Pakistan: A Downward Spiral?

Idiot ...

Haha ...

Obama: I'll Invade Pakistan



RUSH: Boy, I'll tell you, I would not want to be Pakistan's president today, Musharraf. This guy is hanging by a thread anyway. He is just barely holding on. He's at loggerheads; he's got a whole terrorist population; he's got a moderate population; he's got the United States as an ally; we need to fly over Pakistan to get into Afghanistan, folks. We cannot fly over Iran's airspace. I found this out when I went to Dubai to stop for a couple days and rest up for the trip into Afghanistan two and a half years ago or so. You can't fly over Iranian airspace, so what would normally be, I don't know, an hour, hour and a half, is a three and a half hour flight because you gotta go around Iran. You gotta go up and through Pakistan. We have flyover rights. It's the simplest and fastest way that we can get supplies to the troops, whatever is necessary in there.

So poor Musharraf, he wakes up today, and he learns that Barack Obama wants to invade his country. He wants to take the troops out of Iran and invade Pakistan. Then, after he hears Obama say that, he gets a video from some Al-Qaeda hack who is suggesting that Al-Qaeda conduct a coup against Musharraf and his government. I think the biggest fear that Musharraf probably faces, or has, of these two, is Obama. If it weren't for the fact that he's running for president, it would be laughable. What it is, is horribly naïve, and he's just given Mrs. Clinton a hanging curve ball. We have two sound bites from a speech he gave this morning in Washington at the Woodrow Wilson Center for, you know, hopeful presidential candidates to come make big-time speeches on foreign policy. Here's cut one.

OBAMA: We went off to fight on the wrong battlefield, with no appreciation of how many enemies we would create and no plan for how to get out. Because of a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged, we are now less safe than we were before 9/11. Six years after 9/11 we are again in the midst of a summer of threat with bin Laden and many more terrorists determined to strike in the United States. What's more, in the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantanamo, we have compromised our most precious values.

RUSH: Yada yada yada, same old,same old, same old playbook song: we are destroying our image around the world. We are making them mad at us for all this imaginary torture that goes on at Abu Ghraib and Club Gitmo. Here is another portion, a second bite of the Obama workout this morning. He had to give this big foreign policy speech, gotta go out there and shore up his credentials and show the world he's a serious guy.

OBAMA: The president would have us believe that every bomb in Baghdad is part of Al-Qaeda's war against us, not an Iraqi civil war. He elevates Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which didn't exist before our invasion, and overlooks the people who hit us on 9/11, who are training new recruits in Pakistan right now. He is fighting the war that the terrorists want us to fight, a misguided invasion of a Muslim country that sparks new insurgencies, ties down our military, busts our budgets, increases the pool of terrorist recruits, alienates America, gives democracy a bad name, and prompts the American people to question our engagement in the world.

RUSH: Wow. In this speech, he also said that if Musharraf doesn't do the right thing over there and clean out these terrorists in the mountainous regions, he's going to go in there and do it himself. He would invade Pakistan. Now, the military futility of that is crazy. They have a 39 million-man army in Pakistan. They have nuclear weapons. They play a vital role for us. If you look at the map of that region, you find that there's no suitable replacement for Pakistan if we alienate them in order to base ourselves for staging operations to re-supply troops in Iraq and so forth. Just from that sense, this is a nonsensical thing. It shows exactly what Mrs. Clinton claimed Barack Obama is, and that's naïve. This has so much naïveté. He's just trying to bulk up here, he's trying to flex his muscles to demonstrate to everybody just how serious he can be, and also make a play for the anti-war left. What's interesting about this whole spat is the way the media plays this. Obama says he wants to invade Pakistan. Well, not really all of Pakistan, he just wants to go into northwestern Pakistan.

Have you checked to see how that could be done? You would have to go in from the Arabian Sea. You need lines of communication -- it's been said today -- you need lines of communication to muster such a massive military force. Pakistan is what provides that now with our flyover rights, staging base operations, all that would come to a screeching halt if we just invade this sovereign country, which for the most part, is an ally. Almost170 million people live in Pakistan. It's a wobbly government. They got nuclear weapons. The peace candidate wants to send in troops. Isn't it amazing how these guys want to lose in Iraq, make up stories about how Al-Qaeda was not there. We know for a fact that the Al-Qaeda that is there came in from Pakistan; they're coming in from Syria; they're coming in from Iran. Al-Qaeda is Al-Qaeda. We know that this Al-Qaeda in Iraq was a phony front group created to make it look like there was a civil war going on there, when it's not.

Look, without all the details here, the Obama plan is irrational.

Name Change........

Islamists want Pakistan province called Afghania
ISLAMABAD: An Islamic alliance ruling Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan has proposed changing the region's name to "Afghania", a provincial minister said yesterday.

The NWFP government's request to the federal government in Islamabad is likely to rekindle an old debate over the name of the region dominated by ethnic Pashtuns, who live on both sides of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Constitutionally there is no bar on us to rename the province on our own but we want to resolve this issue in an amicable manner," Malik Zafar Azam, NWFP's law minister said.

He said the provincial government had conducted a survey to find an alternative name for the region, designated NWFP since the days of the British Raj in pre-partition India, and most people favoured "Afghania".

"We have firmed up our proposal and plan to put it before the federal government's inter-provincial co-ordination committee in its next meeting." Central government officials were unavailable for comment.

Pashtun nationalists have long demanded the old colonial name be changed as it only indicates a geographical location rather than the ethnicity of its inhabitants, as in the other three Pakistan provinces - Punjab for Punjabis, Sindh for Sindhis and Baluchistan for Baluchis.

The nationalists had proposed "Pakhtunkhwa" as the new name for the province after its Pashtun, or Pakhtun population, but the central government is fearful it would revive old differences with Afghanistan over the Pashtun territory, known as Pashtoonistan, straddling both sides of the border.

Afghanistan has never recognised the 2,640km frontier, known as the Durand Line after the British colonialist who drew it. Afghans say the border robbed Afghanistan of land it traditionally held and it unfairly divides Pashtuns.

The Pashtoonistan issue strained relations between the two neighbours in the 1950s and 1960s, although it faded after Islamists gained influence in the border areas in the 1970s.

Observers say the new proposal by the Islamic Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance, which rose to power by exploiting anti-American sentiments in the region in 2002 after US intervention in Afghanistan, could be a move to win sympathies of Pashtun tribes ahead of elections due later this year or in early 2008.

l US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama said yesterday the US must be willing to strike Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government.

He warned President Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under his presidency, or Pakistan will risk a US troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in US military aid.

#35 Posted by HP on August 1, 2007 11:20:55 pm

you're clutching at straws...hellfires and fighter/bombers = military itnervention without ground forces...i.e. less messy..for the US at least..

Crazy number one wrotes,
"Umm...the repeated hellfire attacks, the repeated incursions and the repeated abduction of pakis by US special forces doesn't count as military intervention?"

NO!
You are so stupid that you don't even know what military intervention is. Try Iraq and Vietnam. Idiot!

I don’t know how many people have read this article and understood the argument behind it but is this something coming our way: Be Afraid: A "Green Curtain" Is Descending...

U.S. vs. Iran: Cold War, Too
By Robin Wright
Sunday, July 29, 2007; B01
After three decades of festering tensions, the United States and Iran are now facing off in a full-fledged cold war.
When the first Cold War began, in 1946, Winston Churchill famously spoke of an Iron Curtain that had divided Europe. As Cold War II begins half a century later, the Bush administration is trying to drape a kind of Green Curtain dividing the Middle East between Iran's friends and foes. The new showdown may well prove to be the most enduring legacy of the Iraq conflict. The outcome will certainly shape the future of the Middle East -- not least because the administration's strategy seems so unlikely to work.
The new Cold War will take center stage this week, as President Bush dispatches Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to the Middle East for a last-ditch appeal to recalcitrant U.S. allies on Iraq. Their pitch to Sunni Arab regimes spooked by the bloc of countries and movements led by Shiite Persian Iran will be simple: Support Iraq as a buffer against Iran or face living under Tehran's growing shadow.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/
27/AR200 7072701694_pf.html

“I don't know precisely when or how a middle-ranking power like Iran--rivaled in its immediate neighborhood alone by the likes of Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan--has somehow metamorphosed into America's mega-foe thereby presenting us with a full-blown "Cold War II"

Is Iran the same type of threat to the US, the Soviet Union was? I doubt that. But we will see more of this in the US media. After all the US needs to keep inventing the enemies to keep the wars going for generations.

#32 Posted by HP on August 1, 2007 10:58:27 pm


Is there any credible scope for a unilateral US military intervention in Pakistan? Not in a dog`s ass.


Umm...the repeated hellfire attacks, the repeated incursions and the repeated abduction of pakis by US special forces doesn't count as military intervention?


mmmmkay...

Here is my post on the same issue. US attacking Pakistan…hehehehe
http://www.chowk.com/interacts/12131/1/0/472#331474
More on what the US can do in Pakistan...

``And how and in what way could the United States project force into Pakistan successfully?

Keep in mind that Pakistan`s nuclear weapons will probably at all material times be under maximum security, their specific locations will be both secret and tightly guarded, and they`re not nearly as portable or as easily filched as say, the Hope Diamond.

Put it another way: Pakistan`s nuclear facilities will be staffed, guarded and maintained by the most highly trained, highly motivated, most disciplined and well equipped Pakistanis.

They will probably be located in hardened complexes, in buried and concrete reinforced silos and bunkers, and defended by a variety of missile batteries, artillery, machine guns, small arms, and weapon placements, together with such things as barbed wire and traffic barricades.

Are we getting the picture?

The odds of a successful assault aimed at capturing or neutralizing Pakistan`s nuclear weapons is less than nil. Only a shivering moron would think its feasible.

The Raid at Entebbe makes it into the history books because it and actions like it are historical flukes. Their success comes from luck at so many levels its not even funny.

The odds of a successful assault, via missiles or air strikes aimed at neutralizing or destroying Pakistan`s nuclear weapons is somewhat better.

However, there are certain problems with this scenario. One is massive issues of contamination of the environment, particularly if one of those nukes blows.

The real risks are that if Pakistan or its remaining command structure interprets an attack on nuclear facilities as an Indian first strike... in which case, they`ll loose whatever remaining first, and possibly second strike capacity at India.

Or they`ll interpret it as an American attack, in which case... Well, we`ll find out how good the Pakistani targeting systems are against the American navy or American cities.

But assuming that dealing with Pakistan`s nukes is not the objective of an American military action. What is?

An occupation/peacekeeping force in Pakistan?

Don`t make me laugh. First, the United States military has repeatedly demonstrated its not particularly good at peacekeeping missions. Consider Somalia and Lebanon.

Second, there`s about 150 million Pakistani`s. The United States isn`t able to hold 24 million Iraqi`s. How are they going to do it in a country 6 times as populous and three times as big, with much tougher, rougher countryside?

Is there any credible scope for a unilateral US military intervention in Pakistan? Not in a dog`s ass.

And let`s think about what a unilateral action into Pakistan might provoke from India, China, Russia. What would be the reaction from the Muslim world.

Even a multilateral action would be difficult to organize (and none of this bullshit `Coalition of the Willing`). A true multilateral response would be difficult and the United States would be a partner, perhaps a minor partner, not a leader.``

HAHA...pakis have their chaddis in a knot...hussein obama, shrillary and rudy all think pakiland is the problem...

so the hellfires regularly whacking pakis in pakiland and the repeated incursions into paki territory have bipartisan support...

Sorry posted this on the wrong thread!

Now the reality check time.

I posted this on “Lal Masjid: Lessons Learnt” thread
http://www.chowk.com/interacts/12388/1/0/48#333851

“I would like to emphasis that Benazir, if made PM of Pakistan, will not be able to control the islamist without the army’s help and army’s help to her would not be forthcoming due to several historical reasons. Which to me suggests that she will be the one who would seek the US help inside Pakistan I think she has agreed to be another Malaiki in Pakistan.”

This above represent the only scenario where the US army would enter Pakistan. And I think this situation would occur in Pakistan within six to 12 months of Benazir taking over Pakistan. The Pak army will not cooperate with Benazir no matter how hard she tries and despite ironclad guarantees from the US for the Pak army support. Even if she appoints Bilawal Zardari as the Chief of the Army., she will not get the cooperation from the Pak army That is the nature of the Pak army.

Btw, At that time all the Islamist here will support the Army a 100%. wanna Bet?

Is it a downward spiral or the upward swing? Depends on how you look it the reality on the ground.
Pakistan is inching closer to a respite from the wardi rule. I say respite because we don't know at this time how long that would last. However, it is still a positive. Possibly Pakistan would have its first free and fair elections after 1970. (77 was pretty close to fair it but not entirely)Isn't that a positive again?

But to top this all look at this situation:
If Pakistani had a vote now, and the vote was respected, we'd probably get a quasi-secular democracy not unlike Turkey.

Musharraf had two opposition groups to deal with in the last few weeks: the Lal Mosque Diwane, and the Lawyers and others all over the Punjab cities demonstrating in the name of constitutional democracy against his dismissal of the Chief Justice.

Mushy’s response was to send in the gendarmes to take out the Lal Maseet crew, and to back down on the judicial dismissal. I submit that's likely to be a fair indication of where you perceive the most powerful popular opposition to lie. Not with the jihadists.

I think it is an upward swing because the Jihadist got what they asked for…hehehe… and the Lawyers got what they asked for peacefully…..You decide!

Obama says he is going to invade Pakistan,hehehe. This guy appeared sane just a few weeks ago now after being 22 points behind Hillary he is unhinged.

Here is what John Podhoretz said but there is really more to it...This is a response from a conservative. Who would regularly support bombing Iran and other country but what he says about invading Pakistan is eye opening in fact for Channa(below) that is eye poping...

"This country(US) is never — never — going to stage a major military action against Pakistan.....Every serious person knows the United States won't invade Pakistan, even with Special Forces — since the reason we cancelled the proposed action against Al Qaeda in 2005 is that it was going to take many hundreds of American troops to do it. This isn't 15 people dropping like ninjas in the darkness. It's an invasion, with helicopters and supply lines and routes of ingress and escape. It would have had unforseen and unforeseeable consequences, but it would have been reasonable to assume the Pakistanis would have turned violently against the United States and hurtled toward Islamic fundamentalist control."

#24 Obama will have a hard time adjusting back to his job of lining trash cans at McDonalds, after Hillary steam rolls over this bimbo in the primaries.

The state of a nation is reflected in sport like it is in any sphere of social life.
For Pakistan it has been a slide for sure. There was a time when Pakistani per capita income was higher than India's, the Pakistani Rupee was stronger than India's, Pakistan was considered more prosperous than India. Today India has taken a lead which Pakistan cannot close for decades.
The Pakistani nation has been unfortunate to have been led by incompetent civilian leaders who have not been able to put the army in its place. It is really a shame to see senior leaders elected by the people jee huzooring the General Sa'abs, whereas the generals should stick to protecting the borders. Nobody knows who is the Army C-in-C in democracies like USA, UK, Canada, France, but when it comes to Pakistan, the whole world knows who is in command because either he is in power as a dictator or he is planning the next coup, therefore a man to watch.
The people must throw away the army yoke and usher in true federal democracy and Pakistan can find its moorings.

THe problem of Pakistan is in its name itself.

The pretense of purity . And finally ISLAM.

The problem of Pakistan is in ISLAM itself. How can a nation be based upon the priciples of genocide to hindu idolators?? Such a nation has to be a belligerent and murderous nation in its character.

The only way to get Pakistan out of the mess is by abolishing this pretense of Islamic nation.