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Petraeus Wants To Attack Pakistan
As the General's favored spokesperson and NYT writer Dexter Filkins reports, General Petraeus wants to widen the war in Afghanistan by sending troops into Pakistan.
The plan has not yet been approved, but military and political leaders say a renewed sense of urgency has taken hold, as the deadline approaches for the Obama administration to begin withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan. Even with the risks, military commanders say that using American Special Operations troops could bring an intelligence windfall, if militants were captured, brought back across the border into Afghanistan and interrogated.
Those reasons given are quite interesting.
a. It seems to be urgent for Petraeus to totally mess up Pakistan before withdrawing from Afghanistan.
b. The General's torturers have run out of useful clients and need to capture new militants to interrogate.
Ain't those cute ideas?
The Filkins/Mazzetti report is useful as it finally confirms what people in Pakistan have been saying all along and which the U.S. always denied. There are U.S. ground attacks withing Pakistan. Those and the assassinations by drones may by and large explain the troubles in the tribal areas as a result of U.S. (and Indian) meddling.
Afghan militias backed by the C.I.A. have carried out a number of secret missions into Pakistan’s tribal areas. These operations in Pakistan by Afghan operatives, known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, have been previously reported as solely intelligence-gathering operations. But interviews in recent weeks revealed that on at least one occasion, the Afghans went on the offensive and destroyed a militant weapons cache.
And what about the people that guarded the weapon cache?
Also, all those reports from Afghans who tell about black helicopters landing at nighttime and mysterious Taliban forces seem to have a true element:
The Paktika Defense Force is one of six C.I.A.-trained Afghan militias that serve as a special operations force against insurgents throughout Afghanistan. The other militias operate around the cities of Kandahar, Kabul and Jalalabad as well as in the rural provinces of Khost and Kunar.
The report does not include any voice from Pakistan. Though from the last reaction against U.S. incursions, when the Pakistani military just shut the boarder and let some 150 fuel trucks go up in flames, one would assume that any Pakistani reaction to these plans will not be sympathetic. On hopes to soon see their salvo that will shoot down this trial baloon.
Just like the Vietnam war was escalated beyond Vietnam's borders and inflamed Laos and Cambodia the war in Afghanistan is now to be carried into Pakistan. At least until some religiously motivated Colonel there takes over and starts throwing nukes around.
Pyrrho,
Not sure if you’re referring to me here, but here’s a definition of a “troll”:
(v.) (1) To deliberately post derogatory or inflammatory comments to a community forum, chat room, newsgroup and/or a blog in order to bait other users into responding.
(2) To surf the Internet.
(3) To hang around a chat room reading the posts instead of contributing to the chat.
(n.) One who performs any of the above actions
Source: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/T/troll.html
Given that you’ve contributed nothing here, other than observing and throwing in an accusation, you are guilty as per number 3.
As for me, I couldn’t care less if you choose to ignore my posts or otherwise and no more than I would care to “bait” people. All I did was to surf the net by skimming through the news-blogs and landed on a site freely available to anyone. I basically chose to respond to what I find to be highly offensive commentary, if only for the blatant ignorance seeping out of it.
The war in Afghanistan is not “Vietnam”, wherein Americans found themselves fighting a popular Nationalist indigenous force adopting Communism with China’s support to secure their post-colonial nation. The war in Afghanistan by contrast is being fought against a Pakistani Proxy army with foot-soldiers raised by their military and intelligence agencies, trained by them, aided by them, and directed by them against the national sovereignty of Afghanistan. This isn’t about Karzai, about whom you’ve been hearing a lot of half-truths that have politics written all over them, nor is it about the Northern Alliance with whom the US aligned themselves with for lack of a better organized grunts, irrespective of the war-criminals among them. This is about the future sovereignty of the Afghan nation and her people. While the media is fixated on problems with our erstwhile allies, I look up to the 7million Afghan children who now receive enough education to expose them to better ideas ahead. It is with them that I see a future Republic that upholds the Afghan honor.
When the US landed boots on the ground in Afghanistan, it was a declaration of war against a proxy army of a nuclear proliferating, terrorist sponsoring state of Pakistan. If the war wasn’t sold to you that way, it had everything to do with Washington’s attempt at damage control. The American strategy since the beginning of the war has been an avoidance of direct confrontation, while employing diplomacy in its place to entice the Pakistanis to eat back the manure they’ve been throwing around the place, with its splinters having directed 9/11. Be sure to note that the architect of 9-11 against the United States was not so much Bin Laden himself, but a man of Pakistani origin, hence Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Since then, we’ve seen Pakistani expats carrying out terrorist attacks in Britain and near-misses in the US. ALL of them have been exposed to the frontlines in Afghanistan. Are you under the impression that Afghans wanted them in there? Have you any idea how the Afghans despise these people? Be sure to note that the Al Qaeda is intertwined with the IslamoFascists in the Pakistani military. I call them “IslamoFascists”, as the Taliban in particular and for the most part are orphaned children of the previous war. They’ve no understanding of Afghanistan’s history, rich culture or people, nor have they any ounce of meritocracy among them to build a burgeoning government. The only “education” they’ve received has been Jihad and the recitation of the Quran in Arabic, a language they don’t even know. Worst of all, they are completely devoid of any reasoning and lack the ability to compromise. Forget about Mullah Zaief and a few other semi-educated officials among them, for they are NOT the core Taliban who under the instructions of the ISI Mullahs, penetrated and overwhelmed the original movement. During the late ‘90s, many well-meaning Afghans tried working with them to help moderate their ways, but nothing would do…..the Taliban were basically alien invaders with Afghan looks, that was it.
The Taliban’s deplorable disposition was no coincidence, for the Pakistanis saw in them a child who would depend on them indefinitely. Yet if you think the Afghans would have settled for them, then you are very wrong. The people of Afghanistan by nature would never be so stupid as to accept a Fascist dictatorship without challenge, hence the guarantee of more bloodshed and regional instability, even with a Taliban victory. Most Americans aren’t even aware that the Taliban rise to power was based on lies, for they baited the Pashtuns into believing that they’d end up clearing the country from the warlords while inviting Zahir Shah back to reclaim his thrown again. After years of Pakistani intrigues to stop the traditional Afghan Nationalists from restoring their base, the Pakistanis allowed the old king’s son-in-law back to visit the Afghan refugees on the border, just as the Taliban appeared on the scene. Why? Because unbeknownst to him, the Pakistanis used his presence to legitimize the Taliban as his representatives…….we were all duped into believing just that at the time, for I too once supported the Taliban. At the time, there was every reason to believe that the Taliban excesses would easily be curbed with the restoration of a government, given that the Taliban initially pledged – and lied – that they weren’t interested in governing the land!
What the Afghan people need is less so an alliance with the American government, than they do with the American people. Yeah, we’re not a pretty spectacle, but with your passive involvement and support for the current enterprise, the entire region will have a better future. It’s not your money or blood that Afghans need indefinitely, but your individual souls. Without you, there are plenty of people in the corridors of Washington who’d prefer to deal with the Pakistanis as they do with the deplorable Saudis for immediate gain, while leaving the Afghans to the dogs…..if that were to happen, then brace yourselves for much worse to come over the years ahead. You don’t use, abuse and betray a people without suffering unforeseeable consequences. With the current American presence, the smart, patriotic and good Afghans are investing in modest businesses, they are teaching their children, treating the sick, looking after the elderly, planting trees to beautify their country, or working in the outer-rims of the current Afghan government with peanuts for salaries and remain the silent heroes. They all patiently bid their time for a day when they could proudly represent their countrymen without the stigma of an occupation (allied or not). That day will only materialize when the Pakistani military dictatorship is marginalized, hence offering the security needed for investors to arrive and employ people, build skills, and help the economy. It is with these Afghans – not Karzai or the warlords – that the hard work of raising a liberal democracy from the ground up will gradually materialize as it was already occurring until the late 1970’s.
You can all sit here and complain about the United States, when you’ve all food to eat, a roof to sleep under, the internet medium to freely garbage your own country, and abundant opportunities any ordinary Afghan can hardly dream about. For all America’s flaw, your infantile ramblings haven’t the maturity to grasp the fact that most people in the world would do anything to trade places with you.
Posted by: Barekzai | Dec 22 2010 6:50 utc | 21
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