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In some ways, it's the most important story in the world. The CIA has launched 20 drone attacks against the Taliban in Pakistan so far this month, the New York Times reports, more than in any other month and twice the typical amount.
Last night on the show, Rachel Maddow asked Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, whether the American drone campaign amounts to war. "Rachel, war really is hell," Holbrooke said. She pressed him, saying, "Is it war in Pakistan?"
Holbrooke's answer, in essence: You know what you know.
You've seen it. War in the western part of Pakistan? Thousands and thousands of Pakistanis have been killed by the Pakistani Taliban - thousands. Those are the people who trained the Times Square bomber.
The al-Qaeda is sitting up there. The Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani are sitting up there, killing Americans, attacking the Indian embassy. These are really bad people. You mentioned Miranshah in your opening remarks. Miranshah is one of the headquarters of one of the groups
that kills a lot of Americans.If you're in a war, you can't -- you can't kid yourself about it. I've seen a lot of wars. I hate them more than anything you can imagine. But in this particular case, as the president has said repeatedly, our own homeland security is directly involved.
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Hmmmm...I think it's precipitous to assume the "third war" referred to in the Danger Romm article is Pakistan, as that quote is dated 2007. My pick would be Yemen.
Holbrooke is less than useful to have on as a guest of the show if the object of the exercise is information or enlightenment. If the object of the exercise is to remind us all (yet again) how utterly banal evil can be, however, then maybe TRMS doesn't have him on often enough.
The global war on terror is a tremendous waste of time and money, and is not truly a global war at all. It is a war that is primarily being waged by the United States all around the globe, but seems to be poorly supported by the rest of the world. I call it a waste of time and money because for every drone attack you conduct, for every armed sweep of a village for suspected terrorists, you create that many more terrorists that are out for revenge. Before 9-11, I would doubt that the average muslim would have had strong feelings for or against the US. The extremists were looked at as, well, extremists, nut jobs that had nothing worth listening to. Then came 9-11, and the world, even nations like Iran, had sympathy for the US and the events that occurred. Bush did the right thing by going into Afghanistan, and the world supported that move, as they now saw the extremist nut jobs as a danger.
Then, it all went to hell in a handbasket. Bush lost interest in Afghanistan and taking advantage of the goodwill we had, and instead decided it was time to play great general by going into Iraq. In the ensuing years of that occupation, the massive civilian casualties, the ethnic cleansing, atrocities like Abu Ghraib all made more muslims take note of the US and its policies, and they came to the conclusion that the US was anti-muslim. We have done nothing to dissuade them of this, not with mounting civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the vile anti-muslim rhetoric spewing from the right in this country during the current election campaigns.
We aren't going to kill every single terrorist out there. In fact, there are probably more out there as a result of our actions and rhetoric than there were on 9-11. Nor are we going to win hearts and minds while the military actions continue, and we support one of the most corrupt governments on Earth in Afghanistan. We need to step back and reassess how to deal with terrorist groups. Military action is counterproductive, and we have obviously done a poor job at nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Uffie, I agree that we have bungled Afghanistan entirely...and don't get me started on Iraq. THAT was a neo-Con sham and shell-game from the very start and we had no business there in the first place! The real problem was, and always has been, political on both sides. On our side, the Bushies made it unpatriotic for any of us clearer-sighted types to argue against their holy war on terrorists (while Blackwater and Halliburton made billions). Now that we have, as President Obama so eloquently put it, demonstrated that we are stronger for having been through 9/11, the sooner we abandon those misguided stupidities over there, the better. Our political solution has to take a more regional look at building that elusive, holistic PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST that Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell are working on. Iraq and Afghanistan have to deal with their own politics and get their own heads out of their own butts to form effective governments that provide electricity, education and medical services to their own people.
While I agree that a Middle East peace deal would help, I don't think it will stop what is going on in Pakistan. The Pakistani intelligence service has in effect created a lot of the extremists. Years ago they provided support for the Taliban as a way to bring down the Afghan government. They also used the extremists to battle civilian government in their own country. Unfortunately, as happens to most monsters, the extremists got out of control and are now threatening their creators. Israel and their neighbors could make peace tomorrow, and it wouldn't have any effect on what is happening in Pakistan today. The problem there is the Pakistani military and intelligence service. They created the extremists, funded and protected them, and now they are riddled with them. Unless those organizations can cleanse themselves of these infiltrators, nothing is going to improve in Pakistan. The US sending Predator drones to kill a few of those extremists isn't going to make dent either. I know that no one wants to admit it, but what happens in Pakistan is completely out of our hands, and because of that, so is the fate of Afghanistan. What happens there will not be BECAUSE of us, but IN SPITE of us. The US and its citizens simply aren't used to considering the idea that there are problems in the world we can't fix with money or military force, but this is certainly one of those situations. More will be coming our way in the years ahead.
No doubt about it...and because Pakistan (a nuclear state) is focused on India (also a nuclear state) and China borders both of them and isn't happy about either of their nukes, it might be that there's a whole NEW sherriff in town that NOBODY is going to like. The faster the USA dusts Paki/Iraqi/Afghani dust off our boots and skedaddles back to Fort Bragg, the better!
No doubt that part of the world is going to become ever more fractious in the coming decades, as China and its billion-plus people come into greater and greater competition for resources with India's billion-plus people. The longer we hang around that part of the world, the more likely we are going to end up as the meat in the sandwich as those two rachet up their competition. It wouldn't surprise me to see China using Pakistan behind the scenes to foment some trouble in India so that India is forced to look inward more than outward, allowing China to perhaps increase its advantages over India. China obviously has more money, but you have to give the scientific edge to India. What happens when a poorer nation with some brilliant scientists comes into conflict with a nation that has lots of money, but tends to be stronger at adapting others' work than creating their own innovations? We are about to find out.
I don't have a problem the war in Pakistan is being fought with drones. When used in combination of human intelligence, I hope they are being effective taking out the leadership and whatever infrastructure is in place. It would be nearly impossible to fight this type of war any other way.
Uffdaguy I so agree, it is a shame a sham and a hell of a waste of human life. I wonder if war would happen so easily if you made it illegal to profit from it. (hello Xi, Haliburton etc.)
This is not a "third war", this is simply the ongoing push-pull relationship the US has with Pakistan. The ISI has run Pakistan for many, many years and has always played both sides against the middle. They have protected and in some cases trained the Taliban and it has benefited their plans for both Afghanistan and the Kashmir region. As Americans, we don't really understand this type of strategy because we think everything has to be black and white, whereas the ISI (and the rest of this region) sees many shades of grey. Pakistan and the ISI are the main reasons there will never be any demonstrable "victory" in Afghanistan and, ultimately, the US will exit the country in much the same way that it exited Vietnam: billions of dollars poorer, tens of thousands of people killed, and no significant impact on the ultimate course of history. Yes, Mr Holbrooke, war is hell, but those who dabble in it from the marbled halls of the beltway, order our soldiers into harms way while sipping Evian and sign off on drone attacks against civilians while attending State dinners don't know a damn thing about it.
This is not a "third war", this is simply the ongoing push-pull relationship the US has with Pakistan. The ISI has run Pakistan for many, many years and has always played both sides against the middle. They have protected and in some cases trained the Taliban and it has benefited their plans for both Afghanistan and the Kashmir region. As Americans, we don't really understand this type of strategy because we think everything has to be black and white, whereas the ISI (and the rest of this region) sees many shades of grey. Pakistan and the ISI are the main reasons there will never be any demonstrable "victory" in Afghanistan and, ultimately, the US will exit the country in much the same way that it exited Vietnam: billions of dollars poorer, tens of thousands of people killed, and no significant impact on the ultimate course of history. Yes, Mr Holbrooke, war is hell, but those who dabble in it from the marbled halls of the beltway, order our soldiers into harms way while sipping Evian and sign off on drone attacks against civilians while attending State dinners don't know a damn thing about it.
Great interview - but very disturbing. When Holbrooke explained that the Obama way was to treat Afghanistan and Pakistan as the same issue, my immediate thought was to wonder how Iran would be combined with a country we are currently at war with - it seems the administration wants to keep the total war count at two...so do we add Iran to the Iraq war ..oh wait ...that one is ended. I guess we add it to Afghanistan or maybe now that the Iraq war is over we can add Iran and North Korea together - so tell me how this is any different than the axis of evil from shrubs administration?
Fascinating and horrifying interview, Rachel. I can only imagine what must have been going through your mind when Richard Holbrooke stated emphatically that drone strikes are more accurate than human operated aircraft. Your comment about a total lack of accountability seemed to go entirely over Holbrooke's head.
If the United States is NOT at war in Pakistan, then how can they justify sending military drones through that country's airspace for the express purpose of launching missiles which kill dozens of people. Where is Habeus Corpus? Where is presumption of innocence? Where is the trial with evidence and conviction or acquittal before a death sentence is carried out. What about collateral damage? How can a drone truly distinguish between a celebration party and a Taliban meeting?
With total deniability and complete lack of accountability, the United States is carrying out acts of terror in a sovereign country which it is not at war with. How can the American public tolerate such an abuse perpetrated in its name. This isn't even a Black Ops where everything is denied.
To claim in general terms that these are 'evil' people, 'bad people' without introducing one shred of evidence, is disingenuous at best, a war crime at worst.
Thank you for shining a light on this subject, Rachel. Though Holbrooke has the enthusiastic endorsement from this White House, I now doubt whether he has either the intelligence or the integrity claimed.
I doubt the question went over Richard Holbrooke's head; he simply evaded it because it wasn't what he wanted to talk about. This guy is crafty, slippery and evil. Rachel does her level best to try and pin him down, but he's been at this game since before she was born.
I don't doubt the former Ambassador's intelligence or integrity but I feel like he's stuck in another paradigm -- already alluded to in previous comments. Mr. Holbrook begins to look like the chess expert playing 20 different opponents in Washington Sq. park. Where shall we move the next piece on the next board? As long as you believe it's important for the US to seek and destroy every terrorist, there's no end to it.
Plus I feel like he's a tad condescending, "Listen, Rachel," blah, blah. I can't believe she wasn't starting to break out in splotches. I applaud her politeness in her "I'm not comforted" comment. I wouldn't have been quite so civil. Of course, I'm 25 years older and so Mr. Holbrooke is more my size.
I have a different viewpoint. I am a big fan of the drone attacks, and think we should pull all of our troops out of Afghanistan and leave the CIA running their covert operations. We aren't getting anywhere with our military might in Afghanistan, but we are making tactical strikes with the drones. Obama was smart to combine the Pakistan and Afghanistan operations, but dumb to do another surge of troops.
It kills me to say this, forget the legality of it all (when has the CIA followed the law anyways?) but think about the financial 'bang for the buck' these drone attacks give us. We could pull all of our troops out and just leave the 'secret' war going against the extremists in the mountains of Afghanistan & Pakistan (the terrorists aren't aligned with any country, and the second we went into Afghan, they walked over to Pack). You can't fight a small group of individuals with a huge army, but we are still trying.
Not only are drone attacks inhumane, but is this really how the military's going to train future commercial airline pilots? You know that's where the majority of these pilots are trained...in the military. Imagine Capt. Sully getting his training by sitting in a comfy chair with a bag of Cheetos flying a plane thousands of miles away. Very scary!
I couldn't believe how pompously condescending and patronizing the man was. He actually had the balls to try to scold you as if you were a child. "Rachel, Rachel....." I wonder if he would have done that to a man. Whatever, I found it insulting.
At just what point does Pakistan's protection of its airspace & sovereignty become harboring and aiding and abetting terrorists? I'm serious, here, because, for nearly 10 years now, we've got our children, and young parents of children, over there in AfPak fighting and dying...and for what? To prop up fu(king Karzai??? That's not a good enough reason for me to send our troops to war for this long!
Our only military goal in Afghanistan/Pakistan should be to kill Osama Bin Laden and the entire operational command of al Qaeda. I am indescribably incensed and outraged--to the point that I sometimes can't see straight--when I hear our onanistic, career politicos use war as a tool of diplomacy, and campaign fodder for their political livelihoods. ENOUGH!!!!
War is destructive, horrible, and bloody for a very good reason...so that we never do take it for granted and try to tame a dinosaur, if you will. It is purely and simply a colassal charge of reckless endangerment. That is the crime and unforgivable transgression with which I unswervingly indict the fathers of this war. Kill Bin Laden wherever he is in Pakistan! If we kill him there then we can rightly accuse the Pakistani government with harboring and aiding and abetting Bin Laden. I'm sick and tired of the bullsh!t "sovereignty" excuse for keeping the war going, and NOT killing OBL .
This ALL started because of 9/11...so let's kill Bin Laden, slaughter al Qaeda's operational command and BRING OUR TROOPS BACK HOME WHERE THEY BELONG!
I got the impression that Rachel's penetrating questions was forcing Richard into a corner.
Constant and escalating drone attacks are clear evidence of an undeclared war that cannot be justified.
How many innocent civilians must continue to die to pay for Obama's reckless and foolhardy vision of protecting America?
In Rachel Maddow's interview with Richard Holbrooke, he did not answered Maddow's question concerning the legality of attacking Pakistan with both drones and aircraft. The drones are not that accurate as Holbrooke insisted because the drone's warhead is a bomb. There is a lot of collateral damage to the Pakistani people from these ai...rstrikes. Holbrooke also made the case that the Pakistani were the ones responsible for attacking the WTC on 9/11 -- not al-Qaida. If that is the case, why is America still in Iraq?
Because of Richard Holbrooke appearance on "The Rachel Maddow Show", we now have the following analogy: Judith Miller is to the "New York Times" as Richard Holbrooke is to "The Rachel Maddow Show." Note also that the map used to show the drone strikes inside Pakistan was intentionally misrepresentative to the audience as being inside Afghanistan.
Bob Woodward has described some conversations that might help us understand how we can talk about the US War in Pakistan. Part 3 of excerpts from his new book is about the war in Pakistan.
Part of the problem Rachel has been having in talking about the War in Pakistan is that US officials will not talk about it. Bob Woodward was able to find official documents that did talk about it. This means that what Bob Woodward discovered about what people were thinking about the war can now become part of the national discussion. We can now discuss whether the approach used to pursue this war is appropriate or inappropriate.
Bob Woodward describes a particular discussion between Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Marine Gen. James L. Jones, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi that was absolutely fascinating as a discussion of why Pakistan should cooperate in this largely secret war in Pakistan and what the US is likely to do in response to various hypothetical developments. Gen. Jones and Leon Panetta are so clear in their description of what strategy we are following that, at one point, the Foreign Minister summarized their points for them very accurately in case President Zardari had not sufficiently understood the ramifications of what we were saying.
Although Rachel is not likely to get anyone in the administration to admit that what Bob Woodward has described is accurate, his reputation for detailed and accurate reporting is so large, that I think we can discuss his description of the US strategy from the point of view of: is this the right strategy for our nation? That then forces people to actually talk to us if we can show the dangers of the US strategy as we understand them.
Unfortunately for how Rachel has been approaching this subject, the issues exposed in this conversation have not been properly addressed in most of what Rachel has been saying about this. At least now it is clear what issues do need to be taken into account.
The fascinating thing I learned is that it appears that the highest levels of the US government have developed an overall strategy for conducting war against nations who have nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan. This strategy might be able to be expanded eventually to apply to North Korea and Iran as well. What I describe below is my analysis, and is not part of Bob Woodward's story, but his story can lead to this line of thinking.
The basic concept is that nuclear capable nations cannot really conduct nuclear war against their most friendly superpower. Thus, if there are forces being protected by the government of Pakistan that launch a direct act of war against the United States, then we have the right to invade Pakistan to remove these elements. If Pakistan resists, we might be able to even go so far as to remove all nuclear capability from Pakistan. This is completely different from all of the concerns about "regime change" that we heard with respect to Iraq, and even Afghanistan. This is a very limited military objective that can be achieved quickly by a short-term military operation of sufficient size.
Once a conventional military operation like Desert Storm is launched in Pakistan, the government of Pakistan cannot resist without bringing the full weight of this operation to bear on the government itself. If this were to happen (which Pakistan has every reason to prevent from happening), we could go so far as to remove all nuclear capability from the country, including all of its nuclear scientists and associated research labs. Thus, it is in Pakistan's interest to nurture its relationship with the United States to do whatever it needs to do to ensure that we never really need to invade Pakistan in order to defend our own borders.
Interestingly, China has a similar capability in North Korea, and Russia might have a similar capability in Iran. Thus, North Korea cannot threaten China the way it threatens both us and South Korea, and Iran probably cannot threaten Russia the way it threatens us. These observations by no means "solve" the problem of terrorism, but it does suggest that the threat of nuclear terrorism may not be as serious as we would otherwise think, since such behavior would start to unleash this kind of reaction from the superpowers, and these observations may play a significant role in allowing us to control the most terrifying aspects of terrorism for the United States.