Lack of Expertise Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Via Matt Yglesias we find out that

The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office.

The thing that is so absolutely frustrating about this situation and makes it that much worse is that any idiot who has followed foreign affairs at all, even the littlest bit, over the past year has known that this was a possible major danger area.  It's not like Nepal blew up and we weren't ready for it.  This is freakin' Pakistan!

Update:  Don Bacon has more in comments.

Comments

[Don Bacon]

Ilan, if you don't read my posts, like on Shadi's thread where I covered this "ship of fools" problem, I will do something evil like re-publish Lee Bollinger's praise of the dictator Musharraf.

[IlanG]

haha. Don, I have wilted before your intimidating threat and linked to your "ship of fools" post. The one thing I will say in defense of Patterson is that drugs and thugs is a natural transition into terrorism because it deals with a lot of the same transnational issues of smuggling money and people across borders. My boss Rand Beers as well as Richard Clarke were both drugs and thugs people before they became terrorism people. It was a natural transition.

Obviously still does not excuse the lack of any regional expertise, which is much much more important in this situation.

[Dan Kervick]

People who spend their lives studying the language, history, art and literature of another people usually end up with some modicum of affection, compassion and respect for the people they study.

But it is a requirement of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy approach that its emissaries should harbor only unalloyed contempt and disgust for Arabs and Muslims, and uncompromised respect for central authority in Washington. This requirement mandates the hiring of easily controlled people who have no deep knowledge of the areas they are assigned to manipulate and rule.

This line of thought was all frankly laid out by numerous neoconservative writers following 9/11, like Martin Kramer and Robert Kaplan, who have argued explicitly against bringing in more academically trained area experts with a soft spot for the subject races, holding we need instead more unapologetic and ruthless imperial magistrates to re-subjugate the unruly injuns of the new American frontier.

No Arabists; no orientalists, no Persianists need apply.

[Don Bacon]

There is absolutely no mention of the current crisis at the US Embassy website--Islamabad. http://islamabad.usembassy.gov/