Article

2007-07-20 India-Pakistan

US media wants strikes against Waziristan Taliban

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Posted by Fred 2007-07-20 00:00|| || Front Page|| [8 views ] Top
File under: Taliban

#1 Roll back over a hundred years and see what it was like with the Apache raiding from Mexico into Texas and the New Mexico territory. Much the same. Glad handing and nods in Mexico and nothing happening [like that has changed in the same time frame - NOT]. It was a quagmire of unending military commitment and campaigns. No over all strategy. Diplomatic complications. Political interference. The Donks had just succeeded in executing a withdraw of Federal troops from the South [more of loading up the trains rather than the helicopters] which would herald the loss of civil rights by the black community for nearly a hundred years. If it hadn't been for the Apache directly raiding into Texas and forcing the Texas Donks into action, the Army would have been reduced to practically nothing. Maybe if we extended human life expectancy to a couple hundred years, we'd remember the follies of the usual suspects and grasp the patterns of repeated behaviors. It's the result of destroying the record of one's past, previously known as 'history'. If you don't have a past, its going to be an interesting if not a unnecessarily tough future.

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-07-20 09:18|| 2007-07-20 09:18|| Front Page Top

#2 Broken watch. Twice a day.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-07-20 10:32|| 2007-07-20 10:32|| Front Page Top

#3 Of course, if we do this, the Post will describe the operation as a "quagmire" by day two.

These people always love the operations that we aren't carrying out.(See Darfur)

Posted by charger 2007-07-20 11:07|| 2007-07-20 11:07|| Front Page Top

#4 The editorial in question...

Facing al-Qaeda
With the terrorists growing stronger, their sanctuary in Pakistan must be eliminated.
Thursday, July 19, 2007

HOMELAND Security Secretary Michael Chertoff makes a good point: No one who has been following the news should have been surprised by the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that al-Qaeda is growing stronger and that the threat that it will stage another major attack against the U.S. homeland is a serious one. That al-Qaeda has established a sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal areas -- cited as among "key elements" in the regeneration of "its homeland attack ability" by the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) -- has been known and discussed since last year. The "leverage" provided by a thriving affiliate organization in Iraq is all too obvious. What's missing in Washington is not information about al-Qaeda, Mr. Chertoff says, but a readiness to make hard decisions about how to protect the country.

The Homeland Security chief has some choices he'd like Congress to make, including modifications to visa-free travel to the United States and the installation of technology allowing for tighter screening of air travelers. The issues he raises are important, and we will return to them. Yet, if there is one decision that seems most urgent in light of the intelligence reports, it is what to do about the al-Qaeda base in Pakistan, which is allowing the group's senior leadership to coordinate with what the NIE calls "operational lieutenants" and to train militants for operations in Europe and the United States.

The Bush administration has been ducking this critical problem for too long, despite the clear lesson of Afghanistan. The Sept. 11 commission concluded that tolerance of al-Qaeda's sanctuary there was of "direct and indirect value . . . to al-Qaeda in preparing the 9/11 attack." The commission said the U.S. government must disrupt such bases in the future "using all elements of national power." Senior administration officials have publicly acknowledged since early this year that an al-Qaeda sanctuary exists in Pakistan. But they have rigidly stuck to a strategy of depending on Pakistan's autocratic president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to take that disruptive action -- even while Mr. Musharraf has pursued a contrary policy of appeasing the Pakistani tribesmen who are harboring the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Administration officials say they believe Mr. Musharraf will resume military operations in the tribal areas after a 10-month suspension -- if only because the militants broke a truce last week and attacked government forces. But earlier operations by the Pakistani army failed; government forces may be too weak to break up the sanctuary. Mr. Musharraf himself is preoccupied with preserving his own regime. If the militants offer him a separate peace, he may well accept it.

The administration says it has a comprehensive strategy that involves funneling $750 million over five years into development programs in the impoverished tribal areas and beefing up the Pakistani forces that patrol the frontier with Afghanistan. The State Department says it is also pressing for democratic elections in Pakistan this year, though it has ignored Mr. Musharraf's blatant preparations to manipulate the process. If it really were to focus on economic development and democracy rather than propping up the tottering general, the United States might contribute to stabilizing, over a period of years, one of the world's wildest territories.

Yet that won't address the imminent threat of a revived al-Qaeda organization able to strike the United States from a secure base. If Pakistani forces cannot -- or will not -- eliminate the sanctuary, President Bush must order targeted strikes or covert actions by American forces, as he has done several times in recent years. Such actions run the risk of further destabilizing Pakistan. Yet those risks must be weighed against the consequences of another large-scale attack on U.S. soil. "Direct intervention against the sanctuary in Afghanistan apparently must have seemed . . . disproportionate to the threat," the Sept. 11 commission noted. The United States must not repeat that tragic misjudgment.

Posted by tu3031 2007-07-20 11:15|| 2007-07-20 11:15|| Front Page Top

#5 The Bush administration has been ducking this critical problem for too long, despite the clear lesson of Afghanistan.

Hmmm, seems I recall a Predator strike against a home where A-Q #2 was supposedly visiting. I know there have been several "targeted killings" in Pakistan, but there's only so much you can do in another nation's sovereign territory - at least if you agree to work within the framework of international law. As long as we have to recognize Pakistan's right to exist, we have to acknowledge that unrestrained attacks on foreign soil are acts of aggression - I.E., grounds for declaring war against the aggressor. We either have to force Perv to clean his own house, or we need to decide that war with Pakistan is no big deal and go for it. Either way will not only require action from the President, but also from both parties in Congress.

Posted by Old Patriot">Old Patriot 2007-07-20 13:22|| http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/]">[http://oldpatriot.blogspot.com/] 2007-07-20 13:22|| Front Page Top

#6 The Bush administration has been ducking this critical problem for too long

Coming from anyone save the democrats or MSM, this accusation might actually carry some weight. It doesn't, so it doesn't.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-07-20 18:53|| 2007-07-20 18:53|| Front Page Top

#7 The Bush administration has been ducking this critical problem for too long

That's what happens when you get tied down in Iraq.

If we pulled all the troops out of Baghdad tomorrow, think what that would do to help with the Pakistani problem. Why, we could send them all to Darfur and Al Qaida would throw up it hands in surrender.

Posted by Skunky Glins5285">Skunky Glins5285 2007-07-20 20:39|| http://john-smokegetsinmyeyes.blogspot.com/]">[http://john-smokegetsinmyeyes.blogspot.com/] 2007-07-20 20:39|| Front Page Top

#8 /sarcasm>

Posted by Skunky Glins5285">Skunky Glins5285 2007-07-20 20:39|| http://john-smokegetsinmyeyes.blogspot.com/]">[http://john-smokegetsinmyeyes.blogspot.com/] 2007-07-20 20:39|| Front Page Top

#9 As a form of balance, the WaPo requires itself to call for strong military action in half the cases. In another form of symetry the WaPo maintains the same level of stupidity in both its hawk and dove templates.

Posted by Super Hose 2007-07-20 23:45|| 2007-07-20 23:45|| Front Page Top

23:45 Super Hose
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