Posted on 05/01/2009 5:29:43 AM PDT by Schnucki
General David Petraeus, the commander of US Central Command, has reportedly told American officials that the next two weeks are critical to determining whether the Pakistani government will survive.
Gen Petraeus reportedly said that "we've heard it all before" from the Pakistanis and he is looking to see concrete action by the government to destroy the Taliban in the next two weeks before determining the next course of action for the US.
"The Pakistanis have run out of excuses" and are "finally getting serious" about combating the threat from Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists operating out of north-west Pakistan, the general added.
He made these assessments in talks with US congressmen and members of the Senate, according to the Fox News channel.
Officials said that Gen Petraeus and senior officials in the Obama administration believe that the Pakistani army, led by Gen Ashfaq Kayani, is "superior" to the civilian government.
American officials have watched with anxiety as Taliban fighters advanced earlier this month to within 60 miles of the capital city, Islamabad. In recent days, the Pakistani army has sought to reverse that tide, retaking control of strategic points in the district of Buner even as the Taliban struck back by kidnapping scores of police and paramilitary troops.
However, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said last Saturday that It would be "unthinkable" that the Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari would be toppled by the Taliban, adding: "Then they would have the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan, and we can't even contemplate that. We cannot let this go on any further."
The anxiety with which US officials are monitoring events in Pakistan is compounded by a battle in Washington over how best to help the Pakistanis. Some members of Congress want to attach strict conditions
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
I don't mean to be a real bummer, but.......Not one nation in the world fears Oboma. They know he won't do anything. Clinton was the same way, and we ended up with 9/11. I can't even imagine what's going to happen because of Oboma. Community organizing isn't going to work on a world wide scale. It's going to get a lot worse, that's for sure.
The economy is going to tank, big time. Even worse, it's probably the least of our problems.
In time, there's going to be a huge buyers remorse, but the Republicans aren't going to be able to clean up the mess. I believe life in the U.S. will never be the same and maybe we should psychologically start preparing for it.
Scary, very scary.
Doubtful given Pakistan's paranoia about India. They will not allow them off of their soil for fear that they will be vulnerable to India and that they will not get them back.
FYI: Both at Occidental and at Columbia, Obama's roommates were Pakistanis. And he visited one of them in Pakistan during his days at Columbia. I am sure he considers himself an expert on Pakistan and believes he is a friend of theirs.
“We cannot let this go on any further.”
This from the party that says we have to stop getting in everybody’s business and thinking we own the world. Shoe’s on the other foot, isn’t it, Madame Secretary? Oh, I forgot: “That was then, this is now”...
Colonel, USAFR
“Maybe she can get another one of those ‘reset’ buttons. Wonder what it will say in Arabic?”
In my perfect world? “Boom.”
Colonel, USAFR
What do you expect from Arm Chair Generals..
There was another thread listed today that said Hillary was being praised for her outstanding performance. I didn't read the thread, because I couldn't think of anything she's done successfully so far. All she's done is "talk tough."
Her and Oboma have a lot in common, except she can talk tough without a teleprompter..
Nope just wishful thinking on my part.
Here’s what I think is going on INSIDE Pakistan;
a squeeze play, putting the people of Pakistan and it’s elected government in a vice,
between the Taliban (bad cop - who get most of their funding from rich Saudis and some sheiks in the gulf states)
and
Nawaz Sharif (good - cop) the leading opposition politician, and an Islamic fundamentalist who the Saudis bribed Perez Musharraf to let Nawaz back into Pakistan, ahead of the last elections.
Both bad cop Taliban (”militant” opposition) and good cop Nawaz Sharif (I can do better than the secular parties), have the same eventual goals, a fundamentalist Islamic state, and the same sources of funds - the Saudis and their friends.
While Bush before and Obama now actually now this.
One has to ask then, is the U.S. support for the secular democratic government of Pakistan a pretense, and is that what it has been all along?
Because, the only thing that would prove it is not a pretense would be the U.S. government’s public denouncement of the behind the scenes financial role the Saudis and their friends are playing, to push Pakistan into a totally fundamentalist position.
So what General Petraeus is saying is that we have two weeks to save the civilian government, not save the country of Pakistan. The most likely outcome is that will fail, the armed forces will take over...again, and they'll take off after the Taliban.
The theory, however, is that the Taliban could gain control of Pakistan, by taking it away from the "they" of whom you're speaking.
Faced with the prospect of the Taliban gaining control ... do you really think the present government's response would be to turn over control of the nukes to them? It's certainly possible, but I tend to think they're not quite that "patriotic."
If the Obama team has any sense at all, they're even at this moment trying to work out a plan to safeguard those nukes. And, failing that, they're working out a plan to destroy the facilities in which they're stored.
Not that I actually believe that Obama has that much sense and foresight.... but Petraeus certainly does, and has urged that course of action; and you know he's got his planners working on the military options.
Unless the Taliban are aided by the military and ISI, there is no way they have the power to do so. Pakistan has an active duty military force of over 600,000 making it the 7th largest in the world. The Army is about 500,000.
Faced with the prospect of the Taliban gaining control ... do you really think the present government's response would be to turn over control of the nukes to them? It's certainly possible, but I tend to think they're not quite that "patriotic."
I don't believe the Taliban can take control. A more likely scenario will be the collapse of the current government and a takeover by the military as has been the case in Pakistan a number of times before. The military won't allow the country to disintegrate and they are the only ones who can hold it together.
If the Obama team has any sense at all, they're even at this moment trying to work out a plan to safeguard those nukes. And, failing that, they're working out a plan to destroy the facilities in which they're stored.
I am sure we are working with the Pakistani military and intelligence to ensure that the weapons are safeguarded. I seriously doubt that handing them over to us is part of the plan.
Not that I actually believe that Obama has that much sense and foresight.... but Petraeus certainly does, and has urged that course of action; and you know he's got his planners working on the military options.
Obama is hardly involved in the planning process. I am sure that the NSC and General Jones are running the show along with Holbrooke. I am not as concerned as many perhaps, but I think the Pakistani military will prevail if conditions deteriorate. Then Obama will be forced to address the military takeover and urge that Pakistan return to civilian rule once conditions allow it. Clinton and Bush were in a similar predicament with President [General] Musharraf when he staged a coup in 1999 and then declared himself President in 2001.
reportedly = may have. Could be true but media reports never give me the warn fuzzies.
You are acting as if it is a reasonable result for the land area that is Pakistan to be reduced to a hole in the ground. Preventing this kind of result is why we do not wish North Korea and Iran to develop deliverable nukes. Nuclear blackmail is either submitted to or challenged. If the blackmailer does not care about the consequence millions die. That’s what i mean by holding the world hostage. No one seriously said they could threaten or destroy the US. I certainly did not say that. But they can threaten the world in the same way a person can blackmail
a city by threatening to poison the water supply or unleash an airborne pathogen. Do you really want a world where Pakistan has been reduced to radioactive rubble and large sections of India and elsewhere have also been destroyed? The Talies get the nukes, that could be the result.
bttt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.