Posted on 08/21/2017 8:17:12 PM PDT by Jyotishi
The United States on Tuesday ruled out a hasty withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan as President Donald Trump warned Pakistan of consequences if it continues to provide safe havens to terror groups and sought an enhanced role for India to bring peace in the war-torn country.
Trump, in a prime-time televised address to the nation, laid out his South Asia policy saying a 'critical part' of it was to further develop US' strategic partnership with India.
He said after a 'comprehensive review', it has been decided that the American strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia will change dramatically.
"A core pillar of our new strategy is a shift from a time-based approach to one based on conditions. I've said many times how counterproductive it is for the United States to announce in advance, the dates we intend to begin, or end, military operations," Trump said in his address.
"We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities," Trump said as he announced his South Asia policy in front of about 2,000 people from all five services and top officials of his administration.
Trump slammed Pakistan for its continued support to terrorist groups and warned Islamabad of consequences if it continues to do so.
"We can no longer be silent about Pakistan's safe havens for terrorist organisations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond," Trump said.
"Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbour terrorists," he said, in a apparent warning to Pakistan.
The US President reached out to India seeking an enhanced role for New Delhi, especially in the economic field, to bring peace and stability in Afghanistan.
India, the world's largest democracy, is a key security and economic partner of the United States, he said.
"We appreciate India's important contributions to stability in Afghanistan, but India makes billions of dollars in trade with the United States, and we want them to help us more with Afghanistan, especially in the area of economic assistance and development," Trump said.
“The United States on Tuesday ruled out a hasty withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan”
Yea, after 16 years we wouldn’t want to be hasty or anything.
L
This is good, but India’s no better, and it’s not our friend.
They’re not our dedicated cultural enemy either. In case you hadn’t noticed, India has a brewing border clash with China going on right now, one we’ve stayed out of so far. What this is (among other things) is a message to China - control your North Korean cur or we’ll help your southern neighbor you’re feuding with - who already has friends in the Russians.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again
Pakistan is one of the most retrograde cultures and societies of the world. No civilized nation should allow its citizens into their country
This is good, but India’s no better, and it’s not our friend.
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India is much better than Pakistan. Pakistan is a muzzie nation. India is a much more peaceful nation.
Yea, after 16 years we wouldn’t want to be hasty or anything.
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Well we surely wouldn’t want to leave it like we did Iraq. And we certainly wouldn’t want to leave a void like the Soviet withdrawal of Afghanistan did that allowed for the planning of 9-11.
We could have left by now if obama had done things the right way and let us go ahead and win the war.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” — Henry Kissinger.
It may sound counter intuitive, but the best hope for Afghanistan is something like a tamed Taliban.
As it is now, Afghanistan is still tribalistic. If some organization like the Taliban took over, then it could become a nation that was ruled by a government felt to be legitimate by the majority of Afghanis.
As it is you have a few cosmopolitan elites in Kabul who support the government there, that pretty much all other Afghanis oppose.
Of course if Afghanistan became a nation ruled by a Jihadist government like Iran, then it would be quite problematic and there is no guarantee that even if we could influence the Taliban leaders to moderate their views, that at some future time the radical Jihadists wouldn't take over like they did in Iran.
So we're screwed three ways: leave now and create a vacuum for Jihadis, stay there forever playing whack-a-mole, or help to create a moderate Islamic state that at any point could become another Iran.
It's not very peaceful. There are 17 freedom movements going on in India. It has persecuted Christians heavily. Thy seem to have been the target of choice since Christmas 1998. Nuns have been raped, priests have been murdered, churches have been burned.
It's not just Christians. The Indian regime has killed somewhere between 250,000 Sikhs (according to the book The Politics of Genocide to as many as a million (according to an estimate from former Member of Parliament Simranjit Singh Mann.) This aligns with a threat made by the former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Balram Jakhar, who said, "If we have to kill a million Sikhs to preserve our territorial integrity, so be it." The Movement Against State Repression (MASR) reports that 52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India without charge or trial. Some have been in illegal custody since 1984! According to the Punjab Human Rights Organization (PHRO), police picked up 50,000 Sikh youth, tortured them, murdered them, and secretly cremated them, declaring their bodies “unidentified.” Their remains were never even given to their families! During the November 1984 massacre of Sikhs, Hindu villagers burned down Sikh homes and a Gurdwara in the villages of Hond Chillar and Pataudi in the Rewari district of Haryana, killing 32 people according to the government of Haryana. It is just now being discovered!In addition, the Indian regime has also murdered more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1948 (plus many more throughout the country), over 100,000 Muslims in Kashmir since 1988 (as well as at least 2,000 to 5,000 in Gujarat), and tens of thousands of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits, Bodos, and others. Tens of thousands of members of those minorities are also being held as political prisoners, according to Amnesty International. The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs "worse than a genocide." As Narinder Singh, a spokesman for the Golden Temple, told America’s National Public Radio in 1997, “the Indian government, all the time they boast that they are democratic, that they are secular. They have nothing to do with a democracy, nothing to do with a secularism. They just kill Sikhs to please the majority.”
Journalist Tavleen Singh has reported in India’s leading newsmagazine, India Today, that the Indian government created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which the U.S. government has identified as a “terrorist organization.” According to Internet journalist Justin Raimondo, former Indian Defense Minister, George Fernandes raised money and arms for the LTTE. India has also supported cross-border terrorism in Sindh and Balochistan.
India has a long record of anti-Americanism. On May 18, 1999, The Indian Express reported that Mr. Fernandes, then the Defense Minister, organized and led a meeting with the Ambassadors from Red China, Cuba, Russia, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Iraq to discuss setting up a security alliance “to stop the U.S.” India votes against the United States at the United Nations more often than nay country except Cuba. It had a long-term friendship with the former Soviet Union and supported its invasion of Afghanistan.
India sent food and medicine to Saddam Hussein while he was supporting terrorists (including several who attacked the United States.) It sold heavy water to Iran and oil to Saddam's regime. It has supported many enemies of the United States.
Yet it wants to be considered our "natural ally."
The Pakistanis are untrustworthy, double-dealing, and at least can be accused of looking the other way on terrorists in their country. But India is no better.
It may sound counter intuitive, but the best hope for Afghanistan is something like a tamed Taliban.
—
Agree. I believe that is the hope and plan.
It's not very peaceful. There are 17 freedom movements going on in India. It has persecuted Christians heavily. Thy seem to have been the target of choice since Christmas 1998. Nuns have been raped, priests have been murdered, churches have been burned.
It's not just Christians. The Indian regime has killed somewhere between 250,000 Sikhs (according to the book The Politics of Genocide to as many as a million (according to an estimate from former Member of Parliament Simranjit Singh Mann.)
This aligns with a threat made by the former Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Balram Jakhar, who said, "If we have to kill a million Sikhs to preserve our territorial integrity, so be it." The Movement Against State Repression (MASR) reports that 52,268 Sikhs are being held as political prisoners in India without charge or trial. Some have been in illegal custody since 1984! According to the Punjab Human Rights Organization (PHRO), police picked up 50,000 Sikh youth, tortured them, murdered them, and secretly cremated them, declaring their bodies “unidentified.” Their remains were never even given to their families!
During the November 1984 massacre of Sikhs, Hindu villagers burned down Sikh homes and a Gurdwara in the villages of Hond Chillar and Pataudi in the Rewari district of Haryana, killing 32 people according to the government of Haryana. It is just now being discovered!
In addition, the Indian regime has also murdered more than 300,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1948 (plus many more throughout the country), and tens of thousands of Tamils, Assamese, Manipuris, Dalits, Bodos, and others. Tens of thousands of members of those minorities are also being held as political prisoners, according to Amnesty International. The Indian Supreme Court called the Indian government's murders of Sikhs "worse than a genocide."
As Narinder Singh, a spokesman for the Golden Temple, told America’s National Public Radio in 1997, “the Indian government, all the time they boast that they are democratic, that they are secular. They have nothing to do with a democracy, nothing to do with a secularism. They just kill Sikhs to please the majority.”
Journalist Tavleen Singh has reported in India’s leading newsmagazine, India Today, that the Indian government created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which the U.S. government has identified as a “terrorist organization.” According to Internet journalist Justin Raimondo, former Indian Defense Minister, George Fernandes raised money and arms for the LTTE. India has also supported cross-border terrorism in Sindh and Balochistan.
India has a long record of anti-Americanism. On May 18, 1999, The Indian Express reported that Mr. Fernandes, then the Defense Minister, organized and led a meeting with the Ambassadors from Red China, Cuba, Russia, Yugoslavia, Libya, and Iraq to discuss setting up a security alliance “to stop the U.S.” India votes against the United States at the United Nations more often than nay country except Cuba. It had a long-term friendship with the former Soviet Union and supported its invasion of Afghanistan.
India sent food and medicine to Saddam Hussein while he was supporting terrorists (including several who attacked the United States.) It sold heavy water to Iran and oil to Saddam's regime. It has supported many enemies of the United States.
Yet it wants to be considered our "natural ally."
The Pakistanis are untrustworthy, double-dealing, and at least can be accused of looking the other way on terrorists in their country. But India is no better.
“We could have left by now if obama had done things the right way and let us go ahead and win the war.”
New rule of engagement: If you are in front of me and you have a weapon, I will kill you and leave your corpse for the buzzards to dispose of and I don’t care if you are 6 or 60.
Give Afghanistan and its mineral wealth to India.
They can hire a huge, relentless and fearsome army to take charge and protect their industry there.
Put a strong and mildly crazy viceroy in charge.
The US is very poor at managing savages thousands of miles away.... give the duty and the pillage to someone else.
We fight far-flung wars at great cost and take no payment...all we get is grief. It’s a VERY bad deal for us.
I say viceroys and paid mercenaries for Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq. Iran, North Korea...etc..etc
Let us wash our hands of the whole lot of them...They despise and have not the brains or morals to form democracies!
Amazing how if there is going to be an apologist for Pakistan, its you.
Every country works in their own self interest based on their leaders.
India is a large complex country with many challenges,
My take is they are more closely aligned with us than Pakistan is.
-—but the best hope for Afghanistan is something like a tamed Taliban-—
A counter view is that the goal is a dead taliban.
The rules now permit killing without fear of court marshal or imprisonment for being a soldier. The goal should include that wives and mothers are in fact Taliban and can be killed as well. The fact they are women does not exclude them from being our mortal enemies.
India works against us under the surface, while pretending to be our friends. Sort of like the Saudis and others.
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