"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow U.S. special forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government, The New York Times reported on Thursday."
- Pakistan is in a time of transition in which a staunch U.S. ally, a military leader, Musharref, was unable to control the fundamentalist factions in his otherwise moderate moslem country.
- This country became unstable the minute it was clear that Musharref could not maintain his power. I think that was about July.
- Shouldn't our special forces be operating in our war zones? Oh, we must be opening another front in our war. Pakistan's a good choice: after all it is an increasingly fundamentalist moslem country, thrust into a period of political instability, which has nuclear capacity.
- Also I guess the fact that Al Queda is already entrenched and protected by the locals-- because they like Al Queda-- shouldn't make you worry that, if a U.S. invasion leads to a galvanization of the fundamentalists, Al Queda could easily end up with nukes.
- But then again, what are the odds that a U.S. invasion would actual create greater instability in the country resulting in the galvanization of, increased recruitment for, and thus power in the hands of the fundamentalists. I mean that already happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, so (ala Garp) what are the odds of that happening again?
- Well no doubt we'll have far better luck than Musharref in getting Pakistan to follow a moderate line, after all, what could Musharref possibly have known about Pakistan?
- Oh, something else-- how much do you think its going to help Benazir Bhutto's husband to have a US military presence in the country when he's promising to reestablish a moderate and functional democracy and actually has a chance to do so?
- Isn't there some historical precedent for when a president authorized special forces to conduct operations in a country we were not at war without the approval of that government? How did that work out? Not too good, huh? Well I'm sure things will be different this time. After all, history never repeats itself.
(The forgoing sarcastic tirade, of course, is subject to withdrawal if we nab Osama as a result of these operations. Maybe two weeks before the election in November would be the best timing. But to suggest that the administration is taking this stupid risk to try to help McCain's otherwise worthless campaign would be the type of conspiracy-theorist paranoia that this writer tries --sometimes helplessly-- to avoid. Maybe they're not just stupid, maybe they're evil too.)
