Reply With Quote
Kick us out. Dare you to do it you broke-ass, welfare state piece of .
Pakistan blocks NATO trucks after deadly strike
'We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies,' government minister says after three troops die
PARACHINAR, Pakistan — Pakistan blocked a vital supply route for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Thursday in apparent retaliation for an alleged cross-border helicopter strike by the coalition that killed three Pakistani frontier troops.
The blockade appeared to be a major escalation in tensions between Pakistan and the United States. A permanent stoppage of supply trucks would place massive strains on NATO and hurt the Afghan war effort.
"We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies," Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said of the border incident, without mentioning the blockade.
NATO said it was investigating Pakistani reports that coalition aircraft had mistakenly attacked its forces. The coalition has on at least one other occasion acknowledged mistakenly killing Pakistani security forces stationed close to the border.
Over the weekend, NATO helicopters fired on targets in Pakistan at least two times , killing several suspected insurgents they had pursued over the border from Afghanistan. Pakistan's government protested the attacks, which came in a month during which there have been an unprecedented number of U.S. drone missile strikes in the northwest, inflaming already pervasive anti-American sentiment among Pakistanis.
The surge in attacks and apparent increased willingness by NATO to strike targets on the border or just inside Pakistan, could be a sign the coalition is losing patience with Pakistan, which has long been accused of harboring militants in its lawless tribal regions.
Pakistani security officials said Thursday's deadly airstrike took place on a checkpoint in the Upper Kurram region.
The dead men were from a paramilitary force tasked with safeguarding the border, the security officials said. Their bodies were taken to Parachinar, the region's largest town, one official said. Three troops also were wounded.
"The helicopters s ed the area for about 25 minutes," a Pakistani security official told Reuters.
The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation and because in some cases they were not authorized to release the information to the media.
The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is unmarked. Border troops wear uniforms that resemble the traditional Pakistani dress of a long shirt and baggy trousers, which could make it hard to distinguish them from ordinary citizens or insurgents.
U.S. officials have complained in the past that Pakistani security forces do little to stop the movement of militants seeking to cross over into Afghanistan and attack foreign troops there.
Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for intelligence and special operations at NATO headquarters in Kabul, said coalition forces observed early Thursday what they believed were insurgents firing mortars at a coalition base in Dand Wa Patan district of Paktia, which is next to Upper Kurram.
"A coalition air weapons team called for fire support and engaged the insurgents," he said. "The air weapons team reported that it did not cross into Pakistani air space and believed the insurgents were located on the Afghan side of the border."
Dorrian said Pakistani military officials had informed the NATO military coalition that members of their border forces had been struck by coalition aircraft. He said the coalition was reviewing the reports to see if the operation in Paktia was related to those reports.
Hours after the incident, Pakistani authorities were ordered to stop NATO supply trucks from crossing into Afghanistan at the Torkham border post, a major entryway for NATO materials at the edge of the Khyber tribal region, two government officials said.
'Security reasons'
Earlier this week Pakistan threatened to stop providing protection to NATO convoys if the alliance's helicopters attacked targets inside Pakistan again.
Citing an official, NBC News reported the decision to stop the NATO vehicles had been taken for "security reasons" amid fears that the convoys could be attacked by angry tribesmen.
By midmorning, there was a line of around 100 NATO vehicles at the checkpoint, the officials said.
The other main route into Afghanistan in southeastern Pakistan had received no orders to stop NATO trucks from crossing, which they were doing as normal, said Syed Mohammed Agha, a spokesman for the Pashin Scouts border guards.
Some 80 percent of non-lethal supplies for foreign forces fighting in landlocked Afghanistan are transported over Pakistani soil after being unloaded at docks in Karachi, a port city in the south. While NATO and the United States have alternative supply routes, the Pakistani ones are the cheapest and most convenient.
Though many analysts believe that the strikes by unmanned U.S. drones are carried out with the tacit approval of Pakistan, any border incursions by foreign troops is a highly explosive issue in Pakistan.
In June 2008, a U.S. airstrike killed 11 Pakistani troops and frayed the two nations' ties. Pakistan said the soldiers died when U.S. aircraft bombed their border post in the Mohmand tribal region. U.S. officials said their coalition's aircraft dropped bombs during a clash with militants. They expressed regret over the deaths, but said their attack was justified.
Pakistan and the U.S. have a complicated, but vital, relationship, with distrust on both sides.
Polls show many Pakistanis regard the United States as an enemy, and conspiracy theories abound of U.S. troops wanting to attack Pakistan and take over its nuclear weapons. The Pakistani government has to balance its support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan — and its need for billions in American aid — with maintaining the support from its own population.
Kick us out. Dare you to do it you broke-ass, welfare state piece of .
..... with nuclear weapons, in need of money, populated at least partially by radical militants....
...that couldn't export a ham sandwich without external financial aid....
... financial aid which could be provided in exchange for nuclear technology ...
....or nuclear ham sandwiches....
And so it begins...
At least I'm glad I won't have to hear "Pakistan has nucular weapons" in some Presidential press conference.
Oh, it's far worse.
Don't drop that yellow cake!
I would not be a bit surprised to find out that the paki military guards some militant positions.
Militants Burn NATO Fuel in Pakistan
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/...er=rss&emc=rss
What the MIC wants, the MIC gets, and that's Unending Wars, and transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the corps.
Civilian control of the military? GMAFB
Status quo.
If things were to get bad enough, I would not put it past the United States to try an attack/special ops raid on the Pakistani nuclear weapons in order to destroy/capture them and the brain trust.
It would probably be a futile effort but I'd imagine that tracking those items and people is one of our highest priorities for our intelligence community and I can't fathom the government simply walking away from a situation where those weapons are threatened/loose.
God, I hope we don't do that. Talk about opening up a can of worms. The day the US invades sovereign territory to take over another country's nukes is the day where terrorists around the world get loads of new recruits.
The only way that I'd sign off on that is if nukes were truly loose (ie. lost by their gov't), if they were definitely in the hands of terrorists, or if the host nation asked for our help.
Maddow: US quietly testing ‘scary new war in Pakistan’
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/m...tion-pakistan/
Eh, its a last ditch scenario but I would be utterly and completely shocked if its not in the plans. Obviously I'm not advocating we do that at this point, but there could come a time when securing those nukes would be important.
I do wonder how much we know about them and their locations. I would hope we have good records on them but somehow I doubt it.
Slightly off-topic, but you read any graphic novels? (ie. comic in book form
In Marvel's "Ultimates", the US gov't sends Iron Man to disable nukes of non-allied countries. The world didn't like it much.
Haha - no I don't.Slightly off-topic, but you read any graphic novels? (ie. comic in book form
In Marvel's "Ultimates", the US gov't sends Iron Man to disable nukes of non-allied countries. The world didn't like it much.
I don't think the world would like it very much (at least those that have nukes) but the truth is I doubt the world would feel better about having those objects floating around loose either.
I honestly don't think it would increase terrorist recruiting anymore than anything we do currently would. Its not like the terrorists are exactly friends with the Pakistani government.
YEAH. bring on world war 3. it was a cool life while it lasted.
Let me put it this way... it would scare the world, because even if we were doing all the right things, it would still put the US even moreso at a position of pre-eminence in the world (policing other country's nukes).
I find people tend to distrust those in power, and the more power they ac ulate/display, the more people distrust them. Going back to the comic-book analogy, if Superman really existed, people would be afraid for their lives and doing all they could to get rid of him, instead of cheering him on. (For a fun read, check out Mark Waid's "Irredeemable" which posits the idea of a Superman-like figure turning on the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredeemable)
Lakaluva must be pissed.
We're already in that position, LnG. Ask Iraq. Do you remember the justification of the war was to prevent Sadaam from doing 9/11 with a mushroom cloud? That genie is out of the bottle.
Sounds interesting.I find people tend to distrust those in power, and the more power they ac ulate/display, the more people distrust them. Going back to the comic-book analogy, if Superman really existed, people would be afraid for their lives and doing all they could to get rid of him, instead of cheering him on. (For a fun read, check out Mark Waid's "Irredeemable" which posits the idea of a Superman-like figure turning on the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredeemable)
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
