Pakistan outrage after 'Nato attack kills soldiers'

Pakistani officials have responded with fury to an apparent attack by Nato helicopters on a border checkpoint they say killed at least 24 soldiers.

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BBC News - Pakistan outrage after 'Nato attack kills soldiers'

Just incredible. I suppose we should go all in and start a total war encompassing the entire middle east. After all, we have an economy to keep inflated.

we should bring all of our troops home from that region. we've been there ten years. additionally, we can't afford it.

1Perry said:

Just incredible. I suppose we should go all in and start a total war encompassing the entire middle east. After all, we have an economy to keep inflated.

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Pakistan is not in the middle east. It is at best in the sub-continent or middle Asia. The middle east only includes Egypte, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar according to your own State Department from 1958.

As for the case it self, it looks like out right murder and someone needs to pay, either with prison or money. And not even then might Pakistan not be satisfied.

Helix said:

BBC News - Pakistan outrage after 'Nato attack kills soldiers'

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Well, this can't be good news. NATO, unless they acted unilaterally (which I doubt), either acted by accident (nah) or there's something in the wind. It's ludicrous that we're bombing Pakistan with our left hand and giving them military aid with our right. Absolutely ridiculous.

The United States is the second-largest supplier of military equipment to Pakistan after China and largest economic aid contributor as well.[3][4][5]

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Pakistan

How nutz is that??

... The border episode came a day after General Kayani and General Allen met in Rawalpindi. The two “discussed measures concerning coordination, communication and procedures between the Pakistan Army, ISAF and Afghan Army, aimed at enhancing border control on both sides,” according to a statement by the Pakistani military. ...

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/w...nato-helicopters-kill-dozens-of-soldiers.html

will be interested to learn whether this was an unfortunate accident or if this was actually a 'message' being sent by General Allen to his pak counterparts for their allowing al qaeda forces to migrate from pakistan locales to fight NATO troops in afghanistan

I get a feeling it was the latter. Let's identify Pakistan for exactly what it is - a backwards third world country with nuclear weapons. They are not, and never have been, our allies. We should cease all military cooperation with them - including ending the billions of dollars we give them in military aid - and treat any Taliban attack emanating from Pakistan as an attack approved by Pakistan. And respond accordingly.

To hell with them.

Wiggen said:

I get a feeling it was the latter. Let's identify Pakistan for exactly what it is - a backwards third world country with nuclear weapons. They are not, and never have been, our allies. We should cease all military cooperation with them - including ending the billions of dollars we give them in military aid - and treat any Taliban attack emanating from Pakistan as an attack approved by Pakistan. And respond accordingly.

To hell with them.

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and what of their nuclear weapons
the ones bachmann told us the other night had experienced attacks at six of their installations
do we resort only to prayer that al qaeda does not get its hands on those actual WMDs?

IMO, this incident needs to be investigated. Were adequate precautions not taken, those responsible should be held accountable. Whether any commanders or troops are discharged dishonorably is irrelevant. Of course, if U.S. or NATO forces came under fire, then that's an entirely different matter. If proper precautions were undertaken and an accident took place, that's also an entirely different matter.

However, in the larger context, I do believe a lack of strategic foresight has contributed to incidents such as the current one, because alternatives would reduce interaction and possible confrontations between U.S./NATO and Pakistani forces. Pakistan is continuing to evolve into a failed state. Its government lacks legitimacy among large segments of its population. It has proved to be unreliable in bilateral relations. Nevertheless, the underlying U.S. policy assumption has been to treat Pakistan as an ally even as it is both unwilling and unable to play the role of an ally.

Last spring, I raised a number of questions concerning U.S.-Pakistan relations. Those questions were:

• Will the U.S. military have the strategic foresight to identify and begin to phase-in alternative supply routes that reduce dependence on Pakistan and reduce that country’s ability to exploit the ill-advised single route approach over which it can exact disproportionate leverage?

• Will the U.S. military develop a plan to secure or destroy Pakistan's nuclear weapons and/or deter the proliferation of such weapons, should such a nightmare situation become necessary?

• Will the U.S. government have the strategic foresight to deepen bilateral relations with India and to intensify relationship building with Afghanistan’s neighboring states (excluding Iran and Pakistan) so as to offset the costs of the worsening relationship with Pakistan (should that trajectory continue) and, if necessary, establish and sustain a regional balance of power that neither Iran nor Pakistan could exploit?

• Will the U.S. government have the strategic foresight to link continued assistance to Pakistan to concrete conduct and cooperation and, absent that conduct, will it have the courage to draw down the assistance, even as an increasingly uncooperative Pakistan contributes a diminishing minimum of cooperation to try to hang onto the foreign aid?

IMO, the growing evidence, based on continuing approaches is that the response to the first question is negative. No such effort has been made to any meaningful attempt. If it has, failure to implement it is highly problematic.

The response to the second question is perhaps negative as well. The underlying assumption remains that Pakistan is an ally. Hence, the very difficult effort of developing a course of action to deal with the unpleasant reality that Pakistan is not exactly an ally may well have been put off. After all, if the far easier logistics challenge (cutting deals with Russia/Russian allies for alternative routes, resorting to an air bridge ala the Berlin Airlift, etc.) has not been addressed, it is difficult to envision the greater challenge of developing a contingency plan for Pakistan's nuclear arsenal being tackled. The persistent lack of contingency plans for Iraq and Afghanistan also reduce confidence in such contingency plans being developed.

The response to the third question appears to be somewhat positive. The U.S. has been moving to strengthen bilateral ties with India. IMO, that process should be maintained and accelerated.

The response to the fourth question is negative. The U.S. has not tied continued aid to Pakistan to Pakistan's conduct. Some in Congress have suggested such a move, but Congress has not acted legislatively when it came to the recent foreign aid appropriations process to attach such terms.

As noted previously, ideally, the bilateral relationship can still be mended. However, that may well be a difficult challenge, especially if Pakistan continues to slide toward failed state status whereby an ever weaker regime runs larger risks in a bid to survive. In any case, the U.S. should have a coherent strategy in place should the relationship continue to deteriorate or even collapse. Otherwise, its ability to secure its goals and safeguard its regional interests could be compromised. IMO, with the exception of the bilateral relationship to India, serious effort toward devising such a strategy has yet to be undertaken. The lack of such a strategy has likely hurt U.S. interests and might well have contributed to a business as usual context in which the most recent tragedy took place, as more interactions create more opportunities for accidents or worse.

Could this Pakistani General Kayani be the same Ashfaq Kayani who was Director of the (Taliban-friendly) ISI from 2004-2007?

You betcha.

From today's edition of The New York Times:

In Washington, American officials were scrambling to assess what had happened amid preliminary reports that allied forces in Afghanistan engaged in a firefight along the border and called in airstrikes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/w...nato-helicopters-kill-dozens-of-soldiers.html

If this is the case, then the use of force was likely justified to an extent that no one should be punished. The facts will ultimately determine the proper course of action.

However, on a separate front, the U.S. still remains seemingly oblivious to the need to devise and put in place alternative supply routes. As a result, it continues to subject itself to avoidable vulnerability in the logistics area. For now, Pakistan continues to prevent the passage of supplies and, unless the avoidable vulnerability is addressed, will remain in a position to "turn on" and "off" the passage of supplies at its whim. Periodic disruptions and the threat of disruptons of supplies do not help military planning and operations.

Pakistan seems to be the only one winner this war thus far, they get billions in aid from the United States while at the same time maintain their position to communicate with the Taliban, which they helped established and have worked with in the past. So if the Taliban takes over when the US leaves Afghanistan, Pakistan is a good position to make a separate peace and come out a lot richer. So long as the Taliban, and other radicals, stay in Afghanistan and the tribal area of Pakistan without causing trouble to Islamabad what does the Pakistani government care? I believe the Taliban and Pakistan could come to such an arrangement, one of the reasons I believe Pakistan is interested in keeping high ranking Taliban leaders alive, so they have someone they already have a relationship with to negotiate with and someone who can control the most radical, lets say violent-expansionist since they are all radicals, elements of the Taliban.

Pakistan could control the tribal reaches a lot better through direct military and police force, but I don't think they nor their people or military have the stomach for, nor do they want to risk the kind of violence, IEDs, suicide bombings, coming to Pakistan anymore than they already are.

Can you trust Pakistan? India dont trust them one bit. US giving them aid to harbour the Talibans?

justabubba said:

and what of their nuclear weapons
the ones bachmann told us the other night had experienced attacks at six of their installations
do we resort only to prayer that al qaeda does not get its hands on those actual WMDs?

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Any use of nuclear weapons by Al Quaeda puts the whole world into a new era, and what used to be Pakistan if that occurs will bear the responsibility. You may be content to play *****foot with Pakistan and pretend that they aren't what in fact they are. I am not. Let's treat them exactly as what they are - a hostile nation bent on raising hell throughout the region. I'm tired of the pretense.

Wiggen said:

Any use of nuclear weapons by Al Quaeda puts the whole world into a new era, and what used to be Pakistan if that occurs will bear the responsibility. You may be content to play *****foot with Pakistan and pretend that they aren't what in fact they are. I am not. Let's treat them exactly as what they are - a hostile nation bent on raising hell throughout the region. I'm tired of the pretense.

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and look at how you would "deal" with them:

Wiggen said:

I get a feeling it was the latter. Let's identify Pakistan for exactly what it is - a backwards third world country with nuclear weapons. They are not, and never have been, our allies. We should cease all military cooperation with them - including ending the billions of dollars we give them in military aid - and treat any Taliban attack emanating from Pakistan as an attack approved by Pakistan. And respond accordingly.

To hell with them.

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your solution is nothing more than to say 'to hell with them'
so effective [/sarcasm]

And your solution is to ring your hands, criticize the U.S. and Nato, and seek to beg the forgiveness of the Pakistanis. I'll take my solution over yours. End all military and diplomatic relationships with that pitiful excuse for a nation until they prove they are serious about terrorism - instead of actively supporting it as they do now.

So yes, to hell with them - and to hell with anybody who makes excuses for them.

RDS said:

Can you trust Pakistan? India dont trust them one bit. US giving them aid to harbour the Talibans?

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Nobody, except for a few people here, trusts Pakistan. This is a cesspool of a country that we have poured billions and billions of dollars into in the mistaken belief that somehow this would make them favorably inclined towards the west and actually interested in fighting terrorism. In fact, they are - along with Iran - the biggest supporters of Muslim terrorists in the world.

This sort of thing happens in war. Why did this one happen? Was it intentional, or a mistake? Who knows, or ever will for sure?

The lesson is that you don't make friends by making war, and that Pakistan and the USA are not friends. The fact that Pakistan has nukes is scary to the max. What is to keep them out of the hands of the jihadis?

Then, where do we go from here? Do we just leave? If we do that, then there is nothing to keep those nukes out of the hands of terrorists. Do we stay? How long?

When you start a war, you need to go all out, no holds barred, nothing but total victory for our side and total defeat for the enemy. You need to know who your enemies are. We didn't do any of that in going to Afganistan.

We should have gone in, taken out Bin Laden and his cockroaches, and left.

But, it's too late for that now, isn't it?

Dittohead not! said:

This sort of thing happens in war. Why did this one happen? Was it intentional, or a mistake? Who knows, or ever will for sure?

The lesson is that you don't make friends by making war, and that Pakistan and the USA are not friends. The fact that Pakistan has nukes is scary to the max. What is to keep them out of the hands of the jihadis?

Then, where do we go from here? Do we just leave? If we do that, then there is nothing to keep those nukes out of the hands of terrorists. Do we stay? How long?

When you start a war, you need to go all out, no holds barred, nothing but total victory for our side and total defeat for the enemy. You need to know who your enemies are. We didn't do any of that in going to Afganistan.

We should have gone in, taken out Bin Laden and his cockroaches, and left.

But, it's too late for that now, isn't it?

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no. we should exit the region. there is very little public support for continuing the war in Afghanistan after ten years. that means it is not worth putting our soldiers at risk. also, we have no money to continue it.

time for nation building here in the states.

Wiggen said:

I get a feeling it was the latter. Let's identify Pakistan for exactly what it is - a backwards third world country with nuclear weapons. They are not, and never have been, our allies. We should cease all military cooperation with them - including ending the billions of dollars we give them in military aid - and treat any Taliban attack emanating from Pakistan as an attack approved by Pakistan. And respond accordingly.

To hell with them.

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I'd say that even before this atrocity only some of the military wanted any alliance with those who treat their sovereignty with contempt (imagine this sort of behaviour on America's borders). Now, I'd say, nobody wants your dirty money. Those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

I for one will be happy to keep our dirty money out of the hands of pissant excuses for countries like Pakistan and all of those other third world cesspools. I'm perfectly willing to leave them to their own devices and only smack them down when they assist those trying to kill me.

Your statement about America's borders is ridiculous, but then you know that already, don't you?

I love you folks - you are so delightfully illogical.

I would be pissed too......

Aren't you socialists always pissed? It kind of goes with the label, doesn't it?

Wiggen said:

Aren't you socialists always pissed? It kind of goes with the label, doesn't it?

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Naaa we are actually loving caring people with huge hearts and will hug anyone with open arms. We are fervent cat lovers and peacefully frolicking flower people. We live in simple shacks with one computer. :beer:

TheDemSocialist said:

Naaa we are actually loving caring people with huge hearts and will hug anyone with open arms. We are fervent cat lovers and peacefully frolicking flower people. We live in simple shacks with one computer. :beer:

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Is the computer owned in common by every inhabitant of the simple shack?