Obama’s Mideast Crisis to Come
Pakistan is looking like Cuba in the 1950s and Iran in the ’70s as armed zealots start to take over a country without the will to resist.
Accusing Pakistani leaders of “basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded the alarm yesterday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
“We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state.”
As Congress debates $7.5 billion in new aid and an “extremely concerned” White House awaits a scheduled visit early next month by the Pakistani president, the growing threat of an extremist takeover of a nuclear-armed nation rises to the top of America’s foreign policy agenda.
3 Responses to “Obama’s Mideast Crisis to Come”
So send in the special forces and get everyone else out. I liked the interview with the Colonel on Maddow's show last night. His advice and knowledge of the region stood out as a policy of sanity. One way America will unite the muslim extremists of that region will be to make a stand like the one Clinton currently proposes.
Obviously the nukes are a concern, but like the Colonel said, promoting a foreign presence in that region will likely bring about that which we fear. Also too there is the likelihood that people there are being given orders to ramp up hostilities in order to manipulate US intelligence on a false path. I really smell a rat in this area and so do others who are vastly more experienced than I in these matters.
One way to unite squabbling extremists is to give them a common enemy. One way to defeat them is to take away that common enemy and let them face the terrible reality of their own behavior without mommy or daddy there to expensively mitigate their manipulative bickering..
This region isn't known as the graveyard of nations for no reason. It may also be the graveyard of Clinton and Obama's political careers if they don't learn to see beyond the facade. And they shouldn't rule out any information that would suggest that keeping an escalating US presence there would bring about the ruination of their [the democrats] majority standing in US politics today…
Know a mouse-trap when you see one.
What about this, from Asia Times:
Islamabad controls most of Pakistan – Sindh and Punjab provinces – with an iron fist. Pakistani police and army control most of NWFP. In “separatist” Balochistan there's only 5% of the total population. For Washington to believe that a small, rural, Pashtun tribal agglomeration of bands of a maximum of 30 fighters, with no air force, no heavy artillery and no tanks, could take over a Pakistan with a 650,000-strong well-trained army is an absolutely ridiculous notion. And for Washington to believe – as Holbrooke implied – that a few Pashtun tribals and a few expat jihadis can take on Western civilization as a whole is also an absolutely ridiculous notion.
from Newshoggers:
The Pakistani military also directly controls over 50% of Pakistan's economy and the civilian government is just a facade to keep US military aid coming. The military has let the Taliban have those bits of Pakistan it isn't interested in running itself, that's all. If they were a serious threat to military supremacy they'd be crushed. A potential deal where the Taliban get Sharia in return for keeping the populace off the military's back…that's maybe a different story…
GreenDreams is right. The idea that Pakistan's military is underfunded compared to a rag tag band of Taliban fighters is laughable. Even more laughable is the idea that 100 Taliban fighters are going to takeover the capital.