Unbelievable: US Might Strike Pakistan

cawacko said:
I may have grown up and gone to school in Oakland but I did not spend my youth out on the streets smoking people in drive-bys, starting fights and violence for fun and jumping for joy at carnage in the street so please don't tell me I have no concern for human life or no compassion. That's bullshit.
Click to expand...


sorry, cawacko. I just can't help teasing republicans about their lack of compassion for humanity:

"Dont' have paid vacation? Tough! Your fault! Go find another job!"


;)
 
Shit like this happening again will set Pakistan on fire .. and it's already boiling.

Pakistan warns US over air strike
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4619422.stm

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz says his country cannot accept a repetition of a US air strike on a village that killed at least 18 people.
Click to expand...

Deadly Violence Spreads in Pakistan
Suicide Bombers Target Mosque, Police School and Convoy; Scores Are Killed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071900380_pf.html

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 19 -- The wave of violence that has gripped Pakistan in recent days spread to new parts of the country and featured more ferocious tactics Thursday, with suicide bombers targeting a mosque, a police academy and a convoy of Chinese engineers in attacks that killed more than 50 people.

The strikes yielded the highest single-day death toll since the government stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad last week. More than 120 people died during the standoff at the mosque, and more than 160 have been killed in the attacks that have followed.

The severity of the violence has stunned Pakistanis. It also has left the country groping for direction as the military, pro-democracy moderates and Islamic extremists vie for control in a struggle that appears likely to intensify. The military has vowed a fresh offensive and is moving troops into position, while extremists have declared jihad against the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and his government.

An attack Thursday at a mosque during evening prayers killed at least 18 people, including three children, heightening the sense of disarray. Police officials said a suicide bomber had mingled among the worshipers before detonating his charge.

Suicide attacks inside mosques are relatively rare in Pakistan. The mosque targeted Thursday is located on an army base in the northwestern town of Kohat, and many of the casualties were army recruits, police officials said.

Earlier in the day, a convoy of Chinese engineers being escorted through southern Pakistan by security forces was rammed by a car bomber and then pelted with gunfire in a crowded market area. The attack, in the southwestern province of Baluchistan and hundreds of miles from all of the previous incidents, claimed 30 lives. While the Chinese escaped unharmed, seven police officers were killed and the rest of the dead were believed to be civilians.

The day's violence began with a suicide strike at a police academy in the northwestern town of Hangu, where seven people were killed

Thursday was the fifth consecutive day of deadly attacks. Most have been suicide bombings, but the targets have varied widely, with the victims including security forces, political activists and civilians.

The string of attacks follows the collapse over the weekend of a 10-month-old peace agreement between the government and tribal elders in the North Waziristan area along the Afghan border. U.S. officials have strongly criticized that deal, saying it gave al-Qaeda a haven to train and plot for attacks against the United States.

Retired Brig. Mehmood Shah, a former official in the tribal areas, said it is Pakistan that is getting the first taste of the terrorists' renewed strength.

"The lethality of the attacks has increased many-fold. They're well-coordinated," said Shah, who until 2005 was responsible for tribal area security. "The government painted a make-believe world about these tribal areas that did not exist -- that if you leave them alone, everything will be fine."

Now, Shah said, the government has little choice in how to react. "To get back in a strong position, you have to fight your way in," he said. "In the long run, there's no other way of dealing with the problem."

Sources in Pakistan's armed forces have said they are planning a major operation against extremist fighters and are readying troops and supplies. On Thursday, for the second straight night, residents of North Waziristan reported hearing shelling, though it was unclear who or what had been hit.

The United States has been prodding Musharraf to take a strong stand while providing the Pakistani military with intelligence to help with targeting, military sources said.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Tony Snow declined to rule out the possibility that the United States would carry out strikes in Pakistan.

"We never rule out any options, including striking actionable targets," he said.

Musharraf has been trying this week to rally his country to support him in countering extremism. But his reputation among moderates has taken a severe blow this year, following his decision in March to suspend the country's chief justice. Musharraf has also alienated democracy advocates by saying he wants to be elected to a new term by the outgoing parliament and prefers to stay in uniform.

The Supreme Court has been reviewing Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry's suspension and could rule as early as Friday on whether he can return to the bench.
Click to expand...

Pakistan court reinstates top judge
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070720/ap_on_re_as/pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The Supreme Court on Friday reinstated Pakistan's top judge, ruling that his suspension by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf was illegal and dealing a major blow to the authority of the staunch U.S. ally.

The ruling to reinstate Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry is probably the biggest challenge to Musharraf's dominance since he seized power in a coup in 1999. It could further complicate his bid to win a new five-year presidential term this fall and comes at a time when Islamic militants are on the offensive.
Click to expand...
 
Cypress said:
sorry, cawacko. I just can't help teasing republicans about their lack of compassion for humanity:

"Dont' have paid vacation? Tough! Your fault! Go find another job!"


;)
Click to expand...

I don't wish people not to have vacations I just don't think it should be government mandated. We work in a competitive environment. Companies need to do what they can to hire the best talent. If companies don't offer vacation time, benefits etc. most people will not work for them.
 
cawacko said:
I don't wish people not to have vacations I just don't think it should be government mandated. We work in a competitive environment. Companies need to do what they can to hire the best talent. If companies don't offer vacation time, benefits etc. most people will not work for them.
Click to expand...

I'll address this back on the vacation thread, if you don't mind....
 
Cypress said:
I'm not saying that there can never again, in the history of the united states, be a surgical strike on enemies of our nation with a cruise missle.

what I'm saying is that bombing pakistan - or any country for that matter, that we are not at war with - is counterproductive, and immoral in the sense of collateral damage. Your a republican, so just forget the human element: its not in our strategic interests to cause collateral damage in pakistan. It will lead to a revolution in pakistan that could put extremist theocrats in charge of the nations nukes.
Click to expand...


It makes a cold chill run down my back. The theocrats in charge of nukes.
 
Cypress said:
Al Qaeda has established safe zones and training camps in pakistan. I think we have every right to try to capture or kill members of al qaeda and their leadership. With either covert ops special forces, or law enforcment. Of course, the Pakistani police won't dare go into these tribal areas, so I don't know how realistic the law enforcement option is here.

The problem is, I don't trust Bush.
Click to expand...

You just went up 20pts. in my report card! (Not that you should care, but I'm trying to get to know posters.)

The problem is, can the issue of attacking al Queda wait until Jan. '09? Something both sides must come to grips with.
 
Cypress said:
I'm not saying that there can never again, in the history of the united states, be a surgical strike on enemies of our nation with a cruise missle.

what I'm saying is that bombing pakistan - or any country for that matter, that we are not at war with - is counterproductive, and immoral in the sense of collateral damage. Your a republican, so just forget the human element: its not in our strategic interests to cause collateral damage in pakistan. It will lead to a revolution in pakistan that could put extremist theocrats in charge of the nations nukes.
Click to expand...

That's always been the danger of Pakistan having nukes, but that cat's out of the bag.
 
Al Qaeda widespread in Pakistan
Anti-terrorism officials and experts say a U.S. report incorrectly focuses on the group's strength in border areas.
July 20, 2007
http://dissentradio.com/fair/latimesB06.html

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda has strongholds throughout Pakistan, not just in the areas bordering Afghanistan that were emphasized in a terrorism assessment this week, according to U.S. intelligence officials and counter-terrorism experts who say Osama bin Laden's network is more deeply entrenched than described.

The National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland, which reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, described Al Qaeda as having "regenerated key elements" and freely operating from bases in northwestern Pakistan. But several officials and outside experts interviewed since the document's release this week say the situation is more problematic.

These analysts said the Bush administration was blaming Al Qaeda's resurgence too narrowly on an agreement that the Pakistani government struck in September with militant tribal leaders in the country's northwest territories.

In recent years, U.S. intelligence and counter-terrorism officials who focus on South Asia say they have watched with growing concern as Al Qaeda has moved men, money and recruiting and training operations into Pakistani cities such as Quetta and Karachi as well as less populated areas.

Militant Islamists are still a minority in Pakistan, commanding allegiance of a little more than 10% of the population, judging by election results. But Al Qaeda has been able to widen its sway throughout the country by strengthening alliances with fundamentalist religious groups, charities, criminal gangs, elements of the government security forces and even some political officials, these officials said.

Bin Laden's network also has strengthened ties to groups fighting for control of Kashmir, most of which is held by India, a broadly popular cause throughout Pakistan that has the backing of the government and military.

"It is a much bigger problem than just saying it is a bunch of tribal Islamists in the fringe areas," said Bruce Riedel, a South Asia expert who served at the CIA, National Security Council and Pentagon and retired last year after 30 years of counterterrorism and policymaking experience.

Riedel disagreed in particular with the administration's effort to blame Al Qaeda's resurgence primarily on the September peace agreement. Under the terms of that truce, Pakistan pulled its troops out of North Waziristan in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in exchange for promises by tribal leaders that militants affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban would not engage in violent activity, in Pakistan or across the border in Afghanistan.

The peace accord has been roundly criticized as having backfired, with Taliban attacks and suicide bombings in Afghanistan soaring, and Al Qaeda activity in the tribal areas growing noticeably, according to top U.S. military and intelligence officials. Militants recently renounced the pact and officials are trying to revive it.

The Pakistani government has limited authority in the largely autonomous tribal areas, and has had little success in attacking Al Qaeda there, but it also has refused to allow U.S. forces to go in.

Riedel and others who share his view said the intelligence estimate put too much emphasis on the September agreement.

"By putting it all in the [tribal region] we are trying to downplay this, saying it is all a problem of one cease-fire agreement that was a bad idea, when in fact Al Qaeda has spread throughout Pakistan," said Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

One U.S. counter-terrorism official confirmed Riedel's assessment that Al Qaeda's influence extended far beyond the tribal areas, but said those areas had become more important to the group in recent years because it faced increased pressure in urban centers.

"As pressure increased in the urban areas, you look for a more permissive environment, and the tribal areas are thought to have provided that. You tend to go to where your opponent isn't," the counter-terrorism official said in reference to Al Qaeda. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he was not allowed to discuss counterterrorism operations on the record, especially regarding the sensitive but fragile U.S. alliance with Pakistan.

But, the official said, Al Qaeda's presence in the rest of Pakistan remains a problem. "Nobody is looking at one to the absolute exclusion of the other," the official said. "This is not a one-dimensional problem."

The signs of Al Qaeda's spread across Pakistan have been apparent for years. The 15 so-called muscle hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks trained at an Al Qaeda hide-out in the southern port city of Karachi, according to the 9/11 Commission report.

Husain Haqqani, a former advisor to several Pakistani prime ministers, said that before the Sept. 11 attacks, Al Qaeda had hide-outs and logistical bases throughout Pakistan from where it moved foreign fighters into and out of Afghanistan.

"Once their headquarters in Afghanistan was shattered, they turned to making their logistical bases in Pakistan into operational bases," said Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and author of "Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military."

"Look at the arrests of Al Qaeda in recent years," he said. "They have been all over the country. People there were providing them with guidance and help."

Top Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubeida was captured in Faisalabad in 2002 and reputed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who also had close ties to Karachi, was caught in 2003 in the city of Rawalpindi, headquarters of Pakistan's military. Mohammed's replacement, Abu Faraj Libbi, was arrested in 2005 in Mardan, about 75 miles northwest of Islamabad, the capital.

U.S. intelligence officials believe Al Qaeda's presence throughout Pakistan has enabled it to recruit and train operatives, raise significant sums of money, and to film and disseminate high-quality propaganda videos through its Al Sahab multimedia arm.

Al Qaeda's No. 2 and chief propagandist, Ayman Zawahiri, has released numerous tapes in recent months, each of them issued with increasing speed after a significant event. After Pakistani troops stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad, killing and capturing Islamist militants, Zawahiri's professional-looking video was in cyberspace in a matter of days.

"When you look at the quality of these propaganda tapes, they are not being produced in some primitive area but where you can get access to news media on a regular basis," Riedel said.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry issued a statement Wednesday in response to the U.S. intelligence paper, strongly protesting the conclusion that the government had allowed Al Qaeda a haven in the tribal areas.

"It does not help simply to make assertions about the presence or regeneration of Al Qaeda in bordering areas of Pakistan," the statement says. "What is needed is concrete and actionable information and intelligence sharing."

The Foreign Ministry statement said Pakistan was determined not to allow Al Qaeda or any other terrorist entity to establish a base on its territory, but in an apparent reference to the U.S., said no foreign security forces would be allowed to pursue militants in Pakistan.

Last week during testimony to Congress on global threats, Thomas Fingar, the deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, cautioned against an overly aggressive effort to crush Al Qaeda in the tribal areas.

"Part of the dilemma … here is the risk of taking actions in the less-well-governed areas of Pakistan, the federally administrated tribal areas … that could lead to developments in all of Pakistan, that would increase the problem," Fingar told the House Armed Services Committee.

"There are an awful lot of potential recruits that are being engaged in the struggle in Kashmir that are held in check by the security forces in the rest of Pakistan. So it is not too great an exaggeration to say there is some risk of turning a problem in northwest Pakistan into the problem of all of Pakistan."
Click to expand...

How exactly would the US go into Pakistan and root out Al Queda if they have infiltrated themselves throughout the entire country?

Special Ops cannot succeed in the whole of Pakistan.

Bombing and killing innocents will make the problem worse.

And there remains the problem of a wrong decison here could put Pakistan's nukes into the hands of those who really hate us.

... and then there is the elephant.
 
Watermark said:
It isn't really a strike on the government of Pakistan - but it certainly isn't a friendly measure either.
Click to expand...


Yes it fucking is, you retarded tool. Any attack on the territory of a sovereign nation is generally considered an attack on the nation, and by extension, the government of the nation.
 
Would you like me to prove it to you? Or would you prefer to be a pedantic loser? Just because you're an irrational nationalist doesn't mean you have to attack everyone who thinkgs more rationally than you.
 
Let me give you an example, dumbass. Whenever Mexico was at civil war, they were a sovereign nation. Poncho Villa was a Meixcan criminal who attacked America. We went into Meixcan territory to retaliate against him. This is not considered an attack against the government (obviously), although it is considered intrusive, and internationally rude to the extreme.
 
What is being overlooked is the US has no ability to win such a conflict militarily.

Before 9/11, which the Bush Administration allowed to happen .. at best .. Al Queda was hardly known. Now it's everywhere, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Egypt, Kenya, London, Hamburg, Milan, Madrid, Somalia, Yemen, Chechnya, and elsewhere.

The US is already fighting .. and losing in Iraq and Afghanistan even with the help of NATO. Now we are talking of going into a nuclear armed Afghanistan? Are we going to chase them all over the world as well? With what troops and with what money, because we're running low on both.

Additionally, this new boogeyman to replace communism .. where did it come from?

WE HELPED CREATE IT.

From its rag-tag days as the ultra-right-wing Mujahideen, the US trained, supplied, and funneled up TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS to Bin Laden to fight against the left-wing secular government of the Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), after it came to power in 1978. Then in 1986, the CIA began aiding Pakistan's ISI in recruiting Islamic fundamentalists from around the world to train in camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan and fight against the Soviet-backed PDPA government.

When the Soviets were defeated the Taliban, composed of the same US supported Mujahideen, came to power in Afghanistan. When the Taliban refused to allow the building of the long sought after Central Asian Pipeline by Unocal and western oil interests to be built through Afghanistan .. ONLY THEN did they become our enemy.

Bin Laden is OUR boogeyman and Al Queda is our CIA trained and supplied creation.

Without global cooperation and a rethinking of mideast policy, the US has NO ABILITY to win against cells of resistance.
 
Without global cooperation and a rethinking of mideast policy, the US has NO ABILITY to win against cells of resistance.

I couldn't agree more.
 
Bush blew off our best shot of really striking a blow against AQ while world sympathy for us was high. And created a great recrutment tool for AQ by invading Iraq. While pissing off most of the world...
I am not sure what more Bush could have done in exactly the wrong direction than he did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top