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Today's Must Read
We know how things are going in Iraq and in Afghanistan -- so how's the fight against Al Qaeda going?
Badly, reports The New York Times -- so badly that the Times invokes a comparison to Al Qaeda under Taliban rule as a gauge of its strength:
Senior leaders of Al Qaeda operating from Pakistan have re-established significant control over their once-battered worldwide terror network and over the past year have set up a band of training camps in the tribal regions near the Afghan border, according to American intelligence and counterterrorism officials.Officials said the training camps had yet to reach the size and level of sophistication of the Qaeda camps established in Afghanistan under Taliban rule. But groups of 10 to 20 men are being trained at the camps, the officials said, and the Qaeda infrastructure in the region is gradually becoming more mature....
“The chain of command has been re-established,” said one American government official, who said that the Qaeda “leadership command and control is robust.”...
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University, told the House Armed Services Committee last week that Al Qaeda “is on the march.” He said, “Al Qaeda in fact is now functioning exactly as its founder and leader, Osama bin Laden, envisioned it,” because, he said, Qaeda leaders are planning major attacks and inspiring militants to carry out attacks around the globe.
The Times paints the administration as somewhat nonplussed about what to do. A missile strike? "State Department officials say increased American pressure could undermine President Musharraf’s military-led government." But Musharraf's own diplomatic forays into the tribal region, called North Waziristan, seem to have only made the situation worse. Today's front page story, however, will certainly rachet up pressure on the administration to do something... or at least to claim that something is being done.
Note: I'd be remiss if I didn't also link to The Washington Post's investigative report on the dire conditions for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
I'm at the point now where I believe this is what the Admin actually wants. It allows for the continual and perpetual war-standing of the US, and thus the relatively free hand in doing whatever the Admin pleases (stripping rights, corporate profits, little oversight). Present a viable and dangerous threat, Bush will claim unfettered power and command necessary and vital for "national security".
I hear the sound of champagne corks coming from the WH as I type...
February 19, 2007 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why are we spending a zillion billion dollars on intelligence agencies and tieing up Congress with appointments to head these agencies, when we're going to listen to a guy from Georgetown??? Terrorism Expert? Are you sure that Mr Hoffman's expertise doesn't fall under the heading of funding the RNC and building golf courses?
February 19, 2007 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
As Punchy says, the administration wants this to justify the billions we're spending to fend off the existential threat of a handful of ragbag goatherders. But, of course, the Dems want it too, because they're equally attached at the hip to defense contractors and generals and they can use the news to bash the Republicans and avoid doing anything about real problems. And the all the media want it because it sells. If you just let go of your rationality, it's really quite entertaining. So let's all just sit back and enjoy the dawn of idiocracy.
February 19, 2007 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wish that these reports would do a better job of explaining what it means when they say that al Qaeda is operating "in Pakistan." It's not some camp in Karachi's suburbs, or a back street in Lahore, to which the central gov't is turning some willful blind eye. These people are almost entirely (if not actually entirely) operating in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP)/Waziristan which is only nominally a part of Pakistan. The central government (which Musharraf controls) has almost no ability to exercise any real influence or perform operations there without engaging in a full fledged war (one that carries a better than not risk of displacing Musharraf). It's a much more complicated calculus than is presented.
February 19, 2007 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
A heads up to all; please check that Washington Post story that Paul mentions in the Note: section as the last paragraph.
It's about the conditions soldiers are subjected to at Walter Reed Hospital as outpatients while recovering from wounds. I'm appalled by what is reported; substandard housing for outpatients, total confusion on follow-up care, inability to get aid to soldiers and their families stuggling with a broken system. This is a national disgrace!
February 19, 2007 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
MB;
If Mushtarraf does not control the NWFP/Waziristan region, if he can not enforce the law there, if he does not have a monopoly on the use of force, then this region should not be considered an official portion of Pakistan.
Therefore, for the US to hold-back manhunts and operations in this region, out of deference to Mushtarraf, is not only stupid, it is insane. We just got through spending 300 billion (+) dollars kicking out one military dictator who we accused of turning a blind eye to terrorism. And we're going to give Mushtarraf a free pass?
Absurd.
Either we're pulling out all the stops to fight these terrorists, or we're not. And if we're not, then that 300 billion (+++) dollars we just spent in Iraq was a complete waste.
February 19, 2007 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
How well did it the effort to bring in Poncho Villa go? Or the Atlanta Olympics bomber? Or Patty "Tanya" Hearst?
If people don't want to be found, it is hard to find them. Even more so if they have active supporters helping them
February 19, 2007 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
White Collar,
I think it is an impeachable offense, and put to rest the lie "We support the troops" and you don't.
February 19, 2007 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
If there is one thing that is not an expert it is a terrorist expert. If there were any terrorist experts where the hell were they before 9/11. There are now so many terrorist experts, like experts on WMDs, that anyone who has been in the armed services for more than a tour of duty or anyone who knows a person who has been in such a state labels himself (the're all men, apparently women can't be terrorist experts because of their upbringing or genes or whatever). To be blunt, any article in the NY Times - "all the garbage that's fit to print" - quoting terrorist experts is as believable as its many stories on WMDs printed before the 2003 invasion.
February 19, 2007 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's becoming more evident that Bush's Iraq misadventure undermined the war with al Qaeda, allowed them time to regroup, and put us at much greater risk. When this fact becomes widely accepted by the majority of Americans, the Rethuglicans will have hell to pay.
February 19, 2007 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why don't we just tell Musharraf "you are either with us or against us." Opps, we did that and he claims he is with us.
The next old saw for Rice to deliver to him is "actions speak louder than words."
February 19, 2007 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Why don't we just tell Musharraf "you are either with us or against us." Opps, we did that and he claims he is with us."
Or, Bush could say, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor..."
Damn, he already said that, too.
Why in the hell are we not attacking theses camps right now????
February 19, 2007 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Extradite Rumsfeld, putting aside your rather unthoughtful approach to testing sovereignty, I think there are some rather practical considerations that prevent the US from just bounding in and invading NWFP/Waziristan. Not the least of which would be the complete collapse of Pakistan (a nuclear power, don't forget). You think it's shit now? Just wait to see how THAT would turn out.
February 19, 2007 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The real question is why the Walter Reed story isn't front page above the fold. Why isn't it on the TV news? And who are the ones responsible for keeping this story out of the public eye?
Too many stories inconvenient to this administration get buried or no coverage for it to be passed off as investigative laziness and a taste for gossip. For all the rot we decry on capital hill, I think it is corruption of the fourth estate that is this era's biggest disaster.
February 20, 2007 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink