Links With Your Coffee
- Mr. Diety brings me solace
- Defending the Arsenal
A senior Pakistani official who has close ties to Zardari exploded with anger during an interview when the subject turned to the American demands for more information about the arsenal. After the September 11th attacks, he said, there had been an understanding between the Bush Administration and then President Pervez Musharraf “over what Pakistan had and did not have.” Today, he said, “you’d like control of our day-to-day deployment. But why should we give it to you? Even if there was a military coup d’état in Pakistan, no one is going to give up total control of our nuclear weapons. Never. Why are you not afraid of India’s nuclear weapons?” the official asked. “Because India is your friend, and the longtime policies of America and India converge. Between you and the Indians, you will fuck us in every way. The truth is that our weapons are less of a problem for the Obama Administration than finding a respectable way out of Afghanistan.”
(tip to Mario) - Bill Moyers on a Draft
- The Efficacy of Prayer (tip to AS)
Comments
boy that "defending the arsenal" excerpt scared me so bad i'm afraid to click on the link. ooh la la, a real man speaks! my heart is all aflutter.
makes me think it might be possible to work with those pakistanis after all. if only all politicians were this honest. did you all hear what i heard?
our longtime policies do not converge.
to the mattresses!
The article is a hoot! Hersh has a wonderful pool of sources - he has a knack for finding ways to shock the living shit of you with what insider sources tell him. I always look forward to reading his stuff in the New Yorker. I thought the greatest kicker is really right in the beginning of the article (fourth paragraph leading into the fifth):
On April 29th, President Obama was asked at a news conference whether he could reassure the American people that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal could be kept away from terrorists. Obama’s answer remains the clearest delineation of the Administration’s public posture. He was, he said, “gravely concerned” about the fragility of the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari. “Their biggest threat right now comes internally,” Obama said. “We have huge . . . national-security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don’t end up having a nuclear-armed militant state.” The United States, he said, could “make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is secure—primarily, initially, because the Pakistan Army, I think, recognizes the hazards of those weapons’ falling into the wrong hands.”
The questioner, Chuck Todd, of NBC, began asking whether the American military could, if necessary, move in and secure Pakistan’s bombs. Obama did not let Todd finish. “I’m not going to engage in hypotheticals of that sort,” he said. “I feel confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands. O.K.?”
I get the feeling that Obama has had some sleepless nights over this.
That is so wierd - I was talking a friend of mine at work about several weeks ago that one of the sure fire ways of seeing an end to our involvement in Afghanistan would be to institute the draft (I believe the reference that Moyer's makes about 600,000 troops was an interview he had with some Brit he had on the show a month or two back). That alone is enough to awaken this country to noticing the fucking elephant herd in their living room.
I think there's a nice lead into the Moyer video from the Hersh article on Charlie Wilson and recalling the final message of that movie with every conflict this country has gotten itself involved in (post WWII).
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