{"id":8570,"date":"2009-08-25T00:36:09","date_gmt":"2009-08-25T07:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8570"},"modified":"2009-08-25T00:36:09","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T07:36:09","slug":"the-pakistani-people-are-our-friends-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=8570","title":{"rendered":"The Pakistani People Are Our Friends? Really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in February, Dave Kilcullen said this in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee<\/a>:<\/p>\n

All this suggests that the most appropriate diplomatic strategy is to identify, within Pakistan, our friends and allies (civilian democratic political leaders, some officials, and much of the Pakistani people<\/strong>)….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kilcullen is an actual expert who has been to the region, so it’s likely he knows something I don’t. But I find that claim more than a little odd. Contrast what Kilcullen is saying to this news story<\/a>:<\/p>\n

After Ms. McHale, the Obama administration\u2019s new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, gave her initial polite presentation about building bridges between America and the Muslim world, Mr. Abbasi thanked her politely for meeting with him. Then he told her that he hated her.<\/p>\n

“You should know that we hate all Americans,” Ms. McHale said Mr. Abbasi told her. “From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to a Pew poll<\/a>, 68% of Pakistanis have an unfavorable view of the United States. In fact, of the countries Pew surveyed, there are only four where the US is more hated. If our strategy in Pakistan depends on much of the Pakistani people being our “friends and allies,” then we’re in deep trouble.<\/p>\n

(Don’t get me wrong, I’d like <\/em>ordinary Pakistanis to be friends with America. But for the most part, they’re not.)<\/p>\n

That’s a minor point, but it ties into my growing impression that the folks who favor an continued, and expanded, US war in Afghanistan aren’t being entirely realistic. In that same testimony, Kilcullen wrote:<\/p>\n

We need to prevent the re-emergence of an Al Qaeda sanctuary that could lead to another 9\/11.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s just ludicrous. There’s nothing unique about Afghanistan that means that Al Qaeda can plot attacks from Afghanistan and no where else in the world. (Indeed, a significant portion of 9\/11 seems to have been plotted in Germany). Even Stephen Biddle<\/a> — who strongly advocates for the US to remain at war in Afghanistan — admits that preventing Al Qaeda from having a sanctuary in Afghanistan isn’t a very sensible argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back in February, Dave Kilcullen said this in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: All this suggests that the most appropriate diplomatic strategy is to identify, within Pakistan, our friends and allies (civilian democratic political leaders, some officials, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-international-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8570\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}