Why are we stepping up our effort in Pakistan right now?
After years of taking a hands-off approach to Taliban and Al Qaeda bases in Northwest Pakistan, along the Afghan border, the U.S. military has stepped it up. As this article in the New York Times points out, we've been letting fly with a lot of drone-launched missile attacks as well as new incursions by American Special Forces:
The attack was carried out less than a week after the first publicly acknowledged ground operation by American Special Operations forces against Taliban operating inside Pakistan. The commandos struck at militants in a village in South Waziristan on Wednesday at the start of what American commanders said was likely to be a more sustained campaign against the Taliban operating in Pakistan’s tribal region.
The attack on Monday was the third American missile strike on Taliban targets in North and South Waziristan since the ground attack on Wednesday.
Other then killing a whole lot of women and children, there isn't really much evidence that these attacks are having any effect in rooting out the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The United States has been fighting in Afghanistan for almost seven years, and it isn't until now that we've adopted these new tactics, these over the border incursions. So why are they happening now?
One could argue that the fall of Pervez Musharraf from power has opened up a new window for U.S. warfare in Pakistan. Since we are no longer concerned with propping up the "pro-western" military dictator, we can now do things that would have pissed off the Pakistan military before now. But I do wonder. We've been dealing with raids from Pakistani safe zones into Afghanistan for years now, and we've done next to nothing to deal with it. Why the full court press now?
Let me pull some speculation out of where the moon don't shine. Could it be that the Administration is attempted to come up with the ultimate October Surprise, namely the head of Osama bin Laden?
Years since George Bush admitted that he "rarely thinks" about bin Laden (this after vowing to capture him "dead or alive") maybe the Administration is trying to heave John McCain across the goal line by carrying out his promise to follow bin Laden to "the gates of hell". Are we stepping up our raids in Pakistan in a purely political attempt at playing Salome?
Yes it's speculation, but as conspiracy theorists love to say, "the timing is suspicious". The idea that American military forces are being manipulated for political purposes, that innocent Pakistanis are dying in a show of farce, is a dark one indeed. But we've certainly learned in the last few years that these aren't people with the same ethical limits as the rest of us. I too would like to see Bin Laden brought to justice. But what would it say if the only thing that would motivate the administration into doing so was its value as a political dog and pony show?
There is this great bit of irony buried at the end of the NY Times article as well. That latest missile attack was on the compound of this interesting fellow:
In the 1980s, Jalaluddin Haqqani was cultivated as a “unilateral” asset of the C.I.A. and received tens of thousands of dollars in cash for his work in fighting the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, according to an account in “The Bin Ladens,” a recent book by Steve Coll. At that time, Mr. Haqqani helped and protected Osama bin Laden, who was building his own militia to fight the Soviet forces, Mr. Coll wrote.
Wag the electoral Dog, anyone?