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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William B. Kohn who wrote (1940)	1/8/2003 8:10:40 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 15987

Asking people to give something back is not slavery! That's right, Bill. But forcing them to is slavery.

To: William B. Kohn who wrote (1940)	1/8/2003 8:30:48 PM
From: lorne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15987

Our 'friends' in Pakistan January 8, 2003 You may have missed the news on the holiday, but on New Year's Eve the Pentagon announced the U.S. dropped a 500-pound bomb on Pakistani troops near the border of Afghanistan. It wasn't an accident. Pakistani troops had fired on U.S. forces which have been pursuing al-Qaida terrorists and remnants of their Taliban supporters who frequently run over to Pakistan to escape U.S. search-and-destroy missions. Why would Pakistani troops come to the aid of the terrorists? Because they have been doing it for a long time. Despite Islamabad's sworn allegiance to the cause of the terror war, the truth is that some Pakistani troops and intelligence agents continue to support the guerrillas loyal to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Pakistan gave birth to the Taliban and it is having a tough time disinheriting its offspring. Washington is loath to make anything out of the incident. Islamabad is playing it down. But it is a troubling reminder that the Afghanistan theater of operations is far from closed. While this may be the first time we had to drop a 500-pound bomb on Pakistani soil, there are many other clashes taking place daily in Afghanistan that illustrate this war is far from over. Last week, WorldNetDaily published a story based on intelligence reports that show we've got problems not only with Pakistani cooperation but also the stability of the new government in Kabul. Attacks on U.S. troops and positions aren't causing high numbers of casualties, but they are taking their toll on confidence and morale. On the eve of an expected attack on Iraq, it's a bad time for such a development. One intelligence report indicates Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyr, who has urged a jihad against U.S. troops, commands as many as 50,000 militiamen. U.S. forces have been looking for Hekmatyr for some time, but he is often on the move. Hekmatyr's goals are clear – overthrowing President Hamid Karzai and chasing U.S. forces out of the country. And, of course, there's still the little matter of bin Laden himself. He's never been found – and that was a key objective of the war. The skirmishes all have one thing in common – they come from the direction of Pakistan, where remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban movement have found refuge in the lawless tribal areas that hug the border. Despite sweeps by U.S. combat troops through the frontier region, the number of rocket attacks on U.S. bases and outposts in Khost and the neighboring border provinces has remained consistently high – about 50 per month since the summer. Guerrillas inside Pakistan are beginning to sneak into Afghanistan for brief hits, according to U.S. military sources. Both U.S. troops and Afghan government forces say they would like to chase the attackers into Pakistan and destroy their bases. But the U.S. alliance with Pakistan prohibits such cross-border raids. Thus, the torment continues. The only thing exceptional with regard to the latest attack is that the U.S. did pursue the attackers – even on Pakistani soil. America has been through a war where the rules of engagement prohibited pursuits across borders. It was a war in which we won every battle by any military standard you want to use. But we lost the war because the military was forbidden by politicians from taking actions necessary to achieve victory. Is anyone eager to repeat that mistake? If not, we need to get a few things straight with our "friends" in Pakistan. The Taliban and al-Qaida need to be destroyed – not just chased, not just harassed, not just pursued. President Bush laid out a simple and clear warning after Sept. 11 – you're either with us or against us. There's no middle ground. Islamabad needs to use its own military to clean up the mess on its border with Afghanistan or we need to do it for them. worldnetdaily.com