US Massacres Afghan Kids

August 27, 2008

So how, exactly, did the United States come to slaughter nearly a hundred Afghans, two-thirds of whom were children aged three months to sixteen years, while they slept? And what does it mean?

US officials say they're investigating, while staunchly maintaining that the raid killed twenty-five "militants." But Afghan officials, local residents, and the United Nations are counting scores of bodies, and it is feared that many more might be buried udner the rubble. (It's not unusual for American planes to bomb civilian gatherings and wedding parties in Afghanistan, but the many dead this time may represent the highest single toll in any atrocity since the start of the war.)

What happened? The Post, happily carrying water for the Bush administration, quotes a US official -- who provides zero evidence for his claim -- saying that the Taliban deliberately fed bogus intelligence to the United States:

Maliki the Nationalist?

August 26, 2008

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki continues to make headlines by posing as an Iraqi nationalist. Don't buy it.

Unfortunately, much of the media has swallowed Maliki's posturing without questioning it. The usually astute Leila Fadel, writing for McClatchy, has an article today headlined: "Maliki Demands 'Specific Deadline' for US Troop Pullout," which says:

Maliki said that the United States and Iraq had agreed that all foreign troops would be off Iraqi soil by the end of 2011. "There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil," Maliki said.

On Iraq, Biden Is Worse than McCain

August 23, 2008

Barack Obama may be doing the one thing that might have seemed impossible: he's picking a running mate whose ideas about Iraq are even worse than, and stupider than, John McCain's.

Obama, whose mushy Iraq plan excites no one, is marrying his own's flawed ideas -- which mostly revolve around beefing up US forces in Afghanistan and unilaterally attacking Pakistan -- with Biden's discredited notion of partitioning Iraq into three squabbling mini-states.

Indeed, last year it was the passage by the US Senate of a resolution in favor of Biden's dangerously misguided ideas that sparked an outburst of Iraqi nationalism. More than the Blackwater killings, more than US efforts to forcibly privatize Iraq's oil, it was the Biden idea of splitting Iraq into three pieces that galvanized Iraqi Arab nationalists. (It does, of course, excite the Kurds no end.)

Curb Your Enthusiasm

August 22, 2008

There's a lot less than meets the eye in the rumored US-Iraq accord.

On the surface, it would seem that the US and Iraqi negotiators have sought to cut the baby in half, splitting the difference between Barack Obama's 16-month timetable that would remove US combat forces by 2010 and McCain's sort-of timetable to have US combat troops out by 2013. If early reports are true, American combat forces would remain in until the end of 2011, roughly halfway between the "Obama plan" and the "McCain plan." In addition, as envisioned in both the candidates' plans, tens of thousands of additional US forces would remain in Iraq to train and equip the Iraqi armed forces, battle terrorists, protect the Rhode Island-sized US embassy, and help Iraq secure its borders.

Not much to get excited about. Here's the way to read what's going on behind the scenes.

Scheunemann, Iraq and Georgia

August 21, 2008

If there's any comic relief in the war between Russia and Georgia, it's this statement from Randy Scheunemann, John McCain's top foreign policy adviser: "In the twenty-first century, nations don't invade other nations." Coming from America's No. 1 advocate for invading Iraq -- Scheunemann headed the neocon-inspired Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002 -- that's rich. Or perhaps Scheunemann thinks the US invasion of Iraq happened in an earlier century.

What's not funny, though, is Scheunemann's ties to Georgia. Where's the outrage? Why isn't there a congressional investigation of the McCain's adviser's entanglements?

It's no laughing matter that McCain's top adviser is multiply connected to Georgia, whose ill-advised assault on Russian positions in South Ossetia fully qualifies it as the first, overtly American-allied "rogue nation." Most important, Scheunemann's former lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, received at lest $800,000 from the government of Georgia between 2004 and May 15, 2008, when Scheunemann finally severed his ties -- officially, at least -- to the firm. Before that, between January 1, 2007, and May 15, 2008, Scheunemann was officially on the payroll as both Georgia's lobbyist and McCain's top adviser, during which time Georgia paid Orion and $290,000 and McCain paid him $70,000.

Patience Needed in Pakistan

August 20, 2008

Things are iffy in Pakistan, with the new civilian coalition getting shakier and the future of Pakistan uncertain after the resignation of Pervez Musharraf, the military president who'd seized power in 1999. The country's leading journalist, Ahmed Rashid, is predicting greater instability in the immediate future, and a Taliban-linked bomb killed dozens in the northwest. So yesterday I went to see Husain Haqqani, the ambassador of Pakistan to the United States, who spoke at a packed noontime meeting of the New America Foundation.

Haqqani is a friend, who I got to know during research for my book, Devil's Game and in reading his wonderful book, Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military. Last year, when he was chairman of the international relations department at Boston University, he invited me to Boston to speak about political Islam.

Yesterday Haqqani delivered an erudite, balanced, optimistic report on Pakistan so far, under the civilian government. Its earlier military rulers, he said -- including Ayub Khan in the 1950s, Zia ul-Haq from 1977-1988, and Musharraf -- provided on an "illusion of stability." The task now is develop government and civil society institutions to create true stability. "The parties have to learn how to work things out," he said. "And they are learning."

McCain, Circa 2003

August 17, 2008

There's yet to be a solid, point-by-point effort to expose John McCain's pre-2003 views on Iraq, when (along with his neocon advisers and cheerleaders) he led the charge to Baghdad. Barack Obama, so concerned about how to end the war in Iraq, seems to have forgotten the importance of questioning how it began, especially McCain's pernicious role.

In today's Times, under the headline "Broad Response to 9/11 Offers Outline of a McCain Doctrine," appears a sketchy but useful reminder of McCain's pre-2003 irrational exuberance for war. (As a broader piece on McCain's so-called "doctrine," the article falls flat. There are better pieces on that score, including two authored by yours truly for The Nation, one published in 1999 and the second earlier this year.)

Here's the lede of the Times piece, showing McCain in full jingoistic, damn-the-torpedos mode:

Election Shocker!

August 8, 2008

Biblical scholars in Colorado Springs have uncovered startling evidence that Senator John McCain may be the Antichrist. Their conclusions, while highly controversial, may have a dramatic impact on the 2008 elections, since many Bible-believing Christians have already expressed doubts about McCain's fealty to Christianity.

The analysis was conducted by the respected True Bible Society, and it will be published next month in the End Times Journal.

The analysis was especially ironic, given that it came out just one day after McCain was accused of subtly hinting that Barack Obama could be the Antichrist. McCain ran a commercial depicting Obama as "The One," giving rise to charges that he was sending a subliminal messages to anti-Obama Christians.

The Crisis in Pakistan

August 1, 2008

Here's a choice for would be foreign policy makers: is the solution to the current crisis in Pakistan (a) a comprehensive Pakistan-India accord, with full Iranian and Russian support, to strengthen Pakistan's civilian government and assert civilian control over Pakistan's rogue ISI intelligence agency, or (b) stepped-up US military intervention in Afghanistan, unilateral US strikes into Pakistan's lawless border areas in the northwest, and thuggish American threats aimed at Pakistan's fledging regime?

If you picked (a), good for you. If you picked (b), well, the campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain might offer you a job.

Recent revelations in the New York Times about Pakistan's ISI and its ties to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, including reports that the ISI was indeed responsible for the deadly bombing at India's embassy in Afghanistan, have pushed the Afghan-Pakistan-India nexus to the very front of the news.

Iraq on the Edge

July 27, 2008

While everyone's looking at Iraq's effect on American politics -- and whether or not John McCain and Barack Obama are converging on a policy that combines a flexible timetable with a vague, and long-lasting, residual force -- let's take a look instead at Iraqi politics. The picture isn't pretty.

Despite the Optimism of the Neocons, which has pushed mainstream media coverage to be increasingly flowery about Iraq's political progress, in fact the country is poised to explode. Even before the November election. And for McCain and Obama, the problem is that Iran has many of the cards in its hands. Depending on its choosing, between now and November Iran can help stabilize the war in Iraq -- mostly by urging the Iraqi Shiites to behave themselves -- or it can make things a lot more violent.

There are at least three flashpoints for an explosion, any or all of which could blow up over the next couple of months. (Way to go, Surgin' Generals!) The first is the brewing crisis over Kirkuk, where the pushy Kurds are demanding control and Iraq's Arabs are resisting. The second is in the west, and Anbar, where the US-backed Sons of Iraq sahwa ("Awakening") movement is moving to take power against the Iraqi Islamic Party, a fundamentalist Sunni bloc. And third is the restive Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr, which is chafing at gains made by its Iranian-backed rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI).