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Presidents Obama, Zardari, and Karzai met this week in Washington. Leslie H. Gelb on the promises made publicly—and the ones made behind closed doors.
There they were, the three amigos—Presidents Obama, Zardari of Pakistan, and Karzai of Afghanistan—standing shoulder-to-shoulder in Washington. And there was the Pakistani army, engaging the Taliban in their new strongholds so close to Islamabad. And now, we will see if the army sends sufficient force to the area for the first time, if it has any idea how to fight insurgents like the Taliban rather than the Indian battalions, and whether Afghanistan and Pakistan are capable of the “C” word—cooperation—which spilled liquidly from their leaders’ lips in Thursday’s press conferences.
The combined packages could total more than $25 billion over the next two or three years. This was withheld from the press to avoid the appearance that Washington was bribing the two presidents to do the American bidding.
Obama said they were all resolved “to take out our common enemy.” Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. envoy for the region, summed up the performance: “I hope that the American public sees that we’re making progress in the quest for real cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, because without that cooperation, success is not achievable.”
Come behind the performance for a moment and see how the “progress” and “cooperation” were attained. The first was the private, then public, minuet of reassurances to the two visitors. Obama is said to have privately told Zardari and Karzai that the security of their three nations was “linked,” and that the commitment of the United States “will not waver.” Then, he used those very same words publicly. Often in high-level diplomacy, key points made in private are restated publicly to underline their seriousness. In effect, Obama was telling them that America is there for them, and we won’t disappear when things get rough, as foreigners often fear we will.
The public didn’t get to hear about the private hints—or possibly more than hints—that Washington was prepared to back up its reassurances with cash and arms. Obama’s point was that if the Afghans and Pakistanis demonstrated real resolve in the fight against the Taliban, they should expect even more than the already promised military and economic aid. Though nothing was spelled out, the combined packages could total more than $25 billion over the next two or three years, if Congress is willing. All this was withheld from the press because none of the parties wanted it to appear that Washington was bribing the two presidents to do the American bidding.
Finally, Obama and his team put enormous pressure on the visitors in the private talks. Everything was lovey-dovey in public. In private, the American side was quite blunt and direct. Neither leader and, neither government, Obama stressed, was keeping its promises and doing what was necessary to defeat the common Taliban foe. The Obama team has no illusions about how much it can count on the word of the two visitors. Their governments are corrupt and largely dysfunctional. Their own peoples don’t care much for either of them. But, and this is a big but, the two visitors also know that Obama is in a self-made trap. On the one side, he insists we’re in this to the end. On the other, he’s hinting that if the Afghan and Pakistani presidents don’t deliver, we’ll take our economic and military marbles—which they need to survive—and go. Obama felt he had to make both points, but they don’t fit comfortably together.
Perhaps the best thing the three amigos have going for them is the behavior of the Taliban in their newly possessed territories inside Pakistan. They are already acting with their trademark brutality and fanaticism, and Pakistani refugees are streaming from Taliban clutches. One can hope these refugees will carry the message that these monsters are far worse than the corrupt and inept governments of Zardari and Karzai, and that the Afghan and Pakistani people must fight back.
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009) which shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
That Karzai is a snappy dresser.
At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended. . . . Lionel Curtis . . . established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group...This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group...in New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J. P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group. The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan 'experts'... The Round Table for years (until 1961) was edited from the back door of Chatham House grounds in Ormond Yard, and its telephone came through the Chatham House switchboard (Quigley, Carroll, Tragedy and Hope, pgs. 951-952).
The chief problem of American political life for along time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international...(therefore) argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers...Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy (Quigley, Carroll, Tragedy and Hope: 1247-1248).
see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroll_Quigley
That hefty dime bag of 17% pure heroin available on so many street corners in lower Manhattan began as an opium poppy in Afghanistan, where more than 90% of the worlds opium/herion is grown and manufactured.
The drug is smuggled through Europe with tons going by plane and ship to South America where it is repackaged to appear Columbian, then smuggled north to the Mexican cartels, and from there into our country.
So the key to eradicating the Taliban and al Qaeda, at thre same time seriously curtailing most if not all the government corruption in Afghanistan, is to choke their food supply which is the opium/heroin all the parties involved in smuggle for a living.
Without the money from opium/heroin sales Taliban will dissolve, as will al Qaeda. Their "volunteers" are there for the money they get to send home to their families in Pakistan.
Let us remember about Pakistan that it was not a country until M. Gandhi was assassinated, so our foreign policy should be getting the two countries to become united, like North and south korea. It's major, but were that our policy we could get it done.
Easier than you imagine. Simply bribe all the Pakistani Bureaucrats in the government with American passports and 40 acres in Montana.
Back to Afghanistan
We need to dig in, create comfortable foxholes on every opium field, and mine the opium field edges, and leave a safe swath from the farmhouse to the fields, and we have to make it clear to the farmers, by shelling out cash Ameican money in advance, that we are purchasing the whole crop of raw opium and paying the distilled heroin price!
The Taliban and Al Qaeda and the war lords will have to come across the poppy fields instead of picking us off with roadside bombs on stupid patrols. Just because we have the strongest military in the world doesn't mean the people in charge know how to fight a war! They don't. Nor does Obama.
For saying that I can expect the FBI to come knocking on my door.
Lelie H. Gelb is a bureaucrat, posing as a journalist. I suspect, like all, bureaucrats he is vigorously against the above proposed solution but is hard pressed to explain why in a plain language men do speak.
We purchase the total poppy crop. We determine fair and square how much black milk each individual plant has. The growing plants, getting ripe by the day are a big draw for the Taliban, al Qaeda and war lords to attack everywhere at once for that would be the only way they could get the opium, by attacking our guys dug in on every waiting poppy field.
The harvest is scheduled to begin Wednesday. The Taliban knows that. Tuesday at 4:00 a.m. we begin snipping every plant two inches above the ground. Gone with a snipper, just like that. Then that afternoon we chop every poppy plant into a gruel and spread it over th soil to fertilize next season's crop.
Imagine a mirror on your knee cap with a line of cocaine powder - you lean over with a rolled up fifty dollar bill, the mirror slips and the coke splays over your shag rug. (he he he). That's what will be happening in all the opium fields, and the farmers of course will be paid in full for creating the draw which brought the Taliban and al Qaeda out of the woods into the open fields.
A couple million addicts in Europe will be going cold turkey! Good. The drug cartels south of the border will lose a half billion dollars at least in potential sales. Good.
But Gelb, and others will be united - viciously against what I am saying. The status quo is how they want to go.
and trucked into the united states via relaxed security as a result of nafta. the money ledgered on books off shore to be laundered by the banks to leverage losses resulting from the realestate fiasco.
imagine a spoon filled with freshly melted down tar topped off with a pinch of blow and a piece of cotton cresting in it. to some this is a horror show. to some this equals money and how some people get elected.
When will the Daily Beast get a columnist with the brains and courage to tell it straight? Leslie Gelb repeats the BOer's current line of propaganda that the Pakistanis are fleeing the Taliban.....and omits the fact that Pakistanis didn't start fleeing until Pakistan (with US encouragement) started bombing the cities and villages and civilians houses, and that the refuges blame the corrupt Pakistani government and the US for current fighting within Pakistan.
Since the CFR has been mentioned how about this little tidbit? What is the name of the headquarters of the CFR? Whose mother donated the home? The answers may mean nothing to anyone, but let me raise some points before I give you the answers.
What is the significance of the person, who donated that "house"? Are the connected to anyone, who might have reason for the CFR to succeed?
The name of the House is "Pratt House." The son of the woman is George Pratt Schultz? Anyone recall this guy? And who was the grandfather? He was the Treasurer of the Standard Oil Trust.
Thank you.
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