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- Chris Bray
- Itinerant historian, former infantry soldier, and the author of "Court-Martial: How Military Justice has Shaped America, from the Revolution to 9/11 and Beyond," forthcoming from W.W. Norton.
3 comments:
He's better at financial stuff.
Sepoy has been on this stuff for a while. It seems to be translating into anti-Americanism rather than pro-Talibanism, though there's some bleedthrough, I'm sure.
I wonder what he'll say after the Pakistani military, fresh from their near-complete depopulation of Swat over the past month, moves on to parts of the NWFP as they've already begun to do?
I agree with Ahistoricality that the primary negative effect of US strikes in Pakistan (I won't specify just air strikes as they went through the roof after Bush authorized limited SOF ground operations last year) has been increasing anti-Americanism and not more support for the Taliban. Increasing support for the Taliban, to the degree it's been happening, has been more of the "Don't say anything negative about the Taliban or you end up beheaded in the city square" type of "support". There is a base level of true support for the Taliban but it is generally independent of US actions. Unlike in some other conflicts, the populace doesn't see the Taliban as defenders against the evil US imperialist aggressors for the simple reason that they don't actually do anything to defend the population. Instead, they billet themselves in civilian's houses or attack the Pakistani military then retreat into the villages, sometimes gathering women and children as shields, making them more likely to become targets.
(more later)
The biggest reason people in Pakistan have been upset at US air strikes is that they constantly see stories claiming that drone strikes in Pakistan have killed only 14 insurgents and over 600 civilians. That's about the same ratio of targets to collateral civilian deaths of the Hiroshima bombing, allegedly produced by precision weapons, most of which are missiles with only a twenty pound warhead, aimed directly at a specific, often named, target. This sounds incredible because it is just that; not credible. Vastly more legitimate targets have been killed and there have been vastly fewer civilian casualties. But the flip side is that those responsible for executing the attacks, mostly the CIA, use the exaggeration as an excuse not to fully address the excessive numbers of collateral casualties which do occur and don't take adequate steps to reduce collateral casualties, rule out strikes completely which are too risky, consider options, or respond effectively to lies about the strikes. The excuse given for not addressing such claims directly is that they can't without compromising security but, like the Cambodian bombing campaign, it's not a secret to the people you're blowing up.
Hopefully Pakistan will keep a long term military presence in the FATA and NWFP, which will have the side benefit of limiting the temptation for the US to "do something" about these safe havens, with the attendant damage to the reputation of the US and numerous personal tragedies among the population.
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