Hersh: Special Forces going into Pakistan

There have been a lot of stories flying today about the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Seymour Hersh released a major article stating that the U.S. is going into the remote Hindu Kush areas with possibly thousands of troops to seek out Bin Laden. This article is worth reading in its entirety.

Hindu Kush means "Hindu Killer," and as Hersh pointed out today, Alexander the Great lost a division up here to the harsh conditions. These are highly tribal areas, and most people are well-armed.

The problem is that for a lot of the hard-core Islamists in the Pakistani security services--mainly the ISI--the entry of US troops into Pakistan is the real red line, the breaking point. Musharraf has already narrowly avoided death several times.

Should it be a red line for us? As Andy put it, this is massive intervention into a nuclear power we are talking about. Does this kind of thing have to be voted on somewhere? What can this lead to? (What might the North Koreans do?)

Stop.

Ok, alternatively, none of this madness is going on. It's all fiction and spy yarns. Sometimes I worry I am over-reacting, but then I think about how scary nuclear weapons seemed to me back in the day. Back then, we had huge states looking out for their crown jewels, but now its more of an virtual Persian bazaar of clandestine WMD trafficking and shady deals.

Besides that, Reuters reports NATO is planning to sweep through Afghanistan, taking security control of continuous areas in a grand sweep. Yet the Taliban has control of Zabul province now, according to one Pakistani article. The NGOs have been brutally driven off in these parts and the central government, corrupt in many places, is out of reach.

The Pakistani military killed some people a little ways inside Pakistan, in an area they are searching through.

There is an interesting story in the WaPo that the Palestinian Authority might crumble, too.

Something less terrifying about other fuzzy borders in Central Asia. Seems Uzbekistan, kind of a troll state, has been laying landmines well beyond its boundaries. Meanwhile Tajiks have been wandering into Kyrgyzstan and taking resources. It's a very nomadic place, which is part of the reason the land mines are such a problem.

Interesting campaign blog with the Columbia School of Journalism.

I TOLD you that Ahmed Chalabi was dirty dirty stuff, selling bad intel via the neo-cons. The investigations are piling up. Hurrah!

Posted by HongPong at March 2, 2004 01:07 AM
Listed under Afghanistan , Campaign 2004 , International Politics , Israel-Palestine , Neo-Cons , Security , War on Terror .