Obama on Wikileaks docs: This is old news

Yes, much of this Af-Pak stuff has been known, in dribs and drabs, over the past several years, but the remarkable thing about having so much documentation together in one package (with a promised 15,000 more on the way) is that it makes it quite easy to build several matrices, and, through these, discover methodologies, weaknesses, intentions, and establish countermeasures either through direct action or through agiprop activities. And if one or two bits of the right info is married up to this package perhaps even sources, units, activities and the like, with potential for lethal countermeasures as well.

And, those Pak military officers, to include the present Chief of Staff of the Pak military, General Ashfaq Kayani, an American-trained professional officer, and several very senior members of Pak intel who have indeed been working closely with us, and are not in favor of supporting the Taliban, now or ever, may have second thoughts about further cooperation…as they’d rightfully expect at anytime more sensitive information to somehow be leaked to Wikileaks or any other outfit by a disgruntled or fame-seeking junior US enlistedman.

Given time, perhaps a little as a few weeks, maybe even within hours of this stuff being published, this could be a strategic boon to an enemy in the field. It certainly is already proving its worth to the Left. Just as the Pentagon Papers never really revealed any “Secret” secrets, we all knew what was goping on over the years, anyway, these “low-level” classified documents [SECRET - not at all a low-level of classification] are fodder for the Left and food for an enemy possessing even a modicum of analytic capability.

Just yesterday, the White House was condemning these leaks.

Today, the White House is saying it is all “old news” and we can use this to our advantage?

Damage has been done. Damage will be done.

coldwarrior on July 27, 2010 at 4:36 PM

Tav on July 27, 2010 at 6:00 PM

This is going to be long. I’m a bit peeved…not at you, but how badly we screwed the pooch on this one.

To respond to your comments:

Other than actually cutting Pakistan off at the knees…allowing pro-Taliban elements within Pakistan and home-grown Islamofascists within Pakistan to take power…what sort of bigger club had you in mind?

In the HUMINT world, one size does not fit all.

On the military side sometimes a bigger club can be used against you in the long run.

On the diplomatic side, however, IF we wanted to get serious (which we should have several decades ago) then we have to be willing to play high-stakes poker, and well, and do a bit of bare knuckles street fighting when necessary.

Unfortunately, the foreign policy wonks have no stomach for such.

The fact of the matter is that Benazir Bhutto, the darling of the East Coast lib set, and now considered a martyr by the same folks, was very much responsible for rescuing the Taliban from early extinction. She is also responsible for the growth and power of the ISI as a check aimed at the Pak military.

Imagine, a liberated female in the Moslem world. No one in Washington wanted to ruffle her feathers. But the Pak military did. So did anyone who actually knew her and wasn’t made to fear her.

After Bhutto was ousted in the early 90′s there were a large number of senior Pak military folks who wanted to get a lot closer to the US (and the West in general) as that whole non-aligned thing never got them anywhere.

It was anathema to us to back a military regime over an ousted darling of Radcliffe. And we really didn’t “need” the Pak military anymore after the Russians bailed out of Afghanistan. Didn’t need much of the ISI, for that matter…we terminated contacts with a huge number of assets out there in the early-to-mid 90′s.

Keep in mind that both Gandhi and Ali Jinnah knew that Pakistan it would not work well at all.]

Bhutto adored Mugabe and Kim Il-Sung, among others, as much as she adored accumulating wealth on the backs of the average Pakistani, made billions, and established a deep-rooted lucrative power-broker class among Pakistan that survives well after her death. She also made high-level corruption in Pakistan a requirement for advancement.

We had a chance with Musharraf, but blew that one along the line too, by once again attacking the Pak military in public and in private.

The ISI came out of this smelling like a rose…being able to say to both the Pak civil government and the military that the US was no ally, perhaps even worse, couldn’t be trusted at all, and Pakistan was on her own…against India, against China, against an Afghanistan that descended into chaos after we decided that the Cold War was over, the Russians were no longer a down-range target, so who needed Afghanistan anyway?

In this millieux, the “students” who survived the Russo-Afghan war in madrasses in the Northwest and in Waziristan headed for Kandahar, and eventually got to Kabul…becoming the Taliban…and the Pakistanis (especially the ISI) liked the idea that they were able to keep these lawless thugs out of Pakistan’s affairs, and prevented at the same time Afghanistan from even considering relations with India or China…but there was reluctance on the part of the professional military class.

Over the past few years, as we vacillated in our commitment against Islamofacism and global terrorism, the ISI is able at key moments of discussion in Islamabad to remind the players that the US is no ally to be trusted.

Against the ISI is a diminishing number of professional military officers who are not interested in politics, but are interested in preserving Pakistan. Face it, the Pak armed forces are the only damn thing holding that country together. And how do we, in public and in private, treat them? As successive US officials tell Pakistan that a military in charge in Pakistan is contrary to American principles…sure lets them know where they stand.

Nothing happens in Pakistan anymore without the ISI knowing about it, and Zardari approving it.

And we welcomed Karzai with open arms, a man with a lifetime of close ties to key regional corrupt warlords and more recently Taliban leaders in Afghanistan? So, the Taliban are bad…unless they are friends with Karzai? Or only Taliban in Pakistan are bad…but that leaves Taliban in Afghanistan to triangulate with Iran and others against secular government in Pakistan.

There are no simple solutions…a heavier club or not.

But at some point we need an Administration and a Congress to understand a lot more than they appear to.

Instead, out in Af-Pak key players learn quickly that when things go wrong we will be the first to blame them. And the ISI is able to say…”we told you so.”

We ousted Musharaf, and Benazir’s super-corrupt husband took over after her death…and he has a track record of duplicity and raw theft that goes back decades. Fully documented. But so long as he is not military, by our standards, he is perfectly OK. He has us where he wants us. Compliant. Almost afraid. We readily go to him hat in hand asking for more help. Current SecState has certainly made enormous inroads into the Zardari circle, right? Zardari demands more money…and we give it to him, willingly, and the Pak professional officer corps sees this and takes it as an article of faith that the US government is as corrupt as Azif Ali Zadari…and the ISI steps up and explains once again, “We told you so.”

And the ISI is deeply entrenched in the Zadari regime. The ISI did not like Musharaf. They like Zardari. He knows they can toss him out in a heartbeat.

Yes, these documents of which we speak do lay out a lot of screw-ups on the US side, too…a lot of them. No argument there.

Their revelation has hazarded our ability to gain confidences and clandestine relationships with those within Pakistan, and in Afghanistan, who view Islamic fundamentalism, jihadi terror and the power of the ISI, as bad.

They also see that they have a draconian decision to make.

Try to make a pact with a weak horse, an unreliable horse, a fading horse….us…and hope for the best?

Or back the apparent current strong horse and hope for the best?

Knowing as they do that every two years the complexion of Congress changes, and every four years the complexion of the Executive branch changes…doesn’t give them a whole lot of wiggle room for long-term planning.

Right now, the best good option for us is to get out…and fast.

Or, finding bailing-out repugnant, reduce Taliban portions of Afghanistan and the Pak Northwest and Waziristan to rubble, destroy the ISI, oust the current government, enable the Pakistani professional officer corps broad leeway…and let the rest of the folks out there start rebuilding after the smoke and dust clears, with the clear message that is they step out of line…

And nobody in Washington, St. Louis, Toledo, Duluth, Atlanta and any point in between is going to support that sort of thing. And, I am certain no one in New Delhi or Beijing is going to allow that to happen without “consequences” either.

Unless we end the summer with mere tiny remnants of the Taliban clinging to shattered hillsides all across Af-Pak…rendered into dust…perhaps we really do need to bring our men and women home. And deciding to bring them home, do it quickly. We owe them at least that much.

coldwarrior on July 27, 2010 at 7:58 PM