Posted on 08/14/2006 6:27:57 AM PDT by kellynla
It would be nice to be able to stop having to thank the Pakistan government for its help in uncovering terrorist plots. Certainly, Islamabad deserves everyone's heart-felt gratitude for starting the arrests that foiled last week's plot to blow up transatlantic airliners. Nonetheless, Pakistan appears again and again as at least a transmission belt, if not an engine, of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Three years ago the man held to be the al-Qaeda logistics planner for the 2001 attacks in the US, and for an attempted 1995 plan to blow up aircraft over the Pacific, was arrested in Pakistan. Two years ago, a Pakistan computer engineer was arrested for relaying e-mails related to a putative attack on Heathrow. Last year, two of the British Muslims involved in the London Underground and bus bombings were found to have visited Pakistan a few months earlier.
Since September 11 2001 Pakistan says it has arrested hundreds of al-Qaeda operatives but that is because it has so many to choose from, as the result of a series of factors. Some relate to its history and geography. As a country carved out of undivided India on the basis of Islam, it was always going to be susceptible to any Muslim fundamentalism, as to a lesser degree is Bangladesh on the other side of the subcontinent. Pakistan's rugged north-west frontier was outlaw country long before jihad there was fomented by the US and Pakistan against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan and mutated into the Taliban. The latter, and to some extent al-Qaeda, were seen by many Pakistanis as more of a problem for the west than for themselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Pakistan, in my opinion, is duplicitous at best. I suspect they throw us a low level plotter on occasion in order to cover their support for the overall aims of the terrorists.
The Paks blame this all on the US. We just left after the mujadeen drove the Rusians out of Afghan. We are unreliable allies.
"The Paks blame this all on the US. We just left after the mujadeen drove the Rusians out of Afghan. We are unreliable allies."
Well, the USA has learned we cannot simply support a government against an enemy and leave creating a power vacuum. We must help establish a pro-democratic regime or we shouldn't bother engaging in these affairs. Hence, our committment for better or worse in Iraq. I would have hope in Iraq, but a lot of anti-Israeli and Western resentment in general still exist amoungst current government officials there. What we get at the end of it, may only be marginally better then what Saddam was. Time will tell...
Please. We had a transactional relationship with Pakistan. We looked the other way with their drug peddling and nuclear dealings and gave them billions in return for their help. What did they expect? A marriage?
No, more like welfare dependency, if you aks me. Actually, I have only read one book on Paistan, but it blew me away. there really is no country there, but there is a long tradition of highway robberism, taking those who want to go through the Kyber pass for whatever they can get.
Good analogy.
bttt
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