B-52 that airport now
New York Times: Pakistanis Again Said to Evacuate Allies of Taliban
Disgusting. Other reports I've read suggest there are some sons of prominent Pakistani religious figures among the Kunduz Krew, and Musharraf is is either scared of them or throwing them a bone to be grateful for. A mistake either way. But wait, it could be even worse:

Some alliance officials accused Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an alliance commander, of striking a deal with the Pakistani government to evacuate several hundred foreign fighters. Atiqullah Baryalai, the deputy defense minister, was one of a handful of Northern Alliance leaders who asserted today that General Dostum had allowed more than 50 pickup trucks full of foreigners to leave Kunduz and gather at an undisclosed location outside Mazar-i-Sharif. Mr. Baryalai said he suspected that General Dostum may have acted at the request of the Pakistani government.

"Fifty trucks left Kunduz full of foreign Taliban, and they did not come back," Mr. Baryalai said. "We believe Mr. Dostum is responsible."

Time to get some Predators and special forces cruising around up there, I think. Find those trucks and foreigners, reroute them to "Paradise." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:31:00 AM -- |    

 

Whoa, boy
I've cited Victor David Hanson early and often over the last few months (9/26/2001, 10/24/2001), so I was interested and gratified to see the widespread and approving attention given to his latest remarks ("The Time is Now", National Review) among many of the "blogs" I frequent: Welch, little green footballs, Staerk, doubtless others). That is, until I read Hanson's article.

It's hard not to jump aboard the "On to Baghdad" bandwagon, but there are good reasons not to. The main one is: Saddam may have had nothing to do with 9/11. (Choose your own emphasis). Elaborating on that point a bit, it is still the shock of that heinous attack that is providing the United States with the moral high ground in the fight in Afghanistan. The moral high ground is no minor advantage; indeed, it is central to the point Hanson usually makes: democratic, consensual armies and nations, when roused to combat, are the "downright scariest" of them all. "High ground, shmigh ground," one may mutter, "that guy has got to go; he's probably building nerve gas, bioterror, or nuclear weapons as we speak, and he seems to like to use them." Unfortunately...

1) the critical word in that sentence is "probably", as in "not certainly."
2) an actual attack like 9/11 is infinitely more persuasive and, more to the point, more actionable than the threat of such an attack. China and North Korea are bad guys, too, they're developing weapons of mass destruction, too. Who knows, Kim Il Jung may have sponsored some terrorist summer camps. Does "On to Beijing" or "On to Pyongyang" come next?

Hanson cites a number of stirring examples of democratic armies that quite rightly and quite thoroughly destroyed their enemies: Sherman's Army of the Tennessee, Patton's 8th Army among them. But surely Sherman attacked the same enemy for the same reason in Savannah and the Carolinas that he attacked in Atlanta? Surely Patton's maneuvers in France and later in the Saar area were during the same war, against the same enemy, with the same "casus belli" underlying that war? Hanson seems to ignore this point in decrying the failure to challenge Stalin and the Red Army for more territory at the end of World War II. Hanson ignores his own history lessons in "The Soul of Battle": that was not the fight anyone in the Army signed up for. I believe the people of the United States would not have supported a war, or even a confrontation, with the Soviet Union for a minute; for one thing, we were still fighting Japan, for another, it would have been a vastly different fight for vastly different and less plausible reasons. (Remember, for a moment, that Americans did not have the benefit of our historical rear view mirror.) Seeking a fight with an ally would have seemed the most unnecessary nonsense imaginable. And a very nasty fight it could have been, too: it's my untutored view of military history that we would have quickly been forced to use nuclear weapons to match the Soviet Union's advantages in numbers and tanks.

The precipitating event here -- the 9/11 attacks -- should define the scope of military action to come. Hunting down Al Qaeda cells and allied organizations is a daunting and essential task; that is the other important reason to hold off on Iraq. It ain't even over yet in Afghanistan, and there are plenty of other Bin Laden strongholds to smoke out from the Philippines to Somalia. If Hussein can be plausibly connected to the 9/11 attacks, then make a little more room on the Baghdad bandwagon for me, too. Maybe there's a piece of "smoking gun" evidence waiting to be revealed; maybe the documents left behind in Kabul, and soon in Kandahar and Kunduz, will provide this evidence. But until then it's a trickier proposition to declare war on Iraq. Note that I'm not at all against destabilizing Hussein: build up the opposition (assuming any will work with us after the way we've left them twisting in the wind any number of times); continue sanctions and no-fly zones; resume inspections for weapons of mass destruction. Go from there. Even Bush's address to Congress left some significant wiggle room: he warned states that continue to support terrorists, not ones that have 'merely' ever supported them.

This is not to say Hanson is wrong throughout. Like him, I believe not going on to Baghdad when Kuwait was liberated was a big mistake. (To be honest, I didn't think so then.) But I don't think we get a "do-over" just because, on reflection ten years later, we realize we goofed. To repeat: if Hussein had something to do with 9/11, he and his legions should be toast. If not, we should not wage a war against Iraq, and we should certainly not feel free to go it alone if we do wage a war. The rationale for a multilateral war against Iraq under present circumstances could only be "militant antiproliferation" of weapons of mass destruction, which would be radically different from any arms control policy the United States has ever pursued, and which would require a painstaking, patient, long term campaign in the court of world public opinion to construct.

There's a secondary issue here for our new little community of bloggers, I think. Many of us, including me, often just present or re-excerpt a news or opinion piece "via so and so", without much value added of our own. The net effect is to make the item nearly "canonical", suggesting a new consensus that may not be warranted. This might be a vulnerability of the "blog" scene: there's a kind of urge to archive the "best found stuff", and there's an urge to agree with and re-link to those who have linked to your own site, or agreed with your own views from time to time. I notice now, though, that den Beste is also taking issue with the Hanson piece. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:11:00 AM -- |    

 

Happy Thanksgiving
I hope everyone has had as nice a Thanksgiving week as I have. My family and I visited my folks in Tennessee over the weekend and through Tuesday. My brother was in town with his wife on Saturday, and we all had an early Thanksgiving together. Early the next morning, we woke up Maddie (age 3) and all went outside to watch the Leonids meteor shower; pretty spectacular. Sunday Maddie watched a live performance of the Nutcracker for the first time; she spent most of the evening re-enacting it in her leotard and tutu: "The princess shall now leave...[exit family room left]." Monday we visited a great local museum, the Museum of Appalachia, near Clinton, Tennessee. Check it out if you're ever near by: wonderful old buildings, furniture, farm tools, and sheep and a donkey wandering around the grounds, the smell of wood smoke in the air.

We drove home via Lexington, Virginia, where we hooked up with Bob, an old college roommate of mine. He's got a wonderful place well outside of town; the farmland, open spaces, woods and creeks were a wonderful break from the 75mph tailgating frenzy up I-81. Yesterday morning we spent a peaceful hour or two in a Lexington bookstore, before returning to DC; for some reason, I picked up a copy of David McCullough's "Truman", maybe because of Bush often being compared with him lately. (Maddie got the exciting sequel to "I Love You, Blue Kangaroo": "Where Are You, Blue Kangaroo?") Today, Cricket made a great short rib Thanksgiving dinner at her mom's house. Now everyone is asleep upstairs; I hear Maddie breathing quietly over the monitor. I'm thankful, believe me. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:21:00 PM -- |    

 

72 virgins not enough, argue trapped Al Qaeda fighters
New York Times: Foreign Militants in Kunduz Seek Safe Passage to Pakistan

The Pakistanis, who have not officially acknowledged that their citizens are among those trapped in the city, told the American government that no one deserves to be slaughtered and asked that they be protected. [...]

The Pakistani government has made it clear that anyone who is brought onto their soil will be arrested. Fighters from other countries would be sent home.

President Pervez Musharraf said today that the foreign fighters surrender to the United Nations and be treated as prisoners of war. [...]

(emphasis added) You have got to be kidding, Pervez. They do not pass "Go," they go directly to the U.S.S. Peleliu, if they are to be even that lucky. These weren't little boys who need a bus ride home to Mama from a bad summer camp. They thought they'd be all jihad, all the time. If the Northern Alliance wants to duck the fight, let them open a corridor south, American aircraft can take it from there. I sure hope Rumsfeld et al have a fallback position here. The U.S. can take prisoners, if need be, by doublecross if need be, but we should definitely not let any of these guys -- Pakistani or not -- reach Pakistan.

Not that I expected a whole heck of a lot from Musharraf, but it's beyond me why he is suddenly finding a soft spot in his heart for exactly the grimmest variety of opposition he could imagine. I can only conclude that he is "tacking" back towards the "street" and the Islamists.

Update: David Plotz of Slate weighs in with "Prisoners Dilemma", in which the legal position of surrendering "unlawful belligerents" (as opposed to regular troops) is examined:

. "Just because they have given up their lawful belligerent status does not mean they have given up all their human rights. They have just given up the special protections accorded to POWs. Once they give up their arms, international law will protect them. They cannot be summarily executed," says George Washington University law professor Ralph Steinhardt.

The consensus of lawyers and scholars seems to be that unlawful belligerents, unlike POWs, can be tried and punished by a victorious power as long as they are treated with basic fairness. The United States will probably conduct a "screening process" to separate the run-of-the-mill Taliban fighters from possible al-Qaida terrorists, says Catholic University law professor Michael Noone. The regular fighters might go free while prisoners identified as potential terrorists would be subject to the military tribunals President George W. Bush established last week. Such tribunals would not violate international conventions if defendants knew the charges against them and defend themselves. Prisoners could be executed after conviction—not summary executions, but certainly morally troublesome ones. [...]

This assumes the United States can get a hold of these guys. I suggest forcing the Northern Alliance to call up Kunduz Talibanistas with an "oh, one more thing" stipulation: all Kunduz forces should be subject to arrest and deportation by U.S. forces. With any "luck," the surrender is off; otherwise, a somewhat tense handover process begins. How to force that on the Northern Alliance? See below: "no sheltering terrorists" goes for the Northern Alliance, too, and "sheltering terrorists" could be as simple as starting to head south with any of them. Shelter terrorists, expect angry American planes. Mr. Daoud might not even want to risk a brief U.S. attack: it could quickly make hime a quite weaker wolf in the Northern Alliance pack, and the others might finish him off at their leisure. Since the "military tribunals" have been arranged in advance, I can only hope a Kunduz end-game strategy has been prepared as well. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:48:00 PM -- |    

 

You can see why they'd feel this way
(AP) Taliban: Time to 'Forget' Attacks
Speaking to foreign reporters, Taliban spokesman Syed Tayyab Agha said,

"You should forget the Sept. 11 attacks because now there is a new fighting against Muslims and Islam, and the international and global terrorists like America and Britain, they are killing daily our innocent people'.'

And daily about a hundred times as many of your richly deserving guilty people. "Paradise" awaits, Tali-man. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:08:00 PM -- |    

 

U.N. to assist Al Qaeda in Kunduz?
From today's Washington Post (Defectors Flee as Negotiations Resume):

"To avoid bloody battle inside Kunduz we will give them chance after chance to solve this through negotiation," [Northern Alliance General Khan] Daoud said in an interview with Western reporters. He said alliance officials have contacted a U.N. representative and are discussing whether other countries might accept the foreign fighters as refugees. While the alliance wants to see the Taliban punished, he said, "we have no problem if another country accepts them."

The story quotes a defector's estimate of about 6,000 Afghan Taliban and about 10,000 "foreign militants" -- another word for Al Qaeda forces. Another defector said:

"...we saw with our own eyes how the number of terrorists are increasing. We saw the bodies of 60 local Taliban killed by the foreign Taliban. They are not Taliban. They are foreign terrorists."

(emphasis added). By now our best allies in Kunduz may be the Al Qaeda troops themselves: they vow they'll never surrender, and are shooting their Afghan "allies" on the (entirely justified) suspicion that they're giving up. (As Bush promised, "we will turn them one against another.")

Proposed game plan: (1) stepped-up bombing of Taliban positions in and around Kunduz; (2) read the riot act to Mr. Daoud et al: "no sheltering terrorists" goes for you, too, bub, if you get our drift (3) tell Kofi Annan he had better not lift a finger to save Al Qaeda terrorists in Kunduz, or he should expect massive angry demonstrations in New York City, encouraged by the White House; also, that we do not at all guarantee the safety of anyone escorting "foreign Taliban" out of Kunduz (4) leaflet the area with promises of cash rewards to Afghans who turn on foreigners inside Kunduz, and with specific instructions about how to help U.S. aircraft focus attacks on foreigners (5) ready overwhelming American ground forces to intervene in Kunduz, with the purpose of annihilating Al Qaeda forces there.

Update: Times of India: Three-day ultimatum to Taliban in Kunduz issued by the Northern Alliance. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:02:00 AM -- |    

 

Why A l J a s i r a got bombed?
Interesting speculation from the Telegraph ("Bin Laden will not surrender - we hope"):

The worst outcome for the West would be if bin Laden uses one of his televised appearances to tell the world that he wants to be tried by an international court. The Americans have already tried to make that option more difficult for him, by bombing his only outlet - the al-J_zeera television centre in Kabul - to smithereens. Let us hope that he stays in love with death, and never looks for a way to ensure that he receives a trial. For if he does, we might be forced to give him one.

(Via Jeff Jarvis, who I also thank for some nice comments.) (updated to avoid frequent search hits for Al J.. on 03/24/2003) posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:45:00 PM -- |    

 

Kunduz
Forget Kabul: the really important story is happening at Kunduz, where a pack of Al Qaeda rats has been cornered. The trouble is, they may get out. From a Telegraph article ("Betray your comrades and you can live", David Rennie):

Alliance commanders said they hoped that local Taliban would do their work for them and rise up against the thousands of Pakistanis, Arabs and other foreigners believed to be trapped inside Kunduz.

For the first time, commanders said that any foreign Taliban they captured would be handed over to the United Nations. [...]

"But we will not permit the foreign Taliban to defect to our side. If they surrender, we will send them to the United Nations to show to all the world." He said the opposition had made no attempt to contact the foreign Taliban and predicted a fight to the death.

He said:"They are very sinful. They will not submit. They will fight as long as they are alive." The commander said the deal to betray the foreign Taliban, which would be in the tradition of Afghan double-dealing, could work in one of two ways.

"If the local Taliban want to attack the foreign Taliban inside Kunduz city, that would be easier. If the local Taliban want to defect to our side, then we will attack Kunduz."

I don't enjoy saying this, but a "happy end" in Kunduz is one in which the maximum number of Al Qaeda foreign legionnaires holed up there die: they are the pool from which future Mohammed Attas will be chosen. The trouble is, that's really much more our problem than it is the Northern Alliance's: they mainly want Kunduz, with as few casualties as possible. So they're naturally more inclined to offer deals to achieve that goal.

Just in case the Al Qaeda types in Kunduz decide to take the Northerners up on this, it may be time for an e-mail campaign, high level pressure, and whatever else might work to convey to the United Nations: don't you dare be a party to this. The UN has no business helping keep Al Qaeda terrorists alive. Ever since Bosnia, I have always expected the United Nations to play the most reprehensible role imaginable in a crisis, and I have rarely been disappointed. I haven't seen reports yet that officials there are actively considering playing a role at Kunduz, but I doubt they will be able to resist the limelight.

(Monday evening) Maybe no need to worry: "U.S. rejects any deal for head of Taliban to flee Kandahar" (New York Times):

Mr. Rumsfeld said he also opposed any deal with forces holding out in Kunduz, where he said the fierceness of the fighting suggested they were not Afghans but members of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden, or people from other countries who have been supporting the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

"The idea of their getting out of the country and going off to make their mischief somewhere else is not a happy prospect," he said. "So my hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner."

Good. If the Northern Alliance does decide to duck the fight, I feel confident any escapees will spend their last moments getting strafed and bombed by American aircraft. And no signs of U.N. involvement, either. Very, very good. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:20:00 AM -- |    

 

Disarmament and missile defense: one step forward, two steps back?
The estimable Glenn Reynolds is probably not alone in wondering why the champagne bottles aren't popping among the 1980s antinuclear movement after the recently announced nuclear weapons cuts. As a member of the anti-new-nuclear-weapons component of that "movement,", i.e., the Nuclear Weapons Freeze, allow me to attempt an explanation.

It seems to me that the political purpose of the Crawford arms cuts is to improve the political prospects for missile defense plans, first in public opinion and eventually among world leaders. The main rap on missile defense plans, in my opinion, is that such systems, even if ever successfully developed, will -- for reasons of simple arithmetic -- always be more useful against isolated missiles than against a full-fledged nuclear attack. Why is that a problem? Because the main "isolated missiles" scenario between erstwhile adversaries United States and Russia is one in which a ragged Russian retaliatory strike is parried by the new United States defense system. Rephrasing, missile defense will always be far more plausible as the key "phase two" of a U.S. "first strike" strategy than as a valid defense system against a first strike by Russia. Now you and I believe that the United States would never do such a thing, but Russian military officers and officials are paid and expected to consider capabilities, not intentions.

I realize that missile defense is being sold as a system against "rogue state" missiles, or against accidental launch. But rogue states would be far better off using a container ship and Ryder Rent-a-Truck, to maintain plausible deniability; why they would choose to use a missile when there's a cheaper, politically safer way? Even the threat of nuclear attack can be spread among a number of nations, so that an "Islamic bomb" can someday be threatened without a clear idea of who to retaliate against if it is delivered on the cheap. Missile defense against rogue states has thus been described (by Robert Wright in Slate) as "locking the window, but leaving the door open." Against a Russia that someday is feeling less warm and fuzzy, a more ominous analogy occurs to me: the notorious "two men in a room full of gasoline," with one of them arguing, "Tell you what: I'll drain a third of what's here, and hope you do the same; in return, I'd like to get a book of matches in here." For a book of matches is what a credible, but overwhelmable missile defense system would be: the scenario of shooting down a retaliatory strike would have advanced from science fiction to a plausible scenario for Russians to fear. Because of missile defense, the Russian military would be sorely tempted to strike first in a crisis, reasoning "use it or lose it."

The 1980s nuclear weapons freeze was actually a more nuanced critique of and response to the nuclear arm race than it was often given credit for being. A "freeze" -- that is, a moratorium on building new weapons -- was always more about preserving deterrence and resisting the urge to tinker with weapons and doctrines, than about eliminating nuclear weapons. The concern then was that the successful development of pinpoint missile accuracy and multiple warheads (along with bellicose talk from the incoming Reagan administration) were combining to create and exacerbate the threat of "use it or lose it" situations. The advent of seriously pursued "Star Wars" missile defense plans added new pressure to this mix. Gradually, however, the notion of a "freeze" was successfully co-opted and/or rendered seemingly moot by a combination of arms reductions, the political attractiveness of missile defense (nice protection rather than ugly retaliation), and the fall of the Berlin Wall and end of the Cold War. But the only concern that really went away was the Reagan administration. Its decisions remained in place: MX missiles were approved, and Star Wars clearly never really died. These current or future weapons systems could still prove destabilizing if new nuclear powers assert themselves, or old ones reassert themselves.

At the end of the day, of course, intentions and trust matter. In principle, France and Great Britain might share the same concern about a United States "first strike" that the Soviet Union once did, yet they (presumably) do not because the corresponding political scenario is all but impossible to imagine. It is encouraging that this kind of trust may be developing in Russia as well, but its roots must be shallow at best. Only last year, Soviet naval officers were claiming the "Kursk" was rammed by a NATO country submarine; earlier, Russian society appeared united for the first time in years in a snarling opposition to NATO operations in Kosovo, and grumbled ominously about both this and about NATO expansion in to the former Eastern bloc. Putin himself may be a great guy after all, but his resume still says "KGB" at the top and (in my estimation) he is a nationalist through and through -- none of which needs to be held against him, but also none of which suggests he is Mother Teresa. More importantly, the institutions of Russia do not yet inspire the same confidence that those of France and Great Britain do: Putin may be OK, but the next all-but-czar of Russia may not be even as (suddenly) trusting or pro-Western as Putin seems to be.

If you're committed to missile defense, I suppose you'll go ahead and shrug all this off. But at least give its opponents some credit for hard-headed reasons to hold our applause for the Crawford arms cuts. The detonation of a single nuclear weapon in a city would be a disaster eclipsing 9/11. If that happens, it could be fairly unimportant whether there are 2000 or 7000 more left to use. If missile defense makes that first detonation likelier, all the arms cuts in the world -- short of complete elimination -- are not sufficient compensation. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:55:00 PM -- |    

 

A credible voice of moderate Islam
New York Times (11/17/2001): Iran's President Khatami Speaks on Faith and Civilization (Gustav Niebuhr). Remember when the Soviet Union and Iran were the primary enemies of the United States? I'm gladly willing to admit I was wrong about Putin, who seems willing to not stand in the way of American airbases in Tadzhikistan as the war against Al Quaeda continues. There are hopeful signs from Iran as well; Iranian President Mohammad Khatami -- very popular in his own country, despite strained relations with "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khameini -- delivered a speech last Monday that denounced terrorism, particularly when it invoked religious beliefs. The Times article reports:

In reference to terrorism, according to a transcript, Mr. Khatami lamented the development of "active nihilism" as a social and political force — now so dangerous, he said, that it threatens human existence.

"This new form of active nihilism assumes various names," he said, "and it is so tragic and unfortunate that some of those names bear a semblance of religiosity and some proclaim spirituality. Vicious terrorists who concoct weapons out of religion are superficial literalists clinging to simplistic ideas."

I'll link to the full text of Mr. Khatami's remarks when they are posted to the religionsforpeace.org web site...here.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:33:00 AM -- |