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DEC. 16, 2003: NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES
Musharraf's Close Call
On the same weekend as the triumphant capture of Saddam Hussein’s, the United States very nearly suffered a nearly commensurate strategic defeat: the death of Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf in a bomb attack.
The attack underscores both Musharraf’s personal courage and his immense value to the United States: If he had been killed, we would have a fine mess in Pakistan.
Musharraf would probably have been succeeded, at least provisionally, by another military leader. But unlike, say, the Turkish military, the Pakistani military is not institutionally pro-Western. It may look pro-Western – with their mustaches, short pants and high knee socks, and swagger sticks, Pakistani officers often seem to have modeled themselves in David Niven. These old imperial accoutrements should not, however, blind us to these awkward facts:
The Saudis have bankrolled much of the Pakistani security system – including the nuclear program – for some two decades now;
Wahhabi Islam is a growing force in Pakistani society and the Pakistani military;
The Taliban’s most important supporter and ally was Pakistan;
The Pakistani security services helped hundreds of Pakistani Taliban supporters to escape U.S. forces in the final days of combat in Afghanistan in December 2001 – and are suspected by some of having passed important information to the al Qaeda leadership;
Pakistan has recruited, trained, financed, and directed Islamic extremist terrorists of its own against India in the struggle over Kashmir;
Pakistan suffers from the social, economic, and cultural failures that create the preconditions for Islamic terrorism – and little headway has been made against them in the two years since 9/11.
The United States continues to need Pakistan’s help. Americans also need to perceive the unwelcome truth about Pakistani society and Pakistan’s institutions. And Americans need to maintain enough emotional distance from Pakistan to recognize that over the longer term, it is democratic India, not Pakistan, that is likely to emerge as America’s most important security partner in South Asia. And, ironically, it may yet be the 100 million Muslims of an increasingly free-market and open-minded India who lead Muslims worldwide toward the modern and moderate Islam that is the ultimate reply to the violence of extremist Islam.
Liberal Literacy
I observed yesterday that while liberals like Al Franken have mocked the idea that God called George Bush to the presidency in 2000, the third quarter's robust economic news and now Saddam's capture, God certainly does seem to be favoring George Bush's re-election in 2004. This provoked a minor flood of enraged emails from some liberal correspondents. Much as I enjoy liberal rage, I really do have to urge these folks to engage in a little bit of that critical thinking and lively sense of humor for which they are always crediting themselves, and notice a joke when they see one.
One More Time
Here, without one of those accursed links, is the James Ross story: Ross was the sentry who before dawn on Dec. 10, fired 100 rounds at a suspicious car as it hurtled toward an American barracks near Mosul. The car exploded in a bomb blast, shattering windows in the barracks and wounding 58 Americans and an Iraqi translator - but without fatalities. The car contained 1000 pounds of explosives; when it detonated, it left a hole in the ground 15 feet deep and propelled its engine 250 yards. But for Specialist James Ross of Boone County, Kentucky, some 200 American soldiers might have been killed that morning. It would have been Beirut 1983 all over again - with incalculable consequences for U.S. policy and for the people of Iraq. Thanks to Ross' quick action, we are today celebrating instead America's greatest achievement in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad.
The man ought to be a national hero - and I hope the good people of Boone County are getting ready to give him a big welcome home to the country that owes him the lives of a couple of hundred of its bravest and best sons and daughters.
Update
A reader from Cincinnati writes to say that Boone County isn't waiting for Ross' return to recognize his achievement. Here are some links to local coverage.
07:47 AM
nationalreview.com |
