Jul 20 2008

Reuters: Rumsfeld More Sane Than Obama Regarding Pakistan

Published by at 12:11 pm under All General Discussions,Bin Laden/GWOT,Pakistan

The border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan is heating up. I have a slew of interesting articles on activities there as a continuation of my recent posts on the area (see here, here and here) which I will get to in a moment, but one article truly struck me and it was from Reuters:

Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld may not have been shy about projecting U.S. military power, but even he didn’t dare send American troops into Pakistan’s tribal lands to snatch or kill al Qaeda leaders.

But now Pakistanis fear the U.S. presidential campaign has heated up the foreign policy debate over how to handle the Taliban and al Qaeda threat to a point where American leaders could throw caution to the wind by taking unilateral action.

“If this was a possibility in the past, it’s a high possibility now,” said a senior security official in the northwestern city of Peshawar, shuddering at the statements coming from the United States.

Well, we all know that the Waffler-in-Chief (Obama) at one time was a very big proponent of invading Pakistan to get Bin Laden:

As President, I would make the hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional, and I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters, and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan.

I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges. But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.

Obama made this statement in August 2007. God only knows where the master flip-flopper is today. I assume he is still hell-bent on invading our nuclear-armed, democratic ally Pakistan, as he is still hell-bent on turning tail and running from our democratic ally Iraq. But what Reuters is saying, by comparison, is that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s strategy with Pakistan was saner and smarter than someone like Obama who is acting like a loose cannon, ignoring the potential results and the concerns coming from the military, the diplomats, the press and others. Reuters just made the case Obama’s plans are scarier than Rumsfeld’s actions ever were.

 

 

OK, now onto the other interesting stories from this region (in no particular order). There are indications Pakistani forces are escalating their efforts against militants in the Kurram Agency:

Helicopter gunships attacked on Friday afternoon a number of militant hideouts in Shamsud Din Banda and Ghlu Chinna areas, near the Kurram Agency, inflicting heavy casualties.

Officials claimed that the militants had retreated to the tribal areas of Sadda and Orakzai Agency after suffering heavy losses and that security forces had advanced further towards the inaccessible areas from all sides.

Military officials claimed to have secured 90 per cent of the troubled region and achieve the main objectives of the operation. “Now the army or the Frontier Constabulary will set up permanent checkposts in Doaba, Zargari and Naryab to stop the militants from coming back,” they said.

More here. There are also signs of ever expanding in-fighting between militant tribes on the Mohmand Agency:

At least 15 people, including a militant leader, have been killed by the local Taliban in clashes with another rebel group in Pakistan’s restive Mohmand tribal region.
Shah Khalid, the chief of a militant outfit known as the ‘Shah group’, and his deputy Qari Abdullah were among the 15 people killed in the fighting, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Doctor Asad told reporters today.

However, state-run PTV reported that Khalid was killed after he had surrendered to Pakistani Taliban militants owing allegiance to commander Baitullah Mehsud.

Much more here, with the additional news that our enemy’s focus has now moved from their defeat in Iraq to their survival in Pakistan’s tribal region:

The violence came as General David Petraeus, the senior US commander in Iraq, claimed that al-Qaeda may be diverting some of its fighters to the region from Iraq.

“There are unsubstantiated rumours and reflections that perhaps some foreign fighters originally intended for Iraq may have gone to the FATA,” he said, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

Pakistan recently said it was working to tackle al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the region bordering Afghanistan and would not allow foreign forces across its borders to carry out operations.

More here on the movement of fighters to the region. If al-Qaeda and the extremists elements of the Taliban are defeated in the Pakistan tribal areas the movement will be seen as a complete and utter failure. Which is why action now could inflict a death blow to the Islamo Fascists.

The Taliban and al-Qaeda see the potential for their utter destruction, and have decided they need to act now, though acting now would simply demonstrate how the dangers from 9-11 have not been completely eradicated, destroying their hope the can get a liberal Surrendercrat into the White House:

The Taliban in Pakistan are gearing up for attacks across the country in the wake of an army operation against militants in the North West Frontier Province that has resulted in the killing of 15 rebels.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud held a meeting at an undisclosed location in the North Waziristan tribal region a few days ago to discuss ways to “occupy territories” in the NWFP and carry out terrorist activities across Pakistan.

Maulana Fazlullah, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in the Swat valley of NWFP and a deputy of Baitullah Mehsud, also held a meeting on Saturday with 50 militant commanders in Matta sub-district and discussed a “war strategy” to confront the government, media reports said.

The Taliban control areas inside of the FATA region (see map above), but have never been able to expand their control into the NWFP. Each time they have tried they have been repulsed and a backlash has risen amongst the locals. An attack now inside Pakistan would free the hand of the Pak government to drop the useless peace talks and get back to serious military operations. With US and NATO forces massing on the border this may all be a foregone conclusion.

More here on the stand off in the NWFP.

5 responses so far

5 Responses to “Reuters: Rumsfeld More Sane Than Obama Regarding Pakistan”

  1. combat18 says:

    I think you are being a tad optimistic. See here from the Long War Journal another “peace accord” with an agressive Taliban commander.

    http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/07/pakistan_signs_peace_1.php

    In any event there will be factionalism among the Taliban and Al Queda, but their ideology is spreading within Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora. While we may be killing alot of them, they seem to be able to replenish their forces. Even the outpost where we killed hundreds, they, in the end, forced us to abandon our outpost. Their numbers certainly are growing. It seems to me that Iraqi Sunnis were much less radicalized than most of the Pakistani Sunnis. And who is providing the suicide bombers with UK passports? Pakistan is providing the foot soldiers in a world wide insurgency.

  2. Terrye says:

    combat:

    I don’t know if that is true or not. Osama is less popular in Pakistan today than he was 5 years ago. I think most Pakistanis just want to be left alone.

    I don’t think the government wants to confront the Islamists, but they do not want to be the next Afghanistan or Iraq either. And that is possible if there is a big attack on the US from there.

  3. Terrye says:

    As far as Obama is concerned, who gets to decide what actionable intelligence is? Him? and if the Intel is wrong do we get to say that Obama lied and people died?

  4. kathie says:

    Obama served on no committees that would help him understand our Nations security and I’m quite sure he doesn’t get an intel briefing yet. His rhetoric reminds me of someone who hasn’t seen results so he assumes nothing is being done, nobody has spoken to anyone about the issues.

    He should know that the way we supply our soldiers in Afghanistan is through Pakistan. Therefore I’m sure that there is an accommodation with the Pakistani government for allowing our guys to travel through their sovereign nation. As well as other agreements with Mushariff on other issues. So we threaten to bomb them?

    Obama says he will get NATO to add more troops, as if the reason they do not is because they hate Bush or Rummy was to stupid to ask. What a crock. Remember NATO stood with us after 911, we are all Americans now. Well they were only words as Rummy found out in short order when he requested troops for Afghanistan. He was so angry he called the NATO countries old Europe. Meaning all words and no fighters. Europe spends 1 or 2 percent of their budget on armed forces. They can’t fight in Afghanistan.

    Obama wants to leave Iraq so we can focus on Afghanistan. How many troops did Russia have in Afghanistan and for how many years and loose. Someone needs to ask why, or Obama needs to see for himself how difficult it is to fight in the Afghanistan mountains, and get people who go back into Pakistan. And…….who is to say that when we put pressure on Pakistan and leave Iraq that the foreign fighters will not go back to Iraq. Afghanistan will be a low intensity war to ever, as Rummy said it is a God forsaken place, big, no infrastructure, no cohesion as a nation and poor as poor can be. That is why bin Laden went there in the first place. If we can just keep the bad people in Pakistan, maybe the Pakistanis will do something to save their own country and ask for our help.

    Obama may sound good, great words, but his arrogance is staggering. We haven’t gotten bin Laden, because we haven’t been trying. The Palestinians are still fighting the Israeli’s because we haven’t tried hard enough to settle the issues. Iraq was the blunder of the ages because there were no stock piles of WMD’s. Never mind Saddam had an agreement with the UN which he did not uphold and supported terrorists all over the world. NATO will send sufficient forces if we only ask nicely. Never mind that they can’t and haven’t been able to protect their ass, that is why they called us to help them in the last conflict with Yugoslavia, that they started.

    Anybody can say anything, he does it better than most, but to assume that that nothing has been done or no one has thought these complicated issues through, just because their are no results yet is the height of arrogance. A man so in love with his words and intelligence is a scary person. He can’t even keep the facts straight, let alone put policy to his words.

    Obama thinks photo ops in Europe will help him get elected as President of America, because it will show how much every body will loves us when Bush is gone. Holy cow, how naive is this empty suit?

  5. dave m says:

    If europe loves him so much, why not have
    him as president of europe? The EU is about to create the
    position, only stalled by the plucky Irish who refuse to ratify
    their new Constitution. Let Europe have him.

    Now AJ!
    Roggio reported only two days ago that Pakistan is still striking
    crazy Taleban deals.
    Here’s a little snippet:

    Pakistan signs peace accord in Orakzai tribal agency
    By Bill RoggioJuly 19, 2008 9:17 PM

    The Pakistani government has negotiated yet another peace agreement with the Taliban in the tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan. The latest agreement was signed in the Orakzai tribal agency, Geo TVreported.

    Information on the Taliban leadership in Orakzai is sparse. In November 2001, Dawn interviewed Akhunzada Aslam Farooqui, who was described as the “patron-in-chief” of the Taliban in the agency and a “close friend of Mullah Mohammad Omar.”

    Farooqui promised 12,000 tribesmen to battle US forces in Afghanistan and offered support such as sanctuary and weapons and ammunition. He claimed to lead 7,000 Taliban fighters.

    The whole report is at http://www.longwarjournal.org/

    I don’t know at what point an ally is no longer an ally but their
    behavior means there cannot be a victory in Afghanistan while
    many tens of thousands of terrorists remain just across the border.