Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency has arrested a number of Pakistanis who acted as CIA informants in the bin-Laden raid.
Five informants are being held, including a Pakistani Army major who reportedly copied and forwarded the license plate numbers of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on CIA instructions in the weeks before the raid.
Leon E. Panetta is said to have raised the issue of the jailed informants on his trip to to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers. If he did, they apparently paid no attention. The arrests are obviously meant as a warning to other informants thinking about cooperating with the US.
The Pakistanis are in an uproar over Osama bin-Laden being discovered by the US living in comfort in a specially built secure compound within walking distance of Pakistan's military academy, and they are expressing their anger of the US raid that killed him by refusing to cooperate in US anti-terrorism activities, being unwilling to carry out surveillance operations for the C.I.A, granting visas for American intelligence officers to operate in Pakistan, and threatening to put greater restrictions on the unmanned drone flights over Pakistani air space, a major component in the war against the Taliban.
The Pakistanis are caught between their support for groups like the Taliban and Lashkar-e--Taiba and the Haqqani network and their desire to keep the billions in baksheesh we pay them coming in, the bribe we pay Pakistan keep the supplies coming to landlocked Afghanistan.
At this point, it appears that a tipping point has been reached, and the current regime is having difficulty balancing the two agendas. If Pakistan cuts off the supply route to Afghanistan via Karachi and the Torkhum Pass, there will be no way to keep the NATO forces there adequately supplied.
there will be no way to keep the NATO forces there adequately supplied.
ReplyDeletethis statement is incorrect.
there are numerous ways to keep them supplied.
your comment should have referenced testicular fortitude in some manner.
i bet lt. col. allen west could keep them supplied.
i could come up with at least one way to keep them supplied.
but you'd call me a knuckledragnbiblethumpnguntotnrednekracist.
you would of course be correct.
Well, what you're likely referring to is invading Pakistan.
ReplyDeleteTo put this in easily understandable terms, I think this would be the equivalent of paying Beverly Hills prices for a well kept up home in order to acquire an extremely dilapidated crack house in Watts or Compton situated in a highly dangerous neighborhood.
Pakistan is a basket case of a country rife with ethnic tensions and with nothing in the way of discernible natural resources or strategic location that would make it worthwhile occupying it.The country is bankrupt and almost ready to fall apart of its own accord.
As you know, I think it would be far better to make deals with the tribal chiefs in Afghanistan as US clients, get the majority of troops out of Afghanistan and depart...and to deliver, as a parting gift, a pre-emptive strike to take out Pakistan's nuclear facilities and ICBM's, along with a clear warning that any future terrorist activity directed at ourselves or our allies would invite a much more in depth response.
And we might also want to kidnap rogue nuclear scientist Dr. AQ Khan and subject him to a nice, thorough interrogation to find out exactly what he sold the Iranians and anyone else of interest.
Regards,
Rob
Rob,
ReplyDeleteIn principle I like your ideas, however, there are some problems with this.
1.)Cutting deals with the various tribal leaders implies we have something to offer them and that if they don't comply with us in the manner we want them to that we can deliver sufficient pain to them that they might conclude it not in their best interests to work against us. These prospects are dubious at best. The best case scenario is they would take what we give them and stab us in the back at their earliest convenience. The most likely prospect is they'd simply refuese to comply. Others have more and better things to offer them than we do. Also, others can inflict more pain on them than we currently can.
2.) Taking out Pakistan's nuclear facilities and ICBMs implies we know where they are and that we can get past the defenses that surround these systems. The chances we actually know where they are is less than one percent. If we did know where they are, the chances of us being able to get past the defenses protecting these facilties are at best 50/50. As such, there is now way any POTUS would order this type of attack. If he did, its even less likely the generals would carry out the order. I don't think they like suicide missions for our men and women.
3.) In ordet to interrogate AQ Khan, we must first find him and then we have to catch him. Given that we don't know where he is and it is unlikely that we even know where to start to look to find him, this is simply unrealistic. Even if we did manage to find him, catching would also be tricky. As I suspected all along and this article seems to confirm, in order to bring down Bin Laden, we needed significant help from elements within Pakistan. Gvien AQ Khan's national hero status in Pakistan, it seems unlikely we could expect the necessary assistance. Without such assistance our chances here of apprehending this man are best 1 in 1000. As such, I don't think any POTUS is going to seriously consider such a policy.
I've already discussed in detail on this site and elsewhere what our best approach to this problem is. Withdraw all forces and other personnel from Afghainstan and the broader middle east and redeploy them to defensible positions along our borders. In addition, modernize and upgrade the nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver it should that be necessary.
I hope this post does not come accross as being rude or nasty. With all due respect I think it prudent to pursue policies that might work that we have the capability to implement.
Hello Poster.
ReplyDelete1) We have plenty to offer the tribal chiefs.
Plusses: arms, a legal market for their opium at fair market prices without them having to pay the costs of smuggling or pay taxes to the Taliban and be under their thumb.
Minuses: Getting their opium fields burned to the ground as 'not our friends'. I've spelled this out in detail before.
2) We know exactly where Pakistan's nuclear facilities are, and their defenses are pathetic compared to what we could throw at them.
3)AQ Khan is living openly in Pakistan.I doubt that snatching him is beyond the capabilities of our CIA and Special forces.
Regards,
Rob