Pakistan retaliation leaves NATO drivers in limbo

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Stranded Pakistani truck drivers carrying fuel and other supplies to U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan said Sunday that they were exposed to attacks by Islamist militants, after Islamabad closed the country's border crossings in retaliation for coalition airstrikes that allegedly killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Suspected militants destroyed around 150 trucks and injured drivers and police a year ago after Pakistan closed one of its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies for about 10 days in retaliation for a U.S. helicopter attack that accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers.

The situation could be more dire this time because Pakistan, outraged at the alleged NATO attack before dawn Saturday, has closed both its crossings. Nearly 300 trucks carrying coalition supplies are now backed up at Torkham in the northwest Khyber tribal area and Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan province. Last year, Pakistan only closed Torkham.

"We are worried," said driver Saeed Khan. He spoke by telephone from the border terminal in Torkham. "This area is always vulnerable to attacks. Sometimes rockets are lobbed at us. Sometimes we are targeted by bombs."

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_PAKISTAN?SITE=TXBEA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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[Magoo48]

1. Maybe it's time to quit fucking around over there...

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[cosmicone]

3. Pakistan is doing it for domestic consumption and to save face.

Pakistan cannot survive without US aid, so the convoys would soon resume.

[FarCenter]

5. They've received about $20 billion since 2001, but the WOT has cost them about $70 billion

Plus about 40,000 dead in Pakistan.

So they have considerable incentive to see the Afghan war wound down and the Taliban reestablished in the Southeast part of the country where the population is predominantly Pashtun.

The Pashtun population was about evenly divided on either side of the Durand Line border dividing Pakistan and Afghanistan.

[cosmicone]

7. They have received way more than that. n/t

[krucial]

4. Pakistan

The best thing that west can do,is to get out of all these people land,and leave them alone.
trying to control them or force them into accepting western type system that they don't want will be futile and only cause perpetual death destruction and misery on both sides as long as we insist on doing that.
I don't see any Arab,or muslim nation or power occupying or trying to control any western country

[cosmicone]

6. Not controlling Pakistan is what caused

the Nairobi and Dar e Salaam explosions, the USS Cole bombing and 9/11. As long as Pakistani military and ISI are active, leaving them alone will not solve the problem. The real long term solution is balkanizing Pakistan into several smaller states so their incentive for gaining power via terrorism is taken away.

[Fool Count]

8. Wrong. It is trying to control the Middle East by military and economic

means in order to secure its oil for US consumption and against the wishes of its people
that caused all the terrorism in the first place.

[Angry Dragon]

9. Now that really makes sense

Next we should break the US into 52 different states and that should decrease the power of that mean central government..........

Now tell me what gives the US the right to determine how other countries are set up.........

[cosmicone]

10. Well, it is different in the case of Pakistan

The baluchis want self-determination and have wanted it for a long time. So do the Sindhis who want to form a free Sindhudesh. The Pashtuns in the tribal areas want to be a part of Afghanistan and don't accept the Durand line as the de facto border.

We would be doing all those people a favor by liberating them from Pakistani, Punjabi enforced tyranny.

[Angry Dragon]

11. I don't see it that way

Let each country work out its own problems

Or let the UN sit these factions down and let the UN do the work it was set up for......