If this report from ABC News is true... Please tell me this report is not true. Please?
A Pakistani tribal militant group responsible for a series of deadly guerrilla raids inside Iran has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials since 2005, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence sources tell ABC News.
The group, called Jundullah, is made up of members of the Baluchi tribe and operates out of the Baluchistan province in Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.It has taken responsibility for the deaths and kidnappings of more than a dozen Iranian soldiers and officials.
U.S. officials say the U.S. relationship with Jundullah is arranged so that the U.S. provides no funding to the group, which would require an official presidential order or "finding" as well as congressional oversight.
It's late and I'm tired, so I will keep this short. Jundullah may be the enemy of our enemy, but they are most certainly not our friends. They have direct ties to both al Qaeda and the Taliban, two groups the US once funded directly and indirectly under the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" principle.
Will we never stop to learn anything about this region? The sources for the story claim that Jundullah has "been helpful in tracking al Qaeda figures," and that as a result it was appropriate to deal with them. But if you know anything about the way the tribes of that region interact with one another, such assistance tells you nothing about their long-term allegiance. In fact, such assistance may not even tell you anything about their short-term allegiance, either.
This really is not that hard. Back in the 1980s, in our overzealous effort to turn Afghanistan into the USSR's Vietnam, we funded a number of different militant Islamic groups. With the assistance of the Pakistani military, we played a direct role in helping to organize and train the groups that less than a decade later became al Qaeda and the Taliban. This was, quite obviously, a mistake of historic proportion. And yet here we are apparently about to make this mistake again.
This whole thing is so nonsensically stupid that it is giving me a headache.
Oh, wait. Suddenly it all makes sense:
Pakistani government sources say the secret campaign against Iran by Jundullah was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February.
Keep in mind that a few weeks back Sy Hersh reported that something like this was already in the works.
God help us all.
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