Bulletin: Pakistan

Map close up here.


Not content with having strengthened the hand of the hardest of the hardliners in Iran, the Bush administration is intent on turning the only nuclear armed, Muslim majority county, Pakistan, into a virulent enemy of the United States.

To the crusaders and born-agains in the Bush administration this conflict is viewed as part of an inevitable continuum of struggle. Good vs. Evil is the code. They aren’t worried about being left behind, in their apocalyptic world view, nuclear conflagration will only wipe out sinners, Jews and other apostates. Thus, when an Israeli cabinet minister says an attack on Iran is inevitable, the Bush team is silent. When Obama says he might speak directly to the government of Iran, he is an appeaser (of Evil.)

Unfortunately, for those who don't support that view, the United States military has been active in Pakistan, and on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Much like Iraq, the Bush administration is attempting to win hearts and minds with bombs. Also much like Iraq, this conflict is embedded in nation vs. nation battles for control of borders delineated by Western mapmakers and the accompanying state coffers.

This week saw eleven Pakistani soldiers, ostensibly American allies, killed by United States bombing. The Bush team has gone with its standard response, deny, deny, deny. It wasn’t our fault. They fired first. They were working with insurgents in the area. Unfortunately, American credibility in the region is abysmal. So even when American military commanders and institutions are telling the truth, they are not believed. This is not in the least because the faux-supporters of democracy in the Bush regime, have actually supported and continue to support the rule of Pakistan dictator Perez Musharraf to the tune of billions of American taxpayer dollars against the will of the Pakistani people. Sadly, a leader who initially offered hope, Afghanistan’s Hamed Karzai is being stained with same taint of American stooge-dom, co-option and corruption.

(In this incident the facts and circumstances are unclear.)