Matt Yglesias

23 Responses to “Pulling Back”

1. Dr. Doctrine Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 8:23 pm

   the Palin effect.

2. Freedom Fry Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

   Maybe I haven’t been paying close attention, but does anyone know what the point of this muscle flexing on the part of Russia was about?

3. Ed Marshall Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

   Maybe I haven’t been paying close attention, but does anyone know what the point of this muscle flexing on the part of Russia was about?

   See the Ledeen doctrine.

4. Dan Kervick Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

   Well, that didn’t really take very long. What, no permanent bases?

5. SqueakyRat Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 10:22 pm

   On to Warsaw!

   What was it about, Freedom Fry? Well, first of all, why shouldn’t it have been about what the Russians said it was about? They tell Georgia over and over again that they’re not getting South Ossetia and Abkhazia back by force of arms. Georgia invades South Ossetia, foolishly counting on Western support. Russia kicks Georgia’s ass, demonstrating what Western support is actually worth. Seems clear enough to me.

6. Richard Steven Hack Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 10:57 pm

   Meanwhile, Pakistan has just ordered its military to retaliate against any incursion by US troops across its borders. Read that again – Pakistan is going to SHOOT AT US TROOPS ON ITS SOIL.

   While our Pentagon officials say we will continue to cross into Pakistani territory.

   HELLOOOOOOO! Can we stop talking about this bitch from Alaska long enough to see another war about to happen?

   Meanwhile, if you must fixate on this bitch from Alaska to the exclusion of all else, try reading this. This guy says exactly what I’ve been saying: The Democrats are gonna lose – and then wonder why.

   We’re Gonna Frickin’ Lose this Thing
   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-mckay/were-gonna-frickin-lose-t_b_124772.html

   Money Quotes:

   “Stop saying that!” my wife says to me. But this is not a high school football game and I’m not a cheerleader with a bad attitude. This is an election and as things stand now, we’re gonna frickin’ lose this thing. Obama and McCain at best are even in the polls nationally and in a recent Gallup poll McCain is ahead by four points.

   Something is not right. We have a terrific candidate and a terrific VP candidate. We’re coming off the worst eight years in our country’s history. Six of those eight years the Congress, White House and even the Supreme Court were controlled by the Republicans and the last two years the R’s have filibustered like tantrum throwing 4-year-olds, yet we’re going to elect a Republican who voted with that leadership 90% of the time and a former sportscaster who wants to teach Adam and Eve as science? That’s not odd as a difference of opinion, that’s logically and mathematically queer.

   It reminds me of playing blackjack (a losers game). You make all the right moves, play the right hands but basically the House always wins. I know what you’re going to say ” But I won twelve hundred dollars last year in Atlantic City!” Of course there are victories. The odds aren’t tilted crazy, but there is a 51%-49% advantage. And in the long run, the house has to win. The house will win.

   So what is this house advantage the Republicans have? It’s the press. There is no more fourth estate. Wait, hold on…I’m not going down some esoteric path with theories on the deregulation of the media and corporate bias and CNN versus Fox…I mean it: there is no more functioning press in this country. And without a real press the corporate and religious Republicans can lie all they want and get away with it. And that’s the 51% advantage.

   Think this is some opinion being wryly posited to titillate other bloggers and inspire dialogue with Tucker Carlson or Gore Vidal? Fuck that. Four corporations own all the TV channels. All of them. If they don’t get ratings they get canceled or fired. All news is about sex, blame and anger, and fear. Exposing lies about amounts of money taken from lobbyists and votes cast for the agenda of the last eight years does not rate. The end.

   So one side can lie and get away with it. Now let’s throw in one more advantage. Voter caging and other corruption on the local level with voting. Check out the article here on HuffPost about Ohio messing with 600K voters. If only five thousand of those voters don’t or can’t vote that’s a huge advantage in a contest that could be decided by literally dozens of votes. That takes us to about a 52 to 48% advantage.

   I’m telling you, we’re going to lose this thing. And afterwords we’ll blame ourselves the same way we did with Gore and Kerry (two candidates a thousand times more qualified to lead than W Bush.) Just watch.. McCain wins by a point or two and we all walk around saying things like “Obama was too well spoken.” “Biden wasn’t lovable enough.” “I shouldn’t have split those eights.” “Why did I hit on 16? Why?!”

   This race should be about whether the Republican Party is going to be dismantled or not after the borderline treason of the past eight years. But instead it is about making the word “community organizer” a dirty word and a beauty queen who shoots foxes from a plane. Someone is not in any way doing their job and it’s the press. Or more specifically, that job no longer exists.

   Probably the worst offenders are the pundits who take the position that it’s all just a game and say phrases like “getting a post-convention bump” or “playing to the soccer Moms.” This isn’t a game of Monopoly or Survivor. There are real truths that exist outside of the spin they are given and have an effect on lives. 250,000 Iraqi civilians are dead because we let our reality be distorted by the most effective propaganda machine in fifty years, the corporate American press. Money and jobs are flying out of this country as our currency becomes worthless and we’re talking about the fact that McCain is a veteran. If someone busted into your house and robbed you would you then forgive them if you found out they were a veteran? Of course not. So why are we forgiving McCain for selling out his country by supporting the Bush agenda?

   This is it folks. If McCain takes power we fade and become Australia in the seventies: a backwoods country with occasional flashes of relevance. Except we’ve got a way bigger military and we’re angrier. People will get hurt and we’ll pay the bill for the bullets. I’m telling you, unless we wake up, we’re gonna lose this frickin’ thing.

7. Dan Kervick Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

   I think Russia mainly wanted to send the message that it can keep its security obligations. 99% of South Ossetians have a Russian passport. They clearly crave a closer relationship with Russia, voted for it in a referendum, and have tried to build an independent government. The Russians pursued a fairly responsible diplomatic course for years as Georgia shat on the Ossetians, and Saakashvili pursued his aim of re-subjugating a region whose people the Georgians evidently detest, and have brutalized for years. Once Georgia started shelling Tskhinvali after repeated Russian warnings, killing either hundreds or thousands of people, what else could Moscow do?

   No doubt Russia was also interested in sending a message about the limits of Western adventurism inside its remaining sphere of influence. US provocateurs and operatives, and wild-eyed NATO expansionists, have been pushing and prodding Russia for years now, far from the US, right along Russia’s own borders, with little active attention for the US public. They have been testing to see how far they can go. Not only did they encourage Georgia to act independently of Russia, but they emboldened Georgia in an aggressively anti-Russia direction, which included targeting people under Russian protection, thus daring Russia to accept the humiliating position that it’s protection means nothing. So Russia finally drew a line, peed on it, and said “that’s far enough”.

8. Ed Marshall Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 11:08 pm

   Who ordered the military to do that? In a way, it doesn’t matter, the Pakistani military doesn’t really answer to the president anyway. The Pakistani military has a veto on the civilian leadership and always has.

   OTOH, the Pakistani military also sells wolf tickets. My guess is it was someone in the Pakistani military who said that. You are dealing with a massively corrupt little group of officers who have a bunch of ideological constructs that totally contradict where their bread is buttered. They want to be fighting India not a bunch of Pashtuns. They get an incredible bunch of money through shady slush funds to fight people they don’t want to fight. My take is they are sidelined. They get bribed to not do exactly what they are threatening to do.

   If they carry through their entire operational structure is fucked. They can’t get parts anymore for their mostly American bought military program. They have to start from scratch from a new procurer. Russia? Maybe, but they would have their ass hanging out for years.

9. Henry Says:
   September 13th, 2008 at 11:42 pm

   I agree with Dan Kervick’s post about the Russians. The Georgians should probably do the national equivalent of checking the silverware after the Russians have gone, because anything of value that wasn’t nailed down (and probably stuff that was nailed down) is likely on its way back to Mother Russia. But I’m sure that the East Europeans, and the Baltic states would tell the Georgians that they’re getting off easy. Regarding Ed Marshall’s point about the Russians supplying arms to Pakistan, I think a more likely choice is China because the Pakistanis have bought weapons from China before. Russia supplies weapons to India and is co-operating in the development of several weapons systems with India. Don’t think they’d want to jeopardize that relationship by selling weapons to the Pakistani military.

10. Ed Marshal Says:
    September 13th, 2008 at 11:47 pm

    I think a more likely choice is China because the Pakistanis have bought weapons from China before.

    What are they gonna buy? What Chinese platform do they want? The Pakistani military operates from the position they are going to fight a war with India. What could you buy from China to compete with an American supplied combat force from India?

    Russia has stuff that is competitive with the U.S. and they don’t even field it in their own military. China has 1980’s era crap.

11. nanne Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 4:46 am

    Matt: you forgot to add that this followed on Europe style direct diplomacy as practiced by the President of France, Sarkozy.

    Dan: Putin said that they couldn’t allow Russia to get a ‘bloody nose’, and that otherwise, there would have been a ’second blow’ in the North Caucasus (i.e. on Russian territory). That was at a press conference in Sochi.

12. Henry Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 4:51 am

    Ed I wasn’t suggesting that the military equipment that the Chinese produce is better than American equipment, or Russian equipment for that matter. Certainly the Pakistani military would prefer American equipment if they can get it and if they can’t then perhaps Russian equipment. The problem for the Pakistanis is that the Russians already supply weapons to India and selling weapons to Pakistan would create problems for them with India. It doesn’t make sense for the Russians to lose a customer with a military of over one million so they can supply a country with a military of half a million. The reason I mentioned China is because they are one of the larger arms producers and the Pakistanis have bought equipment from them before. Also you have to bear in mind how many weapons an arms producing country could supply. In terms of quality, the Pakistanis would be better off probably with the French, Germans, or Israelis but Pakistan’s military is about 600,000 and I doubt those countries would be able to supply the quantity of weapons they would need.

13. rapier Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 7:10 am

    What the muscle flexing was about was domestic politics. There is euphoria in the Kremlin. Every body politic loves military victory, especially on the cheap. In fact the entire thing was win win for the US and Russia. The Republican’s and the military got shiny new enemy to help with the election and Putin officially destroyed the already weak and disjointed opposition. It would have been bad form if Cheney had gone to Moscow on his recent junket and done some high fiving with Putin but he didn’t have to. These things are always done with winks and nods.

14. Richard Steven Hack Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 7:53 am

    Here are the facts about Pakistan – they are seriously ticked off with the US right now.

    Army ordered to hit back
    http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=17190

    The Pakistan Army has been ordered to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside the country, Geo News quoted ISPR spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas as saying on Thursday night.

    Shakil Shaikh adds from Islamabad: Pakistan’s military commanders resolved to defend the country’s borders without allowing any external forces to conduct operations inside Pakistan.

    The military commanders expressed this resolve on the first day of the two-day Corps Commanders conference, which began here on Thursday at the General Headquarters. Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani chaired the all-important conference against the backdrop of the new strategic developments taking place in the region.

    General Kayani has already rebuffed the American policy of including Pakistani territory in their operations against terrorists and those hiding in the areas bordering Afghanistan. Reports say that the US President Bush has allowed air raids from drones and ground operations in Pakistani areas including FATA.

    Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has termed General Kayani’s response to the Americans as a true reflection of the government’s policy. The military commanders are understood to have discussed the implications of the American attacks inside Pakistan and took stock of the public feeling.

    “In his statement, Genral Kayani has represented the feeling of the entire nation, as random attacks inside Pakistan have angered each and every Pakistani,” said a senior official. As the corps commanders continue their discussion on Friday, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has supported the Bush administration’s policy of conducting attacks inside Pakistan.

    President Zardari is expected to talk to Mr. Brown on this issue during his first visit to Britain next week. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, is also learnt to have already talked to senior security officials in Washington. The latest spate of attacks from drones in Fata has killed many innocent people recently, which has only added to the gravity and complexity of the situation.

    And the US is engaging in war crimes IN PAKISTAN!

    Playing with firepower
    President Bush is taking a big gamble in launching overt attacks on Pakistani territory
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4748833.ece

    Money Quotes:

    The Americans picked an inauspicious day to open a new front in the war on terror. It was 4am on the third day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and the villagers of Angoor Adda, a small Pakistani mountain town near the Afghan border, were lighting their stoves for breakfast before a long day of fasting.

    Two US helicopters supported by a AC130 Spectre gunship landed close to the shrine of a local saint. Out jumped about three dozen heavily armed marines and Navy Seals from a crack unit called Detachment One. As they emerged from the churning dust onto the rock-strewn hills, they made for a terrifying sight in their night-vision goggles.

    Within minutes the commandos had surrounded the mudwalled compound of Payo Jan Wazir, a 50-year-old woodcutter and cattle-herd. They believed an Al-Qaeda leader was hiding inside.

    According to villagers, the troops burst in, guns blazing, killing Payo Jan, six children, two women and a male relation. Among the dead were a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, they said.

    The gunfire brought neighbours running out of their homes. As people headed towards Payo Jan’s house to see what had caused the commotion, the commandos opened fire, killing 10 more villagers.

    The Americans fanned out, conducting house-to-house searches, before jumping back into the gunships and off into the sky. Stunned villagers were left to carry away the bodies left in the street.

    The first known American ground assault inside Pakistan had left 20 people dead. US officials claimed they were suspected Al-Qaeda fighters; the Pakistan government said they were innocent civilians.

    The growing frustration among US commanders in Afghanistan coincided with what appears to be a new determination by George W Bush to find Bin Laden before his presidency ends in January.

    “I know the hunt is on. They are pulling out all the stops,” said a US defence official. “They want to find Bin Laden before the president leaves office and ensure that Al-Qaeda will not attack the US during the upcoming elections.”

    Both US and British special forces have been carrying out missions inside Pakistan since March this year following an agreement in January between Bush and Pervez Musharraf, then president of Pakistan.

    In return, Pakistan’s military received £227m to upgrade its F-16 fighters. The deal explains why the Bush administration – and Whitehall – were so keen to keep Musharraf in office after elections in February in which the party he backed was defeated.

    British troops from the Special Boat Service and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment have been working alongside the US Delta Force and the intelligence-gathering security coordination detachment.

    Their missions have concentrated on surreptitious “special reconnaissance” operations designed to go undetected, a British source said. The only firepower has come from unmanned Predator spy planes.

    “They are tracking the Taliban who are doing deals to get cash and weapons, looking where the opium is being traded and tracking the Taliban back looking for the leadership,” one British source said.

    They have then guided the Predator to the targets so they can be tracked and attacked with Hellfire missiles.

    The covert nature of the missions, with the troops staying clear of situations where they might get drawn into fire-fights, ensured they attracted little attention other than tribal villagers complaining about drones overhead.

    In July all that changed. Pakistan’s new democratically elected government made its first visit to Washington. Instead of the congratulations and aid packages they expected, ministers received what they described as a “grilling” and left reeling at “the trust deficit” between Pakistan and its most significant financial backer.

    Bush confronted Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan’s prime minister, with evidence of involvement by its military intelligence (ISI) in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.

    “They were very hot on the ISI,” said Rehman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister. “Very hot. When we asked them for more information, Bush laughed and said, ‘When we share information with your guys, the bad guys always run away.’ ”

    While the talks were underway in Washington, Lieutenant-General Martin Dempsey, acting commander of US forces in southwest Asia, made an unannounced visit to Miranshah in North Waziristan and concluded the Pakistani effort was going nowhere.

    Whether it was because of the worsening security situation, or in the hope of springing “an October surprise” in the form of Bin Laden’s head to boost the election chances of the Republican John McCain, Bush decided it was time to go beyond reconnaissance and tracking. In late July he issued a secret national security presidential directive authorising special forces to carry out ground operations inside Pakistan without its permission. Britain was not consulted about the directive.

    “It’s a very close-hold programme with few cleared for access to the details,” said one US source. “The onus of the new presidential directive allows for ‘kinetic’ operations against targets on the HVT [high-value target] list.”

    What it meant in practice was American boots on the ground. The question is whether they will bring gains or merely inflame the region.

    CRITICS say “direct action” missions inside Pakistan such as that at Angoor Adda are bound to cause more damage than good.

    “What have they gained out of this except animosity?” asked Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Pakistan’s high commissioner to London and one of Zardari’s closest advisers. “They have not killed or captured any prominent Al-Qaeda leader, but the collateral damage is responsible for hundreds of deaths and the reaction is being felt everywhere in the country.

    “They’re playing into the hands of the people we’re supposed to be fighting.”

    He insisted that Pakistan had responded to US demands for more aggressive action in the tribal areas and accused the US of jeopardising Pakistan’s hard-won new democracy.

    “It seems no coincidence they do all this just as Zardari takes over. The Americans talk of wanting democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan yet here they have always supported military dictatorships. They must give us space.”

    For once Pakistan’s military and civilians seem in agreement. General Ashfaq Kiyani, Pakistan’s army chief, warned that the armed forces would defend the country’s sovereignty “at all costs”.

    The British voiced concerns that “killing groups of civilians and not killing high-level targets can only make the situation worse”, according to an official.

    The US defended the raids. “We can hunt down and kill extremists as they cross over the border from Pakistan,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told a congressional committee last week. “But until we eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming.”

    Another US attack took place on Friday, this time a missile directed against a former school in Miranshah being used as a base for a militant organisation. The front page of Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper yesterday accused the US of “mocking talk of sovereignty”.

    Pakistan has again threatened to block off supply routes to Nato troops in Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan is landlocked, about 85% of Nato supplies come in through the port of Karachi.

    However, Washington appears to be gambling that Pakistan needs the US at least as much as the US needs Pakistan. Spiralling food and fuel prices have left Pakistan in its worst economic crisis in a decade and it is expected to have to resort to the International Monetary Fund. America has provided $12 billion in handouts to Islamabad over the past six years.

    Sensing division between Whitehall and Washington over the new policy, Pakistan’s government has decided it will appeal to Britain.

    Zardari flies to London today. It was supposed to be a private visit to take his daughter Bakhtawar to begin her degree at Edinburgh University. But because of the situation, he will hold meetings with Gordon Brown and David Miliband, the foreign secretary.

    He told The Sunday Times last month that he felt Pakistan was being blamed for Nato’s failure in Afghanistan. “Okay, we’re really bad and done everything wrong this side of the border, but has Nato been able to control the situation with all its soldiers or come up with a proper Afghan army as yet?” he asked. “I’m not pointing fingers, just saying we’ve all come short of expectations.”

15. Henry Says:
    September 14th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    To Ed Marshall. I thought it over a bit and concluded you have a point. The Pakistani Air Force currently operate F-16’s. There’s no aircraft that the Chinese export that would come close. So China would be no good for the Pakistanis to supply them with high-tech weapons. Low-tech stuff like guns, ammunition, even artillery, they would be able to supply and in larger amounts than most other countries. But as you said not sophisticated stuff.

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