Posted on 09/23/2008 10:27:58 AM PDT by swarthyguy
why is it so hard to get any straight information out of the Americans and Pakistanis? Turns out Pakistanis did not give permission for the latest strike in South Waziristan which killed six insurgents and destroyed a container load worth of arms/ammunition. By saying the strike developed as a result of Pakistan-US information sharing, US was implying - to our mind, at least - that all was on the up and proper. Moreover, Pakistan intelligence sources said they had been notified of the strike. But now it turns out the Pakistan government was not in the loop, and the Pakistani intel lot are refusing to say if the information was received after the strike.
So if the Americans and the Pakistanis want to play games till the cows come home, we at Orbat.com say: "please be our guests". All we are saying is: (a) isn't it time the US dropped the fiction it and Pakistan are on the same side in this particular war; (b) who does the US think it is fooling by pretending its unilateral strikes - which we feel are justified - are collaborative operations; (c) we trust the US has fully thought out the effect of its unilateral strikes on the Pakistani people? They are already in a very ugly mood and its going to get worse the more strikes take place; (d) we trust the US is not confusing Pakistani intelligence - which BTW is a sworn enemy of the Americans - is the same thing as the Pakistan government.
In reality, what Pakistan intelligence and the military say goes, no one gives a hoot about the Pakistan Government. But US cannot have it both ways: pretending it has the cooperation of the government and the people, when all it has is the cooperation of Pakistani intel double-gamers who are helping to kill American troops in Afghanistan with one hand, while with the other hand they accept handsome payments courtesy of the US taxpayers to help the Americans.
Orbat.com warns the US Government: one day the full story of Pakistani intelligence's double deals and how US has gone along with the double-dealing is going to come out. The US people are not going to be happy. Heads are going to roll, careers and reputations will end, and US intelligence plus US military will be discredited in the eyes of its own people.
You cannot knowingly deal with a double-gamer who delivers one insurgent to you while helping other insurgents kill 10 Americans/NATO/Afghans, and then come before the American people and say your hands are clean. And that too, the insurgent is one who threatens Pakistani intel/military control of the insurgent groups, i.e., the one person who actually honestly believes in his cause, however inimical the cause may be to US security.
This is getting to the point Americans are as morally and legally guilty of causing American/Allied deaths as America's sworn enemies.
Also BTW: whoever embarks on an investigation of this sordid game can save themselves much time by not coming to the Editor to ask/demand what information he has. He will say he has pretended to be in the know to inflate his own ego, and he knows nothing. It is not his job to do the Americans' job.
And last BTW: Please no one say that the Editor is basing his allegations on what he is told by the Indians. Such very few Indians in positions of authority as may still know who the Editor share one characteristic with the Editor: both despise the other as traitors to India and have nothing but complete contempt for the other. So don't insult the Editor by saying these are rumors the Indians are planting.
Yea. Whatever happened to the Bush Doctrine? You know, the one that says, “You’re either with us or with the terrorists” and “Any country who gives refuge to the Taliban or Al Qaida is with them and we’ll come after all of you.”
>>an objective assesment of who they are
Check out his site and judge for yourself.
>>You’re either with us or with the terrorists”
That is in the same pile as “there’s a poster in the old west, wanted dead or alive”.
SEVEN years later, the BinLadin is still wanted.
The writer has correctly noted that the Pakistanis play a double game.
We also are forced to play a double or triple game. We can't occupy the country, we are stretched far too thin for that.
In a sense, Iraq was relatively simple. The forces there can be counted on one's fingers. It may take both hands, but the forces there are countable.
In Afghanistan we did not attempt a Russian-style invasion, instead we inserted ourselves into the country and allied ourselves with various indigenous forces already existing there. In some ways this is what we finally did in Iraq as part of the so-called surge.
It could be that to be successful in Pakistan we must do something similar; identify forces whose aims are such that we can ally with them. Until now we've been trying to treat them like a real country, dealing with the various institutions of government, carefully respecting their sovereignty. We may have moved past that now. If the formal government can't help us in Waziristan, or actively betrays us in Waziristan, maybe we need to be forming our own relationships with Waziris as we did in Afghanistan with the Northern Alliance. Find war-lords who for reasons of their own need an ally with connections, and offer to help them achieve their ambitions.
Will that annoy Islamabad? Of course. So we have to do the same thing there, which is to form our own relationships with the various component parts that make up the government. If the government doesn't really control the country, you have to deal with those who do. And if the ones who do control it are allied with the baddies, you have to identify forces in the country who could counter-balance them. And offer them your help.
India has a role to play in all this; they have their own intelligence sources. And they have consented to help us play "good-cop-bad-cop" in Pakistan from time to time, allowing us to be the kindly old cop who keeps the big Indian cop from threatening poor Pakistan.
Unless India is prepared to dismantle Pakistan and swallow it whole, I don't see much alternative to the present game other than to get very much better at it.
There was a report than Indian nuclear armed Sukhoi’s had been moved into Kashmir. Squeeze play maybe.
Sadly, India does not really have a longterm strategic vision for PostPakistan.
Yugoslav it - Pakistani Punjabis have started pining for India, where the Punjabi language has not been superseded by Urdu.
Many Pakistani artists move to India to advance their careers as performers in Bollywood.
The Durand Line should be abolished, and one of the great crimes of the British, seperating the Pathan people into Pak and Afghanistan should be rectified.
Other regions of Pakistan like Sindh could become statelets or absorbed into India.
Baluchistan, which was never supposed to be a part of Pakistan after Partition, could, if independent be one of the largest producers of gas, perhaps even oil in the world. Their compatriots in Iran may welcome that.
But, what’s encouraging is the attitude of the US Army towards Pakistani double talk. They sound just like the Indian Army in Kashmir!
I’m convinced the Pakis are fully complicit in what’s happening near their Afghan border.
The screeching denunciations are a false front to keep the wackos happy.
And now after the Marriot bombing they’ll probably be helping us more than ever.
Maybe its time to think the unthinkable.
That is, what you were thinking in the rest of your post.
Giving them their own state was supposed to bring peace. It has instead brought 60 years of warfare. May as well flip over the chess board and start a new game.
Pashto and border regions to Afghanistan. Let them sort one another out. There is no point to pretending they are part of Pakistan.
As you say, independent Baluchistan. Let Iran worry what that means to them.
Some portions of existing Pakistan might reasonably remain independent. Consolidate Kashmir. Absorb some regions into India itself. If Pakistan is not a real country, its time to re-think the whole project. Just make sure the adults wind up with the nukes safely disposed of.
Hey! Missile strikes happen.
LOL!
Hey Orbat. Face it. Neither you nor I know as much about what is going on in Paki....
Yes, but the essential fact remains.
Bush has FAILED to deliver, as yet, on his braggadacio to have Ossie dead or alive.
7 YEARS, FR, that’s pretty pathetic, that the Sheikh is out there.
Without the support of the factions in the Army/ISI, how did the truck penetrate the security cordon around the country’s capital? Not to mention the use of military grade explosives, artillery shells and other military ordnance loaded on the truck.
A decapitiation attempt, to put the Army/ISI back in charge and continue business as usual - supporting jihad with one hand while taking Uncle Sam’s dollars with the other.
It could be funny, how long it’s gone on.
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