Have the Taliban Evolved? The Attack on Camp Bastion

By Intelligence Operative Jay Holmes*

On September 14, 15 Taliban fighters dressed in US Army style uniforms attacked the UK’s Camp Bastion in Helmand Provence, Afghanistan. The attackers were armed with PKM machine guns, AK-47 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenades and exploding suicide vests. The camp has a perimeter of over 35 km and is a major logistics center for Allied operations in Afghanistan. US Marine Corps Aviation squadrons occupy part of the British base, and sadly, two outstanding Marines lost their lives that night.

Sgt. Bradley Atwell and Lt. Col. Christopher Raible, image from marinecorpstimes.com

Marine Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Marine Sgt. Bradley Atwell were both killed by an explosion while counter-attacking the Taliban. We offer our sincere condolences to the loved ones of these two great Marines.

The attack is seen by some as something of a hallmark event in the Afghan War. Some feel that it indicates an “evolution” in tactics by the Taliban. The Taliban executed a well-planned attack against a large, well-defended position and managed to destroy several expensive Harrier attack jets, in addition to killing two Marines.

However, in my view the attack is not quite a hallmark event. While the Taliban demonstrated some ability to evolve in their tactics, one must assume that they use some of the abundant time at their disposal to think about their situation and try to identify opportunities. This was hardly a revolutionary combat event. The base has been there for years, and it’s more remarkable that the Taliban took this long to organize an attack against such a valuable and vulnerable Allied asset.

I’m grateful that the Taliban are not commanded by Viet Cong guerillas, Wehrmacht Panzer leaders, Imperial Japanese Army officers, or an L.A drug king pin. If they were, it would be hard to imagine them doing relatively little damage in exchange for fifteen of their own warriors. I’m grateful that few Taliban are capable of reading anything other than the Koran. If they were, they would be far more effective and far more dangerous.

The attack on Camp Bastion will have no impact on US or British policies in Afghanistan. The Allies are in fact already reducing force strength in preparation for a departure from Afghanistan. It’s not like they are going to leave a day early in response to anything that the Taliban or other hoodlums in the area might do.

Some analysts are certain that the attack was “masterminded,” if you can call it that, by the Haqqani brand of Taliban, which has been popular in Pakistan and Afghanistan in recent months. Which particular tribal thug ordered out this particular cadre of suicide fighters is of no great significance because frankly, neither the US nor the British governments intend to do much of anything about it. What would the response be? Would the US military or State Department hold an extra twenty minute meeting with Afghan Gangster in Cheif Muhammad Karzai? What stern phrases would Karzai utter in that meeting? Would he pose for one of his cute “right index finger pointing to heaven while I grimace” pictures? Is there anyone left in Washington or London who could be so gullible as to believe anything that he or his band of thieves would say? I hope not.

My best analysis is that the Taliban were in fact not attempting to impact the Allied mission in Afghanistan by conducting this latest suicide attack. They were more likely trying to impact their own standing within Afghanistan and the region. Once the allies leave Afghanistan, the Taliban face the task of re-asserting their dominance, and they need all the PR help they can get. The Taliban would hate to see anyone else get the profits from those poppy fields.

In the mean time US and Allied military personnel will continue conducting operations against the Taliban and their many local clones while doing their utmost to appear polite and friendly to a population of people that care little about “polite” and know less still about “friendly” when it comes to outsiders. It’s a damned shame that more Allied soldiers and marines will lose their lives while everyone waits for the final departure from this very expensive theatre of the macabre.

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Antonio Wilccoxen, an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon gunner, and fellow U.S. Marines with 1st Platoon, Company I, Battalion Landing Team 3/8, Regimental Combat Team 8, walk through a poppy field during a security patrol from their patrol base in Helmand province’s Green Zone, west of the Nar-e Saraj canal, March 31. Elements of 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit deployed to Afghanistan to provide regional security in Helmand province in support of the International Security Assistance Force. Image from Department of Defense via publicintelligence.net.

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*‘Jay Holmes’, is an intelligence veteran of the Cold War and remains an anonymous member of the intelligence community. His writing partner, Piper Bayard, is the public face of their partnership.

You may contact them in blog comments, on Twitter at@piperbayard, on Facebook at Piper Bayard, or by email at piperbayard@yahoo.com. 

© 2012 Jay Holmes. All content on this page is protected by copyright. If you would like to use any part of this, please contact us at the above links to request permission.

Bayard & Holmes CyberSmack – Rush Limbaugh

Last week, Georgetown law student Sarah Fluke testified at a congressional hearing and asked Congress to make it mandatory for employers to provide contraception coverage for their employees in their health insurance benefits.

In response, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh called her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Here’s his quote:

“What does it say about the college co-ed [Sandra] Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says she must be paid to have sex?” Limbaugh asked. “What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.”

Not only did he blantantly misquote her, the next day he stated she should post videos of herself having sex as a way of compensating taxpayers for her birth control. (She was not advocating that taxpayers pay for anything.)

Even Rush’s “apology” mischaracterized the issue and could reasonably be construed as insulting:

Lest we get sidetracked into unnecessary discussions about employers’ rights, religious freedoms, or the rights and wrongs of contraception, there is an issue in this that is irrefutable, and that issue is that Limbaugh was a disgusting coward to bully this unsuspecting woman so completely while locked in the safety of his radio booth behind his microphone.

This type of misogynistic behavior is more typical of how we would expect a radio announcer in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan to treat a woman. Limbaugh could have made his point and been plenty offensive without directing such rude, unjustified name calling at someone who was merely stating her well-considered position in a congressional hearing. For him to attack her so personally demonstrates a level of hostility toward women that should never be supported in a civilized society.

Therefore, Rush has earned a Bayard & Holmes CyberSmack.

We believe Rush needs to learn the value of civility toward women. Therefore, as part of his CyberSmack, we will be awarding him a ticket to Trinidad, Colorado, the gender change capital of the United States, where he will be transformed into a vague approximation of a woman. The operation should go something like this. . . .

Before

After

We will then send Rush to Afghanistan with the mission of convincing the Taliban to be polite to women. To accomplish this mission, we will equip him with a special electronic device to translate his words from English to Pashto. When Rush says, “Hello, how are you today?” the translator will twist his words in the same manner he inflicts on everyone else and will produce a “Rush” of insults involving references to their impotence and their affection for goats.

The Taliban will then, no doubt, teach Rush how it feels to be an abused woman, and what life is like when a society has no value or respect for its women. That’s a place our country should never go, no matter what the issue.

What other fun can you think of to teach Rush how to behave toward women?

Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Holmes–Student of Sex, C4, and Hollow Points

Special Edition Iran – Timeline Part V

As an intelligence operative, Holmes has a passion for history, because if we don’t understand what happened in the past, we can’t understand what is happening today and why. Currently, he is catching us up on the increasingly worrisome situation in Iran, which means taking a look at Iran’s past. See Special Edition Iran – Timeline Part I, Timeline Part II, Timeline Part III, and Timeline Part IV. Today, Holmes brings us up to the ascension of Muhammad  Reza Pahlavi, the fellow most Westerners alive today know as “The Shah of Iran.”

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By HOLMES

The early 1900s represents one of the most critical, most frequently twisted, and most frequently misunderstood or ignored periods in the formation of modern Iran.

1911 A.D.

The great lost opportunity for Freedom and Democracy in Iran.

William Morgan Shuster

The elected Iranian Parliament (The Majlis) appoints a brilliant American lawyer and financier, William Morgan Shuster, to the post of Treasurer General of Iran. The choice is a wise one. Shuster is experienced in finance and customs operations for the US Treasury.

Shuster is trusted by the Iranian Majlis because he has been supporting them in their efforts to form a constitution for Iran for several years with expertise, political connections, and financial support from his personal wealth. Shuster is operating on the belief that a stable Nationalist “pro-Iranian” government in Iran will be better for Iran and for any potential trade partners, including the USA.

Shuster imports a team of American banking experts and white collar crime specialists and begins implementing reforms to reduce corruption and build a treasury for Iran. Shuster’s efforts bode well for the future of a constitutional and democratic society in Iran. So naturally, he is unpopular with British oil developers, Russian Czarists, and their Iranian lackeys who grow wealthy from the foreign intervention.

Great Britain uses skilled diplomatic pressure on Iran to attempt to oust Shuster. Russia uses standard “Russian” style diplomacy and dispatches an army of 12,000 well equipped soldiers to invade Iran.

The Russians provide muscle for the installation of an obese twelve-year-old named Sultan Ahmed Shah.  In the later decades, Iran’s politically ambitious religious fanatics will rail against the filthy Western devils for the invasion, but at the time, many of these fanatics cooperated with the British and the Russians in hopes of destroying democracy in Iran.

The Majlis is shelled by Russian artillery and destroyed. Democratic Nationalism dies an agonizing death across Iran. Shuster and his Americans depart Iran with their lives intact (due to British maneuvering).

Neither the UK nor Russia wants to drag the US government with its idealistic views into Iran so killing Shuster and his team would have been a political disaster for the UK. The Russian state is in a state of perpetual disaster so one more disaster would have likely gone unnoticed. The British Foreign Office with the skilled help of MI-6 and the Royal Navy, and without public disclosures to the voters in the UK, manages to shape the resultant fallout to their advantage, and they gain control of southern Iran and its oil fields.

Shuster later publishes a book, The Strangling of Persia. The book is highly critical of the UK and Russia.

1913 A.D.

Thanks in large part to the UK’s strong grip on Iranian oil reserves, the already pre-eminent Royal Navy is now able to take an important technological leap in naval warfare and converts its navy from coal to oil. The advantages are tremendous. They are able to drive still more heavily armored ships at higher speeds, thanks to the efficiency of oil fired boilers vs. coal fired boilers.

HMS Hood, image from militaryfactory.com

The Royal Navy gains more mobility because they now require less frequent refueling. For comparison, the US Navy was able to begin the conversion to oil in 1908 with tests on land-based boilers and machinery mock ups. The US was able to commit to the conversion based purely on science rather than economics because she had a reliable domestic supply of oil.

July 28, 1914

Austria makes one of the most asinine political decisions in human history. Backed by assurances from the ever confident Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, Austria invades Serbia. Serbia should be worn down by internal strife and fights with the Ottoman empire. It seems like a great decision to the apparently intellectually challenged Austrian royalty and their poorly trained military leaders. It requires little capital investment (the first week), and victory should be quick and profitable. The “easy one month victory” turns in to the great human tragedy known as World War One.

Iran has no idea which way to turn. It makes no turns and declares neutrality. It seems like a great idea and requires no capital investment. The neutrality works about as well as any neutral declaration does when not backed up by military capacity. The Ottomans want the oil. The British intend to keep it, and the “neutral” Iran becomes one more bloody battlefield in the madness of World War One. The Iranian economy is disrupted, agriculture suffers, and children go hungry.

1919 A.D.

Having successfully defended their hold on Afghanistan through World War One, the British government asks itself why it is in Afghanistan. The answer is two fold. One reason was that the British presence in Afghanistan was a response to raids into British controlled India by highly mobile, fast moving Afghan mounted warriors. The second and more critical reason was to simply keep the Russians out.

It occurs to the British Foreign Office that the cruelest thing they can do to the annoyingly communist Soviet Union is to leave them to tangle with Afghanistan. The British withdraw their troops from the profitless Afghan territory and reinforce their border between Afghanistan and India. If you glance at a map, remember that what is now Pakistan was then part of India.

Iranian Prime Minister Vosooghoddoleh secretly grants Great Britain direct authority over transportation, financial, and military institutions. Great Britain has stopped paying oil royalties because Iran failed to protect British assets from attack by anti-British gangs and the occasional Soviet agent. The Iranian government is almost completely without authority across Iran.

1920 A.D.

When word of the secret agreement with the British leaks out, rioting erupts in many areas, and anti-government forces start to organize. The incompetent and unpronounceable Prime Minister Vosooghoddoleh is forced to resign and is replaced by an equally powerless but somewhat more pronounceable Prime Minster named Moshiroddoleh.

The government of Iran is weak and disorganized. A fast riding, fierce tribe from the north (the Soviet communists) invades northern Iran. They shell Anzali (in northern Iran) for three days and then capture the city and set up a camp for the organization of a massive communist revolution in Iran.

The Islamic Iranians are none too impressed with the offers to join an atheist revolution in exchange for free vodka, and the massive revolution fails to materialize. The Iranian government is up to its neck in poverty and internal strife and agrees to surrender its territory north of the Aras river to the USSR (modern day Turkmenistan).

1921 A.D.

An Iranian military leader who had distinguished himself in World War One, Reza Khan, seizes power with the help of the British. He is able to lead the Iranian Cossack Brigade in suppressing the many local uprisings across Iran.

1922 A.D.

Shia Islamic leader Sheik Abdolkarim Haeri Yadi founds a school for training Shia clerics in Qom. The hitherto insignificant Qom grows into the Iranian center for religion and political discontent.

A Shia Academy in Qom, image from iranianhistory.pbworks.com

1923 A.D.

Reza Khan becomes the Prime Minister of Iran by unanimous election. There were two votes, his and Great Britain’s. If he lacks legitimacy in democratic terms he is at least intelligent and able to begin to rebuild and modernize Iran.

1925 A.D.

The majority of religious leaders across Iran quietly form an agreement to support Reza Khan because they strongly oppose democracy. In exchange, Reza Khan agrees to leave religious leaders in charge of many local civil matters. To the Islamic religious leaders, it seems like a good idea and requires no capital investment on their part.

1926 A.D.

Reza Khan ascends the Golden Peacock throne of Persia and is crowned Reza Shah Pahlavi. His eldest son, Muhammad Reza, is declared the crown prince. The shah intensifies “Westernization” efforts. The religious leaders start to resent him, but they now lack the power to overthrow him. The Shah orders the building of Iran’s first cross-country railroad system, new schools, and industrial projects.

1935 A.D.

The Shah now feels strong enough to declare an official name change for the country from Persia to Iran. He begins to resist British influence. He outlaws the use of the veil for women, and as his government becomes more effective, he regains control of local civil matters.

When there is an uprising instigated by angry Shia Islamic leaders at the sacred Imam Reza shrine in Masshad, Iran, the Shah orders his military to crush the rebellion. Several hundred protestors are killed.

1941 A.D.

The Shah starts to get too cozy with Hitler and Mussolini. The British and Russians move in and see that he’s deposed. The crown prince, Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, is placed on the Peacock Throne.

 

In our next article, we will look at Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s struggle to remain in power, his relationship with Western powers, and the eventual collapse of the throne of Iran.

The End is Near (and we deserve it). . . . NY Subway Workers Hold “Rate My Rat” Contest

Apparently, the folks at the New York Subway have now chosen to embrace their resident rodents and make them part of the Subway Culture. And I don’t mean the sandwich shop.

Now, when you see a rat on a New York subway, you can take its picture and post it at A Rat-Free Subway, where people will vote on it. Grand prize winner receives a monthly transit pass.

Caution: Some of the pictures on this video are really gross.

Blogs and Articles in No Particular Order 

What’s the Etiquette for Abandoning Ship? Good to know if your captain likes to do personal favors for his waiters, like, oh, sail too close to land.

Lewis Campbell is both profound and eloquent in his blog about events and people at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan at his blog, Gordian Knots of Self-Delusion. Afterglow

Bagram AFB, image from globalsecurity.org

The healing power of dance from Pat Thunstrom. Care to Dance?

Russian Villager Mistakenly Buys Kalashnikov Arsenal via Samuel Clemons.

Fantasy Author Jim C. Hines does hysterical imitations of the women on the covers of fantasy novels. Striking a Pose

How cool is this toy? The Triton Submarine via James Rollins.

 

Why Morris Animal Foundation and Animals Love Betty White, via Amy Shojai.

August McLaughlin reminds us why integrity of fact is so important. Truthiness: Raising the Bar in the Blogosphere

I Will from Celeste Alluvial at Mortal Hearts with Immortal Souls.

 

Crazy Concept Cars: The Nissan Pivo by Nigel Blackwell.

Blogs about SOPA/PIPA 

Comments from historical fiction author and publishing attorney Susan Spann at Spann of Time. SOPA, PIPA, and Freedom of Expression

Why SOPA is Dangerous by Chris Heald.

From Chuck Wendig at Terrible Minds. Why SOPA and PIPA and Other Anti-Piracy Bullshit Measures Matter to Writers

In honor of SOPA and PIPA, I’m passing along this Daniel Radcliffe/Harry Potter Skit from last week’s Saturday Night Live. Enjoy the freedom while we can.

What do you think? Has New York given up on its rat problem, or is the Rate a Rat contest going to result in cleaner subways?

All the best to all of you for maintaining your desired level of rodent infestation.

Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Bradley Manning – The Facts Amid the Fury

By HOLMES

On December 17, 2011, news channels in the US and Europe reported on Army Private Bradley Manning’s pretrial hearing in Fort Meade, Maryland. Manning is responding to charges that he passed to unauthorized parties over 250k classified US diplomatic messages, nearly 500k secret military files, over 400k medical files of military personnel, and the names of Afghan double agents cooperating with the US Military. The Military reported that, after Wiki-leaks published the names of those double agents, most of them were killed by the Taliban or Tali-clones.

image from smh.com.au

Manning’s defense team has, with some success, marketed Manning as a heroic whistle-blower, drawing supporters who created a “Free Bradley Manning Support Network.” One middle-aged supporter interviewed by Reuters even said Manning should receive a Medal of Honor for his heroic acts.

The fact is that, while a few of the files that Manning sent to Wiki-leaks may have been classified in order to protect the Army from embarrassing mistakes that resulted in civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, the majority of what Manning gave away can hardly qualify as suitable material for “whistle blowing.” Furthermore, if whistle blowing had been Manning’s goal, military personnel have access to whistle blowing channels that they can use without fear of persecution or retribution.

Manning’s defense team also introduced the fact that Manning has an alter ego, “Breanna Manning.” Defense claimed Manning’s actions were in part caused by the fact that, as a homosexual, he was treated unfairly by the military.

A few of the more gullible gay rights advocates have now taken up the clarion call and want Manning released from his Army homosexual persecution. The fact that the Army has not charged Manning with any Uniform Code of Military Justice violations based on his sexual practices (or fantasies) has not stopped those few poor duped souls from loudly defending his gay rights.

The willingness of some members of the public to passionately advocate one position or another based on fashion rather than facts has clearly been recognized by Manning’s defense team, and it appears to be the basis of their defense strategy. Before investing any passion that might be better used in the bedroom, let’s break with the current popular trend and review a few verifiable facts.

Precisely who is Bradley Manning, and what do we know about the accusations against him?

Bradley Manning was born on December 17, 1987 in Crescent, Oklahoma to the Welsh woman Susan Fox and her American husband Brian Manning. According to his teachers, Bradley was outspoken about his opinions, but he was not a troublemaker.

When Bradley was 13, his parents divorced, and he moved to Wales with his mother. In school in Wales, Manning was picked on. This was possibly exacerbated by his outspokenness, his effeminate mannerisms, and his likely lack of social skills. He eventually took an equivalency test and moved back to Oklahoma to live with his father.

In the States, Manning got a job with a software company but was fired after a few months. In March of 2006, he got into an argument with his stepmother and decided to make his point by threatening her with a butcher knife. The police removed Manning from the house. After that, he lived in an old pickup truck and worked at odd jobs.

In October of 2007, Bradley entered the Army. He scored well on various tests and was selected for training in Army Intelligence School. While in intelligence school at Fort Huachuca, Manning was reprimanded for posting sensitive information on YouTube.

Had I been his commanding officer, this is when Manning would have begun his brilliant new Army career as a bathroom cleaning and parking lot security specialist. I simply would have explained to Bradley that if any vehicles in the parking lot went damaged, he would be pulling extra duty on weekends cleaning everyone else’s toilets. It’s a big Army with lots of toilets, and they need lots of cleaning, so there is a place for the Bradley Mannings of the world in the great big Army, but that place should never include access to weapons, classified information, vehicles, electricity, etc.

However, in the Western world, the modern military doesn’t always like the “hard-ass” approach, so Bradley was graduated, and he and his security clearance (which must have been conducted by a Taliban subcontractor) were designated to eventually work in Iraq. Iraq at the time was a place with lots of secret American military communications, weapons, vehicles, things that go “boom” and occasionally even electricity—not at all the sort of place for Bradley Manning.

Before being deployed to Iraq, Manning spent time at Fort Drum, New York, the home of the elite 10th Mountain Division. While at Fort Drum, he hooked up with a male lover from Boston College who introduced him to the hacker community. He attended a “hackerspace” workshop where he presumably honed his hackiness.

Manning was unhappy at Fort Drum and didn’t hide it. He argued with his roommates and screamed at officers. Still, nobody saw any reason to pull his security clearance.

To a degree, I can understand this. In the US military, “spooks” of all varieties are expected to be a bit eccentric. Some of them often ignore petty rules and find ways to get around the system without ruffling any high-ranking feathers. If they do good work, the commanders will usually look the other way rather than troubling to find more talent to complete difficult work that not everyone has an aptitude for or an interest in.

In exchange for this informal “different drummer” exception that spooks might at times receive, they are expected to maintain the highest security standards and perform extremely well in their corps responsibilities. However, that willingness to ignore a few eccentricities does not usually extend to screaming at superior officers or fighting with roommates.  Manning was marching to his own drummer, but he clearly was not maintaining good security practices. Manning was sent to a mental health councilor, but he kept his security clearance.

In October of 2009, Manning was sent to Iraq and was stationed at Forward Operating Base “Hammer.” While at FOB Hammer, Manning’s state of mind did not improve. After several people reported odd behavior by Manning, he was sent to a chaplain.

If a chaplain is in residence at a forward operating base, he will often serve as minister, psychiatrist, councilor, and social worker all rolled into one. Unfortunately, even a talented chaplain has limited tools at his disposal and can’t remove a disturbed “patient” from the front. Not surprisingly, the chaplain was unable to perform any magic on Manning, and his behavior did not improve.

Manning had access to a vast array of data that his job did not require via the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System. Apparently, he was only in theater about a month when he allegedly started sending Wikileaks volumes of classified files.

On May 7, 2010, Manning punched his female commanding officer in the face. Fortunately for Manning, she did not draw her M9 pistol and shoot him twice. Manning was demoted to the rank of private, a rank he never should have been elevated from in the first place, and told that he would be sent home and discharged.

Shortly after the “woman beating” incident, and before he was shipped home, he reached out to famous ex-hacker, Adrian Lamo. He and Lamo chatted online, and he bragged to Lamo about the files that he had sent to Julian Assange at Wikileaks. Lamo realized that the lives of US servicemen and their allies were at stake, and he contacted the FBI. Lamo gave the FBI classified files that Manning had sent him, along with logs of their chats.

Adrian Lamo, image from blog.reidreport.com

On May 26, 2010, Manning was arrested by the Army and placed in custody in Kuwait. He was charged on July 5, 2010 with transferring classified information to unauthorized parties while knowing that it would be used to harm the United States of America.

On July 29, 2010, Manning was transferred to the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia. Manning and his supporters claim that he was held in inhumane conditions in Quantico, but his lawyer, David Coombs, said he was not tortured or mistreated.

On April 11, 2011, Manning was transferred to a medium security facility at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he is now held under less stringent conditions.

The Military justice system will determine Manning’s guilt or innocence and assign punishment. One might wonder why Manning’s legal team appears to base their defense around the strategies of, “He’s gay; stop picking on him,” and, “Manning is a hero for exposing the less-than-pure diplomatic initiatives of the US.” My guess is that they find the evidence against Manning so overwhelming that they are focusing on the courts of public opinion to whip up political pressure for an eventual early release of Manning. So far, their plan is going pretty well for them and for their client.

It is too early to completely assess the damage done by Manning or to completely understand his reasons for doing what he did. Thus far, I am willing to draw the following conclusions.

1) Manning should not receive the Medal of Honor.

2) His legal team is smart, and you and I are probably paying them a ton.

3) Manning never should have graduated his intelligence training. If he was ignoring security requirements in the highly controlled training environment, it was nuts to expect him to perform any better on the battlefield.

4) The people responsible for the security of the two secured networks that Manning accessed belong in the cell next to Manning, although for something less than a life sentence.

5) Solid evidence won’t change the minds of many of the impassioned Manning lovers or the press that profits from the drama.

6 ) While so much noise is being made over Manning torture allegations, homosexual discrimination allegations, and bad government policies that Manning supposedly exposed, the bad government policy that allowed so much information to be stolen by one mentally unstable traitor will remain unquestioned.

Sketch of Bradley Manning trial from navytimes.com

I hope that the Army, the State Department, and the NSA are as upset as I am about Manning’s ease of access to so much information, and I hope that the Army will consider showing a little more willingness to withhold security clearances from obviously mentally unstable individuals.

Pakistan and the Tangled Web

By HOLMES

On Saturday, November 26, 2011, NATO conducted airstrikes against what later proved to be two Pakistani border observation posts. Twenty-four Pakistani soldiers were killed in the two air attacks, and NATO’s always tenuous relationship with Pakistan suffered a major blow.

The two Pakistani positions were fairly well dug in to withstand light weapons fire from Taliban or from any other brand of the many armed bandits that have inhabited the area for centuries. The lightly constructed Pakistani bunkers were not built to withstand the cannon fire that NATO or US aircraft can bring to bear, and most of the inhabitants were killed.

Two similar, but much smaller and less publicized, incidents had already occurred during the last few years. In both of these previous incidents, Pakistan and the USA agreed that Pakistani forces (without orders from above) had opened fire on NATO forces before NATO returned fire.

The reaction from Pakistan to this most recent incident was instantaneous and about as predictable as the results of the cannon fire, itself. Pakistani politicians quickly entrenched themselves in their positions before any investigation could be conducted. Pakistan closed the two critical border crossings from Pakistan to Afghanistan to trucks that carry supplies to US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Less than half of the coalition’s supplies arrive via Pakistan, but the closure is a considerable inconvenience for them.

It is too early to say what might have caused the incident. The US military, in conjunction with NATO investigators, will review gun camera film, radio tapes, and combat reports. The pilots and the Afghan and US Special Forces that were operating near the area where the air strikes occurred will be questioned multiple times. NATO and the US will be under pressure from politicians to quickly spit out an answer, but the Pentagon and the White House, along with other coalition governments, will want the most accurate report possible.

So far, a few key facts are striking. To start with, there is no denying the impact of twenty-four dead Pakistani soldiers. Most elements of the not-altogether-unified Pakistani military establishment are doing everything they can to use the incident to assert more control over the Pakistani government, and more influence over the Pakistani people.

When I listened to early responses from Pakistani spokesmen, I immediately realized that they were being deceptive, but the precise nature of the deception is not yet clear to me, and may not yet be clear to the Pakistani government, itself. One glaring bit of evidence of deception in the Pakistani response is that it carelessly emphasized that, “The attacks by NATO were absolutely unprovoked. Everyone in the outposts were asleep, nobody was awake so nobody in the outposts could have fired first.”

While I have never been a member of the Pakistani military, it’s still quite obvious to me (and to anyone who has spent a day or more in any military service) that a military team would never all sleep simultaneously unless they were on leave together. Even in a base in a peaceful area, soldiers and sailors stand watch around the clock. The notion that Pakistani troops would all be asleep on the Pakistan/Afghan border in the middle of the night is beyond absurd. The only reason I can think of so far for such a desperate lie would be that the Pakistani government is covering up some provocation by a shooter or shooters in or near the outposts.

Once Pakistan had announced that they were certain the coalition attacks were deliberate and unprovoked, the Afghan government responded by reminding everyone that they had, on multiple occasions, protested to Pakistan about Pakistani troops allowing Taliban to operate next to Pakistani border outposts, and essentially use the Pakistani border outposts as human shields while firing on Afghan and coalition forces inside of Afghanistan.

Both the US Special Forces and the Afghan Special Forces have stated that they are certain they were fired on by shooters at or near the outposts. The Pakistani outposts are distinguishable from Taliban outposts only by the fact that the Pakistani outposts are more hastily constructed and less elaborately furnished. The Special Forces troops may have believed that they were taking fire from Taliban outposts.

US and Pakistan military counterparts did communicate before and during the air attacks. So far, it seems that neither side had a clear picture of what was occurring. At one point, the Pakistani military informed a US Special Forces sergeant that there were no Pakistani troops in the area. The Pakistanis would have no reason to transmit such a message, unless the two sides were not clear on the location in question. Given the lack of reference points and the lack of clear demarcation on the Pakistan/Afghan border, it would not be difficult to make such a mistake. Tribes in the area where the attack occurred don’t recognize the border or any such thing as “Pakistan” or “Afghanistan,” and the border, itself, remains in dispute.

While we here in the West get to hear a wide variety of viewpoints concerning this incident, Pakistanis are not being allowed to hear what Western media outlets are saying. The Pakistani authorities have blocked Western news broadcasts since the incident occurred.

Once a proper investigation has been completed, we might know more about what occurred, but there are some things that the investigation cannot change.

1)    The families and friends of the dead Pakistani troops will remain angry. The Pakistan government will do its best to direct that anger away from itself and toward the US.

2)    While the Taliban and the many “Tali-clone” gangster groups are the root cause of the incident, they will do their best to profit from the deaths of the twenty-four Pakistani soldiers.

3)    The government of Pakistan will respond to any investigation based on its internal political needs rather than any determinable facts.

4)    The public response from Pakistan vs. the private response from Pakistan to the USA may vary wildly.

5)    If there is any duplicity on the part of the Pakistan military and intelligence services, it will not be unanimous. They are more concerned with their own internal power struggles than they are with either the Taliban or the USA.

6)    Outside interested parties such as Iran have no need for facts and will respond in their usual manner (Death to America).

7)    Where you stand depends on where you sit. The world’s media vendors’ commentary on the incident will be heavily influenced by their own agendas.

image from dailyhaha.com

While angry Pakistanis and Westerners might both be tempted to say, “It’s time for a divorce,” there are still reasons why both the West and Pakistan are better served by continuing to attempt to cooperate against the Tali-gangs. As long as the benefits outweigh the costs of this ugly marriage, the dysfunctional family will remain intact.

Do you have any questions?

We. Are. At. War.

My heart is heavy today thinking about our soldiers killed when our enemies brought down their Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan last week. Seventeen Navy SEALs, five conventional forces, three Air Force forward air controllers, five Army helicopter crew members, and eight Afghan military personnel. I did not know them, but I know others of their ilk. To a person, they are the most honorable, high-minded people I’ve ever met. To lose these devoted men to an enemy attack is not only a tragedy for their families and friends, it is a tragedy for every American.

image from fantom-xp.com

The Current Administration is busy sending ever more Special Forces to Afghanistan, while pulling out “regular” troops. They are doing this as a way to cook the personnel books for the upcoming election. The theory is that one Special Forces soldier is the equivalent of two “regular” troops. The Current Administration wants to be able to win votes by saying, “We have reduced our forces in Afghanistan.” That doesn’t mean we have achieved half of our as-yet-to-be-defined goal in that country. It means that much of the American public wants Afghanistan to go away, and politicians are in the business of making people think they are getting what they want.

This completely ignores the fact that there is no such thing as a “regular” soldier. Each and every job in the military is important, from the supply clerks stateside to the deployed infantry, artillery, medics, and cooks, every soldier is important to the functioning of the whole. Special Forces are trained as Special Forces. They have a specific function. They aren’t a distillation of our military; they are one part of a diversely trained, functioning military. Therefore, to “reduce our presence in Afghanistan” and try to fill the gap with Special Forces is the same as saying, “Your left leg is really strong so we’re going to cut off your right leg.”

This is my Two Cents. I’m calling out our Current Administration for putting its political interests above the interests of our nation, and above the interests of the men and women who serve our country.

We are at war. Our enemies are Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. I would ask you, Current Administration, what is our specific goal? It hardly takes a student of military history to know that a war can’t be completed if there is no defined goal, and I and others have yet to hear one. And no. While “protecting the American people” is a politician’s answer, it is not a specific military goal.

Also, every Al-Qaeda and Taliban dollar comes from opium or oil—either the opium poppies grown in Afghanistan, or the oil dollars coming in from their sympathizers. If we cut off their funding, we eliminate their relevance on the planet.

I would ask you, Current Administration, what are you doing to eliminate the opium production in Afghanistan? I know you engage people to encourage farmers to grow soybeans instead of poppies. But is it just an option you give them? Or do you destroy the existing poppy fields? Do you have buyers for those soybeans? Do you take on the drug lords as the full allies of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban?

image from dailymail.co.uk

And more, what are we doing to eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil? We only get around 20% of our oil from the Middle East (U.S. Energy Information Administration). Surely we can cut back our usage and develop alternative fuels by that much. We’re hardly on a petroleum shoestring in this country.

Current Administration, you are telling us to buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend, and the war is something happening “over there.” We don’t need to look back past World War II to see that, when you transmit that message, you are not behaving like an Administration at war.

Our nation is not behaving like a nation at war.

I challenge you, Current Administration, to step up and accept responsibility for the fact that we are, indeed, at war. Send whatever troops, equipment, and ordnance are necessary to root out our enemies. Stop cooking the personnel books for your election image.

I challenge you, Current Administration, to ruthlessly destroy the poppy fields and the drug lords of Afghanistan without apology, and to commit to long-term, Marshall Plan style reconstruction in Afghanistan, as we did with Japan and Germany. Fill the vacuum left behind by the elimination of the criminal enterprise with viable options people can actually eat and sell on the open market, and prevent a re-infestation of criminal, extremist vermin.

I challenge you, Current Administration, to not allow oil from any Middle Eastern countries to be marketed in America, unless those countries openly, consistently, and unapologetically stand as our steadfast allies against Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and all Islamic extremists.

And I challenge us as Americans to behave as a nation at war and reduce our gasoline consumption, as our grandparents did in WWII. If we cut our oil consumption by 20% and wholeheartedly develop alternatives, we will need nothing from the Middle East.

image from elcivics.com

Take a moment and imagine how different our Middle Eastern policy would be if those countries were no more relevant to us than Easter Island. Isn’t that worth a few bicycle rides? A bit of car-pooling and public transportation?

If our Current Administration and we, as a nation, accept responsibility for the fact that we are at war, . . . if we develop the WWII mindset that each and every one of us is responsible for the war effort, . . . Al-Qaeda and the Taliban will dry up and shrivel into footnotes in our children’s history books. America’s strength has always been in her independence. I call on us all to remember who we are.

In the meantime, my thoughts and prayers are with our deployed troops, and with the families, friends, and commanders of the fallen. May our country step up and do them justice.

What’s your Two Cents about our Current Administration replacing our “regular” soldiers with half as many Special Forces?

Click here to learn more about the men our enemies killed last week.

All the best to all of you for a week of independence.

Piper Bayard—The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Afghanistan is a Boer–War, That Is

My spy novel writing partner, Holmes, is a man with experience in intelligence and covert operations. As such, he is a devoted student of history. On Thursday, Holmes began telling us about the conflicts between the British, the Boers (Dutch South African immigrants) and the Zulus in Three-Way in South Africa. Today, he continues that history and tells us how more current conflicts are similar.

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The First Boer War

By Holmes

On July 4, 1879, British forces decisively defeated King Cetshwayo’s Zulu army at the battle of Ulundi. In the aftermath of the battle, Cetshwayo became a fugitive and was eventually captured.

In the ensuing power vacuum, the Shaka Zulu kingdom collapsed, and fighting broke out between Zulu chiefs vying for power. Wisely, the British kept Cetshwayo alive after his capture and thereby further clouded the issue of succession to the throne of a unified Zulu kingdom.

With the Zulus defeated and divided, the British decided it was time to press their claims of sovereignty over the Boers. In becoming distinctly “Boer,” the descendants of the Voortrekkers had, in essence, become another African tribal group. They were politically isolated from any potential European allies.

Great Britain had an overwhelming superiority in numbers and material over the Boers, but Great Britain had to concern itself with a vast intercontinental empire, whereas the Boers were concerned only with the Orange Free State and The Transvaal. Some students of military history wonder why the British didn’t just bring overwhelming military force to bear and settle the issue in a few months. The British military, like any military, did not exist in a vacuum. It was a product of a complex society.

The British navy controlled the north and south Atlantic, and that allowed the British government in London to pursue a financially and politically economical strategy of delivering whatever minimal level of forces and equipment might be required to achieve victory over the Boers. London bureaucrats were justifiably confident that they could always send more men and material as needed, and they avoided the expense of over-commitment to the Cape Colony. It is worth comparing the current military situation of the United States today with that of the British Empire in 1880. Like Washington in 2011, the British wanted to win at the lowest possible financial and economic cost.

In The Transvaal in 1880, in Guadalcanal in 1942, and in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2011, it is not just a question of who could deliver the superior forces to the field, but also a question of who will be willing to deploy and commit the necessary forces to achieve strategic victory. Each belligerent must decide what the victory is worth, and what they are willing to pay in blood, treasure, and political cost. In 1880, the Boers were willing to pay a high cost. The British were willing to invest a much smaller portion of a much larger pool of resources. And so an excited David set out to meet a busy Goliath in the African bushland.

In December of 1880, highly mobile and highly motivated Boers decided it was time to find out how much the British wanted to pay for the Transvaal. The Boers used a very democratic leadership system. Units were formed by neighbors who selected a leader. These units were formed into larger “wards,” and three wards constituted a “commando.” Each commando selected its own commandant. Each fighter was expected to show up with at least one good horse, food for eight days, and fifty rounds of ammunition. The Boers were famous marksman. At community social events, the favorite entertainment was to set up a hens egg at one hundred meters and see who could hit it first.

Sir Owen Lanyon was in charge of the British in the Cape Colony. He chose to delay in requesting reinforcements. Reinforcements are never free to the recipient. They come with a political cost and a cost to one’s reputation. Most societies throughout history have favored leaders who can come closest to achieving victory for free. The more resources the commander expends, the less beloved he is by his political leaders.

The Boers had no need to control every inch of the Transvaal territory. They simply attacked small, isolated British strongholds and waited for brightly clad British reinforcements to march into ambushes at locations and times favorable to the Boers. Wherever the British showed up with adequate forces, the Boer’s simply retreated. The British had seen the tactic used against them in the American Revolution. Napoleon had seen the tactic used against him by Cossacks in Russia. The Americans would later see it used against them in Southeast Asia.

Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley

In February of 1881, British reinforcements began to arrive. The British commander, Major General Sir George Pomeroy Colley, felt compelled to attempt to break the sieges of the isolated British garrisons. Pomeroy led a force of 1,200 troops north toward the British outposts of Standerton. Speed of maneuver was well beyond Pomeroy’s grasp. The majority of his troops were on foot.

The mounted Boers attacked Pomeroy’s column at Laing’s Neck and soundly defeated the British. The British were allowed to withdraw. Unlike in Southeast Asia in 1970, both sides were willing to negotiate in earnest, and the Boers were not anxious to repeat the mistakes of the Zulus. They were not attempting to challenge the pride and might of the British Empire. They just wanted an accommodation. On February 14, 1881, a truce was agreed to, and a negotiated agreement was expected by both sides.

On February 27, the usually methodical Pomeroy suddenly grew uncharacteristically impatient and decided to strike a victory to improve the position of the British in negotiations. This was unnecessary. Leaders on both sides were coming to a mutually agreeable accommodation. Great Britain was actually not interested in paying the cost of directly administering The Transvaal and the Orange Free State.

Pomeroy led a force of approximately 400 men on a night march to a position overlooking a Boer encampment. In the morning, the Boers used their superior marksmanship and their willingness to attack out of formation to take the hill from the British.

The action is remembered as the Battle of Majuba Hill. From the British point of view, it was one of the most annoying defeats that they ever suffered. Pomeroy and 91 of his men were killed. One hundred, thirty-four British troops were wounded, and sixty were captured, against one Boer killed and five wounded.

Pomeroy is usually blamed for the battle, but I suspect that there were less obvious factors involved. Pomeroy was experienced and was thought of as a reasonable and thoughtful officer. Given the suddenness of Pomeroy’s decision to march, even while anticipating a negotiated settlement, I suspect that Pomeroy was acting on faulty intelligence. One theory is that Zulu informants purposely misinformed Pomeroy. In the short term, the battle had little impact.

On March 6, 1881, a peace treaty was signed. The Boers were granted partial independence. This is what both sides had been intending before Majuba Hill. In the long term, the battle had a great impact on the British Army. The army of Great Britain used the lessons of Majuba Hill to revise its tactics and training. Battle formations were largely forgotten in favor of speed and marksmanship.

The Boer victory had one other critical impact. The British would never again expect to fight cheaply in South Africa. When large gold deposits were discovered near Pretoria in 1886, London’s degree of willingness to pay for victory in South Africa increased proportionately to the estimated value of the gold ore.

Any questions over the First Boer War? Any questions about how wars today are similar?

Pray Boldly

I’m always telling my kids, “Just ask the question. Let the Universe tell you ‘no’ if it wants to, but don’t decide on the answer before you try.” Apparently,  Marine Sgt. Scott Moore’s mom told him that, too. The question he asked was of actress Mila Kunis.

Will you go with me to the Marine Corp Ball? He posted this request on YouTube. And what did Mila say?

How cool is that?

Of course, since that time, a number of other men from John Connor to Master Chief have also put in their bids for Mila’s affections. Here are some of their failed attempts.

But it doesn’t stop there. A lady Marine, Cpl. Kelsey De Santi who is serving at the Martial Arts Center for Excellence in Quantico asked out Justin Timberlake to a different Marine Corp Ball.

And what do you know? Justin said “Yes.”

Could be all of these folks were inspired by the 266 Rein Marines who put together a hysterical lip sync routine to Britney Spears’ song, Hold It Against Me.

The result? Britney tweeted about them, and she met with them at a concert once they came home from Afghanistan.

They asked the question.

Since the time this all began, there have been rumors that Mila would be unable to keep this commitment due to her filming schedule on the Wizard of Oz remake, but her representative reassures her and Scott’s fans that she absolutely will not ditch her date. And even if she did, there are millions of women who would love to date a man with that kind of moxie.

Sgt. Scott Moore and Mila Kunis

I remember when I first looked into going to law school. I didn’t have a penny, and I thought “justices” were guys named Justice. (That’s a blog for another day.) But I asked the question. Doors opened in front of me, and though I had to work my butt off, that toil came together in one of the defining experiences of my life.

When I first considered committing to writing, I remembered something Holmes told me. “Pray boldly.” He had said it when he was telling me about one of the many times the odds were dead set against him, and, as unlikely as it was, he survived. So you see me here with Holmes, five days a week, asking the question. Praying boldly. The Universe may yet say ‘no,’ but it may not.

Three cheers for Sgt. Moore and Cpl. De Santi! And kudos to Mila and Justin, as well, for stepping up to the challenge.

When has asking a question paid off for you?

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.” ~Goethe

All the best to all of you for a week of “Yes!”

Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Pakistan: The Push Me Pull You Beast of the East, Part IV

My writing partner, Holmes, is a man with experience in intelligence and covert operations, and, as such, needs a deep knowledge of history to be effective at his work. Over the past weeks, he began a timeline of Pakistan: The Push Me Pull You Beast of the East, Part I, Part II, and Part III to help us understand how we Americans can be sending billions in aid to people who harbor our enemies. In those articles, he shared peak events from ancient times up to the rise of Zulfikar Bhutto in the 1970s. This week, he continues with more highlights from the exceedingly complex history of Pakistan in Part IV.

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By Holmes

When Zulfikar Ali Bhutto rose to power in December of 1971, he inherited a very demoralized nation. Pakistan had lost what it had never really had, which was East Pakistan. India occupied 5,000 square miles of Pakistani territory and held 90,000 Pakistani military prisoners from the war for East Pakistan. The economy was in a shambles. The political mosaic of Pakistan resembled a Marc Chigal painting. One glance would induce a headache. The vast majority of the citizens of Pakistan had little hope for the future.

Zulfikar Bhutto

Bhutto was a brilliant man. He had received a B.S. with honors in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He then received masters degrees in both law and political science from Oxford.  Bhutto faced a mountain of challenges higher than K-2, Pakistan’s highest peak. That chaos in 1971 also presented new opportunities.

Bhutto had great visions, but, in my view, he made two critical errors. First, he refused to pick a path at the fork in the political road. He could have chosen a secular vision for the future of Pakistan in order to gain support of the nation’s educated elite, or he could have chosen an Islamic vision in order to appeal to the masses. He chose both. He got neither.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party was a mix of Islamic fundamentalism, socialism, and “power to the people.” The party had broad appeal to the millions of illiterate, poor Pakistanis, but it lacked any real, sustainable vision. Including such diverse and irreconcilable concepts in a loud platform won support, but it created a still-born political elephant that could win an election, but could never gain internal cooperation or deliver a workable policy.

Islam is “power to the Imam,” not “power to the people.” Pakistan has never been able to reconcile its various Islamic religious groups to anything like “secular government.” Whereas Jinnah had demanded that religion and government remain separate, the visionary Bhutto made the critical choice to ride Islamic identity to the top. When he got to the top, he was sitting on a hybrid of an Islamic tiger and an educated, elite lion. He found himself on the shoulders of a very angry cat in need of psychiatric care or a tranquilizer. The psyche of that hybrid cat has never been deciphered and several tranquilizers have been tried in attempts to quiet the cat long enough for something like “government” to occur. That cat keeps waking up, and it’s never in a good mood.

The second critical mistake that Bhutto made was that he allowed his terror of Indian nuclear weapons to cloud his vision. He came to power with promises of much-needed road projects, health care initiatives, and the intention of building an education system that would reach all Pakistani children. Had those projects been vigorously pursued, that unpleasant cat might have been tamed.

Bhutto started well. He concluded a workable peace agreement with India and regained that 5,000 square miles of Pakistan. The 90,000 Pakistani army prisoners were released from India. Projects grew, and Pakistan began building roads.

In January 1973, with the help of Iran, Pakistan conducted operations against separatists in the Pakistani state of Balochistan. The war would smolder for five years and consume much of Pakistan’s scare resources.

In 1974, India detonated its first nuclear weapon. That test by India had far reaching impact in Pakistan.

India claimed the weapon was a twelve-kiloton yield warhead. The test was heralded as a complete success by the Indian press. In fact, the test was a partial scientific success. The yield was only about five kilotons.

It was a bit of a nuclear “dud,” but if that “dud” is going to land near your house, it’s still bad news for you. The particular “house” that India had in mind was north of the Himalayas in China. Unfortunately, India’s nuclear “success” became the central theme in the mind of Zulfikar Bhutto.

Shortly after he came to power, Bhutto directed Pakistani scientists to manufacture an atomic weapon. He had made wildly optimistic promises to his scientists about what resources would be delivered, and, in return, the scientists made the equally wildly optimistic promise of delivering an atomic weapon in three years.

Days after the May 18, 1974 Indian nuclear detonation, Bhutto announced, “We will eat grass, but we will have a nuclear weapon.”  The grass diet has not served Pakistan well. Bhutto signed nuclear non-proliferation treaties and enjoyed the economic benefits those treaties delivered to Pakistan, but he and his successors continued the development of nuclear weapons.

On March 1, 1976, General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq became Chief of Army Staff. You can guess what that portends.

On March 7, 1977, Bhutto’s PPP won 155 of 200 seats in Parliament. The elections were not particularly democratic. After the elections, Bhutto was seen as shifting toward a more Islamic, theocratic position.

A few months later, in response to civil unrest, General Zia-ul-Haq declared martial law and banned all political activity. Bhutto was arrested and released a few weeks later. After his release, Bhutto ignored the ban on political activity and began to campaign against Zia-ul-Haq and against his political opponents.

General Zia-ul-Haq

In September, 1977, Bhutto and his five closest cohorts were arrested and charged with the murder of Nawab Khan. Based on the available evidence, it seems unlikely that Bhutto had been involved with the murder. The same corrupt, politically controlled judicial system that Bhutto designed convicted him and sentenced him to death. He was hanged on April 4, 1979.

On December 24, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This was, if you’ll remember, during the heart of the Cold War. If the West was to oppose the Soviets in Afghanistan, Westerners only had to glance at their maps to notice that their only access to Afghanistan was through Pakistan. The West increased its efforts to forge a friendship with whoever might be in charge in Pakistan. Most Pakistanis welcomed help from the West and opposed the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Zia-ul-Haq spent the next nine years trying to juggle the local, rural, popular Islamic political movements with the minority, educated elites’ demands for economic development and democratic reforms. Pakistan’s failure to create an education system came back to haunt the nation. Much of Zia-ul-Haq’s efforts and energy went toward dealing with the constant upstart Islamic radical groups throughout rural Pakistan.

During Zia-ul-Haq’s reign, Pakistan and the West financed and trained Islamic rebels to fight the Soviets. While the Soviets remained in Afghanistan, the various mujaheddin groups remain focused on them. Once the Soviets left Afghanistan, a variety of Islamic groups vied for power in that country, and they included rural Pakistan in their attempts.  Many of the “Islamic” groups relied on heroin production in Afghanistan to finance their fiefdoms.

Afghanistan opium – life blood of Taliban

The more legitimate Islamic groups could not compete against the heroin-financed groups like the Taliban. Most of the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan fell under the rule of local drug lords. They recited passages from the Koran and interpreted them to their convenience. They still sell “Islam” as their ideology, but their only real ideology is power through brutality.

On June 15, 1988, Zia-ul-Haq signed an ordnance that made “sharia law” the law of the land in Pakistan. Those Pakistanis who had any education beyond the Koran were left wondering how the nation would function under the primitive and barbaric sharia law.

At the same time that Zia-ul-Haq was struggling to deal with drug fiefdoms on the Afghan border, he had to deal with the militant Shiite fascist regime in neighboring Iran. As soon as the Ayatollah Khomeni came to power in Iran, he began efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.  Pakistani physicist Abdul Kadeer Khan, the “father” of Pakistan’s atomic bomb is believed to have received 3 million Swiss francs from Iran in exchange for critical atomic bomb design information. The deal was done without Zia-ul-Haq’s knowledge.

On August 17, 1988, Zia-ul-Haq was killed in a plane crash. Many members of the Pakistani military believe he was killed because he was close to discovering Abdul Khan’s deal with Iran. General Ghulam Khan took over as president.

On December 2, 1988 Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, became the first female leader of an Islamic nation. Benazir promised reforms in education and human rights. Twenty months later she was removed from office by President Ghulam Khan due to allegations of wide-spread corruption.

The available evidence indicates that she and her husband were, indeed, involved in wide-ranging financial corruption. In 1993, Benazir was again elected to the post of prime minister, but three years later was removed from office by her own PPP for corruption.

Benazir Bhutto

While I have no doubt that Benazir and her family were constantly involved in financial corruption and that she was party to the abuse of the Pakistani treasury, my guess is that her downfall was the result of her calls for judicial reform and education rather than from her corruption.

Benazir Bhutto was a symbol of change and progress for many Pakistanis and people thru out the region albeit a tainted one. Unfortunately she was unable to make a lasting positive impact on Pakistan. When she first came to power in 1988 the Soviet army still occupied Afghanistan but the world was on the verge of major changes. Next week we will look at the final members of the long parade of Pakistani leaders and examine Pakistan’s relationship with the Afghan Taliban and the twisted path that lead to Abottabad and the demise of Osama Bin Laden.