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Obama might send troops into Pakistan

I thought the war head and booster its fuel, will have corroded by now.
Since we dont see any US aircrafts going down cuz of missile's, we can effectively rule it out,

Well I have just read through a article on manpads and the shelf life of a stinger for example provided it is not removed from it's storage case is actually approx 10-20 years (depending on the source) depending on estimates. The only thing that goes relatively quickly are the batteries which power the unit. The article goes on to state that it is possible to replace these through a number of means.

Bear in mind that the missile fired at a El AL plane in Mombasa in 2003 were manufactured in 1978 and only missed due to user error rather than parts failure.
 
Again hypothetically since this is a debate on a hypothesis - if Pak disintegrates!

Pakistan maybe keen on TAP, but the Balochi insurgents will continue to blow up the pipeline. However, if they are independent, then such a thing will not occur.

As far as not favouring the US is concerned, one cannot say what can happen in the future. One has to also look at worst case scenarios.

Who in his wildest dream would have visualised at the height of the Cold War that USSR would collapse like a pack of cards when it was steaming full speed ahead as a Superpower! Likewise, that India would be able to get the Nuke deal with the US and that too with a Communist backed govt. who at the drop of a hat see the CIA lurking in their underpants and who if a suited man sneezes next to their (Communists) cultivated bedraggled look, yell 'Dollar Imperialism'!

Wonders never fail to cease!
 
One popular misconception is that these missiles become unusable after several years due to battery or other systems failures and are therefore useless after a period of time. While it is true that all MANPAD batteries have a finite shelf life, these can be replaced with commercially purchased batteries available on the open market and technically proficient terrorist groups might also be able to construct hybrid batteries to replace used ones.

Other concerns include deterioration of missile propellants and seeker coolant, and general storage issues. While these concerns merit attention, the commonly held assumption that these weapons have short shelf lives is erroneous. Most missiles are hermetically sealed in launchers designed for rough handling by soldiers in the field. Temperature extremes are also factored into the design of these weapons, reducing the threat of environmental degradation.

Clearly, the shelf life of MANPADs is, in large part, dependent on the conditions in which the weapon is stored. However, under ideal (factory specified) conditions, some versions of these weapons can remain operational for 22 years or more.

http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir021128_1_n.shtml
 
What Stingers? The one's from soviet occupation times? Why arent US aircrafts going down in Afghanistan now? There is something called shelf life.

Yes but the Stingers in the Pakistani inventories have been maintained and re-lifed. In 2004, a major contract was signed with Bofors for relifing many thousands of rounds for the RBS-70 system. I doubt any of the original Stingers in the Afghan hands have any juice left though (battery at least but then who knows what can be had in the arms black market).
 
Again hypothetically since this is a debate on a hypothesis - if Pak disintegrates!

Pakistan maybe keen on TAP, but the Balochi insurgents will continue to blow up the pipeline. However, if they are independent, then such a thing will not occur.

As far as not favouring the US is concerned, one cannot say what can happen in the future. One has to also look at worst case scenarios.

Who in his wildest dream would have visualised at the height of the Cold War that USSR would collapse like a pack of cards when it was steaming full speed ahead as a Superpower! Likewise, that India would be able to get the Nuke deal with the US and that too with a Communist backed govt. who at the drop of a hat see the CIA lurking in their underpants and who if a suited man sneezes next to their (Communists) cultivated bedraggled look, yell 'Dollar Imperialism'!

Wonders never fail to cease!


Well let me point out one thing. BLA is not the same thing as the Baloch insurgents of the 70s. The BLA in itself is a shadowy group unlike the past Baloch parties who were part of the mainstream political process. So BLA conducting an insurgency is not the same thing as all Baloch supporting the insurgency.

The issue of the Balochis is the negligence (something that will most probably get exacerbated if Balochistan was split up and used as transit for gas supplies). Not sure how insurgents and their gripes will stop then? I think we are both making assumptions here, but one thing is obvious which is the outside mentoring and aid of BLA.

As far as anything can happen, you could not be more right. There are very many other possibilities.
 
BO loses my support. Until now I had advocated for his presidency.
 
Some of these Muslims turned atheists want to doubly show how anti-Muslim they are just to fit in. Pathetic.

Anyway not that he's really going to risk a blunder like that. They couldn't invade Iraq like they can invade Pak.
 
Bush criticizes talk of U.S. strike on Pakistan: govt

By Zeeshan Haider
Fri Aug 3, 2007

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush on Friday described the prospect of U.S. strikes against al Qaeda in Pakistan as "unsavory," saying Washington respected its ally's sovereignty, the Pakistani government said.

Bush made the comments to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a telephone call to congratulate Pakistanis ahead of the 60th anniversary of their independence on August 14.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama said this week that the United States must be willing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan.

A Pakistani foreign ministry statement said: "President Bush stated that the United States fully respected Pakistan's sovereignty and appreciated Pakistan's resolve in fighting al Qaeda and other terrorist elements.

"He (Bush) said that such statements were unsavory and often prompted by political considerations in an environment of electioneering," the statement added, without making direct reference to Obama.

"He agreed that such statements did not serve the interests of either country."

Obama said on Wednesday if elected in November 2008 he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government.

Pakistan's lawless tribal regions have long been used as a safe haven by al Qaeda and Taliban militants, and Islamabad is under growing pressure from the United States to do more against militant cells there.

A bill Bush is expected to sign ties Pakistan aid to progress against the militants.

FULLY CAPABLE

Pakistan says its forces are capable of dealing with militants and has repeatedly rejected the idea of U.S. strikes on its territory.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Friday Pakistan would not allow militants to use its territory against other states, and would not allow foreign forces to operate on its soil.

"The truth is Pakistan, being a sovereign country, will never allow any country to send troops to its territory for any purpose," he told reporters in remarks broadcast by state-run Pakistan Television.

Analysts say unilateral U.S. action in Pakistan could pose a major risk for its ally Musharraf, who is experiencing the weakest period in his eight-year rule after the reinstatement of the country's top judge, whom he had tried to sack.

He also faces a growing militant backlash after an army assault on Islamabad's Red Mosque, a radical Islamist bastion, last month.

More than 200 people, mainly police and soldiers, have been killed in attacks across Pakistan since the mosque assault. The government says 102 people died in the assault.

Last month militants also scrapped a peace pact with the government in North Waziristan, a known safe haven for al Qaeda fighters and their Taliban allies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070803/pl_nm/pakistan_bush_dc_1
 
Romney attacks Obama over Pakistan warning
By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized Democrat Barack Obama on Friday for vowing to strike al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan if necessary as the Obama camp issued a strident defense of his plan.

What had been an internecine foreign policy battle between rival Democrats Obama, an Illinois senator, and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, spilled into the Republican arena in the heavily contested state of Iowa.

"I do not concur in the words of Barack Obama in a plan to enter an ally of ours... I don't think those kinds of comments help in this effort to draw more friends to our effort," Romney told reporters on the campaign trail.

Obama on Wednesday said if elected president in November 2008 he would be willing to launch military strikes against al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan with or without the approval of the Pakistani government of President Pervez Musharraf.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who is one of the Republican front-runners, said U.S. troops "shouldn't be sent all over the world." He called Obama's comments "ill-timed" and "ill-considered."

"There is a war being waged by terrorists of different types and nature across the world," Romney said. "We want, as a civilized world, to participate with other nations in this civilized effort to help those nations reject the extreme with them."

The Obama campaign issued a memo that said the United States has deferred to the "cautious judgment" of Musharraf long enough on how to take out high-value al Qaeda targets like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"By any measure, this strategy has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us defer to Musharraf in perpetuity. Barack Obama wants to turn the page," said the memo written by an Obama foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, the founding executive director of the Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights policy.

The memo defended a number of statements by Obama in the last two weeks that have drawn criticism from Clinton and other Democratic candidates, such as his willingness to meet leaders of hostile nations without preconditions and his ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"For years, Washington's conventional wisdom has held that candidates for president are judged not by their wisdom, but rather by their adherence to hackneyed rhetoric that make little sense beyond the (Washington area) Beltway," the memo said.

The Bush administration has also vowed to act against al Qaeda in Pakistan and elsewhere based on actionable intelligence. But it also is more inclined to work with and trust in the advice of Musharraf, who is struggling to deal with Islamic extremists in his country and has survived assassination attempts as a U.S. ally.

In Islamabad, the Pakistani government said Bush and Musharraf spoke by phone on Friday and that Bush described the prospect of U.S. strikes against al Qaeda in Pakistan as unsavory.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070803/pl_nm/usa_politics_obama_dc_4
 
Pakistan criticizes Barack Obama

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani officials called Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama irresponsible for saying that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes in Pakistan against al-Qaida.

Hundreds chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned an American flag in the street to protest the remark.

Obama's comment turned up the heat on already simmering anger among Pakistanis about the issue, after senior Bush administration officials said last week they too would consider such strikes if intelligence warranted them.

Further inflaming the situation was a comment by Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican whose bid for the White House is considered unlikely to succeed, that the best way he could think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on America would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the holiest of Islamic sites, Mecca and Medina.

U.S. officials quickly distanced themselves from Tancredo's remarks.

In Miran Shah, a major town in the lawless region that borders Afghanistan, about 1,000 tribesmen condemned recent Pakistani military operations in the area and vowed to repel any U.S. attack.

"We are able to defend ourselves. We will teach a lesson to America if it attacks us," local cleric Maulvi Mohammed Roman told the rally.

In Karachi, Pakistani's largest city, about 150 people chanted slogans against the United States, Obama and Tancredo at a demonstration organized by Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, a coalition of six hard-line religious parties. Protesters set fire to a U.S. flag.

"Those who are talking about attacking our holiest places are committing blasphemy. The punishment for this offense is death, and death only," said coalition lawmaker Mohammed Hussain Mahanti.

In a major policy speech Wednesday, Obama said as president he might order strikes in Pakistan's tribal zone to get terrorists, including those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again," Obama said. "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

Top officials in the government of Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the fight against terrorism, bristled at Obama's comment.

"It's a very irresponsible statement, that's all I can say," Foreign Minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. "As the election campaign in America is heating up we would not like American candidates to fight their elections ... at our expense."

Bush called Musharraf Friday to congratulate him on the 60th anniversary of Pakistan's independence, but also mentioned "recent statements emanating from the U.S. regarding possible U.S. action inside Pakistani territory," the foreign ministry said .

Bush "said that such statements were unsavory and often prompted by political considerations in an environment of electioneering," the statement said, adding that Bush said the United States fully respected Pakistan's sovereignty.

However, the White House took issue with part of the Pakistani statement, saying the U.S. president never termed the political statements "unsavory," said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to speak more freely about the president's private conversations. The official said Bush said that he realized Musharraf has been hearing a lot of things in recent days, but that U.S. policy remains that Washington wants to work together with Pakistan. Bush reiterated that the only voice that counts, and that Musharraf need worry about, is his, the official said.

Tancredo told a gathering in Iowa on Tuesday he believes a nuclear terrorist attack on the U.S. could be imminent.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. Because that's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do," he said.

In Washington, the State Department reacted with unusual venom to Tancredo's remarks, which some diplomats fear could damage U.S. ties with the Muslim world and hurt efforts to counter Islamist extremism.

"Let me just say that it is absolutely outrageous and reprehensible for anyone to suggest attacks on holy sites, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or those of any other religion," deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.

Pakistan used to be a main backer of the Taliban, but threw its support behind Washington following the Sept. 11 attacks. It has deployed about 90,000 troops in its tribal regions, hundreds of whom have been killed fighting militants.

But a controversial strategy to make peace with militants and use tribesmen has fueled U.S. fears that al-Qaida has been given space to regroup.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sher Afghan said Friday he would open a debate in the national assembly next week on recent U.S. criticism of Pakistan.

It was a matter of "grave concern that U.S. presidential candidates are using unethical and immoral tactics against Islam and Pakistan to win their election," Afghan said.

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Zarar Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070803/ap_on_re_as/obama_pakistan_10

Also check this video:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=49750&cl=3558339&ch=61492&src=news
 
Foreign forces won’t be allowed to enter Pakistan: minister

Obama blasted for his comments

Associated Press . Islamabad

Pakistan criticised US presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday for saying that, if elected, he might order unilateral military strikes against terrorists hiding in this Islamic country. Top Pakistan officials said Obama’s comment was irresponsible and likely made for political gain in the race for the Democratic nomination.

The Associated Press of Pakistan reported Friday that Musharraf was asked at a dinner at prime minister Shaukat Aziz’s house on Thursday about the potential of US military operations in Pakistan. Musharraf told guests that Pakistan was ‘fully capable’ of tackling terrorists in the country and did not need foreign assistance.

The deputy information minister, Tariq Azim, said no foreign forces would be allowed to enter Pakistan, and called Obama irresponsible.

‘I think those who make such statements are not aware of our contribution’ in the fight on terrorism, he said.

In Pakistan’s national assembly on Friday, the minister for parliamentary affairs, Sher Afgan, said he would bring on a debate next week on recent criticism of Pakistan from several quarters in the US.

It was a matter of ‘grave concern that US presidential candidates are using unethical and immoral tactics against Islam and Pakistan to win their election,’ Afghan said.

‘It’s a very irresponsible statement, that’s all I can say,’ Pakistan’s foreign minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. ‘As the election campaign in America is heating up we would not like American candidates to fight their elections and contest elections at our expense.’

A senior Pakistani official condemned another presidential hopeful, Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo, for saying the best way he could think of to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on the US would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the holiest Islamic sites of Makka and Madinah.

Obama said in a speech Wednesday that as president he would order military action against terrorists in Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan if intelligence warranted it. The comment provoked anger in Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror.

Many analysts believe that top Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are hiding in the region after escaping the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The President, Pervez Musharraf, has come under growing pressure from Washington to do more to tackle the alleged al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan. The Bush administration has not ruled out military strikes, but still stresses the importance of cooperating with Pakistan.

‘There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again,’ Obama said. ‘If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and Musharraf will not act, we will.’

Pakistan used to be a main backer of the Taliban, but it threw its support behind Washington following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

http://www.newagebd.com/inat.html
 

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