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Don't Be Scared to Squeeze Pakistan

Agreed. However would you dare do that? 195 million people country, 100s of nukes, huge nuclear infrastructure, missile systems, massive military with all manner of weapons. Would you want to push this country over the edge?

I don't think so.

And this is probably one of the core reasons that Pakistan was not pressured to the breaking point in the last 15 years, but judging how the US military and not the CIA droned Mullah Mansoor in Balochistan a settled area, things are probably changing.

Don't worry about Turkey. With 79 cents in the treasury, she invaded Cyprus to carve out a safe home for the Turks over there. No matter what the cost is, nobody will be allowed to destabilize Turkey coming from Syria or Iraq. Iran is playing all sorts of tricks and backstabbing, but she should know not to push Turkey's patience too much. Turkey doesn't play with proxies, they have to gather enough courage for a face-to-face showdown..

Bombings in your major cities, what do you call that if not a direct consequence of a conflict in your neighbourhood.
My argument was that conflict in one's neighbouring countries has direct negative consequences over the entire neighbourhood.

PS : Are you saying that Turkey has no favorites in the Syrian conflict and is not playing via proxies? Seriously! :)
 
Pakistan is doing what every other country including the current Afghan regime, US and India are doing, that is following their own interests. Pakistan has its legitimate concerns in Afghanistan something which you cannot brush aside. Afghanistan under the current regime in entirely in Indian camp and fully supporting anti Pakistan elements. In such a case you cannot expect Pakistan to simply ignore what happens on our western front. Pakistan paid a price once dearly resulting in the loss of our eastern wing. If India is in Afghanistan that would remain a problem for Pakistan as long as Afghans allow their territory to be used against Pakistan.
And on isolation part if you think just because of US Pakistan will get isolated, i doubt that considering our relations are warming up with Russia and China is fully backing Pakistan. Like i said you cannot dismiss Chinese clout. A case in point just look at how Chinese are backing Pakistan for NSG and keeping India out despite of full US support. So you see Pakistan is not isolated, it never was. Our interests dont align and that is the sad part after all it was Pakistan that opened its doors for millions of Afghan refugees and still does. Something you lot forgot.
Where do you think or better yet what do you think would have happened to all those Afghans had Pakistan not opened its door?
And this is probably one of the core reasons that Pakistan was not pressured to the breaking point in the last 15 years, but judging how the US military and not the CIA droned Mullah Mansoor in Balochistan a settled area, things are probably changing.



Bombings in your major cities, what do you call that if not a direct consequence of a conflict in your neighbourhood.
My argument was that conflict in one's neighbouring countries has direct negative consequences over the entire neighbourhood.

PS : Are you saying that Turkey has no favorites in the Syrian conflict and is not playing via proxies? Seriously! :)

One third of the young male population was sacrificed during WW1. Bombings to kill civilians won't deter Turkey to take actions against the foreign legionaries and their local cohorts. Imperial pasts has a legacy cost. I don't expect a Hakiki Afgan not to understand these simple facts!!

As for the Syrian conflict, it was imposed on Turkey. It'd have happened anyway. A hundred years of dark energy accumulated along the fault lines would have given rise to the tectonic shifts in the entire region as is happening now. Since the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the region hasn't seen a single day of peace. They're paying with their Jan, Mal and the worst of all Namus for the crime of the traitors. If Sham or Baghdad or Kabul or Lahore aren't in peace, don't expect Istanbul or Diyarbakir be like Gulistan..
 
- Corruption is an issue, cannot be resolved in a short span, measures are being taken but still not enough. This illnesses doesn't only affect us but its wider regional issue. ( Panama leaks...)

- You mentioned Turkey, how many bombings or killings happened before the Syrian conflict in Turkey, now on average a couple a month which of course affects the trust of investors, businesses etc. We don't live in an island, there is direct consequence of stability in the region vis-a-vis development in a country.

- Frankly Afghans can make it work for themselves if the zero sum games played by our neighbours were to stop, I have lost count of the number of development projects being started in the last couple of months but of course Afghans Talis which are actively trained an financed beyond our borders make it hard to continue on pace when they are thought nothing but blowing schools and development projects.

I for once see a few problems in Afghanistan . Unless these are not sorted out there is going to be no development even if South asia becomes the equivalent of europe .

1. Serious corruption ( 2nd most corrupt country in the world)
2 . Tribal mentality (Something that Afghanistan has to come over by education and building world class universities)
3 . No unity amongst ethnicities
4 . Serious war criminals and warlords in government
5 . Poverty

This would be some of the things that afghan government has control over of and should be striving to better it . 60-70 % of your problems are internal . So if you want to develop like other neighbours some of the initiative has to be done by the government itself . As of now everything from A-Z is done by foreign aid . Hospitals are made by Pakistan , Dams are made by India and money from USA . I agree with you that regional development might affect afghanistan a bit , but for that afghan government has to take initiatives itself too. What is the afghan government doing itself? . Last i heard they had a 20 % approval rating from its citizens .
 
Bombings in your major cities, what do you call that if not a direct consequence of a conflict in your neighbourhood.
My argument was that conflict in one's neighbouring countries has direct negative consequences over the entire neighbourhood.

PS : Are you saying that Turkey has no favorites in the Syrian conflict and is not playing via proxies? Seriously! :)
The bombing in the cities is caused by the current government,in the 15 years in power Erdogan fucked up bigtime but thats another story.
As for the proxies,its our neighbourhood,of course we have ''allies''(FSA and some Turkmen) in Syria.
 
- Pressurize IMF / World Bank / ADB and other economic entities to slow down its workings with Pakistan.

Good, it will force the Pakistani Government to stop taking the easy way out and initiate structural reforms to generate money internally. Pakistan's Black Economy is equivalent in size to Pakistan's Official Economy, the pressure on the Government will be huge to bring the Black Economy into the Official Fold and start taxing it. I am for one completely against taking foreign loans because Pakistan can generate far more resources internally.

- Stop US economic and military support to Pakistan

Economic aid is negligible but the Military Supplies will hurt as this will increase the running costs for our F16's. But keep in mind, this is not the 90's anymore. Pakistan has multiple options to acquire new fighter jets and further improve its local combat aircraft.

- Put selective people in the military establishment on a sanction list.

Who cares

Prude EU to cuts its economic and military dealings with Pakistan.

EU is a bigger economy than the US and does not take dictations from the US. The US can put pressure, but EU will act according to its own self interest.

I think there are hundreds of ways where the US can really hurt Pakistan if she wants too

Off course, and it will come at a cost.
 
It is very clear that the author harbors some ill will for Pakistan and has a pre-set agenda before the writing of the article. I cannot preclude the possibility (I am very very sure but just cannot photograph him taking a check) that he might have been paid to write against Pakistan by typical people who want to hurt our country due to their irrational ideas and agendas towards our country. He has continued to make his bias evident again and again by deviating from facts wherever it suited him while writing the piece. Let us spot a few of these things in the article.

While these are important tactical questions, they’re of limited value if the underlying strategy remains flawed. A more consequential question is why Pakistan’s harboring of yet another terrorist commander has been met with a collective shrug by the United States and the international community. It’s an uncomfortable reminder that Pakistan’s “double game” has become old news. Accepted wisdom. Permitted behavior. In Washington, anger has been dimmed by exhaustion, with many now hoping to reach a modicum of stability in Afghanistan and put the whole messy affair behind them. History, however, has been unkind to great powers that fail to learn from their mistakes.

I would not be sure about Pakistan's harboring any commander here. But this guy knows for sure and after making his observation, starts on a rant and finally concluding to tell his nation how great powers have fallen due to inaction. Pakistan's government did her investigation how the previous commander who died in strikes had acquired Pakistan's identity card and several government officials were laid off who were responsible.

To be clear, few in Washington are under any illusions about the extent of Pakistan’s perfidy. Hillary Clinton has warned that Pakistan “poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.” In his memoir, Defense Secretary Robert Gates recalled how “in every instance” the United States shared intelligence with Pakistan about a target, “the target was forewarned and fled” or Pakistan launched a botched operation of its own. “I knew they were really no ally at all,” he explained.

For example he is pulling things that have passed long while ago and wants to justify his analysis of current and present state of affairs based on something that was said way long time ago. I think that Pakistan's support for some extremist groups is very little at the moment and at its lowest in the past forty years history of Pakistan.

It’s nonsense—a fabricated dichotomy in a fictional reality where the mere specter of U.S. pressure threatens the integrity of the Pakistani state, where the million-man Pakistani army is powerless to protect its nuclear arsenal and where a severing of bilateral relations would prove more costly to the United States than to Pakistan. This narrative has ensured the U.S. toolbox is brimming with $20 billion in carrots but desperately lacking in sticks. What’s worse, the sticks America does possess are only to be wielded in the event Pakistan crosses an existential threshold, such as a successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil planned or perpetrated from its territory.

I really do not know where this guy has gotten this 20 billion dollars. I read on American government's web site that the aid they spent (which mostly goes to their cronies to work against our own country) was 650 million dollars in year 2015. And Pakistan spent substantially more than a billion dollars in Army operation against extremists and terrorists in the tribal areas just last year. This guy is totally cutoff from all reality. Terrorism has hurt Pakistan's economy to the tune of 80 billion dollars and we have to bear this loss on our own. He keeps whining about the greatness and generosity and against giving so huge carrots but I see only some shriveled stale carrot.

A punitive threshold should have been crossed the first time U.S. intelligence intercepted Pakistan’s notorious intelligence service, the ISI, feeding the Taliban information about U.S. airstrikes, or aided them in organizing attacks in Afghanistan. Or when the Haqqani Network, a known proxy of the ISI, orchestrated the deadliest attack on the CIA in the agency’s history in 2009. Or when the same group orchestrated an attack on the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan two years later. Above all, it should have been crossed when Pakistan’s “game” resulted in the death of American servicemen and women in Afghanistan.

So why are you advocating it now. Nothing of the great sort has happened now. Why did you not write the article at bombing of the embassy and it would have been more appropriate. Now when nothing of the sort is happening, you have started to cite all the old issues.
Besides I read about Haqqani network story on this forum. Many many times, they wanted peace and wanted to be allies with Hamid Karazai but Americans and their local war lords who had control over some areas continued to thoroughly humiliate them. Honestly I can see after such thorough humiliation, any dignified Afghan(or anyone else) would have just one goal that he would want every American soldier out of Afghan soil. I do see a very clear cause and effect in what they are doing. It is typical of Americans. They always bungle up things and then start using indiscriminate force against humans. We have seen evidence of this particular skill in Iraq and other places.
If Americans are that serious about peace I would request them to go ahead and apologize to Haqqani network for what their forces did to Haqqani network when it continued to try for peace and struggled for being a part of peace process in Afghanistan. If Americans have that great of an ego then they should suffer the consequences and of course kill more people in the process. If I were wrong I would have no hesitation in saying sorry especially if it saved blood of any single human.

Don’t accept the canard that nuclear terrorism is the only alternative to the status quo. And don’t be deluded into thinking America is a hopeless victim at the mercy of the Pakistani military, incapable of imposing unbearable costs on any person, group or institution it deems a threat to national security.

He created the notion of nuclear terrorism and then started bashing it. We, as Pakistanis, do not believe in any such thing he is saying. Pakistan Army and government is very clear that our nuclear weapons are in very very safe control. We also categorically say that we do not want nuclear weapons and if India is willing to denuclearize, we will also do that.
Now look at the psyche of the author. He uses words like nuclear terrorism and then look at the statements like,"And don’t be deluded into thinking America is a hopeless victim at the mercy of the Pakistani military" These emotional manipulations are very well known to conservative and neocon media in United States. They try to evoke emotional feelings among simple Americans by using clever play on words to achieve their purpose even when they are lacking in facts.
These authors with a specific agenda would continue to put Pakistan and nuclear terrorism together so that in minds of every simple American this association becomes perfect and would be deftly exploited when there would be need for war on Pakistan in neocon minds.

That’s what superpowers do when their interests are threatened and their soldiers are under fire

I would like to tell this guy that more powerful you are, the more responsible you have to be in your use of power and force. He on the other hand is proposing the use of force like typical neocon children mentality. These people are like children who are never able to grow up and they enjoy wars like games that little children enjoy and love to play. If you ask a child about war, he would say that not only will we go to war but we will also surely win the war and kill every single one of the bad guys. These neocons have no regard for great human suffering due to wars and, in fact, they like to inflict suffering like that on Muslims since we are evil and subhuman to them like children have not much regard for the bad guys. This is what they did in Iraq and these grown up children will never hesitate to go to war against us whenever they could.
 
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