Reaction Paper 4
Rashid Chapters 4-6
Top Secret America
Top Secret America is about the huge intelligence programs in the United States
following 911. The Rashid chapters from this weeks material cover the initial reactions of the US towards an Afghanistan War, the initial fighting in Afghanistan and the Pakistan, India conflict. A theme that has started to pock in class is that people, in this case countries, do things that are going to benefit themselves at the time, instead of what is best for the long term. As highlighted in previous material such as Bush’s war and the currently in the Rashid book the US looks out for itself and what is best for the present. Pakistan and Afghanistan both do the same thing.
From Rashid’s book it is clear that the US and its allies in the western world weren’t very educated about Afghanistan and the problems within the country. They had no real concerns about the area after the soviets withdrew from there. So as a result they didn’t have plans to go to war with Afghanistan because they didn’t think it would be necessary at the time, before 911. Rashid did seem to want the readers believe that he was deeply connected to leaders of the world and was a little better them, from some of the comments that he made about his meeting with Tony Blair. One thing that I did find interesting in this chapter was the fact that the US turned down wide support from NATO which agreed to go to war with the US. This showed the egos of the politicians like Rumsfeld that wanted to make themselves look like dominate figures in the world and to boost their egos. They didn’t really care about whether they were going to need help later from these allies they just wanted to go to war and unprepared at that.
The fifth chapter of the book talks about the US relations to Pakistan and the ISI. The US and most western powers lifted sanctions on Pakistan and gave large amounts of aid in order to get some help from Pakistan. The western powers needed to as they were unprepared to go to war in the area and needed intelligence from people that were heavily involved in the area. The problem with trusting the Pakistan government was, they were more concerned about themselves. They were trying to milk the US, NATO, and the UN for all the money and political power they could get out of their situation. They also tried to hide the fact that the forces in Afghanistan after 911 that were still helping the Taliban. They were trying to prevent themselves from being declared a terrorist state and at the same time trying to get some influence over the new Afghanistan.
Another part of the chapter was that the US military made a lot of mistakes during the early stages of the war. The prime example of this is the incidents at Tora Bora, were General Franks didn’t send in troops that were on stand by in bases to secure the Pakistan border from the Afghanistan side. It was later found out that Bin Laden escaped from the bombing at Tora Bora due to the lack of border controll. Other issues included, tribal leaders and commanders getting the US to take out some enemies by giving the US wrong intelligence. This has caused a large amount of deaths from US bombs in Afghanistan.
The sixth chapter goes into details of the relations between Pakistan and India, going from the history to the current political problems between the two countries. Both are trying to have an influence in the area in particular Afghanistan. Who ever can land Afghanistan on their side of the argument would gain a powerful ally in the region. The fighting between these two countries was initially started over whether Kashmir should be part of Pakistan or India. In 947 when both countries were starting, independent areas around the border where allowed to pick which country to join. The ruler of Kashmir went with India despite the fact a large part of the population was Muslim and wanted to join with Pakistan. Since than both sides have been sponsoring attacks against each other and have been at ends. Both are currently afraid of the US picking one side over the other. That is a major part of the reason why Pakistan has tried to help the US, in Afghanistan. Kashmir is also a possible powder keg for the area and needs to be watched carefully by everyone in the international community.
Top Secret America is a documentary about the rapidly growing intelligence agencies in the US. The agencies have grown to the point where they are unmanageable and in massive buildings that are underground. They came to rise after 911 in to solve the problem of not having enough intelligence. Their was also a director of intelligence that started. The problem with this job is that their isn’t enough power to manage everything and more offices and companies started getting into the intelligence business. Everyone decided so quickly that we needed more intelligence officers and people to go through all of it but no one considered the long term that we would be dealing with too many people doing it. Anyone who says that we should cut back will be told that it works because we haven’t been attacked since 911. So these agency keep growing. The problem is that all this is too much and isn’t sustainable for the long term. Politicians acted to rashly to 911 and didn’t think everything threw.
Rashid Chapters 4-6
Top Secret America
Top Secret America is about the huge intelligence programs in the United States
following 911. The Rashid chapters from this weeks material cover the initial reactions of the US towards an Afghanistan War, the initial fighting in Afghanistan and the Pakistan, India conflict. A theme that has started to pock in class is that people, in this case countries, do things that are going to benefit themselves at the time, instead of what is best for the long term. As highlighted in previous material such as Bush’s war and the currently in the Rashid book the US looks out for itself and what is best for the present. Pakistan and Afghanistan both do the same thing.
From Rashid’s book it is clear that the US and its allies in the western world weren’t very educated about Afghanistan and the problems within the country. They had no real concerns about the area after the soviets withdrew from there. So as a result they didn’t have plans to go to war with Afghanistan because they didn’t think it would be necessary at the time, before 911. Rashid did seem to want the readers believe that he was deeply connected to leaders of the world and was a little better them, from some of the comments that he made about his meeting with Tony Blair. One thing that I did find interesting in this chapter was the fact that the US turned down wide support from NATO which agreed to go to war with the US. This showed the egos of the politicians like Rumsfeld that wanted to make themselves look like dominate figures in the world and to boost their egos. They didn’t really care about whether they were going to need help later from these allies they just wanted to go to war and unprepared at that.
The fifth chapter of the book talks about the US relations to Pakistan and the ISI. The US and most western powers lifted sanctions on Pakistan and gave large amounts of aid in order to get some help from Pakistan. The western powers needed to as they were unprepared to go to war in the area and needed intelligence from people that were heavily involved in the area. The problem with trusting the Pakistan government was, they were more concerned about themselves. They were trying to milk the US, NATO, and the UN for all the money and political power they could get out of their situation. They also tried to hide the fact that the forces in Afghanistan after 911 that were still helping the Taliban. They were trying to prevent themselves from being declared a terrorist state and at the same time trying to get some influence over the new Afghanistan.
Another part of the chapter was that the US military made a lot of mistakes during the early stages of the war. The prime example of this is the incidents at Tora Bora, were General Franks didn’t send in troops that were on stand by in bases to secure the Pakistan border from the Afghanistan side. It was later found out that Bin Laden escaped from the bombing at Tora Bora due to the lack of border controll. Other issues included, tribal leaders and commanders getting the US to take out some enemies by giving the US wrong intelligence. This has caused a large amount of deaths from US bombs in Afghanistan.
The sixth chapter goes into details of the relations between Pakistan and India, going from the history to the current political problems between the two countries. Both are trying to have an influence in the area in particular Afghanistan. Who ever can land Afghanistan on their side of the argument would gain a powerful ally in the region. The fighting between these two countries was initially started over whether Kashmir should be part of Pakistan or India. In 947 when both countries were starting, independent areas around the border where allowed to pick which country to join. The ruler of Kashmir went with India despite the fact a large part of the population was Muslim and wanted to join with Pakistan. Since than both sides have been sponsoring attacks against each other and have been at ends. Both are currently afraid of the US picking one side over the other. That is a major part of the reason why Pakistan has tried to help the US, in Afghanistan. Kashmir is also a possible powder keg for the area and needs to be watched carefully by everyone in the international community.
Top Secret America is a documentary about the rapidly growing intelligence agencies in the US. The agencies have grown to the point where they are unmanageable and in massive buildings that are underground. They came to rise after 911 in to solve the problem of not having enough intelligence. Their was also a director of intelligence that started. The problem with this job is that their isn’t enough power to manage everything and more offices and companies started getting into the intelligence business. Everyone decided so quickly that we needed more intelligence officers and people to go through all of it but no one considered the long term that we would be dealing with too many people doing it. Anyone who says that we should cut back will be told that it works because we haven’t been attacked since 911. So these agency keep growing. The problem is that all this is too much and isn’t sustainable for the long term. Politicians acted to rashly to 911 and didn’t think everything threw.
So what was I looking for in Blog Four? I was looking for a discussion of Rashid chapters 4, 5, and 6 and the Frontline documentary "Top Secret America".
ReplyDeleteSo how did you do? Very well done as usual.
Comments and Questions: