Pakistan Unravels
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America might be best served if it were to leave both Iraq and Afghanistan today because there might be nothing to gain by staying in either place apart from having a front row seat to watch the unraveling of nuclear armed Pakistan. The Times of India is reporting today about attacks by Islamic extremists on several Pakistani nuclear facilities. Per The Times, ”The incidents, tracked by Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University in UK, include an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly.” The article goes on to describe how even US terrorism experts were not aware of the attacks, which have not been widely reported. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Pakistani nuclear sites are located far from India, in areas where both al-Qaeda and the Taliban are strongest.
Playing soldier around all over the world diminishes one’s ability to act when there is a really important national interest at stake. Iraq never threatened the US, nor does Afghanistan or Iran. The US is engaged everywhere but where it really matters, in Pakistan, where a whole lot of nuclear weapons can suddenly and dramatically wind up in the hands of people who can do a lot of harm with them and kill a lot of people. Is it our problem? Sort of. We had a friendly dictator in Pakistan who had the support of the middle classes and the army. His name was Pervez Musharraf. We decided we needed someone who looked better to the media so we undercut him and supported Benazir Bhutto, whose previous time in office was distinguished only by corruption. Bhutto’s husband is now president and is both weak and completely corrupt. The government is incapable of controlling an insurgency that dominates nearly one third of its territory. So why did we meddle in the first place and what do we do now? It would be a tough one to just walk away from because wholesale nuclear proliferation is a serious issue for the US as well as for Pakistan’s neighbors. It is perhaps a lesson of sorts. When you are crying wolf constantly it is tough to figure out what to do when the wolf actually appears. Another big problem that Obama will be unable to solve.
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Now if we could just get the Jihadis to destroy those weapons, instead of their possessing them, we would be on to something. Nuclear weapons are profoundly un-Islamic after all. Before colonial intervention and later native nationalism, the traditional Muslim religious leaders would have set their face against the development of such weapons. The village Mullahs and dilettantes like Bin Laddhin have no such scruples.
If accurate, the depiction of US intelligence being clueless about actual attacks on Pakistani nuclear facilities is chilling. Indeed, it beggers belief. What if the attack(s) had been larger and had succeeded in stealing a device? Would the Paki’s have told us? I know (hope) that the warheads are not stored with all their components intact. Still to have a bomb lacking say, only its detonator in the hands of medieval tribesmen is a nightmare scenario.
Mr Grialdi – I agree with your post, 99%.
You hurt your case when your rabid antiwar agenda effects your honesty.
You said, “Iraq never threatened the US, nor does Afghanistan or Iran.”
You can argue that “Iraq, in my opinion, posed no credible threat”, and your honesty quotent rises.
But you want to hide that in fact Iraq DID threaten, DID attack flyovers, and DID pay $35,000 to suicide bombers, and DID boast of a nuclear development program. In hindsite, we could have handled that better. We are ALL disappointed in BUSH.
But leave it to your rabid-lefty buddies to do the lying.
Quoth: Barney Rebble:
“You can argue that ‘Iraq, in my opinion, posed no credible threat,’ and your honesty quotent [sic] rises.”
Huh? Mr. Giraldi did say that. His posting is, by definition, his opinion. Inserting the adjective “credible” would do nothing to change the substance of the statement, either. Put another way: in my opinion, you have proposed no credible change to Mr. Giraldi’s post, with which you acknowledge your “99%” agreement.
The AIPACers have our media and government so focused on Iran that the real threat looms ever larger: Pakistan (which has nukes NOW).
Scary stuff.
And you’re basing this on accounts in the Times of India? Isn’t that like taking your cues on the U.S. from Pravda, circa 1950?
All of the attacks described did occur. But none of them – Sargodha, Wah, or Kamra, are nuclear facilities. And a quick look at the map will reveal that contrary to the article’s assertions, they are all relatively close to India, compared to most of the rest of the country (Quetta? Peshawar?)
i lived in kamra and it is close to india so you discredit the entire blog with mis-information and sargodha is also not far away from india : i dont believe anyone has access to the nuclear facilities of Pakistan as they are very well protected by the military :
Holy smokes! I thought I was the last person who believed the flyover propaganda.
It was a UN mission, and the UN said that even if it did happen, it wasn’t worth going to war over.
Personally, I think maybe we should expect to be shot at when we spend 10 years dropping bombs.
I don’t care if they threaten us.And I seem to recall they were cooperating with the UN Inspectors when we yanked them out, so there will never be any evidence to prove he had an illegal nuclear program.
All the trillions we’ve spent over the decades and we still can’t feel safe. Maybe just a few trillion more and…
People who argue that the nuclear facilities are closer to India – Pakistan as a whole is wedged between Afghanistan and India, A facility can be close to India and Afghanistan at the same time. Secondly, given that India has an air force, pretty much any location within Pakistan is “close” to with 45 minute flight time from a North Indian air base.
Hey Bill Fanning and Andrea,
I bet history is also lying about that whole “invaded Kuwait” story. You PROGRESSIVES need to get a grip.
Make up better stories. Or take it to daily kos, they’ll swallow anything.
leftists are not the only ones who believe in fairy stories. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at “pervez musharraf, friendly dictator”. He wasnt pushed out because benazir was better looking, he was pushed out because he was playing a double game and even the clueless US embassy had figured it out by 2007.
After the grand failure of the nation-building experiments in Iraq and Afghanistan, US should just move into Pakistan ? How many trillions will that cost ?
Perhaps some clarification. I said I agree 95% with Mr Giraldi, if you make allowances for his rigid “antiwar” predisposition.
To wit:
We don’t like war. We should get out. We shouldn’t have gotten into this mess.
We hopefully all agree.
The liberal lies complicate the picture:
There was NEVER ANY REASON, regardless how tenuous, to go to war. And, after whipping the IRAQI ARMY, only neocons kept us there “nationbuilding”.
If we buy into the LIBERAL LIE(S), then it becomes more difficult to fathom why OBAMA is running a war that we want him to get us out of (Afghanistan and Pakistan). And if we buy into THEIR propaganda, then we can’t understand why we are not already out of IRAQ.
If we let go of childish things (the LAST 8 YEARS IS THE ENTIRE PROBLEM), we become better able to function in the present, and recognize the dangers tearing our country apart. And it is NOT neocons.
I’m surprised at the weakness of this post.
Some clarification is necessary:
- Most, if not all, of the aforementioned facilities have no nuclear material.
- There is no indication the attackers believed they were attacking nuclear-related facilities.
- None of the attacks penetrated the outer perimeter of the facilities. One attack was on a school bus outside one of the facilities, killing innocent children.
- IF there were nuclear material in these facilities, there would be LAYERS of security and access would only be given to those with clearances.
- It is one thing for a brainwashed Taliban kid on a bike to blow himself near a bus that has a Pakistan Army license plate, and it is another thing for terrorists to successfully raid a nuclear facility commando style and penetrate over a dozen layers of security. The former has occurred, while the latter has never occurred and the probability for it occurring is close to zero.
- This is not 24. Nuclear weapons don’t come assembled or with simple instructions like an IKEA bookshelf.
Long story short, stop hyperventilating. Pakistan’s nukes are safe. There is a professional command and control system that was established by the Pakistan Army years before India did the same. Also, there is no more nuclear proliferation from the Pakistan side.
There are some issues common to all nuclear powers, such as securing spent nuclear fuel.