Featured Pakistan wants to be treated like an ally, not a scapegoat - Washington Post

[waz]

USA will get over the recent setbacks, I am quite sure. Anyone who wishes to see this debacle as an end to USA would do well to study the aftermath of the Vietnam withdrawal and how everything not only recovered from that debacle, but came back ever stronger.

Yes but this is Vietnam on steroids, I'm using the words of US pundits here. It's not just that as well. We had the Kurds recently as well.

 

[retaxis]

USA will get over the recent setbacks, I am quite sure. Anyone who wishes to see this debacle as an end to USA would do well to study the aftermath of the Vietnam withdrawal and how everything not only recovered from that debacle, but came back ever stronger.

US has massive demographic issues and in short years to come become a minority majority country with different ideas and principles. Anything that happened in the past gives no indication to a future hispanic USA.

 

[VCheng]

Yes but this is Vietnam on steroids, I'm using the words of US pundits here. It's not just that as well. We had the Kurds recently as well.

Yes, that may be so, but USA will come through it all, I am sure. As will all the others too.

 

[waz]

Yes, that may be so, but USA will come through it all, I am sure. As will all the others too.

Well of course it is the most powerful nation on earth, so yes if anyone can they can.

 

[VCheng]

Well of course it is the most powerful nation on earth, so yes if anyone can they can.

They will overcome this all. As will Pakistan. 100% surely.

 

[waz]

They will overcome this all. As will Pakistan. 100% surely.

Hopefully yes. I look forward to what transpires.

 

[VCheng]

Hopefully yes. I look forward to what transpires.

Right now the White House is concentrating on the multi-trillion dollar package for domestic investments and the COVID circus. Once that is done and over with will attention go to other important areas, including beyond US shores. It will take some time, obviously. In the meantime, Pakistan will surely be able to explore its other options quite well.

 

[Verve]

That's great. But what can it offer in return to make such treatment possible? That is the key question.

Pakistan is not asking to be an ally. IK has made it clear what kind of relationship Pakistan wants with USA - and that is pretty much economical. Pakistan's relations with China and CPEC are not even open for discussions with USA.

 

[VCheng]

US has massive demographic issues and in short years to come become a minority majority country with different ideas and principles. Anything that happened in the past gives no indication to a future hispanic USA.

Yes, no nation remains constant, and neither will USA in terms of its demographics. But its systems and processes will continue to work with those changes, let there be no doubt about that. Or are you suggesting that only white people can keep America great? That would be a patently false (and racist) assumption.

 

[Nasr]

The statements coming out from Pakistan's Foreign Office, imply that the Afghan Mujahideen taking over Afghanistan is going to be lawless and will invite terrorists back into the country, again. That is a very inaccurate assessment of the actual situation in Afghanistan.

For starters, ISIS has been in Afghanistan since 2015. They say that these ISIS are former Taliban, but that is a load of crock. These are specialized ISIS cells that were inserted into Afghanistan, along with some local traitors, of whom there has been no shortage over the last two decades. The excuse given is that these were disgruntled ex-Taliban who joined ISIS, recognizing it as a legitimate Caliphate. Anyone who is Afghan Pukhtun and has joined the Mujahideen in the fight against the foreign invaders, will tell you that ISIS is aan outfit which has connections to the american/british/french clandestine agencies and drunk on the doctrine of Wahhabi/Salafi ideology. There have been reports (not verified) that a heavy financial backing (in the initial months) came from elites of Middle Eastern countries for ISIS.

So to say that now that Taliban has taken back Afghanistan, it is going to become another terrorist breeding ground. Well I have news for the Foreign Office of Pakistan and that is Taliban have actively targeted and specifically assigned it's own special operations units against ISIS from the moment the ISIS rascals first appeared in Afghanistan.

On another note, I would like to see the Foreign Office of Pakistan to grow a pair of balls and tell the british high commission to pack their bags and go back to their pathetic little island. The government has brought back india to the "Amber List", who happens to be the origin country of the INDIAN-VARIANT of COVID-19. But have kept Pakistan and Turkey who have neither the variant, nor the staggering infection rate that has ravaged and savaged india over the last 5-6 months.

Get your game-face on, Pakistan Foreign Office.

 

[insight-out]

USA will get over the recent setbacks, I am quite sure. Anyone who wishes to see this debacle as an end to USA would do well to study the aftermath of the Vietnam withdrawal and how everything not only recovered from that debacle, but came back ever stronger.

I honestly do not wish to see the demise of the US as a powerful stabilizing force in the world. I shudder to think of a unipolar world with China at the helm.

Unfortunately, over the last century the US has been more of a powerful destabilizing force - from South America, to East Asia, to the Middle East. And this foreign adventurism has had a much more negative impact domestically than the US would like to admit.

The US of today is no where near as strong as it was after Vietnam. The momentum and euphoria that followed WW2 essentially pushed it through the Vietnam debacle. But things are different now. US media is not as dominant as it used to be, its economy is a lot more dependent and intertwined with other economies, and most importantly, it is more socially and politically polarized than it has ever been.

So while I do hope that the US will put its house in order soon, I do not share your optimism.

 

[VCheng]

I honestly do not wish to see the demise of the US as a powerful stabilizing force in the world. I shudder to think of a unipolar world with China at the helm.

History tells us that no country has a permanent monopoly on leadership. If China works at it harder and smarter than USA, it will reap the rewards and the responsibilities of global leadership, surely.

So while I do hope that the US will put its house in order soon, I do not share your optimism.

You do not have to share my views. I may disagree with your views, but I respect your right to hold them. All I can say is that news of USA's death (or of the USD) are greatly exaggerated, at least for now.

 

[Meengla]

[I can't find that blame Pakistan for the Afghan loss thread but this is related. Also including my own response in Comments to the NY Times article].

My comments [Unpublished so far].
" So United States could block the Soviets to lay its missiles on the Cuban soil---mind you, Cuba is a country several dozen miles from the southern most point from the American soil. And Cuba was/is a sovereign country. But Pakistan can't block Pakistan's perennial and powerful rival India to encircle Pakistan via Afghanistan--a country, with whom, Pakistan shares a long land border?!! We are in this situation in Afghanistan precisely because of the lack of empathy for 'the others' viewpoint! "

The original NY Times article (from today).

The Real Winner of the Afghan War? It’s Not Who You Think. (Published 2021)

Pakistan, nominally a U.S. partner in the war, was the Afghan Taliban’s main patron, and sees the Taliban’s victory as its own. But now what does it do with its prize?

www.nytimes.com

The Real Winner of the Afghan War? It’s Not Who You Think.
Pakistan, nominally a U.S. partner in the war, was the Afghan Taliban’s main patron, and sees the Taliban’s victory as its own. But now what does it do with its prize?


Just days after the Taliban took Kabul, their flag was flying high above a central mosque in Pakistan’s capital. It was an in-your-face gesture intended to spite the defeated Americans. But it was also a sign of the real victors in the 20-year Afghan war.

Pakistan was ostensibly America’s partner in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Its military won tens of billions of dollars in American aid over the last two decades, even as Washington acknowledged that much of the money disappeared into unaccounted sinkholes.

But it was a relationship riven by duplicity and divided interests from its very start after 9/11. Not least, the Afghan Taliban the Americans were fighting are, in large part, a creation of Pakistan’s intelligence service, the I.S.I., which through the course of the war nurtured and protected Taliban assets inside Pakistan.

In the last three months as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan, the Pakistani military waved a surge of new fighters across the border from sanctuaries inside Pakistan, tribal leaders have said. It was a final coup de grace to the American-trained Afghan security forces.


“The Pakistanis and the I.S.I. think they have won in Afghanistan,” said Robert L. Grenier, a former C.I.A. station chief in Pakistan. But, he warned, the Pakistanis should watch what they wish for. “If the Afghan Taliban become leaders of a pariah state, which is likely, Pakistan will find itself tethered to them.”

Pakistan’s already shaky reputation in the West is likely to plummet now, as the Taliban take over Afghanistan. Calls to sanction Pakistan have already circulated on social media. Absent foreign financing, Pakistan faces reliance on a jihadist drug trade encouraged by the new rulers in Kabul. A Taliban-run state on its border will no doubt embolden Taliban and other Islamist militants in Pakistan itself.

.....

 

[ziaulislam]

That's great. But what can it offer in return to make such treatment possible? That is the key question.

No big deal...

Usa will sanction(maybe) pakistan and afghanistan
Thus inviting terroirst that will lead to new 9/11
Just like it happened in 1990s

 

[VCheng]

No big deal...

Usa will sanction(maybe) pakistan and afghanistan
Thus inviting terroirst that will lead to new 9/11
Just like it happened in 1990s

Quite the prediction. You may be right, but until you tell me it is happening, I am going to disbelieve your crystal ball.