Coalition of the not so willing
Two stories found via Today in Iraq:
A happy member of the coalition of the willing: Pakistan has issued new rules of engagement permitting its Army to fire at US forces that cross the border from Afghanistan without coordinating first, according to a report contributed to the magazine ?American Conservative? by a former CIA officer.
Philip Giraldi, now an international security consultant and writer of intelligence matters, writes in the February 28 issue of the magazine?s ?Deep Background? column that ?President Musharraf has been receiving angry reports from his military that US forces have been engaging in hot pursuit across the border in violation of bilateral agreements.
Earlier Giraldi, quoting Seymour Hersch, reported in ?Intelligence Brief,? a newsletter he co-edits that the White House has given the Pentagon permission ?to operate unilaterally in a number of countries where there is a perception of a clear and evident terrorist threat,? including Algeria, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Malaysia and Tunisia. The chain of command reportedly includes Donald Rumsfeld and two of his deputies.
Another happy ally: The hottest selling book in Turkey is a thriller that portrays a fictional war between the United States and Turkey.
The book describes a surprise U.S. attack on its longtime ally and fellow NATO member touched off by a clash between American and Turkish troops in northern Iraq.
Staggered by the simultaneous bombing of Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey turns to the European Union and Russia for help.
The novel, “Metal Storm” or “Metal Firtina,” has proved popular even among senior Turkish government officials and has sparked its own war of words between the two countries, striking a nerve at a time when relations are strained over real events.
“The fact that it is being read so widely among the military and Foreign Ministry quarters is of concern to us,” said a high-ranking U.S. diplomat in Ankara, the Turkish capital. “It reflects a certain underlying attitude, a hostility to the U.S.”
One quote in that last item, talking about anti-Turkish sentiments in the US media struck me with the casual arrogance it portrayed:
“The United States had no influence over Hollywood, and if it did the Bush administration would not have allowed the making of Michael Moore’s movie `Fahrenheit 9/11,'” she said, according to the U.S. official.