Pakistan helping the Taliban

You mean they've given them nearly as many guns as the Americans did?

Oooh, satirical!

 

There was a documentary on this last night, it's possible on iPlayer (I think it was on the BBC anyway)

To be honest, I don't think many people would be surprised, maybe that's just me being a cynic, even Bin Laden was chilling out in Pakistan when they got to him. Like it says in the article, with all the dribs and drabs of information, it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes.

I er... can't really add to that, I elected to turn on the playstation and play Mortal Kombat instead... which probably isn't contextually appropriate.

 

If there were an Encyclopedia entry for the phrase "with friends like these, who needs enemies?", right next to it would be a picture of Pakistan. This has been evident for quite a while, but after the Osama thing went down, their duplicity was exposed for all to see. We're certainly no angels in the region, but still - such blatant betrayal is pretty remarkable.

 

So...now that we all 'know' will the USA Invade, to fight the evil there?
They should muster all of Rohan, to engage this Saruman.

 

Depends on who wins next year.

 

I agree with DR - I think the operation that finally got us OBL was the final nail in the coffin. Strange how every time we don't tip off the Pakistanis to our next operation that the operation is successful. We were trying to get OBL for nearly 10 years with the "help" of the Pakistanis, and then the first time we go it alone, we get him.

The only thing this article does is reveal what was already clear. It merely changes strong suspicion into unequivocal proof.

 

No news there. On the other hand, I'm surprised that after all the drone attacks Pakistan is still pretendin to be the US' friend either. Most countries tend to react fairly negatively to any other country using force like that on their territory, whatever the reason.

 

I'm not surprised by that either. I'm the equipment manager for our soccer club and I constantly get spammed from Pakistan with offers to sell us cheap soccer balls and uniforms.

 

Ummm ... none of this is really a surprise is it? It was well known when I was in the military you couldn't trust Pakistan. In fact you assumed by involving the Pakistanis any mission was compromised.

IMO nothing will be done about this because everyone in high places already knew Pakistan was not completely on our side. Both countries veiw each other as a necessary evil.

 

what? never heared the saying "love thy neighbour"?

 

I wonder if this relates to why Bhutto was killed.

She may have been a Pakistani leader with both the desire to fight against the Taliban and the power to make such a fight happen.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in Pakistani history the old military dictatorship tried to work with/even promote Taliban like folks (inside and outside of Pakistan).... maybe "Taliban like" is a bit strong but still people who were harsh in their thinking.

The disturbing part of this for me is that the Pakistani military was helping. I was wondering if the ISI (which has long been accused of having sympathizers with the Taliban within it) and the military seemed to disagree within Pakistan on this, but now I wonder.

 

Pakistan is pretty well by definition a Muslim country -- spare me any documents "proving" otherwise, we all know it was created as a Muslim nation so that India could be a Hindu nation. We also know that that didn't work well at all -- how long was it before Pakistan and India started shooting each other over the Kashmir area? Less than 3 years, IIRC, and probably less than 1 year.

Pakistan simply cannot afford to officially alienate the United States and the West -- they are bordered by a pretty powerful nation that has no reason to love them, and should Pakistan lose American support, and see ALL of that support go to India, they are going to take a pounding.

But that said, Muslim nations* seem to have a serious hate on for the United States and Western culture in general. I don't think they have much of a leg to stand on, as the West does a lot for these nations, but I also understand that Western nations haven't treated Muslim nations very well in the past.**

So Pakistan's official policy is always likely to be somewhat friendly toward the U.S., but unofficially they have no problems associating with the enemies of the States. They would likely wish to see U.S. influence in the whole area weakened, so as to let them hammer out their differences with India without anyone interfering.

I had some friends from this area growing up, and they were good guys, but in general, I've found Pakistani immigrants to be . . . . uncooperative in terms of getting along in this country and showing others the respect they seem to feel they deserve from their neighbours. That's about as delicately as I can word it.

* I speak of nations that tend to be ruled by Sharia law or officially Muslim in their constitutions, or that have a large majority of Muslims therein.

** This is a huge understatement -- I'm thinking primarily of England's time occupying India, but there are other instances.

 

Is it the culture, or is it the religion? I mean, in countries that have Sharia law, a lot of things that are perfectly legal pretty much everywhere else aren't legal there. And yes, this goes into areas of cultural norms, but I think that the main problem they have for our culture is that it isn't a Muslim culture. Which takes it right back to being a religious issue.

The whole thing is mystifying to me. How anyone can possibly hate someone living on the other side of the world who you don't know, will never meet, and will have absolutely zero impact on your life is beyond me. I don't give a rat's ass about what Joe Muslim in Pakistan does with his life, and I'd like to think that Joe Muslim feels the exact same way about me.

But even if we're talking about Joe Radical Muslim, I can't understand why he would hate me, or anyone else living on the other side of the world. (That said I can understand if Joe Radical Muslim is from a nation that is being militarily occupied by a foreign power, and hates that.) To put into perspective, I hated that OBL masterminded the attacks on the WTC. But that did not cause me to hate all Afghanis, nor the country of Afghanistan itself. Just one particular prick who led a group that happened to be from Afghanistan.

 

Unfortunately not everyone felt the same way you did. There were people, normally reasonable people, who were advocating all out war against OBL and all nations that gave him any support. The less reasonable ones were wanting to turn the middle east into a glass factory (for those who are unfamiliar with the term, a nuclear explosion creats enought heat to turn sand into glass). The cry against "ragheads" led to violence against peaceful people in the US that had nothing to do with OBL.

Prejudice is everywhere and I've learned a person doesn't need to know someone to hate them.

 

You mean like the Bush administration? And all the countries that supported the invasion of Afghanistan (such as Canada)?

 

Let me point out that while OBL was not an afghan the Taliban did back & protect him (alliance).

Moreover a majority of afghans (the people living in Afghanistan) were glad to see the Taliban go.

Part of the reason there is still a war going on there is because the W administration proved it was perfectly capable of winning the initial shooting part of a war and then royally f**king up the peace (or what could have been peace) to follow.

Something similar happened in Iraq.

But lets focus on Afghanistan for the moment.

The US could have helped build a functional democracy that took care of its people and even caught OBL to boot.

Instead the W administration (whom I would argue was not a stranger to nor enemy of corruption) allowed warlords to keep power within the new government, didn't make sure aid money was spent properly (why give that money to the actual teachers who try to teach afghan children when a group of people in the new government we-the USA-helped build could pocket most of it or hold on to it until they were sure they got their cut even though it was designated as money for education?)

Yes in many places there was and/or is an anti-US feeling-some may be justified and some not. However that doesn't mean that the US (under the W administration) had to screwup the aftermath of 2 different wars and, by effect, extend the wars by years.