Pakistan may cut Nato's Afghan supply line after Osama bin Laden killing

[alp227]

Source: The Guardian

The security of Nato's main supply line into Afghanistan came under threat on Saturday as Pakistani parliamentarians voted to review all aspects of their relationship with the US amid worsening political fallout from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

The unanimous motion was passed in the early hours of Saturday morning at the conclusion of an extraordinary 10-hour parliamentary session when the military's top brass offered apologies and admissions of failure, and the country's spy chief offered to resign.

Condemning the 2 May raid on bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, 35 miles northeast of Islamabad, as a "violation of Pakistan's sovereignty", parliament voted unanimously to review the country's terms of engagement with Washington.

In feisty speeches lawmakers warned against further "unilateral action", including CIA drone strikes, and urged the government to consider cutting the Nato supply line that runs from Karachi to Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass and Balochistan.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/14/pakistan-nato-afghanistan-bin-laden

[customerserviceguy]

1. Time to cut off the money spigot to Pakistan

As well as Afghanistan and Iraq.

[cosmicone]

10. +1000 Precisely n/t

[pfitz59]

2. Hung out to dry!

Our servicemembers are at great risk in Afghanistan. Depending too heavily on the "good will" of unstable regimes!

[Kolesar]

3. Thomas Ricks predicted this on NPR a few days after we iced Osama

There isn't much of Al Qaeda left to fight. Logic says we should leave, but cable tv news and the gutless newspapers will spin a story that leaving is defeat.

[cloudbase]

4. Time for Pakistan

to go all in for one side or the other.

[Igel]

7. They can't. n/t

[Hardrada]

5. We should get out of there anyway and let then huff and puff all they want!

[Hubert Flottz]

13. But what about all that CIA/Bushco dope money and those pipelines?

We need to stay and protect the oil and gas Pipelines from the Caspian Basin to the south.

[WatsonT]

6. We should be the ones penalizing pakistan

not the other way around. They were intentionally harboring a terrorist and had been doing so for years.

Bad ally! Don't do that again.

[JackRiddler]

14. Yeah, like that happened in some kind of vacuum.

It appears that conspiracy theories about the ISI harboring OBL are acceptable, but not the logical upshot that they would have done so on behalf of clients at USG.

[Ghost Dog]

24. Bingo.

Certainly, some parts of ISI are 'in bed' with some parts of CIA/DIA...

[JackRiddler]

29. I'm amazed that people so easily look past the segmentation and use words like...

"Pakistan" and "US" as though these are unitary subjects taking actions.

It's not even true that "ISI" or "CIA" are simply one thing. Making sense of anything requires acknowledging that these are highly compartmentalized, multi-headed entities (sometimes with the compartments at odds with each other) and mostly hidden from our view (or even their own view). In the black-budget, black-box world you can say with reliability that there are divisions and departments and units, networks running among units, operations involving units, political administrations, contractors and allies, and many layers of legend generated to cover it all up in the name of "national security." But beyond that we speculate and not even insiders know all that goes on with specificity.

If it's so logical to think ISI elements harbored OBL, then it's equally logical to think they did this in concordance with the policies of USG elements (their financial sponsors and collaborators in the war on the Pashto tribal areas, hello!) who wanted to maintain the OBL myth and the "war on terror."

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Why on earth are we still there?

A simple look at a map shows the logistical nightmare. We either supply through Pakistan or one of the northern neighbors, by which we'd have to transit Russia.

I wonder whether this would have happened if we hadn't also made drone attacks after the hit on Bin Laden? Either way, it's yet another mess, and one with no real goal other than occupation and pacification. This could go very badly.

[JackRiddler]

15. Because there is no "we." Wars are not conducted for "us." Those who profit know why.

[lib2DaBone]

9. The U.S is playing a very Dangerous game....

We shouldn't be in Pakistan AT ALL.

But.. the CIA/Repuke goal is to break Pakistan up into tribal areas and then move the oil companies in for control.

News Flash: It ain't gonna work. Pakistan has Nukes and China says it will back Pakistan in war.

If Mr. Obama was a true leader.. those troops would be out of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq YESTERDAY. This dangerous situation puts our troops in an un-winnable situation.

The United States is becoming universally hated the world over.

How long do the geniuses in Washington think they can go down this path before someone lobs a nuke into this country?

It's insanity dressed up as foreign policy from our corrupt leaders in in Washington... and it ain't gonna fly.. no way , no how.

[cosmicone]

11. China won't back Pakistan in a war against the US n/t

[JackRiddler]

18. Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

A direct US war on Pakistan (as opposed to what the US is already doing in the tribal areas, in collaboration with the Pakistani military) would pretty much be the last one for this empire. Talk about crazy. Just GTFO and watch everything get a little bit better for this country, and probably for that one too.

[cosmicone]

12. It is time to give independence to a free

Baluchistan. Make Baluchistan an independent country and they will be true US allies. We can then supply our troops in Afghanistan from the port of Gwadar via Quetta. Let Pakistan go bankrupt.

[makhno]

16. Good idea. Why don't you put it into the IAF's suggestions box.

I'm sure the Indian people are just itching for a short, victorious war with their nuclear-armed neighbor.

[cosmicone]

19. India is a natural ally of the US

... being a constitutional democracy and a fully multicultural, multiethnic society with the same freedoms enjoyed by the US.

Why are we even considering Pakistan as an ally?

[cosmicone]

20. PS .. India would finish Pakistan off in a couple of weeks

if not for perpetual and massive American aid and military toys to that terrorist regime.

Also, India is asked to observe "restraint" every time Pakistan plays out a terrorist attack like 9/11 in India and US/UK hold India hostage to India's aspirations of becoming a permanent member of the UNSC.

[makhno]

21. I'm sure the nuclear exchange would be over in a couple of hours, not weeks

What a shame. All this military, economic and demographic might held hostage by piddly geopolitical interests.

Seriously, feel free to start a war with Pakistan, but please don't try to get the U.S. to do the job the IAF is incapable of undertaking on its own. This is one war our Chinese creditors will not bankroll.

[cosmicone]

23. No country in this day and age would dare use

nuclear weapons. The odds of a nuclear exchange are always overblown.

No one is asking the US to do any job other than stopping the ridiculous aid to Pakistan.

[makhno]

26. Unless you're talking about partitioning said country

Dude, seriously. I appreciate your position on this issue, but let's be realistic here.

[pfitz59]

27. I believe you are wrong

it only takes one crazy, and the world is full of them!

[daleo]

30. Then why have nukes? n/t

[cosmicone]

31. As a deterrant against China in the case of India.

"Keeping up with the Joneses" in the case of Pakistan ... for their collective national ego.

[Ghost Dog]

25. Do you propose a similar solution for Kashmir too?

Do you reckon the US Govt. is thinking as you do?

[cosmicone]

28. No similarity

between Kashmir and Baluchistan.

[Nihil]

33. Ha! Busted!

> No similarity between Kashmir and Baluchistan.

No, of course there isn't ... not when one of them is a religious
issue for you and the other is in your favourite enemy's country!

Sauce for the goose and all that ...

:rofl:

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Support our Oops! - n/t

[AndiMer]

22. All the more reason to get out

Now!

[Javaman]

32. Why do I get this creepy feeling that we will be at war with Pakistan within the year? nt