Pakistan begins to crack

[KirkVining]

Our short sighted policy of invading Iraq and allowing al-Queda to continue to operate in Pakistan is about to bear bitter fruit, as the al-Queda terrorists now firmly entrenched in Pakistan now begin their efforts to destablize the world's most populous Sunni nation, a nation armed with nuclear weapons. Do you think the possibility exists that Pakistani nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of al-Queda?




Attack on Pakistan PM candidate
Group claims Pakistan attack

From CNN Producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi
Saturday, July 31, 2004 Posted: 12:22 PM EDT (1622 GMT)


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A claim of responsibility for the attempted killing of President Pervez Musharraf's hand-picked choice as Pakistan's next prime minister has appeared on a militant Web site.

Shauket Aziz eluded death in two blasts Friday that killed nine people and wounded 25 others. One of the attacks was a suicide bombing.

The claim, from a group calling itself the Islamabouli Brigades of al Qaeda, warned of more attacks if Pakistan did not stop cooperating with the United States.

The assassination attempt on Aziz, now Pakistan's finance minister, occurred in Fateh Jang, about 45 miles north of Islamabad, Pakistani police said.

The claim of responsibility said: "One of our blessed battalions tried to hunt a head of one of the American infidels in Pakistan while he was returning from Fateh Jang, but God wanted him to live."

Musharraf tapped Aziz to fill the post of prime minister after Zafarullah Khan Jamali resigned last month. Aziz cannot fill the post, however, until he wins a seat in Parliament in a by-election on August 18.

The claim of responsibility addresses "the Pakistani government and its head, the traitor Musharraf who until this day hands over mujahedeen to the Americans."

It said the attack "will be followed by a series of painful strikes if you don't stop complying to the wicked (President) Bush's orders.

"We will give you the chance to stop these actions. Otherwise, we will behave in a different way in Pakistan and turn it into a bloody war against you and whoever supports your policies.

"This is our last warning to you if you don't comply. We will have a different answer to you. Our brigades will talk to you in the language of blood in the coming days -- the language you understand very well."

Meanwhile, a suicide bomb attack Wednesday outside the Kohat house of the Pakistani general in charge of tribal regions in the North-West Frontier Province has claimed a third victim.

Authorities said a police inspector has died of wounds suffered in the attack, which also killed an intelligence officer and the man planting two bombs.

The blasts appeared to have been intended to target Maj. Gen. Ayaz Khattak, authorities said.

Khattak's home was damaged. It was not clear whether he was there at the time. Kohat is near the tribal villages in Pakistan.

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[KirkVining]

The thing that most struck me when I read this, was that we have been unable to control the exact same type of insurrection in Iraq, because we did not send enough troops to secure the place, and nip things in the bud before they got totally out hand, and Iraq is a nation of only 27 million people. This country has 300 million people, most of them ignorant poverty struck peasants ripe for the ideas of bin Laden, and an enormous arsenal of the most deadly weapons ever invented due to its own 70 year Cold War with India. We let al-Queda plant itself like the bubonic plague in this country, and we have refused to do what was necessary-which was to attack al-Queda directly in Pakistan and exterminate them. A popular uprising in a country that populous will topple any puppet government we have put in place. The current one has always been shaky. If anything indicts the poor decision making of the Bush regime, it has got to be this.

Love your sig man, your gonna make a lot of enemies here.

[super SEC]

I am a republican who is voting for Kerry.

Me too!

[KirkVining]

This might start a trend

[jjl]

Short answer: yes. Pakistan scares the bejesus out of me. But Kirk, what could have been done - invasion? Obviously not. What, then? I don't have an answer.

[KirkVining]

You would think after spending trillions on the greatest war machine the world has ever seen, that an attack like 911 would justify a total military response, would you not? I mean, Pearl Harbor, which cost 1600 sailors their lives, plunges us into total war. Here, we lose 3,000 people, women and children this time, on American soil, and we send 10,000 troops. Out of a million man army, we send 10,000 troops. What the hell gives here? We should have sent the whole damned Army to afganistan after 911 - but we didn't -why? Simple. Because they were already planning an invasion of Iraq, before any congressional resolution, any UN thing, any of that stuff. They simply did not want to commit the troops to Afganistan, because they had other plans for them that we as a people, didn't even know about.

What kind of president makes a decision like that? Look at these two articles printed at the time, from the Christian Science Monitor, not exactly an extreme leftist paper. We wouldn't have had to chase him into Pakistan if we had enough troops there. Bush made a decision to try to get him by sending as few US troops as possible, and to depend on Afgan troops for the rest. We had him and the whole al-queda network, surrounded, but with Afgan tribesman, not US Marines. Bin Laden simply bribed his way out. He paid them some money, and walked into Pakistan. This is why anyone voting for Bush amazes me - look at the decisions that were made here - and this guy should be running the country?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0304/p01s03-wosc.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1213/p1s1-wosc.html

This means thousands more of our men will have to die, because now we are going to HAVE to invade Pakistan. What else are we going to do? Can you even imagine a Taliban government armed with nukes? And what about the Iranians - they are on their way to having nukes too. We on the other hand, have a pile of sand, no major terrorists killed or captured, and a 200 billion/900 lives disaster in Iraq. And people are going to vote this guy for another four years? Unbelieveable!

[Botnst]

John Forbes Kerry is going to invade Pakistan.

[elau]

If JFK invades Pakistan to get OBL, I am all for it. GW should have done that instead of going after Saddem. This country would have been better off and GW would have gotten his second term.

[Botnst]

Holy mackeral, Elau, that would be daamned near crazy. Anybody who'd consider invading Pakistan would have to have small regard for life. have you looked at the size of Pakistan's population? They also have nukes. You think Iraq is bad, and it is mostly a relatively desert with a small, mostly rural population. Pakistan has huge, sprawling cities. We'd have to nuke'm blue to conquer them.

Everybody needs to get their geography books out and think about moving armies around mountains and cities with hostile populations.

[KirkVining]

So we should just let Bin Laden get a nuke? You have an odd strategy. We protect this country by invading and occupying the guy with no weapons. We protect this country by not invading the guys with the weapons. Please explain the logic of your plan.
It alludes me and several million other people.

At this point, the Pakistanis have no way to deliver a nuke against us. We would simply have to put them under nuclear blackmail. Let our troops operate in Northern Pakistan or we will incinerate you. Wake up, pal, we're dealing with people who want to kill us. You guys say we are in a war. The way you prosecute one is going to get a lot of people in this country killed. We need someone who is not obsessed with Iraqi oil to prosecute this war. Bush has screwed the pooch so many times the dog is wicked sore.

Time is bin Ladens ally. the longer we screw around, the closer he gets to destablizing this country, so the nukes can start floating around. This is insanity.

[KirkVining]

Originally posted by Botnst
Holy mackeral, Elau, that would be daamned near crazy. Anybody who'd consider invading Pakistan would have to have small regard for life. have you looked at the size of Pakistan's population? They also have nukes. You think Iraq is bad, and it is mostly a relatively desert with a small, mostly rural population. Pakistan has huge, sprawling cities. We'd have to nuke'm blue to conquer them.

Everybody needs to get their geography books out and think about moving armies around mountains and cities with hostile populations.

We don't want their cities, we just want bin laden.

[elau]

Who said anything about conquering them? Or nuking them for that matter. There are plenty of ways to win a war. If we really want to show our true colour once again, we can always get the Indians involved. They are mortal enemies and both have nuclear capabilities. We may just kill two birds with one stone.

B, as I recall you were gun-ho to invade Iraq. What soften you up?

[KirkVining]

Well, the reasons for invading Iraq just don't apply here. Unlike Iraq, Pakistan does not harbor terrorists, does not possess weapons of mass destruction and has no muslim religous fanatics, nor does it have a dictator, or a military government. What? It does? Nevermind.

[elau]

And by the way, it is the Northen territories that we are interested in. Those areas are mostly deserted so if we need to use nuke, not much but the mountain goats and OBL will get fried.

The most densely populated areas are actually in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, which are in the East and South. These areas, which include the citites of Karachi and Islamabad, are not the places where OBL would choose to hide.