“Today, the United States and Pakistan are working closely in the fight against terror, and Pakistani forces are rounding up terrorists along the nationâs western border.”
So reads the White House’s “Record of Achievement,” extolling not only President Bush’s alleged diplomatic successes in the War on Terror, but also Pakistan’s close allegiance with the U.S. cause.
So why would Pakistani officials sign a “peace deal” with al Qaeda (with the Bush administration’s encouragement?), and tell ABC’s Brian Ross that if Osama bin Laden “is being like a peaceful citizen” in Pakistan, the al Qaeda leader “would not be taken into custody?” (Ten minutes later, the Pakistani ambassador to the United States disavowed that statement.)
In truth, it seems Pakistan has been a non-actor on the front lines of terror for some time. Take a look at what’s been happening at the handful of secret U.S. outposts which dot the Afghan-Pakistani border. Despite the White House’s “Record of Achievement,” U.S. anti-terror efforts have met zero support from the Pakistani government — even before the Bush administration endorsed the Pakistani’s hands-off policies.
As Robert Young Pelton describes in his new book, “Licensed to Kill,” a top-secret U.S. military task force holds down makeshift firebases along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Manned by Afghans but backed up by U.S. special ops fighters and private military contractors, they carry on the hunt for “high-value targets” like Osama bin Laden, even as the military denies doing so.
The bases are routinely attacked at night, Pelton says, and sometimes one is even overrun before the Americans can take it back with air support hours later. He talked to a task force sergeant, who described the incursions:
“We got hit pretty bad two weeks ago,” he tells me, adjusting his dirty Jack Daniel’s cap. “Six guys in our unit got Purple Hearts. They [the ambushers] were waiting for us–knew exactly where we were. . . . The Pakistanis watched the whole thing and did nothing.”
He points to a spot a little over a mile away. “They fire rockets right from that hill on the Pak side. We meet with the Pak officials every month on the border. . . . They smile. We smile. They bullshit us and we bullshit them. Then they watch us get attacked without lifting a finger. This place is fucked.” I ask him if the men who attacked him were Taliban, Pakistanis, or Arabs. He looks up at me, squints in the sun, and spits again for effect, admitting, “I have no fucking idea who we are fighting.”
