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Apr. 6th, 2012 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwydion* Remember the Mumbai bombings? So we put a price on the head of the leader of the organization that did that about two weeks ago. Today he held a press conference in front of the Pakistani equivalent of the Pentagon, telling us where he's going to be tomorrow and promising to keep us informed by phone if we give him the money for information leading to... etc.. The attacks were horrible and I have no sympathy whatever with terrorism or murder of civilians. Still, it was very Bugs Bunny of him and rather funny in a dark sort of way, a sort of perfect taunt. I suspect it will be a red flag to a bull as far as the US intelligence service is concerned.
* Honestly, the whole Pakistan/India thing terrifies me and has ever since I was little and my Dad explained who currently had the bomb after playing "Who's next." To me, the constant India/Pakistan ugliness is and was scarier than the old Soviet Union or Chinese nukes, I think because with Russia and china, I had an underlying belief that generally cooler heads might prevail. If WWIII happened with the three of us, it would be more likely accidental than deliberate. As scary paranoid as McCarthy Era politics were, I honestly figured if we all blew up it would be an electronic failure, computer failure, radar artifact, a lone gunman type further down the chain of command, or some hot head losing it and shooting without orders during posturing. The people making the decisions at the top might posture, thump shoes on tables, make threats, but there isn't the kind of gut deep hatred that comes from decade after decade of border raiding involving systematic rape as a tactic. It scares me because some day, someone with the right access might decide they hated the other side enough that it's worth everyone on their own side dieing if they could take the other side with them. It's scary the way a rogue power with a nuke or a terrorist with a suitcase bomb is scary. They might not do it; I hope they don't do it; they haven't done it yet. Maybe when it comes down to it cooler heads will prevail. Maybe the Pakistani or Indian equivalent of the hero Stanislav Petrov will bravely decide to disobey orders like Petrov did in '83. We can always hope.
Anyway, it's so fucking delicate and dangerous. I think and have always thought it's a terrible idea for us to be stomping around the region like a monstrous bull with Creutzfeldt–Jakob's disease. We have and have had some excellent diplomats over the years, but we also sent John R. Bolton to the UN. (Go on, look it up. I'll wait). I have way more faith in President Obamas ability to be subtle and nuanced, listen to experts, and generally dance through foreign policy mine fields, than I do in most American politicians. I do not trust lightly, and while I don't agree with everything he's done foreign policy wise, I agree with a vast majority of decisions and when I don't, I can see how much research and thought when into them. I don't have the same faith in, say rogue congress folk, who are known to do things like go to Africa to urge governments to slaughter all their GLBT folk. (Remember that Ugandan kill the gays law? Yeah, it's back.) Also, while I have foreign policy faith in the current president, I had the opposite in the last one, and the current field of republican candidates are fricking scary when it comes to foreign policy positions. They are advocating more random invasions of countries with no particular provocation, goal, or exit strategy. Romney is apparently unaware that the Soviet Union broke up and that Geo-politics have changed in all sorts of complex ways since Reagan was president. I would much rather my government back the fuck away from snake nests and avoid chainsaw juggling unless we have clear positive contributions to make, because who knows what will happen if a sane, calm, intelligent hand isn't at the helm. Remember, "Man on Dog" Santorum as created a diplomatic incident with the Netherlands for no other reason that he "felt it in his heart." The Dutch are furious, but they don't have nukes and are generally a pretty chill country. What if he decided to slander a country that is heavily armed and on a hair trigger? Yeah. What if one of our more militant and reality challenged D=Senator showed up over their to systematically insult one or both governments because she or he felt like those things were true. Yeah. There are so many ways we can make things worse. Indeed, we already have, thanks to the afghan war and the ways that has influenced our relationship to Pakistan. I think having a grown up like Obama backing us the fuck out is a lot better than having someone who is of the stompy throw our weight around school of foreign policy wandering over there in the hopes of maybe bringing on the rapture.
I do not think we are bright enough, or educated enough, or stable enough as a country to be juggling nitroglycerine and sweaty dynamite. At least with the middle east, we have a deep and wide pool of experts and and expert diplomats who've been dealing with war after war for lnger than I've been alive. Because our attention has mostly been focused elsewhere, the pool is not nearly as deep and wide for experts in India and Pakistan. I understand it's improving thanks to the Afghan war, but we are decades behind on getting our shit together. this is not a diss against the folks who have and do specialize on this. It's a numbers game. More money and more people being paid to focus on the Middle east, means more ideas, more opinions, more skilled chainsaw jugglers. I know if things go dramatically sidewise in the Middle east, we have an army of folks who have a decent chance of talking folks down. We even have two ex-Presidents who are really good at this stuff we can send, one of whom brokered peace between Egypt and Israel and the other of whom is also married to our secretary of state. I suspect there would be a lot more floundering with Pakistan and India, especially as long as we are paying Pakistan all this money and need them because of the Afghan war, even though our interests traditionally tend to be much more with India.
I'm not sure if any of this is even making sense any more. Sorry.
* Honestly, the whole Pakistan/India thing terrifies me and has ever since I was little and my Dad explained who currently had the bomb after playing "Who's next." To me, the constant India/Pakistan ugliness is and was scarier than the old Soviet Union or Chinese nukes, I think because with Russia and china, I had an underlying belief that generally cooler heads might prevail. If WWIII happened with the three of us, it would be more likely accidental than deliberate. As scary paranoid as McCarthy Era politics were, I honestly figured if we all blew up it would be an electronic failure, computer failure, radar artifact, a lone gunman type further down the chain of command, or some hot head losing it and shooting without orders during posturing. The people making the decisions at the top might posture, thump shoes on tables, make threats, but there isn't the kind of gut deep hatred that comes from decade after decade of border raiding involving systematic rape as a tactic. It scares me because some day, someone with the right access might decide they hated the other side enough that it's worth everyone on their own side dieing if they could take the other side with them. It's scary the way a rogue power with a nuke or a terrorist with a suitcase bomb is scary. They might not do it; I hope they don't do it; they haven't done it yet. Maybe when it comes down to it cooler heads will prevail. Maybe the Pakistani or Indian equivalent of the hero Stanislav Petrov will bravely decide to disobey orders like Petrov did in '83. We can always hope.
Anyway, it's so fucking delicate and dangerous. I think and have always thought it's a terrible idea for us to be stomping around the region like a monstrous bull with Creutzfeldt–Jakob's disease. We have and have had some excellent diplomats over the years, but we also sent John R. Bolton to the UN. (Go on, look it up. I'll wait). I have way more faith in President Obamas ability to be subtle and nuanced, listen to experts, and generally dance through foreign policy mine fields, than I do in most American politicians. I do not trust lightly, and while I don't agree with everything he's done foreign policy wise, I agree with a vast majority of decisions and when I don't, I can see how much research and thought when into them. I don't have the same faith in, say rogue congress folk, who are known to do things like go to Africa to urge governments to slaughter all their GLBT folk. (Remember that Ugandan kill the gays law? Yeah, it's back.) Also, while I have foreign policy faith in the current president, I had the opposite in the last one, and the current field of republican candidates are fricking scary when it comes to foreign policy positions. They are advocating more random invasions of countries with no particular provocation, goal, or exit strategy. Romney is apparently unaware that the Soviet Union broke up and that Geo-politics have changed in all sorts of complex ways since Reagan was president. I would much rather my government back the fuck away from snake nests and avoid chainsaw juggling unless we have clear positive contributions to make, because who knows what will happen if a sane, calm, intelligent hand isn't at the helm. Remember, "Man on Dog" Santorum as created a diplomatic incident with the Netherlands for no other reason that he "felt it in his heart." The Dutch are furious, but they don't have nukes and are generally a pretty chill country. What if he decided to slander a country that is heavily armed and on a hair trigger? Yeah. What if one of our more militant and reality challenged D=Senator showed up over their to systematically insult one or both governments because she or he felt like those things were true. Yeah. There are so many ways we can make things worse. Indeed, we already have, thanks to the afghan war and the ways that has influenced our relationship to Pakistan. I think having a grown up like Obama backing us the fuck out is a lot better than having someone who is of the stompy throw our weight around school of foreign policy wandering over there in the hopes of maybe bringing on the rapture.
I do not think we are bright enough, or educated enough, or stable enough as a country to be juggling nitroglycerine and sweaty dynamite. At least with the middle east, we have a deep and wide pool of experts and and expert diplomats who've been dealing with war after war for lnger than I've been alive. Because our attention has mostly been focused elsewhere, the pool is not nearly as deep and wide for experts in India and Pakistan. I understand it's improving thanks to the Afghan war, but we are decades behind on getting our shit together. this is not a diss against the folks who have and do specialize on this. It's a numbers game. More money and more people being paid to focus on the Middle east, means more ideas, more opinions, more skilled chainsaw jugglers. I know if things go dramatically sidewise in the Middle east, we have an army of folks who have a decent chance of talking folks down. We even have two ex-Presidents who are really good at this stuff we can send, one of whom brokered peace between Egypt and Israel and the other of whom is also married to our secretary of state. I suspect there would be a lot more floundering with Pakistan and India, especially as long as we are paying Pakistan all this money and need them because of the Afghan war, even though our interests traditionally tend to be much more with India.
I'm not sure if any of this is even making sense any more. Sorry.