Don't Send US Troops to Pakistan

[babylonsister]

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/29640

Don't Send US Troops to Pakistan
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2007-12-29 19:14. Media

By Kevin Zeese

The report below from the Washington Post web site indicates the U.S. is starting on the slippery slope toward military engagement in Pakistan in the wake of the Bhutto assassination. This is the exact wrong response, but the U.S. is a country that has decades of investment in a massive military and minimum investment in the State Department so like a carpenter using a hammer the U.S. uses its military.

It is likely the U.S. will put its support behind Musharraf, who is a dictator and an unpopular one. He is not even all that popular with the military any longer. One of the many assassination attempts against him occurred at a military base.

U.S. actions are likely to strengthen anti-Americanism, empower Taliban-leaning leaders and draw the U.S. into another land war against the second largest Muslim country in the world – the sixth largest country in the world with 165 million people that is as geographically large as France and England combined. The overstretched U.S. military would be biting off much more than it can handle if the U.S. takes military action in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The potential entanglements with Iraq, Afghanistan, India and China on the borders are too complicated and unpredictable to imagine. A big blunder is unfolding further (further, because the strident support for dictator Musharraf has already been a mistake).

U.S. Troops to Head to Pakistan

Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning.
These Pakistan-centric operations will mark a shift for the U.S. military and for U.S. Pakistan relations. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the U.S. used Pakistani bases to stage movements into Afghanistan. Yet once the U.S. deposed the Taliban government and established its main operating base at Bagram, north of Kabul, U.S. forces left Pakistan almost entirely. Since then, Pakistan has restricted U.S. involvement in cross-border military operations as well as paramilitary operations on its soil.

But the Pentagon has been frustrated by the inability of Pakistani national forces to control the borders or the frontier area. And Pakistan's political instability has heightened U.S. concern about Islamic extremists there.

According to Pentagon sources, reaching a different agreement with Pakistan became a priority for the new head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Adm. Eric T. Olson. Olson visited Pakistan in August, November and again this month, meeting with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen. Tariq Majid and Lt. Gen. Muhammad Masood Aslam, commander of the military and paramilitary troops in northwest Pakistan. Olson also visited the headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a separate paramilitary force recruited from Pakistan's border tribes.

Now, a new agreement, reported when it was still being negotiated last month, has been finalized. And the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early in the new year, according to Pentagon sources.

U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. William Fallon alluded to the agreement and spoke approvingly of Pakistan's recent counterterrorism efforts in an interview with Voice of America last week.
"What we've seen in the last several months is more of a willingness to use their regular army units," along the Afghan border, Fallon said. "And this is where, I think, we can help a lot from the U.S. in providing the kind of training and assistance and mentoring based on our experience with insurgencies recently and with the terrorist problem in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think we share a lot with them, and we'll look forward to doing that."
If Pakistan actually follows through, perhaps 2008 will be a better year.

[walldude]

1. Shoot first.. and

shoot again if you miss. Then, shoot again to make sure. Then ask a question, but only while waterboarding some poor Pakistani. Bush's foreign policy in a nutshell..

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Save them for the re-emergence of mighty Greneda! Or. some other bogeyman.

[burythehatchet]

3. This actually does not bode well for India as well.

I think the US troops in Pak are there to seize the nuclear arsenal. There will be a lot of conflict in that country and that is when an extremist could take a shot at India, knowing that India could not respond with the US in Pakistan.