Right Wing Nut House

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

The agreement announced yesterday between the Pakistani government and representatives of the Taliban Council in North Waziristan appears on the surface to be an equitable arrangement that addresses the serious problems of Taliban and al-Qaeda incursions across the border into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops as well as bringing an end to the fighting between Pakistani forces and the fierce, independent tribesman in the region.

Indeed, most accounts of the deal in the western press highlighted the fact that the agreement would prevent al-Qaeda and the Taliban from using North Waziristan as a safe haven for their fighters in Afghanistan. President Musharraf, in a meeting with Afghan President Karzai yesterday boasted that the treaty was a boon to the embattled Afghanistan government. “No militant activity, no training activity, they have accepted this,” General Musharraf said. “This is the bottom line of the peace agreement.”

Western analysts however, have taken a much more alarming view of the treaty. Counterterrorism experts have called it a “surrender.” Some aspects of the treaty are clearly unenforceable. And judging by previous agreements made with the Taliban, this deal is also likely to be honored in the breach.

Bill Roggio sums up the agreement and grimly analyzes the fallout:

* The Pakistani Army is abandoning its garrisons in North and South Waziristan.
* The Pakistani Military will not operate in North Waziristan, nor will it monitor actions the region.
* Pakistan will turn over weapons and other equipment seized during Pakistani Army operations.
* The Taliban and al-Qaeda have set up a Mujahideen Shura (or council) to administer the agency.
* The truce refers to the region as “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.”
* An unknown quantity of money was transferred from Pakistani government coffers to the Taliban. The Pakistani government has essentially paid a tribute or ransom to end the fighting.
* “Foreigners” (a euphemism for al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadis) are allowed to remain in the region.
* Over 130 mid-level al-Qaeda commanders and foot soldiers were released from Pakistani custody.
* The Taliban is required to refrain from violence in Pakistan only; the agreement does not stipulate refraining from violence in Afghanistan.

In effect, the Taliban has carved out an independent enclave in “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan,” a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists, and a base of operations secure from interference by the Pakistani military to better carry out their murderous raids across the border into Afghanistan. They have already established their own harsh brand of Sharia law in the area and allowed training camps for various extremist groups to be set up. And most importantly, they have humiliated the government and weakened Musharraf’s tenuous hold on power.

More ominously, another country now has a terrorist state within a state operating virtually free of the control of the central government but with one potentially catastrophic difference:

This nation has at least 60 nuclear weapons that could potentially fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

The American government is not happy with the agreement and understandably so. Shockingly, Secretary of State Rice was briefed on the outlines of the deal back in June when she visited Pakistan. Although it is unclear how much President Musharraf was forced to concede in the interim, this deal is similar to a treaty signed with another Taliban group in South Waziristan last February. In response, the Taliban pulled up stakes and moved into North Waziristan. A similar move into other nearby tribal regions including Bajaur and Tank is probably in the offing. What the Taliban leaves behind is infrastructure including training camps, hospitals, and safe havens for fighters fleeing NATO forces in Afghanistan. There will also almost certainly be continued infiltration into Afghanistan by small groups of Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda terrorists.

And lest anyone be under the impression that the withdrawal of Pakistani forces green light’s NATO troops for cross-border “hot pursuit,” President Musharraf made it clear yesterday that such operations would not be tolerated:

“On our side of the border there will be a total uprising if a foreigner enters that area,” he said. “It’s not possible at all, we will never allow any foreigners into that area. It’s against the culture of the people there.”

What would possess President Musharraf to sign such a humiliating retreat? The war against the Taliban in North Waziristan was forced on Musharraf by the United States when it became clear that the terrorists were using the region as a staging ground for their attacks against Afghan troops. In response to the US request, Musharraf sent 80,000 troops to the region. The tribes rose up and in a series of fierce, small unit engagements, inflicted many casualties on the Pakistani forces. After a few months, it became clear that the historically independent minded tribes would not submit and in June, a cease fire was declared so that a deal could be hammered out.

In the last few weeks however, several events have occurred that may have forced Musharraf’s hand in North Waziristan while threatening his hold on power.

First, Musharraf may be calculating the limits of American power as he watches the Taliban grow stronger in Afghanistan as well as the slow progress of American arms in Iraq. Perhaps he doesn’t feel quite as secure and believes that a deal with the Taliban in North Waziristan (and other tribal areas as well) is better than relying on the American military to defeat the terrorists.

Secondly, and more significantly, Musharraf created a huge problem for himself on August 26 when he ordered the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, the tribal leader and former governor of Balochistan. The octogenarian rebel leader was a revered tribal elder among the fiercely independent Baluchis and his death at the hands of Pakistani security forces may have been a colossal blunder.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province and also its most troublesome. There has been an independence movement in existence even before the partition with 4 major rebellions since the 1950’s. Each insurrection was brutally suppressed by the government along with a crackdown on Baluchi traditions and culture. Blessed with abundant natural resources as well as some large natural gas fields, the restless province has proven to be virtually ungovernable. Some Baluchis resent the government taking so much wealth from the province and putting very little back in the form of government services while others agitate for outright independence.

The killing of Bugti set off a wave of unrest all across Pakistan but especially in the rebel leader’s home province. If another uprising is in the offing, Musharraf may have need for many of those 80,000 troops he sent to North Waziristan. As it stands now, Bugti’s militia and other tribal forces have carried out a few attacks against the gas pipeline but have not directly challenged government troops in the area. The prospect of another rebellion could have spurred Musharraf to make peace with the Taliban so that he could turn his attention to a growing insurgency in Balochistan.

Finally, Frederic Grare, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, points out the tenuous hold Musharraf has on power:

If the consequences of Bugti’s death on the ground are still difficult to predict, some of them are already apparent in the political arena. Every political party, even Musharraf’s own political allies, has condemned the killing. The division between the civilian leadership and the military is widening—a frightening trend in any country where the military has such a stranglehold on political life. If this rift continues to widen, the Pakistani military might demand that Musharraf, who is still simultaneously—although unconstitutionally—the army’s chief of staff, choose between his two positions.

The killing of Bugti has exposed a Pakistani president both unable to fulfill his commitments in the war on terror and only able to act decisively against his own people. Musharraf’s actions have reversed decades’ worth of slow progress toward national integration.

Reporting restrictions will guarantee that we will not hear much from Baluchistan in the coming months. But the next thing we hear might well be an explosion that reverberates as far as Washington.

Beset on all sides by a growing list of problems including open opposition by some of the more religiously conservative elements in the military and the brazen support for the Taliban by the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI - support the Musharraf denies but that every western intelligence analyst in Afghanistan has confirmed - the Pakistani President is finding that his grip on power may be slipping away. With elections scheduled for next year, it is unclear whether he will allow a vote given what might emerge in his stead - an extremist Islamic regime with its fingers on a nuclear trigger. And if Musharraf fails to step down, there are many who may feel he has outlived his usefulness anyway.

Meanwhile, the Taliban will enjoy its safe haven in The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, virtually free to carry out operations against NATO forces in Afghanistan while harboring al-Qaeda terrorists and training the next generation of jihadists to attack western targets.

There have been some dark days recently in the War on Terror. And yesterday was certainly one of the darkest.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

This morning, I’ll talk about the upcoming ABC mini series Path to 9/11 and why the left doesn’t want it aired. We’ll also examine politics in the post 9/11 world.

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I must admit it brought me up a little short this morning after reading Ed Morrissey’s take on the agreement made between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders in North Waziristan that essentially gives the Taliban a free hand in the province. Ed was quoting from this piece in the London Times that appeared to view the agreement as a way to trap the Taliban between NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani border:

Kabul and Islamabad have been blaming each other for allowing Islamic militants to cross the 1,500-mile (2,400km) frontier and attack security forces. Yesterday Pakistan took a big step towards ending the fighting in the lawless Waziristan region when it signed a peace deal with tribal leaders. The agreement commits local militants to halt attacks on both sides of the border.

In return Pakistan will reduce its military presence and compensate tribesmen whose relatives have been killed or whose properties have been damaged.

A key provision of the deal is that tribesmen will expel foreign fighters from the area. The region is believed to be a haven for al-Qaeda fighters and members of the former Taleban regime in Afghanistan. Without a base in Pakistan their operations could be seriously disrupted.

The problem with this rosy scenario is that it is belied by other news reports as well as the analysis of none other than Bill Roggio.

First, here’s the take on the agreement by the New York Times:

The central government and tribal elders signed a peace agreement on Tuesday that will allow militants to operate freely in one of Pakistan’s most restive border areas in return for a pledge to halt attacks and infiltration into Afghanistan.

The deal is widely viewed as a face-saving retreat for the Pakistani Army, which has taken a heavy battering at the hands of the mountain tribesmen and militants, who are allied with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But the government may have in effect ceded the militants a sanctuary in the area, called North Waziristan.

In one of the most obvious capitulations since it began its campaign to rout foreign fighters from the area, the government said foreigners would be allowed to stay if they respected the law and the peace agreement. Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda are believed to be among the foreigners who have taken refuge in the area.

The spin here is decidedly negative. And the problems with the agreement are readily apparent when you look at the fine print:

In the agreement, signed by seven representatives of the Taliban council in North Waziristan, the militants pledged, “There will be no cross-border movement for militant activity in neighboring Afghanistan.” They also vowed to stop attacks on government and security forces.

[snip]

The government also agreed to release all detainees and the militants pledged not to attack government forces or property or set up a parallel administration. Both parties agreed to return weapons and other equipment seized during the fighting.

The agreement appeared similar to an earlier one signed in South Waziristan, which essentially allowed the militants to remain armed and at large in return for not attacking the Pakistani military.

A spokesman for the militants, Abdullah Farhad, denied in a telephone call from an undisclosed location that there were any foreign militants in North Waziristan, and said the government should provide evidence of their presence.

“Why should we bother if they are not here,” he said, speaking of foreign fighters.

“Pay no attention to those Arabs behind the curtain!”

There are several points to be made here:

1. Can we trust these “tribal leaders” to keep their end of the bargain? Who are they? The “Taliban council in North Waziristan” would indicate they are in fact the enemies of the Afghanistan government. And we expect them to abide by an agreement that prevents them from giving aid and shelter to their fighters engaging NATO forces across the border? If the Pakistani government can’t “prove” that there are foreign fighters in Pakistan how are they going to be able to enforce an agreement where it will be equally difficult to “prove” that the Taliban has violated the agreement?

“Face saving” indeed!

2. Pakistan has agreed to release “detainees.” One assumes there are both Taliban fighters and possibly Pakistani members of al-Qaeda who would be set free. Arabs may or may not be involved in this release but isn’t just a bit worrying that people who were perfectly willing to kill Pakistani soldiers are now free as long as they only target Afghans and NATO soldiers?

3. Pakistan is forced to return weapons and equipment seized from the Taliban. This means they will have to buy that many fewer weapons although the doubling of the value of the opium crop has been a godsend to their efforts in that regard.

4. The “militants” have vowed not to set up a “parallel administration.” Why bother? They’ve been governed by their tribal councils forever. Ignoring what the Pakistani government tells them to do is now that much easier with no troops to interfere in their effort to set up Sharia law throughout the area.

Bill Roggio says it’s a surrender:

The news of the Pakistani government signing a truce agreement with the Taliban in North Waziristan is far worse than being reported. We raised the alarm early morning on September 4, and newly uncovered information on the terms of the agreement indicate Pakistan has been roundly defeated by the Taliban in North Waziristan. The “truce” is in fact a surrender. According to an anonymous intelligence source, the terms of the truce includes:

- The Pakistani Army is abandoning its garrisons in North and South Waziristan.
- The Pakistani Military will not operate in North Waziristan, nor will it monitor actions the region.
- Pakistan will turn over weapons and other equipment seized during Pakistani Army operations.
- The Taliban and al-Qaeda have set up a Mujahideen Shura (or council) to administer the agency.
- The truce refers to the region as “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.”
- An unknown quantity of money was transferred from Pakistani government coffers to the Taliban. The Pakistani government has essentially paid a tribute or ransom to end the fighting.
- “Foreigners” (a euphemism for al-Qaeda and other foreign jihadis) are allowed to remain in the region.
- Over 130 mid-level al-Qaeda commanders and foot soldiers were released from Pakistani custody.
- The Taliban is required to refrain from violence in Pakistan only; the agreement does not stipulate refraining from violence in Afghanistan.

There are some on the right who are hopeful that the abandonment of this area by the Pakistani army means that our military can engage at will:

Is this bad news for the US or is it a strategic softball being thrown to us by Pakistan? It has been my understanding that the hands of the US forces have been metaphorically tied by the refusal of Pakistan to allow our troops unfettered access to this region. If Pakistan cedes its claim to this area does this allow the US to go into the region at its own will? Pakistan is out and is no longer providing the protection of a “sovereign state”. No protection from the UN, since it is not a member. No diplomatic ties with any other nations. The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan is now a rogue state. To me it sounds like a new front in the war on terror has opened.

(HT: STACLU)

If 80,000 Pakistani troops couldn’t deal with al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the province then there is little that NATO could do unless there was a massive increase in the alliance’s commitment to the fight.

No, I’m sorry. I see nothing but disaster in this agreement. And lest anyone doubt who is in charge in the “Islamic Emirate of Waziristan” (the new name of the Province), here’s Roggio:

The truce meeting was essentially an event designed to humiliate the Pakistani government and military. Government negotiators were searched for weapons by Taliban fighters prior to entering the meeting. Heavily armed Taliban were posted as guards around the ceremony. The al Rayah – al-Qaeda’s black flag – was hung over the scoreboard at the soccer stadium where the ceremony was held. After the Pakistani delegation left, al-Qaeda’s black flag was run up the flagpole of military checkpoints and the Taliban began looting the leftover small arms. The Taliban also held a ‘parade’ in the streets of Miranshah. They openly view the ‘truce’ as a victory, and the facts support this view.

[snip]

The Pakistani government has ceded a region the size of New Jersey, with a population of about 800,000 to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan is not the end of the Taliban’s expansion, however. An intelligence source indicates similar negotiations between the Taliban and the Pakistani government are being held in the agencies of Khyber, Tank, Dera Ishmal Khan and Bajaur. The jihadi dreams of al-Qaeda’s safe havens in western Pakistan have become a reality. And the gains made by the Coalition in Afghanistan have now officially been wiped away with the peace agreement in the newly established Islamic Emirate of Waziristan.

I await with interest the inevitable spin on this agreement that will come from our State Department as well as the Presidential palace in Kabul as both our government and Karzai try to put the best face on this huge setback in our efforts in the War on Terror.

UPDATE: MUSHARRAF NIXES NATO “HOT PURSUIT” INTO PAKISTAN

Via Allah, we get this from AP:

Visiting President Gen. Pervez Musharraf also said Pakistan would never allow U.S.-led coalition forces currently hunting al-Qaida and Taliban fighters on the Afghan side of the border into tribal areas on its side.

“On our side of the border there will be a total uprising if a foreigner enters that area,” he said. “It’s not possible at all, we will never allow any foreigners into that area. It’s against the culture of the people there.”

So much for the idea that we could engage Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the province now that the Pakistani military has been forced into a humiliating retreat.

By the way, the AP link has a picture of Musharraf and Karzai standing together at the start of the Pakistani President’s visit to Kabul. Neither look too comfortable and poor Karzai looks like he swallowed something that didn’t agree with him.

And Musharraf had the gall to say that Pakistan and Afghanistan should join together to fight the “common enemy” of terrorism and extremism being fanned by al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

Who’s he kidding?

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll look at President Musharraf’s deal with the Taliban and what it might mean for the War on Terror. We’ll also look at President Bush’s speech yesterday that outlines our future actions in the WOT.

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The Washington Post is reporting that the Pakistani government has signed a peace treaty with the Taliban who have been operating in the mountainous tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan:

The government of Pakistan signed a peace accord Tuesday with pro-Taliban forces in the volatile tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, agreeing to withdraw its troops from the region in return for the fighters’ pledge to stop attacks inside Pakistan and across the border.

Under the pact, foreign fighters would have to leave North Waziristan or live peaceable lives if they remained. The militias would not set up a “parallel” government administration.

Reached as Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, prepared to visit the Afghan capital Wednesday, the accord aroused alarm among some analysts in Afghanistan. They expressed concern that, whatever the militias promise, a Pakistani army withdrawal might backfire, emboldening the groups to operate more freely in Pakistan and to infiltrate more aggressively into Afghanistan to fight U.S. and allied forces there.

“This could be a very dangerous development,” said one official at an international agency, speaking anonymously because the issue is sensitive in both countries. “Until recently there has been relative stability in eastern Afghanistan, but now that could start to deteriorate.”

Obviously this is very bad news. The Taliban will likely honor the agreement in the breach which means that for all intents and purposes, they have a protected area to flee following their operations against NATO forces in Afghanistan. And even more problematically, it almost certainly means an increased troop committment will be necessary by NATO - if the Europeans are willing to pony up the men and material in an effort to combat the two headed monster of the Taliban resurgence and opium warlords who have doubled poppy production this year.

Can it get worse?

Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man, will not face capture in Pakistan if he agrees to lead a “peaceful life,” Pakistani officials tell ABC News.

The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a “peace deal” with the Taliban.

If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden “would not be taken into custody,” Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, “as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen.”

This is what has most of the blogosphere wagging their tongues about this morning. But it important to remember that 1) No one knows where Bin Laden is; and 2) There is a better chance he is actually in Afghanistan than Pakistan although with this “peace agreement” that may change.

Bin Laden is the least of our worries right now. How to recover from this devastating blow - some might call it a betrayal - delivered by an erstwhile ally should be the focus of American policy makers as they scramble to assess what it all means and develop a counter strategy that will salvage something of our relationship with Musharraf as well as satisfy the Afghan government that must be going ballistic right about now.

Musharraf is scheduled to head for Kabul today for talks with Karazai. I will be very surprised if these meetings take place as scheduled and if they do - wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall when those two get together?

The agreement could add a new element of tension to Musharraf’s visit, aimed at smoothing over his relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The two Muslim leaders, both allies in the U.S.-led war against Islamic extremists, have clashed heatedly over allegations that Taliban forces in Afghanistan are receiving support and shelter from inside Pakistan.

Pakistan’s move also appeared to complicate the U.S. role in the region. U.S. officials have praised Musharraf for his help in capturing al-Qaeda members and refrained from pressing him hard on cross-border violence. A withdrawal of Pakistani forces could reduce pressure on al-Qaeda figures believed to be hiding in the region, including Osama bin Laden, allowing them more freedom of action.

What possessed Musharraf to make this Faustian bargain in the first place?

The death of a Baluchistan rebel leader may have roiled Musharraf’s government and endangered his hold on power to the point that he felt he had little choice:

ISI’s (Pakistan’s CIA-FBI agency) latest successful assignment was to locate Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, an aristocratic octogenarian tribal chief and leader of Baluchistan’s fourth insurgency in the last 70 years, this time to get a fair share of massive gas and mineral deposits. Government troops attacked the cave where this former Cabinet minister was hunkered down. An artillery shell buried him alive. ISI has yet to locate bin Laden, widely believed headquartered in Pakistan’s FATA, protected by fiercely loyal tribes that are clearly disinterested in a $25 million U.S. reward.

The Aug. 26 blunder sparked violent protests and shut down most of the country in a general strike to protest Bugti’s “assassination.” Even retired generals called on President-Gen. Pervez Musharraf to take the army out of politics and return Pakistan to civilian rule.

The Baluchistan rebellion predates the partition with India and has been marked by struggles to control the natural resources in the area as well as brutal suppression by the Pakistani government of the Baluchi tribal system and culture. The nearby province of North Waziristan also has restless tribal minorities who resent the control of the Pakistani government by the military, most of whose leaders hail from the country’s largest province of Punjab.

The death of the powerful Baluchi leader Bugti and subsequent nationwide unrest may have backed Musharraf into a corner with both his own military supporters and the shadowy elements of the ISI who created the Taliban in the first place. By making “peace” with the Taliban, Musharaf frees up several thousand Pakistani soldiers and quiets the rumblings of discontent coming from the ISI - a good move if one has a finely honed instinct for self preservation. And by proving that he’s flexible with one tribal headache, he may showing the Baluchis that talking to Islamabad is the best way to get what they want as opposed to continuing their rebellion.

This doesn’t explain Musharraf’s seeming diffidence toward the United States whose $2 billion a year in aid has been supplemented with generous loans from the IMF as well as debt reduction totaling more than $1 billion. The cutoff of US assistance to his military and economy would be a devastating blow to Musharraf’s rule and could cause him even more domestic problems. Is he taking a calculated risk that our anger at the Taliban deal will be tempered by the realization that he is the indispensable anti-terror man in the region?

Allies in the War on Terror are growing scarce. And our recent setbacks in Iraq as well as what some analysts see as a loss of American prestige and the myth of our invincibility may be contributing to Musharaf’s calculated risk in dealing with the Taliban. At the same time, Musharraf must realize he is still extremely valuable to our intelligence efforts in the War on Terror. His recent assistance in the British investigation of the liquid bomb plot in tipping off the Brits to some of the terrorists involved proves that we may not be able to get along without him.

So while we may express our extreme displeasure at Musharraf for this action, do not expect a reduction in aid or any other serious sanction against him. At the moment, he is still a powerful and valuable ally in the War on Terror and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

UPDATE

There is immense confusion over what this deal actually means. Is it with the Taliban? Or is it with tribal leaders who support the Taliban and al-Qaeda?

My take may be wildly off base here if what Ed Morrissey says is true:

However, it does appear that the two agreements add up to something other than an abject surrender. It seems more likely that Hamid Karzai would reject any such sanctuary for Taliban fighters, not embrace it and embrace Musharraf after allowing that to develop. After all, a free reign in Waziristan would allow the Islamists to gather their strength and attack in force. Karzai does not want Musharraf’s friendship so desperately that he would commit suicide for it, nor does Musharraf have any particular love of the radicals that have twice tried to assassinate him.

Musharraf wants to visit Karzai to put a coordinated plan for security in the cross-border region. That makes it look much more like Musharraf bought the cooperation of local tribes in an effort to flush out the foreign fighters exploiting the territory. That deal did include compensation — the region has a tradition of blood money — for lost relatives in earlier fighting. Musharraf wants the tribes out of the way so that the combined forces of Pakistan and Afghanistan — which means Pakistan and NATO — can attack the Taliban and their foreign terrorist supporters.

The problem with Ed’s otherwise excellent analysis is that it appears Karzai has been blindsided by the agreement, if the WaPo story can be believed:

The agreement could add a new element of tension to Musharraf’s visit, aimed at smoothing over his relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The two Muslim leaders, both allies in the U.S.-led war against Islamic extremists, have clashed heatedly over allegations that Taliban forces in Afghanistan are receiving support and shelter from inside Pakistan.

Pakistan’s move also appeared to complicate the U.S. role in the region. U.S. officials have praised Musharraf for his help in capturing al-Qaeda members and refrained from pressing him hard on cross-border violence. A withdrawal of Pakistani forces could reduce pressure on al-Qaeda figures believed to be hiding in the region, including Osama bin Laden, allowing them more freedom of action.

Stay tuned for updates on this story. As the dust settles, I’ll have further analysis.

Desperate to see that the upcoming ABC mini-series Path to 9/11 places all the blame for 9/11 in the lap of President Bush and holds harmless the Clinton Administration for their massive failures in the 1990’s to kill Bin Laden, the left is in full meltdown over word that one of the incidents portrayed in the film takes some dramatic liberties with the 9/11 Commission report.

The incident, in which Osama was reportedly staying in a house in Kandahar, Afghanistan and was surrounded by Northern Alliance and CIA paramilitaries only to escape because the Clinton Administration never gave the order to attack has been criticized by none other than anti-terrorism guru, the self-important one, Richard Clark:

ThinkProgress has obtained a response to this scene from Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar for Bush I, Clinton and Bush II, and now counterterrorism adviser to ABC:

1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan and saw bin Laden.

2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Masood, was no where near the alleged bin Laden camp and did not see UBL.

3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced and we would have no way to know if bin Laden was in the target area by the time a cruise missile hit it.

Not having seen the film (That’s okay: Neither has Think Progress), my guess would be that the filmakers decided to do what all docudramas do; combine several similar events into one dramatic take.

Are all three chances Clinton had to kill Bin Laden going to be shown?:

According to the staff report, intelligence indicating that bin Laden was open to attack resulted in military planning by the Clinton administration on three occasions.

In December 1998, bin Laden was reported to be staying at a location in Kandahar, Afghanistan; however, CIA Director George J. Tenet doubted the intelligence and a strike by cruise missiles or bombers was called off.

Then in February 1999, bin Laden was targeted in a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, but the CIA was worried that a visiting official from the United Arab Emirates would be killed in an attack.

The CIA’s field officer was quoted in the report as saying the intelligence was “very reliable” that bin Laden was in the camp. “The field official believed that this was a lost opportunity to kill bin Laden,” the report said.

A third attempt to kill bin Laden, who had been seen in the same place for five nights, was missed in May 1999. However, U.S. military officials worried that an attack might kill innocent civilians.

Since I find it unlikely that the screenwriter (who, by the way is not an “extreme” conservative as Jennifer Nix blurts out breathlessly but rather a libertarian naturalized citizen from Iran. Then again, Nix and most lefties think that someone who gets a 95 rating from ADA - Leiberman - isn’t liberal enough) would include all three inexcusable lapses in judgment and courage by Clinton, it would seem that they combined the chances we had to get Bin Laden into one, dramatic scene.

Personally, I would prefer seeing all three failures of Clinton to kill Bin Laden highlighted prominently and accurately. One of the stated reasons they hesitated to capture Osama was their belief that they couldn’t convict him of anything in an American court of law. I would love to see that attitude play out in front of 50 million voters and show them the consequences of bringing the left to power this November.

And of course, there was the incident in February of 1999 - the one that Richard Clark seems to forget:

Intelligence reports foresee the presence of bin Laden at a desert hunting camp in Afghanistan for about a week. Information on his presence appears reliable, so preparations are made to target his location with cruise missiles. However, intelligence also puts an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and members of the royal family from that country in the same location…

Local informants confirm exactly where bin Laden will be in the camp on February 11, and a strike is prepared. But policy makers are concerned that a strike might kill a prince or other senior officials, so the strike is called off…

Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit at the time, will claim in 2004 that “the truth has not been fully told” about this incident. He will claim that the strike is cancelled because senior officials at the CIA, White House, and other agencies, decide to accept assurances from an unnamed Islamic country that it can acquire bin Laden from the Talibn. “US officials accepted these assurances despite the well-documented record of that country withholding help�indeed, it was a record of deceit and obstruction�regarding all issues pertaining to Bin Laden” in previous years. [Atlantic Monthly, 12/2004

We hardly need lectures from Richard Clark on anything relating to 9/11.

So the left has its collective pink panties in a twist because a standard dramatic device used in every mini-series since the genre was invented shows that Clinton hesitated to kill the number one enemy of the United States.

Instead of going ape over this scene, perhaps the left should be thanking the “extreme conservative” screenwriter for not going into detail about all three failures of will by the Clintonistas. Imagine the outcry then!

And lest anyone think that the left only wants to portray history accurately, we have this statement of principle from Christy Hardin Smith:

9/11 happened on George Bush’s watch — and no amount of pointing fingers elsewhere changes that fact. Period.

How true. But the ultimate question is would 9/11 even have happened if Clinton had been doing his job?

I have pointed out on numerous occasions that the “blame” for 9/11 is shared by Administrations going back to the Reagan years. And the real failures of the Bush Administration in getting on top of the terrorism issue as well as their failures in intelligence, in focus, and most especially their failure of imagination should be a large part of the mini series as it was in the movie United 93.

For the left to try and divorce the Clinton Administration from the failures of 9/11 is laughable - like little children trying to cover up the fact that they broke a piece of their mother’s favorite china. It is juvenile and destructive. And they must be stopped.

From those who have seen the movie, we are told that the Bush Administration does not escape their share of blame for 9/11, not by any means. This doesn’t interest the partisan left because what they are really after is a wiping of the historical record and a rewrite that leaves the Bush Administration totally responsible for what happened on that horrible day. Anything less and, as I stated yesterday, The Narrative is in danger of unraveling. That Narrative brooks no alteration lest the American people see it for what it is; a massive exaggeration and bending of history that seeks to undermine the President of the United States during a time of war.

In the final analysis, what the left fails to do most of all is place the actual blame for 9/11 where it really belongs; solely and exclusively on the shoulders of Osama Bin Laden and radical, fundamentalist Islamism. To do so would mean they would lose one of their most potent political clubs that they have beat the President over the head with for the last 5 years.

Osama, I’m sure, is grateful to them.

UPDATE

More conservative push back against the left’s attempt to alter history.

Mark Coffey shows why Richard Clarke may be a wee bit upset over the portrayal of Clinton anti-terrorism efforts.

And Confederate Yankee has a superb piece that shows Sandy Berger’s culpability in the Clinton Administration’s failure to get Bin Laden on 4 seperate occasions (not the three that I described above).

I wonder if in the interest of “historical accuracy” all the whining lefties who are throwing a tantrum over this TV show would be agreeable to showing ALL FOUR OPPORTUNITIES CLINTON HAD TO KILL BIN LADEN in a 6 hour mini-series rather than the one, condensed scene the screenwriter settled for.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll look back at 9/11 and get some views from the right and the left on where we are as a nation. Are we safer? What are the prospects for the future? And we’ll also have an extended look at the 2006 mid terms. Does the GOP have any hope of retaining the House and Senate?

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Via Little Green Footballs, we discover perhaps the greatest idea the far left has ever had in their rather checkered history:

Why Can’t America Have Human Rights?

Thursday, September 14th, 2006, 6:30 pm

The Nave at The Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive, New York

www.breakthrough.tv

An evening of performance and talks on Human Rights in the United States, including the death penalty, detentions and deportations, poverty, and violence and discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, and sexuality. The Forum will work to strengthen our connections and raise our voices to build an America that supports human rights instead of violating them.

They read my mind.

I too, have always wanted human rights in America. I too, wish we could dispense with all this constitutional nonsense which states that government’s derive their power from the consent of the governed. After all, that idiocy is more than 200 years old - time for a change. It would be so much easier if the government was able to tell us which rights it was willing to grant and which ones, well, we had no business worrying about.

That’s the practical effect of what this grouping of unbalanced, emotionally unstable, ignorant, and dangerous people are advocating. Because in order to achieve their nirvana of a “human rights” paradise, a radical altering of the relationship between the people and their government would have to take place.

Want to get rid of discrimination? It’s already illegal, of course. There are remedies in place to address the grievances of individuals who feel they have been denied opportunity based on their race, sex, or religion. (Many states also have remedies for those who feel discriminated against based on their sexual orientation). What these mountebanks are talking about is reaching down into the very heart of the personal and making it political. They wish to legislate the way that citizens think. In their version of the United States, even if you are unaware that you are discriminating against someone in a protected group, you would be held liable anyway. This is because what matters is the result of your hiring practices (or lending practices or any other decision made by private citizens affecting the protected classes). Intent is thrown out the window. If you don’t have enough members of the protected groups in your workforce, your hiring practices are discriminatory period.

This nonsense has been advanced by the gaggle of goosebrains who will be gathering later this month to lecture, to harangue, and to pontificate about what a human rights nightmare the United States of America has become.

Never mind that the death penalty is supported by a majority of the American people and that it is regularly reviewed by the courts. Will we someday get rid of the death penalty? Probably. But it won’t be because a bunch of blowhard moralists try and shame us into following their lead?

How about getting rid of poverty? First, it is an interesting construct that living in poverty is a violation of someone’s “human rights.” Ostensibly, the radicals believe that discrimination and racism by the government is the cause of poverty. The fact that these lickspittles don’t bat an eyelash when you point out that 48% of people who live in poverty are white makes their critique ring a little hollow. Why slow them down when they’re on an ant-American roll?

This discrimination and racism manifests itself in the inferior education offered to those in poverty stricken areas. No one seems to care that most of these school districts are in cities run by people of color and where school districts are managed (or mismanaged) by same. And you better keep your mouth shut about tax policies formulated by the racists who discriminate against people of their own race that drive businesses and hence jobs away from the cities. Practical economics tend to give the moonbats a headache.

Making America a human rights paradise will also apparently include doing away with jailing people for their crimes and amending our immigration laws to end the deportation of anyone not here legally. The latter would mean that we would do away with immigration laws entirely which would be a boon to the poverty bureaucrats in that no one seems to care about a massive influx of instant citizens who would be either unemployed or unemployable. And since their human rights paradise would demand these people be taken care of until they can get on their feet (and beyond), one would hope that there would be enough rich people to soak so that the requisite amount of tax monies could be raised for the poverty industry to enrich themselves.

As for ending violence, (another invented “human right”), it would be interesting to see how the Bierkenstock sandal wearers would go about that massive undertaking. Censorship of violent programs on TV and the media? Perhaps making alcohol and drugs illegal? Maybe require the burning of incense and chanting 3 times a day in order to soothe the souls of us savage beasts?

Deny people access to drugs and alcohol and the violence problem in America is reduced substantially. As for the sociopaths, one supposes that the technological innovations of the future will include some kind of conditioning regimen a la A Clockwork Orange. While they’re at it, it would not surprise me if this group of proto-authoritarians would be in favor of using that conditioning to address other “human rights” problems we have here in America such as racism, sexism, and other personal demons that the government currently discourages but under the lefties tender loving care would be banished via brainwashing.

The bottom line of all this moralizing and America bashing is that the prescriptions that will be offered up by this rogues gallery of galoots will look a lot like efforts of every other utopian schemer - including Lenin - and that realize a top-down, authoritarian society to force people to adapt is the only way to achieve their goals.

I wonder who will be on top telling us what’s best for us to think, to believe? Better question: Who do you think that committed group of radicals thinks will be on top when the revolution is over?

They haven’t seen it, but they know they won’t like it.

The netnuts are going net nutty over the ABC mini-series Path to 9/11 because, as far as I can tell:

1. The screenwriter is some kind of conservative.

2. It assigns blame for 9/11 to Bill Clinton (how much depends on how loony the lefty is)

3. No one will return Jennifer Nix’s calls.

4. Rush Limbaugh likes it.

5. Did I mention that the screenwriter may be a conservative?

And for these deep and noble reasons, the left is climbing the walls with angst ridden soliloquies railing against the unfairness of it all. They have tried so hard to reinvent the Clinton years as some kind of golden age of anti-terrorism nirvana and that everything fell all to hell in the 8 months that George Bush bungled his way to 9/11 that anything which challenges that fantasy simply must be attacked and destroyed.

It is, as I’ve said before, a large part of The Narrative which the left uses to tell bedtime stories about the Bush Administration. Challenging The Narrative is challenging the carefully constructed fantasy/history created by liberals to undermine everything this President has done to try and protect the United States in a time of war. The Narrative has become so all-pervasive that even when it starts to fall apart as it has with the Armitage revelations in Plamegate, the resistance in abandoning any of it is as fierce as a mother bear protecting its cub.

Witness the absolute need to discredit how the President led this country in the days and weeks following 9/11. The left doesn’t want anyone to remember how the country rallied to the President immediately following the fall of the towers but rather that he was reading a silly children’s book as the attacks were underway.They don’t wish people to recall what was almost universally vouchsafed by observers as his strong leadership in the aftermath of the attack but rather the failures of his Administration leading up to them.

What is beginning to terrify the left about this 5 year anniversary of 9/11 is that all those old feelings will resurface among the American people and their dreams of taking over the House and Senate in November may be in danger. On that score, they have less to fear than they realize but perhaps their being out of power so long has dulled their political sensibility while heightening their paranoia.

On that score, Think Progress contributes the unbalanced attack of the day on Path to 9/11 despite not seeing the show and relying on a “review” by Salon’s Heather Havrilesky (actually a three paragraph summary) that sums up the “deceptively biased” project as “painting the president (Clinton) as a buffoon more interested in blow jobs than terrorists.” If this were true, I would join my brothers and sisters on the left in condemning the mini series in no uncertain terms.

Unfortunately for Think Progress, we have someone who has actually seen the film; Justin Levin writing at Patterico’s:

The ironic part is, the critics of this movie who haven’t seen it yet are going to have egg on their face. This film in no way “blames the entire event on Clinton” as some falsely claim. “The Path to 9/11″ absolutely slams Bush in a number of ways:

1. It depicts Condi Rice ignoring Richard Clarke’s advice about Al-Queda and undercutting his authority within the White House.

2. It depicts the August 6th “Presidential Daily Briefing” wherein Rice is explicitly warned before 9/11 that Bin Laden intends to hijack American airplanes.

3. It makes Richard Clarke look like a tragic hero (even though everyone knows that he later went on to become one of Bush’s biggest critics).

4. It contains an epilogue that cites 9/11 Commission members giving the current government a failing grade in implementing their recommendations.

Few people have seen the whole film. Even the select group in Washington only got to see the first half of the film (which obviously doesn’t deal with the Bush administration, based on how the timeline worked). As a result, there is a lot of misinformation going on about what “The Path To 9/11″ is really about.

Think Progress is used to having egg on its face as they were one of the leading lefty blogs who jumped on the Jason Leopold “Rove will be indicted” bandwagon. No matter. For them and other lefties, it isn’t so much that Clinton is going to be portrayed as a President that helped America sleepwalk through the decade with regards to the terrorist threat it’s that George Bush won’t be blamed enough for the events of 9/11.

The effort to whitewash Clinton’s failures during the 9/11 Commission’s public hearings had conservatives up in arms and for good reason; what we now know about that period in history makes it the height of hypocrisy to try and absolve Clinton of his curious lack of will in going after Bin Laden even after the first WTC bombing and the Africa embassy bombings. It had nothing to do with Monica, of course and any docu-drama that tries to bring that issue up except as a way to show how Clinton may have been distracted by the attacks by Republicans will lose any credibility among serious conservatives. But to not show how close we were to actually killing Osama during that time would do a disservice to history.

It would also be a travesty to leave out the story of FBI Director Louis Freeh and the Bureau’s number one counterterrorism agent John O’Neill whose exasperating turf battles with Freeh (the FBI Chief disliked O’Neill intensely) put numerous roadblock’s in the agent’s way in his hunt to unravel the plot he knew was taking shape. This was a battle that spanned both the Clinton and Bush presidencies and revealed Freeh to be a mountebank of tragic proportions.

And like the other movie that liberals loved to hate United 93, I assume we’ll get plenty of searing scenes of our government - the FAA, the military, and the executive branch - reaching out in first confusion, then frustration, and then finally in a befuddled paralysis as the planes hit their targets one after another.

Blaming Clinton for 9/11? In what universe? What the left objects to is that their favorite punching bag of a President is not coming in for all the blame, a laughable historical construct that only an idiotic liberal could fantasize about.

I would suggest that we all sit back and watch the mini-series and judge for ourselves. An objective observer may just find much to praise in a film that finally gives the lie to The Narrative in which 9/11 was purely the result of Bush incompetence (or for the more unbalanced, Bush perfidy) rather than the fault of America itself and our historical myopia regarding overseas threats.

In the end, how much does it matter in a real sense what portion of blame should be ladled out to each President? Three thousand Americans are dead and the people who did it as well as their numerous off shoots and subsidiaries, are still out there waiting to strike again.

Best that the left concentrate more on figuring out whether to engage the enemy in the War on Terror rather than some silly TV show that might tarnish their carefully constructed Narrative about Bush.

Join me this morning from 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM Central Time for The Rick Moran Show on Wideawakes Radio.

Today we’ll look at some information that may or may not indicate some immenent terrorist activity. We’ll also look at Kofi in Iran and Khatami in America. And would you convert to Islam and deny your faith if under the gun?

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