Wampum

Juan Cole's got a longish piece anyone who doesn't already know the history of Pakistan's civilian and military governments could read and benefit from. Its a rebuttal of John McCain's (and a host of others) ideas about Pakistan, but serviceable as a nutshell political history. Here's the link.

The unfortunate thing about reaming McCain for having been a party to the creation of present (nice photo of Reagan and the pre-cursors to the Afghan Taliban in the White House) is that ... it is a real challenge to discern the differences between McCain, Clinton and Obama on how they frame issues -- all three are Neo-Cons, or trapped in the Neo-Con web of lies.

If you are able to read French, there's three pages of analysis in yesterday's Le Monde, untroubled by any of the artificial favors of koolaide being sloshed around the media outlets and what used to be blogs (now campaign new-media properties) -- Primaires américaines : "le néoconservatisme continue à structurer la pensée des candidats".

Rather than translate, which is a lot of work, cause I can't keep myself from rewriting, I'll steal three happy paras from the WaPo which Cole links to, to show the truth of the assertion that there isn't any distance between Obama's "strikes" and Bush's "strikes". Of course, in Juan's view, this is exculpatory rather than damning. In my view the opposite is true. So (drumroll, circus tent voice) ...

Which of the following is preferable:

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, a CIA Predator aircraft flew in a slow arc above the Pakistani town of Mir Ali. The drone's operator, relying on information secretly passed to the CIA by local informants, clicked a computer mouse and sent the first of two Hellfire missiles hurtling toward a cluster of mud-brick buildings a few miles from the town center.

The missiles killed Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda commander and a man who had repeatedly eluded the CIA's dragnet. It was the first successful strike against al-Qaeda's core leadership in two years, and it involved, U.S. officials say, an unusual degree of autonomy by the CIA inside Pakistan.

Having requested the Pakistani government's official permission for such strikes on previous occasions, only to be put off or turned down, this time the U.S. spy agency did not seek approval.

That's the choice shared by McCain, Huckabee, Clinton and Obama. How about this:

In the predawn hours of Jan. 29, Abu Laith al-Libi was served with an arrest warrant issued by the North Waziristan criminal courts in Mirumshah [Miran Shah]. The warrant was served by a police officer from Mir Ali, the second largest town in North Waziristan, where Abu Laith al-Libi was in hiding.

The arresting officer was supported by a joint force composed of the Darwesh Khel tribal militia, acting under the authority of the Waziri Jirga and the North West Frontier Corps, acting under the authority of the Pakistani state. Abu Laith al-Libi was taken into custody and transported to Mirumshah for arraignment.

The arrest of Abu Laith al-Libi is the latest in a series of arrests of fugitives under the Collective Responsibility Acts in the Frontier Crimes Regulation.

One answer just bumps the rungs of the chain of command ladder, as everyone who's served in wartime knows, the other has another outcome. One is wicked flashy, and costs a lot of tax dollars that get spent in a couple of safe-Republican districts, and a lot more tax dollars that get spent in the logistical tail across monarchies and dictatorships, and generate excellent-dude kerpowie eye-candy for the safe-Republican media outlets, and the other doesn't have those ... partisan characteristics.

Seen any law-and-order candidates lately?

Its something to keep in mind, unless the French have it totally wrong, and LE PAKISTAN, BAPTÊME DU FEU DU FUTUR PRÉSIDENT is simply a cocktail party gag.