Obama warning on Pakistan 'haven'

[Coventina]

Source: BBC

US President Barack Obama has said his administration will not allow "safe havens" for militants in Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Mr Obama's comments at his first White House prime-time news conference came as his envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, arrived in Pakistan.

Mr Holbrooke, who said he was there to "listen and learn" about the region, began key meetings on Tuesday.

Mr Holbrooke earlier said the situation in Pakistan was "dire".



Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7880345.stm

[Wizard777]

1. In our quest to capture Al Qaida. The Pakistani Government is a middleman or broker.

They try to be friendly to us while allowing the boarder tribes to harbor our enemies. These people pose real threats to global security. So our treatment of the Pakistani Government must reflect who they are better friends with. Us or the boarder tribes harboring our enemies. Who are they trying to play? Are they trying to play us to help the boarder tribes and our enemies or Are they trying to play the boarder tribes to help us capture our enemies? Are they trying to play both sides to help only themselves? You have to pay particular attention to the weave of the relationship.

[Bragi]

3. Maybe Pakistan isn't playing anyone

Maybe they actually have limited influence in the border territories, and know there are real limits to what they can realistically do in terms of rousting out AQ there, especially if their actions are seen as a visible response to prodding from the U.S, which is far more hated in Pakistan than are Islamic militants.

The only hope here, and it is a slight hope, is that Holbrooke will actually come up with a regional strategy here that makes sense.

Pretending the Pakistan government can militarily and politically control the border territories, but is refusing to do so, or that the U.S should go in and do it itself, will logically end up with the toppling of the Pakistan government, and its replacement by a government supported by AQ and other militants.

- B

[ohio2007]

7. Pakistan can't even find and shut down one radio station in the Swat valley preaching Taliban jihad

against Pakistani government bureaucrats how could they possibly be competent middlemen

Pak OpEd article

Swat, one more time
Why has the great ISI not been able to find Mullah Radio’s radio station?


snip

That was just the thing the provincial government should do — move lock, stock and barrel: all the ministries, babus, naib qasids and all; the police hierarchy, you name it, to Saidu Sharif. There to stay until the Mullah Radios and their murderous and barbaric ilk are chased from their redoubts — probably comfortable, luxuriously heated houses in the heart of Mingora — and until the people of that poor but bounteous land are enabled to get on with their lives as they have done for millennia.
Yes, that is exactly what Chief Minister Amir Haider Hoti should do, and take his top adviser, his Dad Azam Hoti with him to guide him, and advise him on how to sort out the Swat imbroglio. Just that one move should send the shivers up the establishment’s spine like nobody’s business! Just watch them find Mullah Radio’s FM station then.
Which reminds me: the ‘rocket science’ of triangulation, or to put it another, more modern way, ‘trilateration’ is, as I suggested last week, as old as the Swat hills. Why then has the great ISI, the Mother of All Agencies, not been able to find Mullah Radio’s radio station? When will this great charade end, please, sirs?
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke should be in the Land of the Pure by the time you read this. Might one ask him one more time to route any/all enquiries he might have on the quite frightening and completely out of control situation in Swat/Fata to the civilian government and to no other agency?

snip

To my own government I say: since you have stuffed the idea that this ‘war on terror is our war’ down our throats so hard, repeating the mantra ad nauseam and so often, it is time you stopped begging the Americans for every little expense incurred on it. Such as diesel fuel! Ask for night vision devices, for helicopters, for equipment to detect incoming FM signals for that matter (!), but do please stop asking for diesel money! We must have some self-respect if it is indeed ‘our’ war.
So then, who will the United Nations 'fact-finding' mission to investigate Benazir Bhutto’s cruel murder first interrogate? Surely Asif Ali Zardari, president of the Citadel of Islam, for saying out loud that he knows exactly who the killers are!
Joke, joke!! While this is a joke, could a head of state of any other country in the whole wide world say he knew the killers of a person, any person, without being pounced upon by crime investigation agencies of the state itself?
Can you imagine President Barack Obama saying any such thing without the D.C. police knocking on the door of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and asking questions? Leave America aside, can anyone imagine the Indian president, or the prime minister, saying such a thing and the local police and the CBI not asking them to explain themselves?
We are a very unique country indeed. Ambassador Holbrooke has his job cut out for him.
http://dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/pakistan/swat-one-more-time-ss

US hints at more focus on ‘Quetta shura’: NYTimes
In a series of interviews – for the most part given anonymously due to the sensitivity of the information – the New York Times has discovered that the Obama administration plans to put greater pressure on Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders based in Quetta, the capital city of Balochistan.

snip
Till now, Taliban militants in Balochistan have been sheltered due to the isolation of the region and the general lack of an effective government presence within the province. As Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani admitted: ‘the problem is we do not always get actionable intelligence in Quetta in particular. It’s a very messy area.’

However, increased US focus on Taliban forces in the region has coalesced into a greater desire to target high-value individuals within militant organizations. ‘The Quetta shura is extremely important,’ US Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, an advisor to CENTCOM chief General David Petraeus, told the NY Times. ‘They are the intellectual and ideological underpinnings of the Taliban insurgency,’ he concluded.

http://dawn.net/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/pakistan/balochistan/us-to-focus-more-on-quetta-shura-nytimes-yn

[Baby Snooks]

2. If Truman had been president on 9/11...

If Truman had been president on 9/11 he would have declared war on the terrorists and then ended it very quickly by dropping a nuclear bomb in those mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan known as No Man's Land.

And then he would have given the Afghan government 24 hours to turn over Osama bin Laden as well as the Taliban or risk having Afghanistan blown off the face of the map. And warned Pakistan that they too would risk being blown off the face of the map if they offered safe haven to terrorists.

If nothing else, it would have saved at least a million Iraqis who have died at the hands of their liberators.

Sometimes might does make right. We have forgotten the lessons of history with regard to aggressors because we have become the aggressors.

[cosmicone]

4. A nuclear weapon in the mountains of Afghanistan will

kill at most 500 people and 1,000 sheep. It is not a densely populated area and would be a waste.

I have never understood a logic in using a $3 million Tomahawk to blow a $3 mud hut even, let alone a nuclear device.

[saigon68]

6. In that case Raytheon could just make more

And since Raytheon swills at the public trough the stockholders will be wildly cheering from the sidelines

Some Tomahawks were also manufactured by McDonnell Douglas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-109_Tomahawk

[Hugabear]

5. Your analogy falls flat

As one poster already responded, dropping a nuke in a mountainous region like Afghanistan wouldn't have the same effect as dropping it on a heavily populated urban area.

Secondly, Truman wasn't dealing with nuclear-armed enemies, he didn't have to worry about Japan retaliating. If we were to drop a nuke near Pakistan, how difficult would it be for one of those Pakistani nukes to wind up on a freighter sitting in one of our most heavily used harbors?