News from both sides of the Durrand Line

Hoping to make this the Afghanistan and Pakistan news thread. Been holding off until a story of interest came out to kick off with. The purpose of this thread is to aggregate news from these two countries, and to discuss and analyze what it all means as in other threads.

Anyway, to begin:

There was a NATO raid in Pakistan against an Army checkpost. Quite a few were killed. Updated number as of this thread post was 28.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15901363

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/26/nato-attack-pakistan-kills-eight

...and now NATO supplies have been halted by Pakistan due to the raid.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-pakistan-nato-idUSTRE7AP03S20111126?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&rpc=71

This all comes on the heels of a scandal that has so far resulted in the sacking of Pakistan's ambassador to the US, has the President on thin ice with the Army Chief (the Man Behind the Man), is likely to earn early elections (where either the Ron Paulesque-popular Imran Khan will win or the archrival Nawaz Sharif would, both of them conservative and less likely to see the Taliban as an enemy even compared to now), and overall has weakened the civillian government in relation to their military.

Now just need some Afghan news and my evil pl- er...my thread is complete. :P

I have wonder if this is an attempt to goad the Pakistani government into open war or into dealing with the insurgents on their side of the border. Or as revenge for housing them in the first place and supposedly aiding in mortor and rocket attacks across the border.

Hanlon's Razor suggests that NATO forces attacked the wrong target by mistake (which has happened in the past, unfortunately).

^ That's the most probable case. However in the last 18 months Pakistan has been anything but friendly so it might have been a deliberate draw. A False Flag Operation you might say to get the US out of the region.

Except they had to know it was a official Pakistani outpost before the attack in the first place. You know military vehicles and personnel would occupy it along with various indicators. I highly doubt this was an accidental helicopter assault.

It's likely an accident, but the Pakistani military will use this as an excuse to rid themselves of the US yoke they feel is on them (they're prepping the way for a less friendly civillian government, what with the recent sacking of their anti-Army Ambassador to the US and possibly propping up Imran Khan). They're reactions to this thus far includes the usual with the closing of both border crossings, but also they're kicking out the CIA from the drone base. From what I've seen of news coverage, its gonna get worse.

On the other hand, if it is on purpose, the US is either trying to give themselves an excuse to get out of the region as has been suggested earlier, the unit in question went overboard which is a scary thought regarding discipline, or the US is trying to get the Pakistan Army to make some sort of grevious error...but what, I do not know.

edited 26th Nov '11 8:15:24 PM by FFShinra

Kinda hard to accidentally launch a coordinated helicopter assault on a known position manned by a countries government troops. It is a static position not a mobile camp of insurgents. They very likely knew who was there and roughly in what strength and their equipment.

Oh damn. Shit just got real. o_o

Shit wasn't real before?

I think Pakistan needs to remember that without our 300+ million in aid money we give them every year, they would cease to have a government that could function.

Barkey: That may be but that is still not a license to go around blasting someone elses outposts.

That government hardly functions anyway. Only the military does.

@Tuefel - I'm actually inclined to agree with you upon further reading. But WHY would they want to cause shit to get real even more than it already is?

The various views are as good a guess as any at this point. Goading them into action, revenge, creating high levels of embarassment, we could spend ages guessing.

Wasn't that ended owing to basically how Pakistan acted offended for us finding and killing Osama Bin Laden and proving to the world they were not the world's friend?

We restarted aid (dressed up as something else) a few weeks ago. The military gets every dollar, so it doesn't matter where it was earmarked to.

So, according to Pakistan the NATO operation took 2h, and was even then not ended when local Pakistani commanders told them whose outpost it was.

So, yeah, this seems like absolutely inexcusable behaviour to me, and Pakistan will be absolutely justified in whatever retributory step it might take.

While I'm inclined to agree normally, you have to take into account that the Afghans say Pakistan fired first.

This is seriously turning into a real life version of the Han versus Greedo debate.

Reuters figures that Pakistan is gonna play the hard sell for a future in Afghanistan henceforth. They think the Haqqani Network will be leaned on even more than it is already to cause ISAF problems. Essentially, everything will be done short of open war. I'm not sure if they'd be so obvious, but then again it is a military state so who knows...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/28/us-pakistan-usa-idUSTRE7AR14Y20111128

I'm getting real fed up with Pakistan right now. They are proving to be a menace to both India and Afghanistan, not to mention how duplicitous they act otherwise.

They're abandoning the Bonn Conference.

Why is it important? Nearly every major player since the original Bonn Conference (that established the current republic in Afghanistan) meets every year to discuss the situation with few results. What was going to make THIS conference special was that it was to establish the legal and political end game of Afghanistan, which requires Pakistani cooperation for obvious reasons. With them boycotting this conference, the US can't determine the terms upon which they end the war while Pakistan gets everything.

I gotta hand it to them: They're better strategists than the US is...

The Pakistanis dont want Afganistan, they just dont want a chaotic war torn region next to them. They always believed that the American occupation would end in failure, with the Taliban as strong as before. Hence they never had any reason to hunt down their own allies, which would effectively end any influence they have within Afghan itself. It simply never made any sense for Pakistan to play along with the US when the US is leaving...

As for the attack itself, the US has nothing to gain by goading the Pakistanis, and if we did, we could find much safer ways to do it than deliberately attacking them. That would be an act with vast counter-propaganda potential. And very difficult to keep secret. Dont underestimate how hard it is to attack specific targets, and only certain specific targets, in such an isolated region. We occassionally attack our own troops over there, it's not so hard to imagine us accidently hitting a military outpost.

However, the Pakistanis do want a buffer state, a state not influenced by India. That is also the reason the ISI are allied with the Taliban. That is why they've done all you've mentioned in the quote above.

Anecdotal evidence: a Pakistani official once said to an American journalist, "Our histories have a lot in common: we both believe that the only good Indian is a dead Indian."

Thinking about the history of Pakistan since the day it was founded, its behavior (e.g. allying with the USA to "oppose Communism") can be fully explained solely by its single-minded desire to fight against India.

Indeed.

Exactly.

Some news. The Senate is moving a bill to the floor to reduce military aid. They're trying to do it in such a way to "not provoke" Pakistan. While I think Pakistan won't care at this point, I have a feeling it wouldn't be because of the bill.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/196317-senate-orders-gradual-reduction-of-military-aid-to-pakistan-

Also, Obama's not going to give condolences or apologize:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/01/world/middleeast/for-pakistan-no-formal-remorse-yet-from-obama.html

We shouldn't. Afghanistan stated that Pakistan fired first. Considering Pakistan's history I wouldn't doubt it. Pakistan has done all sorts of monkey shit since independence.

We should, out of fairness, bear in mind that said Afghan government is also not trustworthy. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if for some reason, the Afghans screwed up and blamed it on Pakistan both to absolve themselves, weren't responsible but are not about to come to Pakistan's defence...or did it on purpose to mess with Islamabad. In short, I'm not giving ANY of the three parties the benefit of the doubt here.

I'm not liking the rhetoric coming from both sides. Granted they are both mere opinion pieces, but still. Namely:

U.S. - http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/11/30/its-time-to-end-our-relationship-with-pakistan/

Pakistan - http://tribune.com.pk/story/299586/do-away-with-this-charade/

Mc Farland doesn't surprise me, and has always come off as a hack when it comes to policy. I'm more frightened about the Pakistani piece because thats from a paper that normally is fairly liberal, critical when it is fair to be so and not in favor of Army rule.