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I am not arguing with you; as far as I am concerned, you are preaching to the choir. But tell me, who is responsible for all that you mentioned above? Why were we not able to say "No, our economy does not allow us to bear this additional burden". Pakistan is not the only country that borders with Afghanistan. Why the affected people could not go to other neighboring countries? Charity starts at home, our charity starts at Afghanistan! Why?USD 500 million in investment in Afghanistan, thousands of Afghan students on scholarships in Pakistan, thousands of hospital beds and thousands of students worth of schools built in Afghanistan.
Anywhere between $30 billion and $50 billion in economic losses because of the US invasion of Afghanistan, thousands dead in suicide bombings and active combat - look at those economic and aid numbers as a percentage of GDP and how horrific they really are.
What direct cost has the US, or any other NATO nation in Afghanistan, paid for participation in Afghanistan that comes close to Pakistan's?
I am not arguing with you; as far as I am concerned, you are preaching to the choir. But tell me, who is responsible for all that you mentioned above? Why were we not able to say "No, our economy does not allow us to bear this additional burden". Pakistan is not the only country that borders with Afghanistan. Why the affected people could not go to other neighboring countries? Charity starts at home, our charity starts at Afghanistan! Why?
Problem is more than the economic cost associated. The unchecked influx of Afghan refugees have changed the whole social dynamics of Pakistan at least in the areas where they are in greater numbers such as North and North Eastern Balochistan, NWFP, Quetta, Karachi, even in Islamabad. I am not saying that we should have refused them, but we should have asked the other neighboring countries to share the burden with us.Ethnic ties with those in Pakistan played a part I am sure, and I do not agree with refusing innocents suffering shelter. Taking in the Afghan refugees was the right thing to do, even it there was an economic cost associated with it.
A lot of businesses went into the hands of these refugees that has caused a lot of social and economical problems in Pakistan. After 1979, there established a strong parallel economy purely running on black money that initially rivaled and has now taken over the actual economy.We are not underdeveloped because of those refugees, the burden was not that great, for that we can only blame our leadership.
Again, we have seen all these things after the Afghan war. Pakistan was quiet an advancing and developing country before 1979. There were always talks of this ‘Islamic Pakistan’, but the so called political religious parties saw an exponential rise in the party membership as well as money to support their ambitions only after 1979.As for 'saying no' when the US invasion occurred, IMO the radicalization of FATA, and the subsequent rise of militancy seeking to establish a 'Islamic Pakistan' in their vision would have occurred regardless, for reasons I touched in my earlier response to Elmo, and we would have had to fight them eventually like we are now.
Agno, you know what is our problem? We are not fair with nobody, not even with ourselves and we can never make decisions. Geopolitical realties aside, why we were never able to stop or at least slow down the cross border movement? Why were we not able to mine the border to the best of our ability? Why when the US invaded Afghanistan, we failed to deploy our troops on our side of the border so that no one could cross the border? Was that not the best time to settle the century old Durand Line issue with the help of the US?
You are right, but only raising issues were not enough. We had to keep beating on them until we would see some results. Our problem was, we agreed to join the so-called WOT "un-conditionally", and 'tried' to set the 'conditions' only after that. We never negotiated, we only begged; and beggars cant be the choosers. All these issues had to be settled first before giving the open access to the invading NATO/ISAF.We did deploy troops, tens of thousands of them, how many did the US deploy? And also remember that the Indian Parliament attacks occurred that December, and subsequently Operation Parakram that at the time was the overriding threat.
And Pakistan did raise the issue of the Durand, the US was not interested in pushing its ally Karzai to move on it, and Karzai was not interested in moving.
And a complete stop to cross-border movement, even with a stop to the historical movement of the Pashtun tribes, is next to impossible given the terrain and our resource constraints.
Sure, if that's the thread you want to go down. The reasons for it are precisely the reasons for the Pakistan invasion of the Swat valley and areas of South Waziristan these past few months. Namely the control and elimination of the Taliban, AQ and their supporters. The differences occur where the ISAF remains in place whereas the PA goes in, lays waste and then withdraws.One step at at time, the invasion and occupation and its goals come before all, they are the root of the issues in the region at the moment, so an answer to my question please.
We know that, which is why we've had such problems over the years with notions such as the 'good' Taliban vs the 'bad' Taliban.And for clarification, I don't agree with the posters comment about body bags and whatnot, only that without Pakistani cooperation eliminating AQ and assorted groups is not possible.
The reasons for it are ... Namely the control and elimination of the Taliban, AQ and their supporters.
USD 500 million in investment in Afghanistan, thousands of Afghan students on scholarships in Pakistan, thousands of hospital beds and thousands of students worth of schools built in Afghanistan.
Anywhere between $30 billion and $50 billion in economic losses because of the US invasion of Afghanistan, thousands dead in suicide bombings and active combat - look at those economic and aid numbers as a percentage of GDP and how horrific they really are.
What direct cost has the US, or any other NATO nation in Afghanistan, paid for participation in Afghanistan that comes close to Pakistan's?
And assuming Pakistan does stop supplies, how does a NATO invasion of Pakistan, or destruction of its military capability, and the subsequent chaos and breakdown of central authority (far greater than what is on display now) not astronomically increase the influence and size of AQ, Taliban and other extremist groups?
If the purpose is to control, minimize and eliminate AQ/Taliban etc. then your suggested path only increases the problem, even taking into account any alleged 'duplicity', by many magnitudes, not decrease it.
Cutting off your nose to spite Pakistan so to speak - though I understand the almost base desire to spite Pakistan.
You have swallowed the wrong tablet fed to you by our revered A_M. Whatever A_M means.Point taken. Just thought a ban was a bit harsh. May be a warning would have done. I enjoyed some of his posts. Then may be you guys did give him a warning.
Anyways, I agree. Generalizations lead to prejudice.
We're carrying out the biggest operation that this region has seen since 9/11 in that region. Surely just because our sovereignty is challenged by the Taliban, you don't assume that automatically gives you the right for a Free for all in that region?At the moment however, Pakistan protects large numbers of Taliban by it's claims to sovereignty over areas such as Waziristan, the NWFP and Bolichistan when no such sovereignty exists. All this does is prevent the ISAF from pursuing its enemy across all the territories it inhabits, and continues Afghanistans slow and deadly bleed.
I find it laughable that the ISAF can even begin to mount a similar offensive as Rah-e-Nijat in the region even if we allowed them to. You and what army?The ISAF has bent over backward these last 8 years to respect Pakistans claims, all a blockade would mean is that the combined powers would have carte blanche to prosecute it's enemies wheresover they dwelt, and Pakistan would have declared itself to be one of those enemies.
By what Army? On whose economy? Don't talk silly. Pakistan's invasion is impossible!Enter CVBG's, sub killers, SF operations, air denial and a concentrated bombing campaign and occupation of Pakistan just like Afghanistan.
Why would we destroy our country just to save them? Can't they fight better?Again I ask, why the hell would ABCA allow it's armies to be destroyed just to keep Pakistan happy?
You guys have been losing Afghanistan recently... We've pushed them out of Swat and are giving them hell on their last stronghold. The only problem is you guys have failed in Afghanistan so even if we clean them up on our side, they'll come back from yours!As for the growth in size and influence of the extremist groups, what the hell do you think has been happening in the region for the last 8 years?
Not worked out so well for Pakistan that one, has it?
'not chipping in' thousands dead but we're not 'chipping in.' OK.
No country is obligated to allow another to use it's territory therefore we are doing the US a favour by allowing them to use it.