The Enemy of My Enemy Is In Trouble!
Mickey Kaus links to the Washington Post’s account of the last days of Afghan rebel Abdul Haq. Stuff That Should Not Be News to Anyone: Haq’s pre-capture reports make it clear that, as other sources have claimed, the bombing is galvanizing support for the Taliban and anger at the US among the Pashtuns in the south and east. This is what bombing always does and always has. Any planner or decision maker who tells you that a bombing campaign will demoralize an enemy government and inspire the locals to overthrow it needs to be shuffled off to a sinecure at the Weekly Standard. There may be good reason to bomb someone, but inspiring the bombed to support you is not one.
Haq’s relationship with the CIA was ambiguous and his relationship with Pakistan’s ISI, an organization that practically qualifies as a “root cause” of terrorism, problematic. But there’s a certain whiz bang factor in Haq’s end:
Besides, Ritchie said, the witnesses reported that Abdul Haq had already been captured by the time the bomb was dropped. He said more than four hours elapsed from the time Abdul Haq’s companion called Peshawar and the moment the bomb was dropped.
“Ritchie,” a Chicago millionaire is described as a “one of Abdul Haq’s close associates.” Here is what happened in “four hours.”
- Haq gets thrown from his horse when ambushed in a canyon.
- A member of his entourage calls Peshawar on a satellite phone. Ritchie is “summoned.” (The article doesn’t make it completely clear whether he was in Peshawar or Chicago.)
- Ritchie calls Robert McFarlane of Iran-Contra fame.
- McFarlane “contact[s] the military.”
- A suddenly appearing surveillance aircraft pinpoints Haq’s location.
- “Two U.S. jets bombed a vehicle convoy spotted on a road several miles away.” (And the “ineffective bombing” theme recurs.)
Since Ritchie asked McFarlane and the military repeatedly for helicopters and none appeared, one must conclude that the military didn’t feel like sending helicopters. For whatever reason, they thought it better that Haq die than that they rescue him. But in a geeky, Tom Clancy way, it’s really something that you can order up a bombing raid in only four hours like that, with calls bouncing from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Illinois to Washington and back.
Well, I don’t mean you can. But some people can.
