Obama's Af-Pak Strategy

many misconceived notions

afghanistan was no graveyard of empires , it was a mughal and persian province till 1707 with hindu and georgian christian governors.afghanistan was destabilised by its neighbours.the british force destroyed in 1839 was just a british battalion of 700 and four native battalions

having said that obama does not make policy , it is made by his white fathers in military industrial complex , in pentagon,state department ,CIA,poor obama,fast kid he is ,but rather ceremonial.
Agha Amin

paisa wassool, aur taliban khatma - aur kitna chilladh banega yeah rulers

sala itna chillardh log...aaapne jaath bhaiyon ko qatl karye ek-aadh dollar aapne bank account mein daalte.

Sala, paisa liya aur kuch talibanoon ko mara. Khalaas.

dekho, yeah har saal ayega congress ke saamne. Everyyear paki elite khatma karne ka do-teen hazaar junta ko.

kya chilladh addmi hain yeah sab

fauji foundation cavalryman#1 i know it is hard for you to imagine that a black man can be a real President of the USA. That is a measure of your ignorance of anything outside the narrow confines of pak fauj and your ethnic biases.

Yesterday, There was a very interesting interview on News Hour with Jim Lehrer featuring Col Bacevich, a professor at Boston University, who has previously taught strategy at West Point and Hopkins.

The colonel believes that Obama policy of further militarizing the conflict in both Afghanistan and Pakistan is misguided. He was also is critical of drone attacks that do more harm than good. His advice to Obama is that public opinion in Pakistan is the key to success in the region and US must try and persuade Pak public by greater use of diplomacy and soft power.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

RiazHaq: Dont go by the opinions of other people - you understand the situation in Pakistan better than this Col Bacevich.

Re: # 5

I do, and I still agree with Bascevich's basic point: Watching public opinion in Pakistan is the key. With Taliban's recent well-publicized excesses in Swat, Pak public opinion has begun to turn against the Taliban. But public opinion is fickle...it can change again if the military is seen as displacing and killing large numbers of innocent civilians caught in the battle. There is a lot of sensitivity required here.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

#6 but why quote some col bascevich - you may as well quote havaldar ngumba of the royal zambian rifles on his views on Buner.

As for the Pakistan public opinion - it is fickly only as long it is not their own necks on the line. so 9/11 was a joke, and even the betrayal of the Swati people to the tender mercies of the taiban did not worry the intellectual giants of islamabad and lahore. but when their own precious homes in islamabad came next in line, suddenly they all saw the light after years of shrugging it off as "America's war".

#4 Alumni WW by now it should be clear to you that #5 tahmed is a mouthpiece for the war and 'america can do no evil' crowd. Whenever an 'expert' says peace but the official position of the US is war, tahmed will go for the official version. I don't know if you were here back in 2003. Tahmed wrote a whole rant about supporting Bush's Iraq war and as a result he will be answerable for the over 1 million butchered as a result of that war.

What the colonel is saying is no rocket science, everyone knows the logical soundness of the claim that US drone attacks and escalation gets the Taliban grassroots support and is a sure way to hand them victory in Pakistan especially when a hated Army, hated by the people is confronting them and a state whose only face those people have seen is guns and bombs, with no justice or resource development that then wants to establish its "writ". In that situation, even I would say F the state and its writ.

The problem with the colonel's analysis is that he naively belives that the US desires victory in this war and desires peace. No, the US wants escalation and extension of war to perpetuate a war without end. The only way a 'permanent war economy' works is in the shadow of war othewise there is pressure for it to convert it to a peace time economy and the U.S. elite have resisted doing that ever since WW2 ended.

As conclusion know that snakes like tahmed live amongst us who would sell their country and their mamas just for a few $$ and to kiss the behinds of the white man. They continue their long tradition of Mir Jafers, and if we are not careful of them they will enslave us to the highest bidder on every occasion.

TNITC masadi

#3 tahmed that 'black man' don't forget is not black, he was groomed by white institutions and is half white with a lighter skin tone. He was selected and pushed up for a purpose and his selection has nothing to do with changing race relations in the US which still throw up aggregate numbers of all indicators of well being that are doubly or triply worse off for blacks than white Americans. There is no ethnic bias in pavo's post just like there was no ethnic bias in what Rev. Jesse Jackson said about Obama, the fact is that white man still dominate the U.S. elite and fill positions of dominance in the dominant institutions of the U.S. Obama is nothing and if he falls out of line you'll see how fast they get rid of him.

For the rest read my "The Barack Conspiracy" piece written before Obama was elected president

http://www.chowk.com/ilogs/69728/40823

TNITC masadi

masadi saab is miserable as always saab

that is why peon calls him mad-sad-i saab

peon sahib: masadi sahib is not just confused himself, he is also keeping poor fauji cornflakes cavalry confused.

Only very recently we heard announced by official circles that the Pakistani Talibs had declared they would wholeheartedly support Pakistan if there was a war with India.
The self same Talibs now being butchered by Pakistani Army.

What is going on?

#12 why dont you visit sufi muhammed in his cave and ask him over a cup of tea?

Re: # 12 Muqadam

Peace, brother

Today, PAF jets pounded the Swat Valley where press reports indicate 800,000 internally displaced refugees have been created. Earlier, the Army used the classic area weapon - field artillery in Swat and previously in FATA/Bajaur to level the entire town.

Never through the dozens of India's insurgencies has it come to this - the use of area weapons in major combat operations. But, Muslim Pakistanis are butchering Muslim Pakistanis wholesale and creating a massive humanitarian crisis. The Pak military (never having won a fight other than the occasional invasion of the Prime Minister's office) is going the whole way, but in a predictably counterproductive manner.

I think of the glib remark that Bulleya/Romair of the PAF made a few years ago on Chowk, 'the Army can take the militants out anytime'! Yeah, right!


Peace, brother

Re: # 11

tahmed mian,

..... i don't understand why people keep on calling obama and tiger woods 'black' .......... in my mind, obama is a white president with a nice tan and tiger is the best thai golfer in the world ..... what is wrong with my logic?

......... in any case, i think it is time to impeach obama for nationalizing banks and auto companies and interfering with the judiciary by tampering with bankruptcy laws .......... i think he is a closet communist and we need to keep a close eye on him .......

Re: # 15 Hamidm

Mian, my check is in the mail to buy the Defence Savings Certificates. I hope your advice proves to be right!

On a different note, perhaps Nehru was right after all when he reportedly said that Pakistan won't survive - after 1971, picking this big fight with the Taliban makes me wonder if the old man was on to something. Surely, Jinnah never envisioned a Pathan-Punjab/Bengali fight to be succeeded by a Pathan-Punjabi one? Where do the Baluchis and Sindhis figure in this one?

But, that is trivia - let us get back to the more important stuff - talking about Obama's complexion.