timely.

That didn't take long

China backs Pakistan. "To the hilt."

China on Tuesday suggested it feared serious instability in Pakistan, and would support the Zardari regime to the hilt. In its zeal to protect Pakistani rulers, China even indicated it would not pressurize Pakistan to hand over the perpetuators of the Mumbai terrorist attack to India.

"Pakistan government is firm in its resolve and strong in action in the fight against terrorism, and made important contribution to the war on terrorism," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said during a media briefing.

"We respect, understand and support Pakistan's above position," she said in reply to a question on whether Beijing believed Islamabad's claim that it did not know about the US operations in advance.

Don't think for a minute that this is just a state position.

Reacting to the death of Osama bin Laden, large numbers of Chinese overwhelmingly viewed him as a heroic “anti-American fighter.” Immediately after the Navy SEALs’ successful mission that killed bin Laden, China’s Phoenix TV website conducted an online poll on the death of the world’s No. 1 terrorist. By midnight Tuesday, more than a half-million people responded. Asked “How do you feel about the death of Osama bin Laden,” 59.9 percent said they were “saddened, because an anti-American fighter has fallen.” About 20 percent indicated that they were “happy that he is dead.”

The same poll showed that while a clear majority strongly endorsed bin Laden’s anti-American “heroism,” almost 60 percent of those polled expressed disapproval of bin Laden’s indiscriminate killing of innocent people.

Some Chinese commentators were not surprised by the vitriolic anti-American feeling among so many Chinese. One of them, media commentator Mo Zhixu in Beijing, noted that the poll results represent progress since 90 percent of Chinese he polled right after the Sept. 11 attacks expressed cheering approval for the terrorists’ mass killings of Americans.

The strong anti-American hatred was reflected in website after website, microblog after microblog, across China’s vast cyberspace. In the most popular online chat room, Strong China Forum (qiangguoluntan), hosted under the aegis of the Chinese Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, the People's Daily newspaper, almost all comments on bin Laden’s death predicted a gloom-and-doom future for the United States, as the death of bin Laden, they say, will expedite America’s decline. Or, as a blogger writing anonymously as “1235” opined on the People's Microblog (renminweibo): “Laden’s death is just like the passing of a brother of the USA because American hegemony and terrorism are like twin brothers.”

The mystery deepens

Well... not really. After reading this blockbuster piece in Canada's Globe and Mail, Indian newspapers feel they have their smoking gun: the connection between Al Qaeda and Pakistan-sponsored terrorism against India.

A police officer familiar with Mr. bin Laden’s compound in the scenic town of Abbottabad said the location was used by Hizbul Mujahedeen, one of the biggest militant outfits in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Like other groups fighting Indian troops in the borderlands, HM’s radical membership has never been rounded up by Pakistani forces and some analysts say Islamabad covertly supports the group.

Any link to HM would deepen Pakistan’s embarrassment over Mr. bin Laden’s death. Pakistan has denied any collusion with terrorists, saying that its leading intelligence service had been sharing information with U.S. counterparts since 2009 about the compound where Mr. bin Laden was found.

Still, in the wake of the raid, Islamabad scrambled to ensure that precise ownership of the compound would not become public knowledge.

“The place belonged to Hizbul Mujahedeen,” the police officer said. “But the authorities have asked us not to share any information about the exact ownership.”

Land-registry officials in Abbottabad, known in the local language as patwaris, were summoned to a meeting on Tuesday and urged to keep quiet.

“The patwaris are meeting right now,” a local official said. “They are being instructed not to say anything about the land-ownership issue.”

American officials have described the owners as “brothers,” and neighbours recalled seeing a pair of men, possibly ethnic Pashtuns from the rugged western frontier, who largely kept to themselves.

Clearly, there's a lot more to this story, and since no one outside the failed state has the power to investigate, we may never find out.

It is plain, from the story, that even police officers know which houses in Abbotabad were owned by anti-Indian terrorist groups, and they were allowed to operate freely within a military zone. Indeed, that's hardly surprising, given the Pakistani army's mission ("There are two countries in the world, and we have to weaken the other one").

The story, of course might be as simple as a member of one terrorist group loaning its safehouse to the icon of all Islamist terrorist groups. And the coverup might just be Pakistan trying to cover up some element of the state sponsorship of Hizbul Mujahaddin rather than Al Qaeda.

“If I were a prosecutor at the United States Department of Justice … I would be tempted to call a grand jury,” wrote Steve Coll, a Pulitzer-winning biographer of Mr. bin Laden. “Who owned the land on which the house was constructed?”

If the ownership were traced to HM, it would mark an unusual example of co-operation between the militant group and its more extreme cousin, al-Qaeda. HM has maintained a narrow focus on removing Indian forces from Kashmir, while Al-Qaeda pursues global ambitions.

“This is the first time I’ve heard of links between Hizbul Mujahedeen and Osama, but its members would probably admire him,” said Kamran Bokhari of Stratfor international analysts.

But adding the policeman's inadvertent admission to CNN's report that even foreign reporters in Abbotabad's papers are checked several times a week by the military town's zealous security agents, you have to wonder how no one in Abbotabad could have known who lived there. Even the Pakistani media is aghast.

The idea that Mr. bin Laden’s presence went unnoticed did not sit well with Pakistan’s media, however. Dawn, a leading newspaper, pointed out that the head of the country’s military, General Ashfaq Kayani, had visited the nearby Kakul Military Academy on April 23 and bragged that his forces had broken the “terrorist backbone” in the country.

“Was the general completely unaware that the most wanted man lived but a short distance away?” the newspaper asked, in a sharply worded front-page analysis.

Another major newspaper, The Nation, expressed similar sentiments in an unsigned report on the front page: “The presence of the world’s most wanted terrorist in such a strategically sensitive city is beyond the understanding of a sane man.”

Bottom line, Pakistan has a lot of 'splanin' to do. The problem is that Pakistan is a failed state. The civilian authorities have no control over the army or the intelligence services. No one knows for sure which elements of the army control which elements of the intelligence services, whether it's the other way around, or if sections of the two organizations are completely melded. Even Pakistanis don't know who's actually running the Pakistani's military-industrial-terrorist complex. Furthermore, the country's location means it will always matter in geopolitics; as long as Russia, China, India and Iran matter, so will Pakistan.

Like North Korea, it has little human capital and produces little that the world wants to purchase, but it does have the ability to send nuclear weapons to terrorists. Therefore, Pakistan will always have the ability to hold the world hostage.

Finally, China is more than willing to become feudal overlord if the US backs out on finanical assistance, and, indeed, will eventually have a lot more cash to throw its way than we do. Both China's and Pakistan's militaries share a dislike for India. It only helps that they are neighbors; for centuries, China has always had a great fondness for buffer states, Tibet being only the most recent example. So US foreign policy towards the nation will continue to be horribly complicated, even if we are to pull out of Afghanistan.

No matter what congressional blowhards say this week, the direction of Pakistan policy will continue to be a huge conundrum in the US national security establishment. 

Worth a thousand words

No point in an essay on Pakistan's culpability; these cartoons, courtesy of intrepid reader G., say it all.

Since Republicans everywhere are thanking Bush instead of Obama

Here's something to consider: an article published in the New York Times on July 4, 2006. Yes, July 4th.

The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday. [...]

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

Here's a particularly strident Kos diary that takes the argument much, much further.

Still more political art

This one via El Kos.

Flashback of the Day

Via Political Wire:

"Sen. John McCain condemned Mike Huckabee Monday for saying that, as president, he would strike at terrorists inside Pakistan's borders with or without permission from the country's leadership... Sen. Barack Obama made similar comments about Pakistan in August, which McCain criticized at the time as irresponsible, as did several of Obama's Democratic rivals."

-- CNN, November 27, 2007.

Hitchens

100% true, even if we should think twice about listening to anyone who thought going to Iraq was a smart idea.

There are several pleasant little towns like Abbottabad in Pakistan, strung out along the roads that lead toward the mountains from Rawalpindi (the garrison town of Pakistani's military brass and, until 2003, a safe-house for Khalid Sheik Muhammed). Muzaffarabad, Abbottabad … cool in summer and winter, with majestic views and discreet amenities. The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to this one—called them "hill stations," designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.


There's perhaps some slight satisfaction to be gained from this smoking-gun proof of official Pakistani complicity with al-Qaida, but in general it only underlines the sense of anticlimax. After all, who did not know that the United States was lavishly feeding the same hands that fed Bin Laden? There's some minor triumph, also, in the confirmation that our old enemy was not a heroic guerrilla fighter but the pampered client of a corrupt and vicious oligarchy that runs a failed and rogue state.

Just call him "Mister President"

Via Kos.

:

The President at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Seth Meyers at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

David Letterman on Donald Trump

Via the Los Angeles Times:

Apparently, Dr. Phil is friends with the incendiary real estate tycoon, and Letterman asked what he thought of Trump's recent behavior. Dr. Phil tried to laugh it off, joking that maybe Trump was hoping to convert the White House into a condo. Letterman, who clearly had a bee in his bonnet, wasn't having it.

"It's all fun, it's all a circus, it's all a rodeo, until it starts to smack of racism. And then it's no longer fun," he said. Letterman was particularly troubled by Trump's latest line of inquiry -- how President Obama managed to transfer into Columbia, then gain acceptance at Harvard Law School. (For what it's worth, Trump also transferred into an Ivy League school, the University of Pennsylvania.)

Letterman asked Dr. Phil, point-blank, "Do you consider him to be a racist?"

"I do not," he replied.

"Well how can you say things like that if you're not a racist?"

It didn't end there, and Trump buddy Dr. Phil did not escape unscathed.