Rebuffing U.S., Pakistan Balks at Crackdown – N.Y. Times

The casualties have not started coming in yet stemming from the ‘ramp up’ of U.S. forces in Afghanistan but already a key player in this scenario is refusing to play ball. This does not bode well for Obama’s War and shows us how difficult attempting to ‘control’ the Pakistani government or the Afghan non-government is going to be for us.  They have agendas that do not mesh with our agendas.

The New York Times is reporting that Pakistan is refusing to take on a fierce Taliban leader and his forces who they use for unknown purposes inside of Pakistan.  That story is entitled Rebuffing U.S., Pakistan Balks at Crackdown and shows cracks in a military plan that are so severe one wonders if this plan could ever work.  This leader, Saraj Haqqani, is exactly the Taliban leader who poses the most threat to U.S. forces inside Afghanistan.

And in a related story in the Washington Post this morning entitled Report: Islamic terror rising as al-Qaida fades we read that Taliban-like groups all over the Muslim world seem to be taking to deadly violence to settle local disputes that have nothing to do with U.S. goals.  Who did they learn this from? Do we have any blame in this?  What do you think? Does violence truly beget violence as the Bible states?

As if almost on cue, the Associated Press is running a story this morning, Official: Explosion kills 22 in central Pakistan , that shows us how this works in Pakistan.

It is also running a story entitled Afghan official: 8 killed in suicide bombing that shows us the same tendency to use suicide killings or outright terrorist homicide on a grand scale to achieve aims that make no sense to the Western mind.  Once again I must remind everyone, the root problem here is a theological set of principles that keep Islam constantly at war with itself.  This is just a new phase.

While the U.S. and NATO allies attempt to ramp up forces to control or eradicate this terrorism and its effects, I have to ask, do we really think we can control a violent form of internecine theological warfare between Muslims that will simply not be controlled? 

Since the very beginning of Islam, this tribe against tribe violence has been part and parcel of the movement.

Have we decided to blame this insanity on "the Taliban" when in all actuality it is a cultural phenomenon throughout all of worldwide Islam?  Are we using what our CIA social anthropoligists have told us is unfolding within Islam to push our overseas business agenda forward in a most violent way ourselves?

If we are, we are sacrificing our young people in uniform to a theologically based violent insanity that is inherent to Islam in the world today.  Do we know that?  Do we care?  Are working class kids’ lives this meaningless that we can use what we know about Islam and its tendency towards violence over theological disputes to our own advantage?

Is this why now is the proper time to ramp up this war?

Can we stop this train please before it leaves the station?

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)