Posted on 06/15/2008 3:25:30 AM PDT by HAL9000
Excerpt -
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened Sunday to send Afghan troops across the border to fight militants in Pakistan, a forceful warning to insurgents and the Pakistani government that his country is fed up with cross-border attacks.Karzai said Afghanistan has the right to self defense, and because militants cross over from Pakistan "to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to do the same."
Speaking at a Sunday news conference, Karzai warned Pakistan-based Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud that Afghan forces would target him on his home turf. He is suspected in last year's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
"Baitullah Mehsud should know that we will go after him now and hit him in his house," Karzai said.
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at ap.google.com ...
Sounds like the US Mexican border.
One of my Pakistani IT students went back to Pakistan to get his paperwork in order although his family, many, remained here. I’ve often wondered how caught up in this Islamic mania he may be. He was a fine young man but spoke knowlingly of the ‘forest’ northwestern triabal areas as being out of control.
except we have armed and rough troops on afghanistan’s southern border.
About damn time!
The border between the infested Paki area and Afghanistan is along Afghanistan's Kunar Province in the isolated northeast mountains of the Hindu Kush.
Those mountains and valleys provide taliban entry in and out of the Kunar like water through a colander. The pakis let them flow into the Kunar at will to strike the ANA and our troops and then to scurry back to safety in Paki.
This has been devastating and results in our troops having to, effectively, fight the same battles with the same miscreants (actually, the Pakis and other countries there call the terrorists "miscreants" - sounds more benign, but look it up...it really fits) over and over, day after day.
The Kunar is so isolated from the rest of Afghanistan, they don't even speak Afghani, but Pushto. Our troops up there have been in the worst fighting of the entire WOT...intense and daily. Most of them are isolated on tiny fire posts they literally pickax out of the mountain side, 2 1/2 hours of hiking with 100 lb packs, like mountain goats, away from the OPs. (no runing water or power, no showers for weeks at a time, almost daily fire-fights )- all the time, totally vulnerable to ambush and snipers.
The Korengal Valley of the Kunar is the worst - aka "Taliban Central"...The Sky Soldiers of the 173rd have been carrying the heavy load - and the heavy losses.
It's about damn time someone starts to shut off the swinging door to/from Pakistan.
Good on Kazai! (I'm sure this was all worked out with us - and is the perfect solution. How can Pakistan argue that Afghanistan doesn't have the right to protect it's borders and it's troops? If the edict came from us directly, there would be a hue and cry, not only from Pakistan but the miscreants sympathizers, aiders & abettors in DC.
This could be the most far reaching move of the entire war in Afghanistan - Dear God, let it be so.
Good post!
I’m with you, Karzai. Drop leaflets first. I wouldn’t want any innocent civilians or nice dogs or cats hurt.
Karzai has apparently gained some strength and confidence in the past couple years. The power vacuum in Pakistan provides the opportunity.
Thank you, Karzai. About time someone did.
BTW, his brother owns an Afghan restaurant in Baltimore—it’s pretty good :)
Woo Hoo. You Go Karzai !!!
Get On with you bad self......
It looks as if the US military is focusing its attention on Afghanistan now that the situation in Iraq is finally stabilizing.
On the other hand, when Obama foolishly suggested invading Pakistan with US troops, the silence from the Liberal organs was deafening.
They dam* well better - our troops there have been doing the heavy lifting with way under-manned troops...thanks to NATO never making good on it's commitments and Gage's foot dragging to make up for the lack.
The Sky Soldiers of the 173rd have been in the Korengal since last June - due out end of August and back to their home base in Italy.
Just in the first 4 1/2 months of their deployment, they were in over 450 firefights and suffering W/KIA at 1 in 4! Insanity.
You may have caught some of the media on it's most embattled and now famous of the 173rd there: Battle Co.?
They were featured in an ABC Frontline documentary (writer who did the embed: Sebastian Yunger who wrote The Perfect Storm - good guy) - or the Vanity Fair piece in Feb. on the same...then in March, the NYTimes Magazine did a front cover piece on them - (They slanted and eliminated to do a hit piece, of course, but those of us who know the truth, well, know the truth.)
This winter, the powers that be said there wasn't going to be a Spring Surge. Guess what? It's worse than ever...but it's being kept quiet.
The troops are in the process of pickaxing 3 more observation posts out of the mountain sides - where they will spend the rest of their deployment - no running water, hours of hiking like mountain goats back to the KOP for a shower - once a month. It's in the high 90's already and rising -
One good thing, this year, they've got a Howitzer on the KOP pointed straight down the valley. Bout time they have some heavy stuff with better precision capabilities.
Now if Kazai turns his ANA (and they are getting quite competent - good training) loose to cross the border in hot pursuit of the talis as they scoot back to safety into Paki - that could be a very good development.
I hope this doesn't degenerate into another McCain/border bashing thread - we have those galore - but our troops, I've noticed, get little attention - in that, short threads -
If it's a McCain bash thread or if the title has O.J., Jessica Simpson, Paris, etc., in it - the posts will go on for hundreds.
So please - NO border/McCain posts here...
Drop leaflets first. ............. Agree, but are we sure there are enough people there that can actually read them?
Ha! I don’t know.
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