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India-Pakistan
‘Pak-US military relations at worst since 9/11’
2008-06-07
Kayani tells NATO he wonÂ’t retrain or re-equip troops to fight counter-insurgency war

WASHINGTON/LAHORE: Relations between the United States military and the Pakistan Army are at their worst point since September 11, 2001, senior Western military officers and diplomats have said, as Pakistani troops withdraw from Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan. According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, writing in the Washington Post, there are also signs that Washington is delaying delivery of US arms meant for the eastern front and is asking Western allies to do the same.
Since the Indians haven't been threatening your sovereignty lately, and Baitullah has ...
The report says that army chief General Ashfaq Kayani has told US military and NATO officials that he would not retrain or re-equip troops to fight the counterinsurgency war along PakistanÂ’s western border. Instead, it adds, the bulk of the army would stay deployed on PakistanÂ’s border with India.
And coincidentally, relations are so swift right now ...
While the US is training and equipping 100,000 troops of the Frontier Corps, it has rejected Pakistani requests to equip four to five new units, Rashid claims.
Seeing as the Paks have the manpower to do this themselves. Just make nice under the table with the Indians and move a division or two to thump the Talibunnies ...
According to the report, the Taliban virtually rule FATA. The Pakistani army, it adds, is ‘shaken’ because of the losses it has suffered, which is why it has offered peace deals to the Taliban, which unfortunately do not stop the Taliban from attacking NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.
Which is where we came in ...
Meanwhile, Baitullah Mehsud has vowed that jihad in Afghanistan will continue, even as Afghan President Hamid Karzai expresses frustration at Pakistan’s attitude on ‘sanctuaries’ in the Tribal Areas. The Afghan leader is said to have confessed that he has been unsuccessful in “convincing the world to end the sanctuaries for terrorism.”
Look for an increase in cross-border 'mysterious' explosions in the near future ...
Posted by:Steve White

#5  This qualifies for Good News of the Day.
Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2700   2008-06-07 10:21  

#4  Supply routes to A'stan were ALWAYS the problem. Either you make deals with Pakistan, or go the longer way around and make deals with the Russians and their former Muslim republics. Or go to war with Iran. None are good answers.
In my opinion this is the real primary reason we went to war in Iraq - we had to fight the Islamofascists somewhere, we 'could' fight them in Iraq, and Iraq was both more strategic and more logistically manageable. In A'stan we are stuck to the tar baby, in Iraq we ARE the tar baby (or flypaper, whatever.) But this is not the kind of story a Western administration can publically admit to, not to mention that it would be militarily counterproductive to do so as well. Hence the naive McClellan's claims that Bush lied to the people about the war. Didn't 'lie', but undoubtedly (and correctly) left a lot of truth unsaid.
Posted by: Glenmore   2008-06-07 08:43  

#3  Somebody been sneaking phosphorus rich foods into menus of US Gov cafeterias?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2008-06-07 06:33  

#2  After the defeat of Taliban, the first PEW poll reported only 8% Pakis support for military relations with the US. The bomb from the north policy is still an option. However, the bright idea to confront Russia with useless ABMs, when that country controls much of the Euro energy supplies, shoots ourselves in the foot.

What have we got in Afghanistan, in any case? We do nothing during the Helman Opium cum Heroin season, while $1 billion in product heads to Europe. We allow Taliban to take their 15% cut of that trade, while they recruit opium extractors for their Summer offensives. We capture land, that Karzai's clowns hand back to the enemy in the Winter. We sit back while UN financed phony refugee camps fuel the jihad terror industry in Pakistan. We won't plant a single mine on the Pak border, and we allow Taliban funerals to proceed, untouched (oh yes, dead Tali bodies are delivered promptly to terror families). Could George Orwell concoct a better example of perma-war stupidity?
Posted by: McZoid   2008-06-07 04:14  

#1  We need a new main supply route, but I got no clue how it could shaped.
Posted by: George Smiley   2008-06-07 02:45  

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