Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): Sep 22, 2011

Lalmohan · Post by **Lalmohan** » 23 Sep 2011 20:25

the paks really think that unkil is on the run, just like the bear
but ofcourse, without the dragon to protect them, they'll be all phus...

rajanb · Post by **rajanb** » 23 Sep 2011 20:46

*Yawn* Wake me up when the yanquis do something. All the shock and awe is in their words.

Altair · Post by **Altair** » 23 Sep 2011 20:55

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/ ... 4U20110923

The United States has few options beyond the feisty rhetoric displayed by the outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It could halt its security and economic aid for Pakistan. It could also step up drone strikes in Pakistan's North Waziristan, where elements of the Haqqani network enjoy sanctuary, but a more robust military operation would be highly risky.

However, the ISI by itself is unlikely to feel any significant pressure at home. The civilian government is weak and cowed by the military establishment, and Pakistani public opinion is increasingly hostile toward the United States.

"Why should they be on the defensive?" said Ayesha Siddiqa, a military analyst in Islamabad. "These comments are coming at a time when the relationship is very weak, so it doesn't make a difference because they are well protected on the basis that there is anti-American public opinion."

She does have a point. There is no need for ISI to be defensive. US knows this for a fact. So US will also not be defensive no? It only matters which one lands a more fierce punch on other and who hits first.Apollo Creed and Rocky baboa?? Interesting times ahead!

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 23 Sep 2011 21:04

Do any of you remember the famous prediction by G Parthasarathy made a year or two ago that US will bomb Pakistan by 2013/2014 ?

chetak · Post by **chetak** » 23 Sep 2011 21:33

ramana wrote:parsuram, Look back in history. Ranjit Singh stopped the Ghilzai/Durrani marauding and brought peace to Pakjab and beyond after centuries. The British got the area after the Anglo-Punjab wars.
The TSPA with its tactical brilliance has now opened the gates to Ghilzai marauders now called Taliban. They deserve what they want.
And the US was always supporting them to preserve them as their M(u)NNA. They also get what they deserve.

After some decades they will all get settled down and life goes on.

Am reading Zaeef's "My Life with Taliban"

Recommend geting hold of it to gain insight in the tribal kinship patterns.

Happily, this book is available from the usual shady sources

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Sep 2011 21:45

Dengue: Pak visitors to be screened

vnadendla · Post by **vnadendla** » 23 Sep 2011 21:47

rajanb wrote:*Yawn* Wake me up when the yanquis do something. All the shock and awe is in their words.

Words matter. Here are options
1) A statement supporting India on Kashmir and/or UNSC seat.
2) Sanctions threat.
3) Designating certain (you know who) as wanted criminals internationally
Let your imagination run wild. Maybe borrow some Hollywood script writer.
Beyond that maybe a off switch to Pakis military hardware.

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 23 Sep 2011 22:04

Adm. Mullen accuses Pakistan's ISI of treachery, but says let's keep talking

My interpretation is that we have moved to a strictly transactional relationship. We will continue to deal with them but will call them out on occasion.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 23 Sep 2011 22:05

I'm skeptical as well on American will to follow through. TSPA has not budged and it's upto Unkil to do something big or lose more credibility than before. WE can expect Dronacharya to hit N.Waziristan heavier than before but we need to see substantial change or else TSPA will ride it out.

JE Menon · Post by **JE Menon** » 23 Sep 2011 22:09

Thanks for that link Rangudu... Things are clearly getting warmer.

negi · Post by **negi** » 23 Sep 2011 22:25

As far as India is concerned there is no marked change in Unkil's stance on the ground; what has happened is over a period of years TSP has been caught with it's chaddi down in broad daylight on too many occasions such has been it's tactical brilliance that even otherwise stubborn Unkil is finding it embarrassing to take latter's side every time; so Unkil has decided to play the good cop for public consumption, it shall however continue to send in aid and weapons to TSP to ensure that the military balance in the sub continent is not disturbed. The key point to be noted is it's India which has a problem with this strengthening of TSP military , Unkil's problems are of shoe/undie/suitcase bomber type which have little to do with weapons sales to TSP. Unless we make our problem Unkil's problem not much is going to change.

KLNMurthy · Post by **KLNMurthy** » 23 Sep 2011 23:11

harbans wrote:Also factor one thing if at all the Northern supply networks are up and running and US boots and Daisy cutters start exploding on Paki soil and more including taking out the ISI S wing in slumabad or something. Paki's will have nowhere to seek help. Chinese will play Taller than Mariana and deeper than Himalaya than vice versa in those circumstances. Paki's in the event will run to India..and all the WKK bhaichara will set up in full swing. Expect SMK to read lifafa's claiming how illegal it is of the US to be bombing our brothers in the region type of statement..

To some extent, vietnam analogy applies: pak as cambodia, taliban as khmer rouge. But India as Thailand doesn't quite fit. It is probably thailand (refugees) plus cambodia (crazed extremists running amok)'We will also get some of the khmer rouge effect, which is destabilizing (as are refugees)

So, even if WKKs would protest a khan attack on pak admittedly for the wrong reasons, India would be right to have concerns about the impact of a direct US attack on pak.

Raman · Post by **Raman** » 23 Sep 2011 23:40

The only option for Khan (I think) is to continue the transactional relationship, but respond asymmetrically to anything Pakistan does. E.g., turn up the heat in Balochistan and give more political visibility to the movement there, start auditing Paki general holdings in the USA, out more ISI assets like Fai, etc. They need to be able to hurt core interests outside Afghanistan proper.

BijuShet · Post by **BijuShet** » 23 Sep 2011 23:45

From Tribune news (postiong in full)
Drone strike kills 5 in N Waziristan

By Iftikhar Firdous - Published: September 23, 2011
Missiles hit a house in Mir Ali, Khushali area, of North Waziristan on Friday. PHOTO: AFP/FILE

NORTH WAZIRISTAN: A US drone strike killed five people when it fired missiles on to a house in Mir Ali, North Waziristan on Friday evening.
According to reports, a drone fired missiles at the house of a tribal leader, Jamal Wazir in Mir Ali Khushali area of North Waziristan.

The strike killed five people, while many are feared to have been injured.

US has been conducting regular drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas targeting suspected militants believed to have been working with the Taliban, al Qaeda or associated organisations.

The drone strikes have become a major sticking point between Pakistan and the US especially since US forces raided a compound in the garrison town of Abbottabad deep in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden in May this year.

US has in recent days stepped up calls for the Pakistan army to move into North Waziristan and take action against the Haqqani network, a militant organisation which the US says orchestrates attacks against the US troops stationed in Afghanistan before escaping to safe havens in Pakistani tribal border areas of Waziristan

BajKhedawal · Post by **BajKhedawal** » 23 Sep 2011 23:47

Is hourie hina signalling that pakis are more Indus-ic cultured than those dhoti shivering yindoos, even shri krishna is wearing a dhoti in this one. Towel throwing gathering speed.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Sep 2011 23:50

I know where she got that statue of Gopala!

One Bay Area merchant had exclusive rights to sell them but is now closed due to lack of demand.

The statues are made in Europe with pewter/silver metal and are quite expensive. I have a Ganesha.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 23 Sep 2011 23:53

So Hina Khar is a Gopikaa?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 23 Sep 2011 23:54

To SM Krishna!

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 23 Sep 2011 23:54

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/20 ... diers.html

Remember when Pakistan was our ally?

Neither do I.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Sep 2011 00:27

negi wrote:As far as India is concerned there is no marked change in Unkil's stance on the ground; what has happened is over a period of years TSP has been caught with it's chaddi down in broad daylight on too many occasions such has been it's tactical brilliance that even otherwise stubborn Unkil is finding it embarrassing to take latter's side every time; so Unkil has decided to play the good cop for public consumption, it shall however continue to send in aid and weapons to TSP to ensure that the military balance in the sub continent is not disturbed.

It is not the Pakis who have been caught with their chaddis down - they never had any chaddi to begin with, it is just that Unkil and friends pretended they did. It is Unkil which has been caught with his chaddi down and No-Dong showing - the recent statements from Mullen & co. are testament to that.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Sep 2011 00:29

Bilkul sach!

RajaBose, you need to hang out more often here.

Emperor has no clothes as the child remarked.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 24 Sep 2011 01:04

pgbhat wrote:http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/20 ... diers.html
Remember when Pakistan was our ally?

Neither do I.

The Op-ed starts with a solemn warning:

Warning: The following may be upsetting to you if you are an American taxpayer.)

and continues:

Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency communicated with Afghan insurgents who attacked the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters in central Kabul last week and appear to have provided them with equipment, according to U.S. military officers and former officials.

Communications gear used by the insurgents "implicated" the directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, Pakistan's spy service, a senior U.S. military official said Thursday. The equipment was found in a 14-story building under construction that the attackers used to lay siege to the embassy compound for 19 hours on Sept. 13, according to the official, who would not describe the equipment recovered.

Bruce Riedel, a former White House advisor on Pakistan and a retired senior CIA official, said administration officials told him that "very firm intelligence" linked the Pakistani spy agency to the embassy attack, which killed at least nine Afghans.

"There are [communications] intercepts and the attackers were in cellphone contact back to Pakistan," he said.

In a dramatic appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged that the insurgents had received "ISI support" not only for the attack on America's most prominent diplomatic and military symbols in the Afghan capital, but also for a massive truck bomb assault this month on a U.S. combat outpost in Wardak province west of Kabul that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers.

Link (given above)With an ally like Pakistan, who needs enemies?

saip · Post by **saip** » 24 Sep 2011 01:13

In the above link, how come I cannot see all the comments?

r_subramanian · Post by **r_subramanian** » 24 Sep 2011 01:14

Najam Sethi's editorial in The Friday Times
He gives 'a tally of killings and establishment policies that tell a terrifying tale of state failure'. Then suggests that 'only Pakistan Army could fix things'.

State failure
...
The whole country has become one big killing field.
Under the circumstances, with the police and civilian administrations wringing their hands in despair, there is only one institutional force that can establish the writ of the state and restore law and order. That is the Pakistan Army. But the Army is busy fending off the Americans, neutralizing the Indians, hiding and protecting the Afghan insurgents and fighting the Pakistani Taliban to have any energy or inclination to do any domestic cleansing. Are we therefore doomed?
Not necessarily. The Army's troubles are mainly self-inflicted. If it can bring itself to de-link its raison d'etre (reason to be) from India, if it can conceive national security to have an economic and military dimension in equal measure rather than a military one exclusively, if it can consider national security to be an element of the national interest rather than synonymous with it, if it can stop extrapolating the national interest with core strategic outreach in Afghanistan, then perhaps some of our troubles will go away.
...

link
Sethi wants the army to change. But he does not attempt to answer the question whether the army has the capacity / capability to change.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Sep 2011 01:23

One lesson Iran, NoKo and who else will take from the way US is handling TSP, is that they need to have fizul material and also non state actors/elements who can sieze them. This ensures the dance/charade of engaging the US.

In NoKo the state is the non state.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 24 Sep 2011 03:45

What puzles me is the relative good shape TSP is in (it is still surviving). The question is will it survive if the US subsity dries out?

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Sep 2011 04:15

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi's attacks on Shi'a

Dealing with the Haqqani Network

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Sep 2011 04:31

ramana wrote:Emperor has no clothes as the child remarked.

Tell that to vina.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 24 Sep 2011 04:54

ramana wrote:To SM Krishna!

Confucius say when man 75 marry girl 25, like buying book for someone else to read

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Sep 2011 05:11

Pakistan: Beyond the Crisis State: Edited by Maleeha Lodhi

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Sep 2011 05:29

RB, In Hans Christian Anderson version its the child who cries that revelation!

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Sep 2011 05:41

Daniel Markey on Mullen's statements

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 24 Sep 2011 06:08

abhishek_sharma wrote:Daniel Markey on Mullen's statements

humph..

If Washington has ample evidence of ISI complicity, then how can it possibly look the other way, much less continue to provide assistance to the Pakistani government and military?

But the reality is that evidence of ISI support for Haqqani operations in Afghanistan is hardly new. Back in July 2008, Washington made similar claims of Pakistani complicity when the Indian Embassy in Kabul was bombed. Since then, however, U.S. military and civilian aid to Pakistan has increased, in part reflecting American hopes that carrots, rather than sticks, will be more likely to shift Pakistan's behavior.

In the past, Washington always tempered its criticism of Pakistan for fear that pushing too hard might break the relationship in ways that would cause more harm than good. U.S. officials have always known that the major supply lines for American forces in Afghanistan run through Pakistan's ports, highways, and airspace. U.S. officials have always valued aspects of counterterrorism cooperation that take place in the shadows, away from the glare of the press and the scrutiny of the public. And they have always hoped that by engaging Pakistan's military and civilian leaders, they would gradually work toward a more effective partnership that could satisfy both American and Pakistani security requirements.

Hope is a policy it appears. This is the world's only superpower that can, in a trice, take out anyone?

Wow!

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 24 Sep 2011 06:53

Despite massive floods, Pakistan still has 10% water shortage

At present, authorities dealing with water issues are compelled to release 175,000 cusecs per day from downstream Kotri into sea due to lack of storages instead of 5,000 cusecs as per environmental standards. “The country has lost nine million acre feet (MAF) of water over the last three months and the figure is expected to reach 12 MAF in the current Kharif season,” a source said. In last year’s floods, 55 MAF of water was wasted which went into sea due to lack of reservoirs. “Despite rains, we cannot store more water than our capacity and therefore 10 per cent water shortage has been projected for the Rabi season,” he said

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 24 Sep 2011 07:03

Airavat wrote:Despite massive floods, Pakistan still has 10% water shortage

Maybe Zardari is withholding his share from the nation?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Sep 2011 07:05

Hina Khar gave an interview on CBS news which left the host gasping.

Rangudu · Post by **Rangudu** » 24 Sep 2011 07:08

ramana wrote:Hina Khar gave an interview on CBS news which left the host gasping.

What did she say?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 24 Sep 2011 07:29

Rangudu wrote:
ramana wrote:Hina Khar gave an interview on CBS news which left the host gasping.
What did she say?

Unfounded assumption. Maybe it was not what she said. Maybe she did something hain?

abhishek_sharma · Post by **abhishek_sharma** » 24 Sep 2011 07:45

Pakistan Scorns U.S. Charges of Militant Ties: NYT

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 24 Sep 2011 07:46

R man you have access to CBS News videos. Try to watch it!

She said that US is angering the TSP population which was exceptionally upset with the US. Scott P the anchor had to do a double take and repeat the word 'exceptionally' and she said yes exceptionally!

Hina Khar on CBS