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Boomer kills 10 Helmand picnickers
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Page 4: Opinion
15 00:00 JosephMendiola [1] 
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22 00:00 3dc [3] 
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Page 6: Politix
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12 00:00 OldSpook [2]
China-Japan-Koreas
U.S. Firms Feel Shut Out in China
Posted by: tipper || 03/22/2010 05:14 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A reciprocating saw, does it not cut both ways?
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/22/2010 8:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Come on, you really think the State Dept has had any interests in American business and unemployment? Or that matter anything about America.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/22/2010 8:45 Comments || Top||

#3  The State Department has no interest in free markets, and the enthusiasm for dealing with China is cooling for businesses, while the fervor for protectionism is growing in traditional Democrat constituencies. So it is reasonable to expect official economic relations with China to sour.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/22/2010 9:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Greed bit you in the ass did it? But did you have to take America down with you?
Posted by: ed || 03/22/2010 10:56 Comments || Top||

#5  U.S. Firms Feel Shut Out in China. No $hit! What did you expect? It is a two way street. We ship our jobs to China. They send us goods. Our jobs go away. Eventually, we have to borrow money from the Chinese to buy their goods. Time to clean house in Washington, D.C. ASAP. November seems like a long way off.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/22/2010 17:07 Comments || Top||

#6  WAFF > YOUNG CHINESE [high/better-paid than Parents] NOT WILLING TO WORK IN FACTORIES, INDIANS AND FILIPINOS TO FLOOD CHINA.

GENERATIONAL SHIFT > Your Dad's REGULAR-CREW HAIRCUT is surrendering to YOUTHFUL MOHAWKS + COLORED HAIR.

* TOPIX > POPULOUS CHINA HEADS FOR LABOR SHORTAGE, as due mainly to demographic consequences of 1980's national "ONE CHILD" POLICY.

IMO also read, "BRAIN DRAIN" = MILYUHNS AND ZILYUHNS AND RILYUHNS OF UNMARRIED, EDUCATED YOUNG ADULT CHIN MALES SEEK WIVES, ARROGANT FASCIST DECADENT CORRUPT CAPITALIST FORTUNES OUTSIDE OF CHINA.

* SAME > CHINA TO BECOME A MAJOR TOURISM DESTINATION BY 2015.

* DAILY TIMES.PK > CHINA BATTLES FOR CENTRAL ASIAN INFLUENCE. Traditional Regional powerbroker RUSSIA's CONTIN ECON WOES + centered US focus on AFPAK only has induced a flurry of NEW + EXPANDING CHINA-CENTRAL ASIA BIZZ DEALS.

CHINA > WORKING "SOFTLY" OR COVERTLY TO EMPOWER, ENTRENCH ITS POSITION IN CENTRAL ASIA.

IMO prob safe to say that HISTOR LAND-POWER CHINA + its PLAN is curr heavily GEOPOL, TECHS obstructed by the US + ALLIES in WESTPAC + EAST-SOUTH ASIA LITTORALS [Strategic-Theater Denial], hence its focus for time being on [Anti-RUSS/US]CENTRAL-MAINLAND ASIA VENTURES.

* WMF > US IS NERVOUS AT SPEED OF JAPAN'S NEW ECONOMIC, GEOPOL RAPPROCHEMENT WITH CHINA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/22/2010 21:40 Comments || Top||

#7  If the demon rat have found a way to post a Kenyan interloper in the White House, don't you think they'll find a way to manufacture some crisis
to postpone or cancel election in November.

Standard in socialist country:

ONE MAN,
ONE VOTE,
ONE TIME!

Worked well for Hitler, Arafat, Chavez et al.
PRESIDENT FOR LIFE! Howz that sound?

Posted by: Hotspur666 || 03/22/2010 21:41 Comments || Top||

#8  OOOOPPPSIES< forgot RENSE > CHINA'S EXPANDING DESERTS NOW MAKE UP 1/3 OF COUNTRY.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/22/2010 22:21 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
NYTimes Op-Ed Admits Obamacare will increase deficit by $500B+
Removing the unrealistic annual Medicare savings ($463 billion) and the stolen annual revenues from Social Security and long-term care insurance ($123 billion), and adding in the annual spending that so far is not accounted for ($114 billion) quickly generates additional deficits of $562 billion in the first 10 years. And the nation would be on the hook for two more entitlement programs rapidly expanding as far as the eye can see.
NYTimes allows the facts out the day after the bill is passed; MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
Posted by: lord garth || 03/22/2010 07:41 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm rather astonished that the NY Times allowed any facts detrimental to the leftist position out ever.
Posted by: AzCat || 03/22/2010 10:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Damn them for sitting on this! Were this to have been released a week ago, it would have changed the entire debate about the bill.

When did the supposedly free press become part of the problem instead of the solution?

Perhaps we should be going after these people who mislead the public in far worse ways than the politicians do.

Posted by: Beldar Threreling9726 || 03/22/2010 10:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Only $56 billion per year? The NYT are as delusional as Obama voters. Whoops, they're one and the same.
Posted by: ed || 03/22/2010 10:58 Comments || Top||

#4  This news release is orchistrated by the Democrats, of which NYT is a mouth piece. They will now use these numbers to push for additional taxes and industrial nationalisation to pay for the until now unreportef costs.
Posted by: Elmaiger Hatfield7630 || 03/22/2010 11:17 Comments || Top||

#5  These numbers will also be used to justify health care rationing, long wait times for treatment, and out right rejection of expensive treatment. Unless you are a part of the new ruling class, ther Federal Government which then you are part of the new gravy train. They report to the King Obama in DC ("Da' Castle").
Posted by: Elmaiger Hatfield7630 || 03/22/2010 11:29 Comments || Top||

#6  It's a signed Op-Ed contribution, not a NYT editorial. The author is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005. IIRC Holtz-Eakin's a Republican.
Posted by: lex || 03/22/2010 13:17 Comments || Top||

#7  Yes, buy again, "No Crisis Should Be Waisted". Their Strategists are not stupid. They know they cannot put this out with them as the source. This information would have been a show stopper if the NYT used it prior to yesterday. Now they need it for a different reason. To reduce end user expectations.
Posted by: Elmaiger Hatfield7630 || 03/22/2010 13:37 Comments || Top||

#8  To reduce end user expectations.
Posted by Elmaiger Hatfield7630


Spot on Hatfield. Expectation Management, an early start. Blaming the Bush years and a lagging economy soon to follow.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/22/2010 13:45 Comments || Top||

#9  Yes, buy again, "No Crisis Should Be Waisted".

:)
Quoted for the truth, the fun, and awesome name.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/22/2010 16:50 Comments || Top||

#10  The MSM has aided and abetted the destruction of this country. They are going broke; no one trusts them. Well, we will see where they end up in a country that is broke. It appears the CBO may not be as non-partisan as touted. The author is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2003 to 2005. How can the estimates be so far off in today's CBO? They could have come up with a better cost estimate and it would have torpedoed the present health care bill that passed. Hmmmmm.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/22/2010 17:01 Comments || Top||

#11  The MSM has aided and abetted the destruction of this country. They are going broke; no one trusts them

Don't worry Obama will raise taxes on the rich (for very small values of 'rich') and give the money to the state run media.
Posted by: DMFD || 03/22/2010 17:55 Comments || Top||

#12  How can the estimates be so far off in today's CBO?

Easy, the CBO is required to produce an estimate based on the legislation & assumptions that are given to them. They operate under rules which greatly essentially eliminate their ability to examine reality in the face of their being presented with a pack of blatant lies. Fantasy in --> fantasy out.
Posted by: AzCat || 03/22/2010 18:03 Comments || Top||

#13  So the deck is easily stacked by whatever administration is in power and wants to game it that way.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/22/2010 18:43 Comments || Top||

#14  Ad the scumbag press let us down again. When we people see that its time to tear apart the MSM? They are one of the causes of the disease that now infects our republic.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/22/2010 21:38 Comments || Top||

#15  FREEREPUBLIC > NEWS BUSTERS > AL SHARPTON: THE AMERICAN PUBLIC OVERWHELMINGLY VOTED FOR SOCIALISM WHEN THEY ELECTED OBAMA.

Also from NEWS BUSTERS > GUILIANI: OBAMA'S NUMBER ONE PRIORITY WAS "IDEOLOGICAL COMMITMENT" TO GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER OF MEDICINE. "Instead of PRIVATIZING ... We are taking MORE ROLES OF THE ECONOMY FOR THE US GOVERNMENT, and its not an exaggeration to say that we [USA] are starting to look more like a EUORPEAN SOCIAL DEMOCRACY THAN AN AMERICAN FREE-MARKET SOCIETY".

* FOX NEWS AM [paraph] > PASSAGE OF [so-called] "OBAMACARE" means POTUS BAMMER will go down in history [ME > MAHA-RUSHIAN "HISTOIRE"] as EITHER THE GREATEST POTUS IN US HISTORY OR THE WORST SINCE JIMMY CARTER.

IOW, POTUS BAMMER = WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON, LINCOLN, ROOSEVELT(S), KENNEDY, REAGAN + BUSHES, etc.

versus

POTUS JIMBO.

The good news for the BAMMER is that IIRC FOX NEWS AM didn't mention or link POTUS BILL wid JIMBO, or OTHER. IOW, everything + nothing is good for POTUS BILL which is indir good for the Bammer.

BAMMER > As per MSM-Net rants, could also be the GREATEST MUSLIM, DEMOLIB, COMMIE-SOCIALIST, ASIAN, AFRICAN, ANTI-CAPITALIST/FREE MARKET/PRIV, + even NON-AMERICAN = NON-QUALIFIED AMERICAN AMER POTUS E-V-A-R, iff he can ever formally admit to being one, or a few???

In any case, IMO YEAR 2012 + PAN-ISLAMIST NUCLEARIZATION includ IRAN > again, will DETERMINATIVELY/CONCLUSIVELY decide "AMERICA-VS-AMERIKA, OWG-MIGHTY-USSA-VS-OWG-WEAK-USRoA" STRATEGIC PATH.

But, I digress ....
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/22/2010 23:09 Comments || Top||


How they Voted from House Roll Call
Posted by: 3dc || 03/22/2010 00:52 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


#2  Republicans and other responsible congress critters need to scrutinize each appropriation bill and bring this stinking and corrupt government to a halt so we can sort out the corruption and hold it up to the light of day.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/22/2010 3:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Been there / done that Paul. We the People had very little tolerance for Republicans bringing the federal government to a screeching halt. It wouldn't be any different this time.
Posted by: AzCat || 03/22/2010 7:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Indeed. We will now see all those doctors who threatened to retire.

I suspect the number will be similar to the number of leftists who moved to Canada after Bush was elected.

People will look around, figure out how to make money, and the devil take the hindmost.

Look at Stupak for an example.
Posted by: Kelly || 03/22/2010 7:19 Comments || Top||

#5  I don't know if anyone has even seen the actual bill they voted on, but in an earlier version it looked like doctors' pay scales were going to be set by the government, and without regard to specialization. Can't see how that will stand, but stranger things have been done.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/22/2010 7:58 Comments || Top||

#6  The decline in doctors and medical professinals is already in a disturbing downward spiral. With an estimated additional cost of $100m per year it will be interesting to see how long Caterpiller remains in the United States. Ford motor, Deere, and other large employers may be looking at moving soon on as well. This may be the straw that breaks the back of our remaining industrial base. Of course none of this bothers Barry or his leftest congressional elites living it up in Pyongyang on the Potomac.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/22/2010 8:18 Comments || Top||

#7  Kelly, it sounds to me like you have a lot of animosity/contempt towards the medical profession. Perhaps you're glad the bill passed? Yes there are some rapacious docs who will stay purely for the money, but many will, in fact leave.

Doctors WILL leave, but in most cases, their leaving won't take the form of an immediate shutting of doors. When socialized medicine swept Europe in the late 1800's-mid 1900's, many of the doctors did in fact leave the profession, the pattern was reasonably similar in each country.

It will go something like this:

1. Some of the older and most experienced docs will, in fact, simply shut down their practices. Probably around 5-10%. Many others (probably another 10%) will retire considerably earlier than they would have otherwise, probably as soon as their retirement is funded, instead of working another 10 years when they are at the peak of a lifetime of medical wisdom and are at their most useful to sick people. So not only are doctors going to be leaving, but they're taking the best the profession has to offer with them. Proportionately, this is even worse than 20% of random doctors disappearing.

2. Other docs will alter the business plans of their practice in ways that will be the equivalent of retiring, particularly if they already have plenty of money/investments saved. For instance, they will cut back the number of days they work, stop taking new patients, become non-insurance practices, become boutique practices, stop doing emergency medicine, get into cosmetic medicine, etc. In essence, this removal from the general treatment modality we've come to expect is the equivalent of the doctor retiring from full service.

3. A certain percentage of current med students will drop out, realizing that they can never recoup the money or attain the standard of living in the fashion they imagined after 4 yrs of school and 3-10 years of internships/residencies due to the government setting their fees much lower than a free market would dictate. Except for the affirmative action students, med students are among the very brightest and hard working there are, and many will (correctly) see their talent wasted in a field where their income and opportunities and freedom are limited. There will be other places where they can apply their talents that will provide much greater opprtunities for elevating themselves. They WILL opt for those instead.

4. For the same reason, a VERY LARGE percentage of the very highest quality potential med school candidates - particularly those who do not come from wealthy families - will never even apply to med school, knowing that it is a bad deal and that with their brains they can do much better elsewhere. This will cause less-qualified applicants to be accepted, meaning more students flunking out, or incompetent doctors graduating, the end result either way being fewer competent doctors.


The final end game will be that kids from independently wealthy families who are extremely bright and have the desire to be doctors will do so, and pretty much everyone else applying to med school will be far less qualified than what we've become used to seeing - lesser kids who won't mind accepting a much-reduced salary than current doctors and crushing debt because the ultimate income is still more money than their brains and talent would allow them to make anywhere else.

The overall number of doctors will be less, not more, and many if not most of the new graduates will be less qualified and less competent. Also, take into account the fact that competition for other fields - engineering, business, law - will become much more acute, because people who otherwise weren't competing for those spots and who are highly talented will now be vying for those areas.


Is all of this mercenary? Some is, perhaps.

Yet who can blame the doctor who sees his neighbors voting in a government which curtails the doc's salary so the same neighbor can have lower health care costs and is outraged enough to leave his profession?

Who could blame the doc for coming to the conclusion that the neighbor who would use the government as a bludgeon to force doctors to make less money so that said neighbor could have more doesn't deserve high-quality health care, period?

I know I couldn't.
Posted by: no mo uro || 03/22/2010 8:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Not to worry, Kelly, I hear Cuba has plenty of doctors. They're for sale available. Hugo Chavez says they're great.

I am a physician, and I can tell you that this new idiot health care plan will weigh heavily in my own future plans.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/22/2010 9:38 Comments || Top||

#9  I can't blame Dr. Steve at all. No legitimate medical practice, hospital, or business can survive a negative cash flow or be harnessed to a burgeoning avalanche of gov't rules and regulations. Difficult at times to get past a PA and see a real doctor in my community NOW!

Elderly Inuits who could not keep up with the nomadic tribes were said to have been pushed through the ice to their death. Eliminate health care providers and restrict services to the elderly. What a convenient and actuarially sound method for methodically exterminating the predominately caucasion baby boomer bubble. They only waste those social security checks on the slots in Vegas anyway. The sooner they are gone the sooner their wealth can be redistributed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/22/2010 10:05 Comments || Top||

#10  Indeed. We will now see all those doctors who threatened to retire.

Something like that. The word may not fit perfectly, but for those who understand what is going on, it is a decent fit.

As for Stupak, that must have been a setup, or he's just a clueless wanna-be. Nobody on the planet believes that an executive order is binding.
Posted by: gorb || 03/22/2010 10:36 Comments || Top||

#11  Now that the left is ruining Dr. Steves profession, maybe I can afford to hire him for a couple of discussions. Lawd knows there aint a whole lotta people to talk to about endocronology, fat oxidation in the liver, problems uptaking iron, etc. Thanks for shafting those select few people, Barry. I was starting to think I'd never be able to afford my own doctor.

In my best Red Formean: Dumbasses.
Posted by: MIke N. || 03/22/2010 10:50 Comments || Top||

#12  Here is some information on what the new taxes will look like. If you have investment income such as rental income, you will pay 23.8% interest on it.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 03/22/2010 11:55 Comments || Top||

#13  No, just disgusted with my fellow man.

I have a "pre-existing" condition. I have been turned down in my inquires regarding long term insurance. I also understand why. Oh well. Bad job of picking my grandparents.

If I had my illness once Obamacare reaches its stride I would most likely be dead as I am no longer a "contributing" member of society.

Maybe fewer people will go into medicine, but I also suspect that few if any practicing doctors will really quit. We will probable also have to keep importing doctors and nurses from the PI and India. Problem of course is, like finding a gullible Chinaman to fund your programs, this has a limited life.

Actually I suspect that the only way that even possibly to make this abomination work will be the nationalization of the medical industry. Probably coming next.

I saw Stupak coming a mile away.

I believe that most people are "stupaks". Looking back on it I am forced to conclude that their creation started in the early 60's. Long story, that.

I had a discussion with one last night. Nice guy. Just not very smart. He actually is against everything Obama is for but supports him four square; he is willing to give the system a try for 3 or 4 years to see how things work out. I pointed out to him that for the first 3 or 4 years he would be doing nothing but pay taxes. He really did not care because only the "rich" are going to pay.

When I went into additional detail all I received an uncomfortable "give the system a try for 3 or 4 years to see how things work out".

I know many people in that category. Some quite well "educated". One person is even in the process of starting a small business.

While I believe that the Democratic leadership is insane I also believe they are true believers and most probably will not be stopped; just as a small element of every homeowner's association makes life miserable for everyone and eventually gets simply because normal people just give up after awhile.

I applaud "resistance" to this bill, and hope to be a part of it, I have the feeling that such is a "Tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

In the end I think we will go broke and lose.

The dignity of Man is now elsewhere. I just have a hard time understanding where.

Posted by: Kelly || 03/22/2010 12:23 Comments || Top||

#14  Actually I suspect that the only way that even possibly to make this abomination work will be the nationalization of the medical industry. Probably coming next.

BINGO! Give that man a cigar. This is the real intent of the Deathcare legislation. It was never about 'fixing healthcare' but about driving healthcare to nationalization. It does absolutely nothing to 'fix healthcare' yet everything to 'control healthcare'.


Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/22/2010 13:25 Comments || Top||

#15  "I also suspect that few if any practicing doctors will really quit."

Wrong. NEJM says otherwise. Expect to lose 10% of doctors over the next 5 years, and a similar loss of med school students, once they realize that they will be trying to work off the huge school debts in a government operated and regulated industry, with trial lawyers still roaming freely to sue them into poverty.

This was a disaster.
Posted by: Beldar Threreling9726 || 03/22/2010 16:08 Comments || Top||

#16  Hang in there Kelly. More folks agree with you than you might know.

(insert Afrikkaner tribal lore) (veiled refrance to race) (slight nod to spelling check) (veiled excuse for agery and I killed 'em all when I was in NAM, Iraq, Can't Tell U Where)
Posted by: Shipman || 03/22/2010 17:01 Comments || Top||

#17  I am a physician, and I can tell you that this new idiot health care plan will weigh heavily in my own future plans.

I am sorry Dr. White. I hear the same things from my physicians; all good and bright people. I think we are all in for some very hard times in this country.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/22/2010 17:10 Comments || Top||

#18  doctors' pay scales were going to be set by the government

"Paging Dr. Galt, Paging Dr. John Galt ... uh ... has anyone seen Dr. Galt?"
Posted by: DMFD || 03/22/2010 17:57 Comments || Top||

#19  FOX NEWS AM > #4's Post is broadly the same argument or conclusions KRISTOL was making this AM, i.e. that Obamacare will pass because BOTH POLS + MAINSTREAM ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR NEAR-TERM PERSONAL OR IMMEDIATE CONVENIENCE, POCKETBOOK, ETC. + NOT ON HOW OBAMACARE, ETC. WILL FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE AMERICA [unto GOVTISM-SOCIALISM].

* Compare wid WND > RUSH LIMBAUGH: [Traditional US]ELECTIONS COULD END UNDER OBAMA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/22/2010 19:49 Comments || Top||

#20  BOTH POLS + MAINSTREAM ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR NEAR-TERM PERSONAL OR IMMEDIATE CONVENIENCE

Too bad we can't make them worried about their near-term physical well being.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/22/2010 21:42 Comments || Top||

#21  What disturbs me with all this vote, is yet again the Obama admin has little to no concern for the people. His concerns are self serving and I believe filled with ulterior motives. Now it will be up to the states and this is just what that ass for a prez wants. He wants the states to sue, he wants them to become divided, he wants this nation more divided. His plans are getting more and more clear, his intent is to divide our nation and tear it apart. But why? I don't know. So he can in some self serving way "save us all" and rebuild in some socialistic model? I dont know, but the wheel is in motion. I just wonder who is pulling the Obama strings.
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/22/2010 22:08 Comments || Top||

#22  49Pan - Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and fellow travelers...
Nuff said.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/22/2010 23:06 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan simply sees no reason to stop supporting terrorists
By Ashley J. Tellis
As the search for stability in Afghanistan intensifies, the threat of violence and a wider conflagration in the region is growing. In an effort to secure a dominant position in Afghanistan and to blunt India's rise, Pakistan has mobilized militants and terrorists on both sides of its borders.

While the Afghan Taliban fighting the military forces of the United States and, more generally, those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization continue to enjoy Pakistani support, Islamabad has exchanged its previous policy of supporting anti-Indian insurgencies with that of supporting terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organization that mounted the deadly assault against the Indian city of Mumbai in November 2008. With tension persisting between the two South Asian rivals, such a tactic not only increases the prospect of major war between New Delhi and Islamabad, but, given Lashkar-e-Taiba's growing reach, it could well have global consequences.

The disruption of the India-Pakistan peace process, which has remained frozen since the time of the Mumbai attack, is due principally to Pakistan's unwillingness to bring to justice the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership, which has enjoyed the support of the country's powerful intelligence organization, Inter-Services Intelligence. After almost two decades of punting, many Pakistanis today – academics, policy analysts, and even government officials – concede that the fomenting of insurgencies inside Indian territory has been a main component of Pakistan's national strategy. However, this late admission only comes long after Pakistan's military establishment has moved to replace its failed strategy of encouraging anti-Indian insurgencies with the more lethal approach of unleashing terrorist groups against its neighbor.

Since its formation in 1947, Pakistan has sought to stir up insurgencies inside India. The earliest efforts in 1947 and 1948 centered on provoking insurrections in Jammu and Kashmir in the hope that an internal rebellion would permit Pakistan's seizure of this disputed state.

These efforts failed miserably. Through three major conflicts between Pakistan and India, the people of Kashmir remained loyal to New Delhi. After Pakistan's defeat in the war of 1971, Islamabad attempted to stoke other secessionist movements, this time not to make any territorial gains but merely to avenge its military humiliation. But this effort, too, was beaten back by the Indian state. Finally, in 1989, when the first genuinely Kashmiri uprising against New Delhi broke out, Islamabad quickly threw its support behind the insurgents who were led by the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. The revolt, however, was overpowered by the Indian Army by 1993 – and this defeat brought about the momentous change in Islamabad's strategy against India.

Flushed with confidence flowing from the success of the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union during the 1980s, Pakistan sought to replicate in the east what it had managed to do in the west, namely bring about the defeat of a great power larger than itself.

Using the same instruments as before – radical Islamist groups that had sprung up throughout Pakistan – Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence pushed into Jammu and Kashmir for the first time in 1993 by backing combat-hardened individuals alien to the area who were tasked with inflicting large-scale murder and mayhem.

Throughout this period, Pakistan's traditional strategy of fomenting insurgencies against India gave way to a new approach, namely, fomenting terrorism (an instrument that most Pakistanis still refuse to acknowledge). No longer would Pakistan rely on dissatisfied indigenous populations to advance Islamabad's interests; instead, vicious bands of Islamic terrorists, most of whom had little or no connection to any existing grievances with India, would be unleashed indiscriminately to kill large numbers of civilians.

From 1996 on, these attacks were deliberately extended at the behest of Inter-Services Intelligence throughout India. Of all the myriad terrorist organizations involved, none enjoyed greater state support than Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has since then sprung to international attention because of the bloodbath in Mumbai. However, the group had been active in South Asia since 1987, first in Afghanistan and thereafter in India.

Of all the terrorist groups that Inter-Services Intelligence has sponsored over the years, Lashkar-e-Taiba has been especially favored because its dominant Punjabi composition matches the predominant ethnicity that is found in the Pakistani Army and the Pakistani intelligence services. At the same time, the group's puritanical form of Salafism has undergirded its willingness to engage in risky military operations throughout India. Many of those inside Inter-Services Intelligence are deeply sympathetic to Lashkar-e-Taiba's vision of recovering “lost Muslim lands' in Asia and Europe, as well as of resurrecting a universal Islamic Caliphate by using the instrument of jihad.

Although Pakistan's propaganda machine often asserts that Lashkar-e-Taiba is a Kashmiri organization that is moved by the Kashmiri cause, it is in fact nothing of the sort. The 3,000-odd foot soldiers who make up its fighting cadre are drawn primarily from the Pakistani Punjab. India's intelligence services today estimate that Lashkar-e-Taiba maintains some kind of presence in 21 countries worldwide with the intention of supporting or participating in what its leader, Hafeez Saeed, has called the perpetual “jihad against the infidels.' Consequently, Lashkar-e-Taiba's operations in and around India, which often receive the most attention, are only part of a larger campaign that has taken Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives and soldiers as far afield as Australia, Canada, Chechnya, China, Eritrea, Kosovo, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the UK, and even the US.

Given the organization's vast presence, its prolific capacity to raise funds worldwide, and its ability to conduct militant activities at great distances from its home base, Lashkar-e-Taiba has become the preferred instrument of Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan's ongoing covert war against India. This includes the campaign that Pakistan is currently waging against the Indian presence in Afghanistan, as well as against the counterinsurgency efforts of the United States in the country. Active Lashkar-e-Taiba operations in Pakistan's northwestern border areas also involve close collaboration with Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the so-called Haqqani network, and a group called Jamiat al-Dawa al-Quran wal-Sunna.

Thanks to these activities and others worldwide, Washington has now reached the conclusion that Lashkar-e-Taiba represents a threat to the national interests of the United States. This threat the Americans regard as second only to the one posed by Al-Qaeda. In fact, however, the Lashkar-e-Taiba threat probably exceeds the latter by many measures.

Based on this judgment, US President Barack Obama has told the Pakistani president, Asif Zardari, that targeting Lashkar-e-Taiba would be one of his key conditions for a renewed strategic partnership between the United States and Pakistan. Thus far, however, the Pakistani military, which still effectively rules Pakistan even though it does not formally govern the country, has been unresponsive. The military prefers, instead, to emphasize the threat that India supposedly continues to represent for Pakistan – thereby implicitly justifying the continued reliance of Inter-Services Intelligence on terrorism, even as it has demanded further assistance from the United States.

Such a demand is intended to inveigle the US into Pakistan's relentless competition with India. The Pakistani military's dismissal of Obama's injunctions regarding Lashkar-e-Taiba has been driven at least partly by its belief that all warnings coming from the United States are little more than examples of special pleading on behalf of India.

Since assaulting India has become quite a satisfying end in itself for Pakistan, the Pakistani establishment has shown no incentive whatsoever to interdict Lashkar-e-Taiba. To the degree that Inter-Services Intelligence has attempted to control the terrorist group, it has mainly done so to prevent excessive embarrassment to the group's sponsors in Pakistan, or to avert serious crises that might lead to a war between Pakistan and India. However, when one moves beyond these aims, the Pakistani military has no interest in dismantling any terrorist assets that it believes can serve it well.

Military leaders in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani military is headquartered, have not only failed to understand that the concerns of the United States about Lashkar-e-Taiba derive fundamentally from Washington's growing conviction that the group's activities worldwide make it a direct threat to the United States; they also continue to harbor the illusion that Pakistan's current strategy of unleashing terrorism will enervate India, will push it to disengage from Afghanistan, and that it will weaken stabilization efforts by the United States in the country. Such a strategy is designed to make Islamabad the kingmaker in Kabul, and in this way determine the future of Afghanistan.

This ambition promises to become just one more in the long line of cruel illusions that has gripped Pakistan since the country's founding.

Ashley J. Tellis is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of “Reconciling with the Taliban? Toward an Alternative Grand Strategy in Afghanistan.'
Posted by: john frum || 03/22/2010 00:00 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  From Strategypage:


"many tribal leaders are calling on the army to finish off the Taliban. But the army fears getting involved in a lot of "Taliban fighting" which is actually a tribal feud."

"the Pakistani army is not willing to lose thousands of troops for that kind of victory."
Posted by: newc || 03/22/2010 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "the Pakistani army is not willing to lose thousands of troops for that kind of victory."

hypersensitivity to "type" or "kind" of victory, likely explains the Mighty Pak Army's historic lack of "any" victories
Posted by: Frank G || 03/22/2010 15:21 Comments || Top||

#3  NEWS KERALA/TOPIX > IRANIAN MILITANT TRAINING CAMPS A "DROP IN THE BUCKET/OCEAN" COMPARED TO PAK TRAINING ONES.

KING SAUL [Iran] has His FEW, whilst DAVID [Pakistan] HAS HIS MANY???

ARTIC > the PAK Talibs may be asking Iran for Arms + Assistance, etc. due to their losses incurred via the recent PAK ARMY offensives.

* DAILY TIMES.PK OP-ED > 2003 BUSH STRATEGY WAS GOOD FOR FIGHTING MILOITANTS, BUT NOW PAK NEEDS RECONSTRUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT.

IMO read, POTUS BAMMER needs extens "PAK/
AFPAKCARE" = Spend, Spend, Spend.

* TOPIX > AL-SHABAAB/SHABAB DISMISSES MUSLIM SCHOLARS' JIHAD CLAIMS [fatwa agz "UN-ISLAMIC" VIOLENT JIHAD]; + SUDAN: DON'T BREAKUP FROM SUDAN< WEST TELLS SOUTH | BREAKUP/PARTITION OF SUDAN COULD DESTABILIZE ENTIRE REGION.

SAME > HIZBUL ISLAM VOWS ATTACKS AGZ ETHIOPIAN TROOPS IN CENTRAL SOMALIA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/22/2010 22:00 Comments || Top||

#4  VARIOUS > PAKISTAN: PREMATURE US TROOPS WITHDRAWAL WITHOUT DEMOCRACY/DEMOCRATIC SET-UP WOULD BE DISASTROUS FOR PAK, REGION [Islamist MilTerr violence, insurgencies would only start anew].

CORRECTAMUNDO, SAVE THE MILTERRS WOULD NOW HAVE NUCLEAR, OTHER ADVANC WMDS = NBC-CBRN(E) TECHS.

* TOPIX [Oldie but a Goodie Artic] > NUCLEAR TERROR RISK IN BRITAIN FROM AL QAEDA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/22/2010 22:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Bush was too nice!
Posted by: 3dc || 03/22/2010 23:07 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2010-03-22
  Boomer kills 10 Helmand picnickers
Sun 2010-03-21
  4 More Dronezapped in N.Wazoo
Sat 2010-03-20
  Al-Shabaab big turban bumped off
Fri 2010-03-19
  David Headley pleads guilty
Thu 2010-03-18
  'Jihad Jane' due in federal court in Philadelphia
Wed 2010-03-17
  N.Wazoo dronezap reduces 10 to component parts
Tue 2010-03-16
  Local Qaeda big turban titzup in Yemen strike
Mon 2010-03-15
  Sipah-e-Sahabah Pakistain chief pegs out
Sun 2010-03-14
  Kandahar hit by suicide bombers, 30 dead
Sat 2010-03-13
  Lahorkabooms kill 49
Fri 2010-03-12
  Sipah-e-Sahabah Pakistain chief shot up, son killed
Thu 2010-03-11
  Droukdel reportedly ousted as GSPC emir
Wed 2010-03-10
  Dulmatin Confirmed Dead
Tue 2010-03-09
  Bombing kills 15, destroys spy office in Lahore
Mon 2010-03-08
  Qaeda suspect kills guard in Yemen hospital escape bid
Sun 2010-03-07
  Talibs Shoot It Out with Hezbis in Baghlan


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