Posted on 02/20/2004 2:26:42 PM PST by Dog
A few spies? LOL, we've got a hell of a lot more than that inside Pakistan! Contrary to what the press has been feeding the public, we have 6 U.S. bases inside Pakistan and regularly participate in joint operations with Paki forces. Are bases range from Kohat, near Peshawar in the north, to Dalbandin and Pasni in the south, to Shimsi in the west and to Jacobabad in the east. Assets at these bases include battalion size detachments of spec ops, intel, a wide range of air assets, etc. Heck, our presence inside Pakistan is the only reason Mushi hasn't been assassinated (yet).
--Boot Hill
I can appreciate the sentiment, and to the extent that they are Islamists, terrorists or just some idiot with a a gun and a hair up his a$$, I would agree.
But right now, for example, our forces are operating in the Khowst region, a traditional Taliban stronghold and an area notorious for massacring foreign forces (just ask the Russian and the British!). Yet we've only taken a few casualties and are getting significant help from the locals there.
That could change if we were to initiate a "kill them all and let God sort them out" approach to our operations. There is no middle ground here, you either work with the locals and take the time and patience to destroy only those that take up arms against you, or else you must take a Genghis Kahn approach and kill everything that moves, walks or crawls. And I do mean everything.
--Boot Hill
Almost all of the major captures in this war on terror have been compliments of Pakistan. And we definitely already have folks on that side of the border.
And you know this how?
Where do you think the Kohat, Shimsi and Dalbandin bases are located? On the border! It appears that the Pakistan may have elected to make the South Waziristan operation a purely local affair (not counting the cross-border cooperation), but this is the first one, out of many current operations that does not have U.S. fingerprints all over it. We have joint operations inside Pakistan in the Khowst/Kurram operations, the Khyber Pass/Peshawar operations, to name just a couple.
--Boot Hill
--Boot Hill
Here is a link to a compendium of information I wrote about the bases that U.S. forces occupy in Pakistan. Besides being a good backgrounder, it also includes five more links, which you should follow for greater detail. In fact, that whole thread (articles and replies) address some of the very things you've been asking about on this thread. Start there.
Depending on how deep you want to go, try Googling any of those six base names plus "U.S. forces" and you'll get more hits than you can handle. You should even be able to piece together a rough idea of the number and makeup of our troop strength at those bases. Keep in mind while you're reading all these sources, that despite all the claims from Pakistan to the contrary, we've occupied those bases continuously since the beginning of the Afghan campaign, in the fall of 2001.
Here is why these facts are not general knowledge.
Mushi is on the verge of being assassinated by the Islamist radicals that infest in his own government as well as Pakistan's own terrorists (oh, and perhaps a few extra terrorists that we somehow inadvertently let slip through into Pakistan by way of Afghanistan, but then hey, what are friends for?). The terrorists tried twice in December and nearly mushed our pal Mushi. Al Qa'ida's number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, issued a fatwa last September calling for Musharraf's assassination. The last thing he needs now is to run around his country bragging about how American forces are inside Pakistan and in control of the Paki nuclear stockpile and kicking Islamic butt big time!
Dog, I pinged you here because you always seem to have a ready list of good links. Do you have anything to add for Brilliant, that I might have missed?
--Boot Hill
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