Sinnerman108
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Do you really think they are that stupid ?
Remember, one of the biggest weapons of war is confusion as long as you know how to create it.
The U.S. and Pakistan: Can This Marriage Be Saved?
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Do you really think they are that stupid ?
Remember, one of the biggest weapons of war is confusion as long as you know how to create it.
I think Americans are confused. Their masters in Tel Aviv (AIPAC) are not
AbhimanyuShrivastav
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US not to enter into agreement with Pak detrimental to its security: Clinton | The Nation
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the Obama Administration will not enter into any agreement with Pakistan that would be to the detriment of the national security of the country. Replying to a question in an interview after visit to Middle East, Clinton said President Obama has demonstrated conclusively that he is ready to take the tough decisions when America's security is at stake. Clinton refused to comment when asked if US is going to agree to a different way of using drones which is a very controversial issue in Pakistan.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the Obama Administration will not enter into any agreement with Pakistan that would be to the detriment of the national security of the country. Replying to a question in an interview after visit to Middle East, Clinton said President Obama has demonstrated conclusively that he is ready to take the tough decisions when America's security is at stake. Clinton refused to comment when asked if US is going to agree to a different way of using drones which is a very controversial issue in Pakistan.
Developereo
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Expected.
Obama will play hardball. Anything else would be suicidal for him, especially in an election year.
Obama will play hardball. Anything else would be suicidal for him, especially in an election year.
AbhimanyuShrivastav
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The U.S. and Pakistan: Can This Marriage Be Saved? - The Daily Beast
In my 10-plus years in Pakistan, Ive always been nonplussed by Washingtons patience with indeed, its indulgence of the Pakistani government. America has spent tens of billions of dollars in a basically futile effort to coax Islamabad into clamping down on the Taliban. The sanctuaries that Pakistan provides to them are largely responsible for the insurgencys resilience and ability to continue killing U.S. and Coalition soldiers. Without the cross-border havens where the guerrillas plan their attacks, recruit, train, raise funds, rest, reequip and receive medical attention, the Taliban would be a far less lethal, perhaps even containable, force.
The latest evidence of Pakistans untrustworthiness was given by Osama bin Ladens youngest wife. According to the official summary of her interrogation by Pakistani military and civilian investigators, the terrorist kingpin and his growing family lived a cushy, middle-class existence in a series of well-appointed houses from 2002 until his death last May. How could an Arab stranger, standing roughly 6-foot-5 and speaking neither Urdu or Pashtu, have moved undetected through the countrys ubiquitous police and military checkpoints? How were he and his wives able to escape the notice of their neighbors for so many years? And with a $25 million price on his head, no less. People generally know who is living next door, says retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. Neighbors must have asked questions. The local police as well.
From the moment of bin Ladens death last May, the Pakistani Armys top brass and the ISI have said loudly and repeatedly that they had no knowledge of bin Ladens presence in Abbottabad or anywhere else in Pakistan. Personally, I still find it hard to believe that the military and its intelligence services could be so incompetent. Nevertheless, some of my best sources accept Pakistans claim of ignorance. The leadership was badly embarrassed and swears to me that they didnt know, says Masood. They say that since there were no foreigners living [openly] in Abbottabad, a quiet military town with no insurgency, they didnt pay much attention to the place and only had a small detachment of six or so [intelligence operatives] stationed there.
Whether or not you buy that argument, its even harder for the men in charge to explain away their blatant support for the Taliban. Not that theyre solely to blame for Americas failures in Afghanistan. In fact, U.S. strategy was flawed from the beginning. A decade ago, Afghans were exhausted by years of war and misrule. After the Talibans fall, the people were wishing desperately for peace, reconstruction, and economic growth. And they would have stood a good chance of getting their wish if only Washington had deployed enough troops to take charge, disarm the countrys warlords, and begin training a credible new Afghan security force. In that case, its very likely that the Americans could have stabilized the place and gone home long ago.
Instead, there were far too few U.S. troops for the job and worse, security had to be outsourced to Northern Alliance militia leaders. Many of those commanders were the very same warlords whose brutality, corruption, and abuse of power had led the Taliban to take up arms against them in the first place, back in the 1990s. That uprising had been enthusiastically supported by Pakistans military and intelligence chiefs, who believed that the northern warlords had help from Pakistans mortal enemy, India. Seeing the warlords return to power, the routed Taliban began to regroup against them in 2005. And then rather than suppressing the insurgency, America actually fed it by propping up an ineffective, corrupt, and unpopular government in Kabul, according to Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistans ambassador to Washington at the time of 9/11. U.S. strategy was flawed and led to Pashtun alienation, which then turned into a Taliban resurgence, she says. By the time America sent in a full contingent of troops, the Taliban were back in business. The U.S. surge had come seven or eight years too late.
Still, America has won a victory of sorts: bin Laden and his forces have effectively been eradicated from Afghanistan. Pakistans security forces may have turned a blind eye to the Talibans cross-border attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but in joint operations with the CIA and FBI, they cracked down hard on foreign jihadists in Pakistan. In fact, most of the big fish who have been captured alive were nabbed in Pakistani population centers. The avowed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, was arrested in 2003 in the Pakistani Armys garrison town of Rawalpindi. Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan, was picked up in 2002 in the city of Faisalabad. Another accused 9/11 plotter, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested in Karachi that same year. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the groups alleged director of operations, was arrested in 2005 in the northwestern town of Mardan as he tried to flee, disguised as a woman.
Nevertheless, ugly suspicions persist about possible Pakistani collusion with al Qaeda. The terse report of Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatehs interrogation -- nine short paragraphs doesnt answer the big question: how deep did her husbands support network go? Theres hardly a word about who facilitated bin Ladens travel, protection, the setting up of his residences, and his care and feeding. His widow mentioned that she was assisted in Karachi by her stepson Saad bin Laden and by some Pakistani family. Later she said the whole family was aided by two brothers, Ibrahim and Abrar, presumably a pair of Pashtuns from Swat who were bin Ladens prime fixers. The brothers families were actually the hosts of OBL family and everything was arranged by them, according to the reports paraphrase of Fatehs account.
Bin Ladens support network must have gone far beyond those two brothers, but defense analyst Rifaat Hussain says he has no reason to doubt Fatehs account, as far as it goes. You have to take these revelations seriously, he says. I dont think shes making it up . Womens testimony in Pakistan is usually very credible. The authorities may torture men, but not women. Nevertheless, Hussain says he doesnt expect more details to be made public from Fatehs testimony or from that of bin Ladens other two wives, if they ever agree to talk -- about who was guarding and sustaining bin Laden. Thats something that no one will reveal, he says. Its too sensitive, perhaps too explosive. The government will have to be careful as to how much they are going to reveal.
Relations between Islamabad and Washington have turned downright nasty. They were bad even before the bin Laden raid, which Pakistanis regarded as an assault on their sovereignty, and they got even worse after last Novembers U.S. air strikes that mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border posts. U.S.-Pakistani relations have always been like a yo-yo, going up and down, but this time its the lowest it has ever gone, and I dont see it moving in a more positive direction in the near future, says retired Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former ambassador to Washington. The mistrust is equally deep on both sides. After Abbottabad, the mistrust in Washington skyrocketed. The U.S. is saying, We cant trust these P akis, they are playing games.
All game-playing aside, the two countries have different objectives. Pakistan sees the Taliban as its only protection against Indias growing influence in Kabul. The Americans, having lost nearly 2,000 soldiers and spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan, are looking for an honorable exit, one that wont set off another all-out civil war. The Afghans themselves both want and fear a U.S. pullout. Theyre angry about recent incidents like the recent nighttime rampage for which an American staff sergeant now stands accused of 17 counts of murder. And yet they also worry that civil war could be looming.
Pakistani leaders complain that the Americans are demanding the impossible. They cant just shut down the Talibans sanctuaries, they say. Thousands of Pakistani soldiers have been killed or wounded in action against the militants on their side of the border. We cant just bring a steamroller through FATA, says Durrani. Hes talking about Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Area along the Afghan frontier. The U.S. with all its might cant even do that inside Afghanistan. So how do you expect Pakistan, a Third World country with only a fraction of your resources, to take on all these militants together? We dont have the capability. In any case, Lodhi says, the Americans shouldnt blame Pakistan: Sanctuaries dont create insurgencies. The problem lies in Afghanistan.
America may now be more dependent than ever on Pakistans cooperation. We both want to wind down the war into a controlled political solution, says Lodhi. So there is greater potential convergence between our two countries than there has been in the past 10 years. They just need to change their attitudes, she says: Maybe we can now morph the relationship into a more minimalistic and realistic one, with neither side having expectations that the other cannot fulfill. That sounds good. But dont hold your breath.
In my 10-plus years in Pakistan, Ive always been nonplussed by Washingtons patience with indeed, its indulgence of the Pakistani government. America has spent tens of billions of dollars in a basically futile effort to coax Islamabad into clamping down on the Taliban. The sanctuaries that Pakistan provides to them are largely responsible for the insurgencys resilience and ability to continue killing U.S. and Coalition soldiers. Without the cross-border havens where the guerrillas plan their attacks, recruit, train, raise funds, rest, reequip and receive medical attention, the Taliban would be a far less lethal, perhaps even containable, force.
The latest evidence of Pakistans untrustworthiness was given by Osama bin Ladens youngest wife. According to the official summary of her interrogation by Pakistani military and civilian investigators, the terrorist kingpin and his growing family lived a cushy, middle-class existence in a series of well-appointed houses from 2002 until his death last May. How could an Arab stranger, standing roughly 6-foot-5 and speaking neither Urdu or Pashtu, have moved undetected through the countrys ubiquitous police and military checkpoints? How were he and his wives able to escape the notice of their neighbors for so many years? And with a $25 million price on his head, no less. People generally know who is living next door, says retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. Neighbors must have asked questions. The local police as well.
From the moment of bin Ladens death last May, the Pakistani Armys top brass and the ISI have said loudly and repeatedly that they had no knowledge of bin Ladens presence in Abbottabad or anywhere else in Pakistan. Personally, I still find it hard to believe that the military and its intelligence services could be so incompetent. Nevertheless, some of my best sources accept Pakistans claim of ignorance. The leadership was badly embarrassed and swears to me that they didnt know, says Masood. They say that since there were no foreigners living [openly] in Abbottabad, a quiet military town with no insurgency, they didnt pay much attention to the place and only had a small detachment of six or so [intelligence operatives] stationed there.
Whether or not you buy that argument, its even harder for the men in charge to explain away their blatant support for the Taliban. Not that theyre solely to blame for Americas failures in Afghanistan. In fact, U.S. strategy was flawed from the beginning. A decade ago, Afghans were exhausted by years of war and misrule. After the Talibans fall, the people were wishing desperately for peace, reconstruction, and economic growth. And they would have stood a good chance of getting their wish if only Washington had deployed enough troops to take charge, disarm the countrys warlords, and begin training a credible new Afghan security force. In that case, its very likely that the Americans could have stabilized the place and gone home long ago.
Instead, there were far too few U.S. troops for the job and worse, security had to be outsourced to Northern Alliance militia leaders. Many of those commanders were the very same warlords whose brutality, corruption, and abuse of power had led the Taliban to take up arms against them in the first place, back in the 1990s. That uprising had been enthusiastically supported by Pakistans military and intelligence chiefs, who believed that the northern warlords had help from Pakistans mortal enemy, India. Seeing the warlords return to power, the routed Taliban began to regroup against them in 2005. And then rather than suppressing the insurgency, America actually fed it by propping up an ineffective, corrupt, and unpopular government in Kabul, according to Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistans ambassador to Washington at the time of 9/11. U.S. strategy was flawed and led to Pashtun alienation, which then turned into a Taliban resurgence, she says. By the time America sent in a full contingent of troops, the Taliban were back in business. The U.S. surge had come seven or eight years too late.
Still, America has won a victory of sorts: bin Laden and his forces have effectively been eradicated from Afghanistan. Pakistans security forces may have turned a blind eye to the Talibans cross-border attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but in joint operations with the CIA and FBI, they cracked down hard on foreign jihadists in Pakistan. In fact, most of the big fish who have been captured alive were nabbed in Pakistani population centers. The avowed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, was arrested in 2003 in the Pakistani Armys garrison town of Rawalpindi. Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan, was picked up in 2002 in the city of Faisalabad. Another accused 9/11 plotter, Ramzi bin al-Shibh was arrested in Karachi that same year. Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the groups alleged director of operations, was arrested in 2005 in the northwestern town of Mardan as he tried to flee, disguised as a woman.
Nevertheless, ugly suspicions persist about possible Pakistani collusion with al Qaeda. The terse report of Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatehs interrogation -- nine short paragraphs doesnt answer the big question: how deep did her husbands support network go? Theres hardly a word about who facilitated bin Ladens travel, protection, the setting up of his residences, and his care and feeding. His widow mentioned that she was assisted in Karachi by her stepson Saad bin Laden and by some Pakistani family. Later she said the whole family was aided by two brothers, Ibrahim and Abrar, presumably a pair of Pashtuns from Swat who were bin Ladens prime fixers. The brothers families were actually the hosts of OBL family and everything was arranged by them, according to the reports paraphrase of Fatehs account.
Bin Ladens support network must have gone far beyond those two brothers, but defense analyst Rifaat Hussain says he has no reason to doubt Fatehs account, as far as it goes. You have to take these revelations seriously, he says. I dont think shes making it up . Womens testimony in Pakistan is usually very credible. The authorities may torture men, but not women. Nevertheless, Hussain says he doesnt expect more details to be made public from Fatehs testimony or from that of bin Ladens other two wives, if they ever agree to talk -- about who was guarding and sustaining bin Laden. Thats something that no one will reveal, he says. Its too sensitive, perhaps too explosive. The government will have to be careful as to how much they are going to reveal.
Relations between Islamabad and Washington have turned downright nasty. They were bad even before the bin Laden raid, which Pakistanis regarded as an assault on their sovereignty, and they got even worse after last Novembers U.S. air strikes that mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at two border posts. U.S.-Pakistani relations have always been like a yo-yo, going up and down, but this time its the lowest it has ever gone, and I dont see it moving in a more positive direction in the near future, says retired Maj. Gen. Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former ambassador to Washington. The mistrust is equally deep on both sides. After Abbottabad, the mistrust in Washington skyrocketed. The U.S. is saying, We cant trust these P akis, they are playing games.
All game-playing aside, the two countries have different objectives. Pakistan sees the Taliban as its only protection against Indias growing influence in Kabul. The Americans, having lost nearly 2,000 soldiers and spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan, are looking for an honorable exit, one that wont set off another all-out civil war. The Afghans themselves both want and fear a U.S. pullout. Theyre angry about recent incidents like the recent nighttime rampage for which an American staff sergeant now stands accused of 17 counts of murder. And yet they also worry that civil war could be looming.
Pakistani leaders complain that the Americans are demanding the impossible. They cant just shut down the Talibans sanctuaries, they say. Thousands of Pakistani soldiers have been killed or wounded in action against the militants on their side of the border. We cant just bring a steamroller through FATA, says Durrani. Hes talking about Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Area along the Afghan frontier. The U.S. with all its might cant even do that inside Afghanistan. So how do you expect Pakistan, a Third World country with only a fraction of your resources, to take on all these militants together? We dont have the capability. In any case, Lodhi says, the Americans shouldnt blame Pakistan: Sanctuaries dont create insurgencies. The problem lies in Afghanistan.
America may now be more dependent than ever on Pakistans cooperation. We both want to wind down the war into a controlled political solution, says Lodhi. So there is greater potential convergence between our two countries than there has been in the past 10 years. They just need to change their attitudes, she says: Maybe we can now morph the relationship into a more minimalistic and realistic one, with neither side having expectations that the other cannot fulfill. That sounds good. But dont hold your breath.
gubbi
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This has got nothing to do with US politics. And just FYI, there is no one in the GOP who can mount an effective challenge to Obama.
Pakistanisage
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Being involved in any deals with the US is detrimental to Pakistan's National interest so no skin off our nose.
AbhimanyuShrivastav
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Tell that to your parlimentarians who are creating the strawman of a deal with USA
Developereo
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Election year politics is always a factor, especially given the perennial charge of Democracts being soft on national security. As for your second point, a Romney/Santorum ticket might give Obama/Biden a run for their money.
VCheng
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US policy with regards to this region, and to Pakistan in particular, is going to be managed longer term across presidencies, as has been done in the past too.
VCheng
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Between the lines, she seems to be saying that whatever Pakistan is asking for will likely not happen. What do you think?
Leviza
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what ever she saying who cares here in Pakistan.... These bloody american needs to know that things are getting out of their hands now ... what ever Pakistan ask is one thing and what agreed with americans is different..
But one thing is sure, americans are loosing the war in Afghanistan and they will face the slow and steady death in Afghanistan...
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