Dear Pakistan: OMGWTF. Love, NATO.

[Occam Bandage]

MINGORA, Pakistan (AP) — NATO warned Tuesday that Pakistan risked creating a safe haven for Islamist extremists after it struck a deal to impose Islamic law and suspend a military offensive in the former tourist haven of Swat.

Criticism of the truce mounted as a hardline cleric dispatched by the government to convince the Taliban to stop fighting as part of the deal arrived in the Swat Valley's main city of Mingora to a hero's welcome.

NATO says it has 55,000 troops across the border in Afghanistan, and many of them have come under attack by Taliban and al-Qaida fighters believed to have sought refuge in pockets of Pakistan's northwest.

"It is certainly reason for concern," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said in Brussels about the latest deal. "We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven. Without doubting the good faith of the Pakistani government, it is clear that the region is suffering very badly from extremists and we would not want it to get worse."

Britain also weighed in with reservations.

"Previous peace deals have not provided a comprehensive and long-term solution to Swat's problems," said a statement from the British High Commission in Islamabad. "We need to be confident that they will end violence — not create space for further violence."

Much more at link.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD96DCNK00

I will say this plain and simple: we cannot win the war in Afghanistan so long as the Taliban has a safe base in Pakistan. What the Pakistani government has done amounts to a surrender: they will be withdrawing their troops, ending hostilities, and allowing the Taliban to impose Islamic law, all without requiring the Taliban to disarm itself.

So long as Pakistan cannot control its own territory, and so long they do not allow us to control that territory in their name, Afghanistan is lost. It is only a matter of how long we wish to delay that.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. No one could have foreseen this happening.

:eyes:

[BlooInBloo]

2. In addition to just being assholes, they're a bit caught between a rock and a hard place...

The religionists there pose a genuine threat to the government.

Even more than religionists here, if you can believe it.

That doesn't take away from their being assholes, of course - just one more variable to add to the mix.

[Occam Bandage]

3. I agree. Pakistan is not capable of fighting this on their own,

nor are they capable of accepting overt American aid. Rescuing the Afghan war would require a diplomatic miracle.

[Chulanowa]

4. No, we can't win.

No qualifiers. No "if" and no "unless". Afghanistan is a lost cause, and it has been since November 7, 2001.

We've spent eight years fucking up a country for nothing, and no amount of escalation is going to unfuck it.

[Occam Bandage]

6. Things were quite winnable in, say, 2003, and even

with the inadequate troop levels and shameful lack of diplomacy and reconstruction funds, we've made some very good progress in both poppy eradication and complementary poverty reduction programs. To say we've only been "fucking up" Afghanistan, that this amounts to "escalation," or that Afghanistan has been a "lost cause since 2001" I think shows either a scarcity of information or a readiness to oversimplify along partisan lines.

[Chulanowa]

8. Poppy reduction, poverty reduction programs? We needed a war for these?

We needed to kill how many people, just to cut down heroin production and help the survivors not be so blisteringly poor?

It's not partisan. it was fucked up when Bush did it, and I believe that Obama will not be making the situation any better - and may in fact end up making it worse. I don't think we'll be able to beat the record of occupying forces in Afghanistan. I do not think we should have gone in the first place, nor do I think our continued - much less inflated - military presence will accomplish too much beyond giving us more men and women to bury, there and here.

[Occam Bandage]

12. I don't recall suggesting that the reconstruction effort was a cause for war.

I don't think any war has ever been launched with reconstruction as its goal.

[Chulanowa]

14. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply you did

You meant it was one of its outcomes. However, I think we could have done the same things without ever being involved in a war there. And further, I believe an expansion of our war there is going to hurt those noble and lofty achievements more than help them.

Frankly, the Taliban aren't going to go away because we kicked their ass. In a strange way that sort of thing actually engenders sympathy for them. The only way to fight them is to combat the ideology and make it so that they have nowhere to take root, because the people have better than what the Taliban offer. We're not going to do that with guns. We're not going to do it with bombs, tanks, or troops.

A moderate security force and an army of teachers and people lugging bags of good honest seed (not that monsanto shit) will do far more than trying to "win the war" can manage.

[Teaser]

5. Welcome North Crazystan to the community of nations.

because there is, effectively, a new Muslim Fundamentalist country on the map now.

[Soylent Brice]

7. K&R n/t

[shadowknows69]

9. And only two horrible options are before us

Get out or go to full war with an unstable nuclear armed nation.

[Thrill]

10. How long will India allow that weakass Pakistan Government to let the Taliban

Work their way until they get control of the nukes there?

[Fleshdancer]

11. I'm troubled by this

I'll probably get flamed for this, but there's a big part of me that wants the Taliban gone. The feminist in me holds a high level of hatred for these a**holes...a hatred I felt long before they decided to shield OBL after 9/11. I know I'm not the only one to feel this way.

There's a part of me that is angry that we never caught those responsible for 9/11. I'm angry that I have no idea if OBL is even alive and I'm angry that Bush shifted our focus to Iraq. I know I'm not the only one to feel this way.

Having said that, I know the actions of the US Government should not be ruled by these emotions. Chasing the Taliban across the border begins to get very Vietnam-ish in my view and I like to think we've learned our lesson. We're making more enemies faster than we can bomb them and now Pakistan is losing ground. We might think we can stop this by force, but the best thing we can do for the moderates in Pakistan is to pull out.

[Occam Bandage]

13. I generally agree with your post.

I also hate the Taliban and want them erased from the Earth. They are a danger to millions of people. I also want to ensure that international terrorism is minimized as a danger, and think that losing Afghanistan would do quite the opposite.

Finally, I agree that going across the border is rife with danger, especially if neither we nor a friendly Pakistani military are capable of controlling the regions we bomb. Vietnam would be a good comparison; I should hope we have learned that a guerrilla war cannot be won on the defensive, nor can it be won through air superiority. If the political situation in Pakistan is going to ensure safety for the Taliban in the Swat Valley, then we may as well pull out now.

[PurityOfEssence]

15. Lines on a map aren't as important as words in the scripture

whether one can read them or not...

[Fleshdancer]

16. I found a blog you might find interesting

While researching the Swat Valley, I came across this blog titled Swat is Burning: http://swatvalley.org/index.php

[Occam Bandage]

17. That is interesting, thank you.

[anonymous171]

18. They control it just fine. They are playing both sides. nt

[dcindian]

19. I am sure the multitude of American attacks killing innocents have weaken them at home.

This was the only outcome of the American terrorist attacks in that region. Pakistan must protect the rest of it's citizens by giving up a portion of the region to not do so is to guarantee it's lost of the whole of Pakistan.

[ShortnFiery]

20. I wonder if we recall the fact that Pakistan has NUKES? If the radicals take over, we're in for

a world of hurt (understated). :shrug:

[dcindian]

21. What else can Pakistan do?

We put them in this position. They cannot continue to condone the killing of innocents in their country by Americans. I cannot see a way out of this other then giving up part of Pakistan to save the rest.

We really put ourselves in a bind here didn't we.