You're welcome to prove where I said you did. I'd be disappointed if so.
I didn't address you in my first post on this issue - I merely concurred with the Western official in the BBC report. Your subsequent response to my comments expressed a certain degree of skepticism about whether Pakistan was indeed able to do so itself. If that was not your intention and I misread your post then there is no point of disagreement.
Your perception. I've no doubt that we were involved in this arrest. You've decided to make this some cause celebre'.
I think the chances that the US was involved are high too - where I disagree is the extent of that involvement and whether the involvement was critical. It could have been critical, but I would need to see more information to on it before accepting it.
The US media, backed by the usual 'anonymous sources' loves to crow about US 'pressure' and this and that, as if the rest of the world are dumb amateurs sitting with their fingers up their noses until the 'Mighty Americans' show up to make sure things get done right.
The only arrogance I see is yours...to be spared if you don't mind. You seem to believe that you single-handedly developed the intel on this and conducted the operation. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't think so but I know who broke the story and what they said. The NYT called it a joint operation and only you seem to insist otherwise.
The NYT broke the story based on US sources, and the played up the US angle (see my comments above). As I said, at most the US might have provided intelligence. I won't say there isn't any possibility of US assistance, but I would argue that the US role and physical presence was limited.
If your intelligence was good enough to produce this arrest, you'd have busted the likes of Mehsud without others providing the kill. You know better than present childish strawmen I'd hope. Then again...
Given that Mehsud was targeted based on Pakistani intel (finally - remember we had intel on his location a few times before as well, when the US did not divert resources to target him), I fail to see what your comment above serves to establish. We don't have the technology of the Predator, beyond pulling the trigger on the target once Pakistani intel provided his location the US likely had little to offer.
Not our borders to control. I made that clear to any not obstinately blind...that is even assuming that they've done so.
That is a duplicitous argument - whether the Afghan government is sovereign or not is irrelevant to the fact that the security of the country is largely in the hands of ISAF. Afghan security forces that can take over from ISAF is a future goal, so yes, responsibility lies with ISAF - just another example of the blame deflection and deceit practiced by the US to explain away its failures.
Fully relevant to progess and, equally, fully informed. I made that clear also, you fork-tongued devil.
There's a world of difference between failure and final victory-whatever that constitutes. You accused "
failures". Not I. I'm far more circumspect and recognize the travails of raising forth a nation from the mess you sponsored.
Not a mess 'we sponsored' - Afghanistan was a larger mess with the factional fighting, with or without Hekmetyar, post-Soviet withdrawal. Taliban rule actually brought around stability and some uniformity in areas under its control. The subsequent degradation would be because of the US invasion, and therefore because of the mess
you sponsored.
Afghanistan is at WAR with that enemy and the afghan taliban are viewed by too many in your national security and intelligence apparatus as a strategic asset. So too most of your country.
What they may or may not be viewed as does not change the fact that there has been no physical support of them, and that the entity Afghanistan and ISAF is at war with resides primarily on Afghan soil.
Circular logic by one who willfully dissembles the value of sanctuary. That's why the taliban are called "PROXIES" and why sanctuary is so valuable to "PROXIES" and their masters.
Last I checked the largest offensive on Afghan soil since the 2001 invasion was taking place in order to route out a 'sanctuary' of the Taliban in Marja, a town on Afghan soil, not Pakistani. And it is but only the beginning of such offensives by the US (after 9 years of 'controlling' Afghanistan), again all on Afghan soil, not Pakistani.
I think it is obvious which side is engaging in willful duplicity, dissemblance and blame deflection to hide failures.
If it was under AFGHAN control then it would not be sanctuary. There is a war fought in Afghanistan and nobody makes distinction between taliban there. Nobody in the world accepts this spew you've raised forth and haven't for years.
Pakistan repeatedly signed treaties with the TTP. Afghanistan has not yet done so. If they do so, it'll have the hand of the whole world upon it as guarantors. Maybe even including Pakistan. God knows you've experience with such.
Territory in Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban, the 15,000 troops deployed to take on marja is clear indication of that. What excuses you choose to come up with to explain the presence of sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban in a country under ISAF control and occupation for nine years is your prerogative, but that the Taliban have managed sanctuary on territory ostensibly under ISAF control is beyond doubt.
This is an Afghan insurgency directed at Afghanistan from Afghan soil, not Pakistani.
As for peace treaties - you had your approach to deal with the problem and we had ours. Just because the US doesn't like the way we chose to deal with the Taliban does not mean we not try it our way, based on our domestic political compulsions and constraints.
It's neither a failure that Marjah may be the first of many such operations any more than the P.A. conducting operations from Bajaur through SWAT/Buner to S. Waziristan and now possibly Orakzai.
Perhaps not, but it clearly points out the duplicity of the US position that the insurgency in Afghanistan is externally directed, when it is clear that the Taliban were running the insurgency in Afghanistan from Afghan soil.
"directed", though, is salient. The rest of the world has no evidence that the TTP insurgency is anything but homegrown. Not so with the Afghan insurgency. Their leadership reside on your lands. Word has it that Marjah has gone so well that Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, the afghan field commander in the area, has now displaced permanently into Pakistan.
Perhaps he has displaced into Pakistan, but as you yourself accepted there, the field commander of the insurgency was in Afghanistan. The reports from Marja, according to the locals, indicate that the Taliban imposed a ten percent tax on the poppy production, which would indicate the resource generation for the Taliban is also largely Afghan based (along with whatever Hundi and Hawala bring).
This is an Afghan insurgency directed largely from Afghanistan, not from Pakistan, and there remains no evidence their leadership resides on Pakistani soil. Movement back and forth between Afghanistan and Pakistan, yes indeed.
Perhaps you can arrest him too...with your intelligence and your muscle.
Perhaps we will, if indeed he is in Pakistan.
Only if you can show me quotes from our political and military leaders, unattributed even, that define them as "strategic assets".
Strawman argument - can you show me hard evidence of Kiyani and the GoP calling Baradar, Omar or the arrested shadow governors 'strategic assets'?
Rhetorical question of course, I know you don't have any evidence.
Not at all. We don't know the nature or circumstances behind that arrest. It is unclear yet exactly why.
The circumstances don't matter since, going by just the facts, we know that Baradar was arrested, and we have no evidence indicating Pakistan aiding and abetting him.
As to "unsubstantiated rumor mongering" don't act like you sit in briefings and know what intelligence is passed between the American and Pakistani governments validating our concerns. Denials here by you don't mean sh!t when Baradar is busted in Karachi and Haqqani sits on his azz in Miram Shah. That's plenty of proof in my book, especially when it's been asserted exactly as such by myself from beaucoup linked sources far better connected than you...in Michigan.
Again - ludicrous logic. Using your logic no country should ever arrest foreign suspects on their soil lest they get accused of 'harboring' those individuals.
As for knowing what evidence got passed or didn't, you have no clue either, yet you insist that the US had some sort of critical role to play here.
The world's "...rather strange logic...". After eight years and many more than simply those arrested in the last few weeks. More conspiracies and paranoia.
See above.
"...managed..." is a different matter. We've no indication that you've an eight year on-going manhunt for these men. We've every indication, for instance, that you've ceded Miram Shah to the Haqqani network as a base for a "valued strategic asset".
You are correct, we had no eight year man hunt going on for these individuals since our resources were prioritized elsewhere. That we were focussed on other issues critical to Pakistani national security does not indicate 'willful duplicity', it means the issue was not a major concern to us till recently.
Read it a while back - more unsubstantiated allegations and yet more display of an exaggerated sense of self-importance and the need for some Americans to engage in self-validation by maligning others and painting a picture in which the other side was 'coerced' by America 'laying the smack-down' by providing irrefutable evidence that left no choice but for the other side to comply with American wishes.
U-huh.
Again, spare us the hubris.
Possibly on every account. So? That doesn't suggest American intelligence or operational planning assistance didn't play a role.
It doesn't automatically suggest that they did either, or that it was a critical role.
I sense a drumbeat of "U.S. control" that's becoming as irritating as if I were to suggest the same about U.S. control of Pakistan. Afghanistan has a sovereign government recognized by your own. Deal with that and you'll begin to improve matters immediately. This snide insinuation of yours is an insult to UNITY, ZERO BRAVO and others whom are Afghan and deserve all the common courtesy that you expect of them. It is also an insult to all those of other nations giving of their blood and capital to assist Afghanistan becoming fully stabilized.
I don't care how you parse words and engage in pedantry to illustrate 'Afghan sovereignty' - the reality, obvious to most, is that Afghanistan is under US/ISAF control (on the military and security front at least), and Baradar managed to travel through the country undetected, likely several times.
As to conjecture, your premise would only be true if we were to presume the ISI in as nascent a state of formation as the Afghan NSD. As to an afghan crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan, insurgents do so often enough. I see nothing there unusual.
My premise is not based on any calculus that includes the Afghan security and intelligence apparatus - it is based on the fact that military control of Afghanistan lies in the hands of ISAF, and the relevant entities would be the ISAF militaries and intelligence, including the US military and the CIA.