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The Battle for Bajaur - PA seizes control

"Isn't everything controlled by CIA?"

PREDATOR only. It's their special baby.:agree:

Congressional Oversight Manual- CRS

Here's a lil' left-wing expose' to describe the lengths to which the U.S. gov't goes to manage and control it's intelligence operations-

C.I.A.- Legal Restriction Judson Knight

As a think-tanky guy, I know that you seek the truth behind the facade. These documents should help to lift the veil for you.

"It hink it is cheap to point at ISI while one should remind that it was the ISI that stopped Russia entering warm waters."

I sorta think that had America ignored Pakistan, you'd be speaking Russian now. Rather arrogant to single-handedly claim this as victory. You might give a nod to the Saudis, Chinese, and ourselves but your outright claim reflects a narrowly-contrived and myopic perspective.

Interesting. Does this mean that you're single-handedly responsible also for all that's followed? You'd would think one logically follows the other.:disagree:
 
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Interesting. Does this mean that you're single-handedly responsible also for all that's followed? You'd would think one logically follows the other.

That is what is so strange. There are far too many who like to think that it was Pakistan that defeated the Godless communists of Russia but blame the USA for not clearing all the mess that was left behind!

MOD EDIT
 
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Everything you all said is right! i just ask one question!
Whoes war are we fighting!!!!!!??
our?.........where were these taliban before 9\11 or US attack on Afghanistan??? YES i am talking about ' TALIBAN'.....a miltia formed and tranied by OUR OWN army officiers and ISI!
What made you call the war of Aghanistan "JIHAD" against USSR and "terrorism" against US?
I dont support Taliban infact i DESPISE them for what they have done to us.....and i dont support U.S ,infact i HATE them from the core of my heart for how they have tracked us!
I am talking for my own country! my own army and my OWN PEOPLE! who are dying out there!
Where we stand today? what is our foriegn policy? where is our sovereignty?
 
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The notion of "strategic space" is firmly embedded in most Americans who've read some of this area. Nothing new there, I believe, though this dovetails with Rubin/Rashid's contentions about a grand peace over Kashmir.

"state within a state" is a bit unusual from a Pakistani. Were I to make the same claim here, I'd be ripped apart.

Also, that the ISI and P.A. control foreign policy WRT to, specifically, Afghanistan and India is something new for me. Long suspected by myself, I don't know if any organization can "control" but it's easy to imagine how their influence is the prevailing mind-set.

Rashid is strongly anti-military, as I mentioned elsewhere, and you have to view his comments in that context.

His suggestion of shifting aid from the military to the government is not really a practical one, given the Taliban/AQ threat - changing the nature of the aid to COIN equipment and training, while channeling civilian aid to the social and economic sectors would probably the direction an Obama adminsitration would go.

There is truth to this argument of the military wielding tremendous influence (I would say military not the ISI - since the ISI is staffed primarily by the, and not some sort of omnipresent cabal) - but that influence cannot exist in the absence of failure on the part of the politicians and the political process.

A bit of scaremongering, and dredging up of the well used and familiar ISI bogeyman on his part.
 
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That is what is so strange. There are far too many who like to think that it was Pakistan that defeated the Godless communists of Russia but blame the USA for not clearing all the mess that was left behind!

It was Pakistan that defeated the Soviets more than can be said for any other country short of the Afghans themselves. The whole war was our idea, the Americans were not really interested at first, they had already marked Afghanistan off as 'red' territory. American and Saudi money started flooding in after they realized the potential of what was being proposed by the Pakistanis (particularly top ISI officers). All of the organization and planning was from Pakistan, most of the manpower and the weapons were from a variety of allies including China. The Americans only took their gloves off at the very end, with the Singer being the first significant US made weapon system arriving in Afghanistan, and that was just a couple of years before the end of the war. If it can be said that men from any regular army ever defeated the Red Army, they would be Pakistanis.

And the US IS to blame for not sticking to its commits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. That much is without doubt and is widely acknowledged including within the US itself. It's not so much a matter of blame as it is reality. Just watch 'Charlie Wilsons War' if you are un-inclined to read a decent book about the events before pretending to be indignant about some else’s view.
 
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It was Pakistan that defeated the Soviets more than can be said for any other country short of the Afghans themselves. The whole war was our idea, the Americans were not really interested at first, they had already marked Afghanistan off as 'red' territory. American and Saudi money started flooding in after they realized the potential of what was being proposed by the Pakistanis (particularly top ISI officers). All of the organization and planning was from Pakistan, most of the manpower and the weapons were from a variety of allies including China. The Americans only took their gloves off at the very end, with the Singer being the first significant US made weapon system arriving in Afghanistan, and that was just a couple of years before the end of the war. If it can be said that men from any regular army ever defeated the Red Army, they would be Pakistanis.

How difficult do you think it was for the USSR to just press a button and put everything to a real quick stop? Why do you think they didn't do that?

Where were the engagements between the USSR and the Pakistani army? I know some Pakistani army soldiers were part of the Afghan militias but an army to army fight! Please prove your assertion with some decent sources.

And do you really think Pakistan had the resources to take on a Superpower? Did China and Saudi have the might to take on a Superpower? Remember its 1980s we are talking about? They could have contributed with money and some weapons, but defeating a Superpower with more than 10,000 nukes.

So, while no doubt Pakistan was the staging ground for arming and training the militias, you are claiming much more credit than the reality warrants. You simply didn't have the resources to sustain it, nor the might.

Of course you took a neat cut from all the supplies that poured in for the Afghans and that explains the massive militarization of your population and later the same arms and militants were used in kashmir.

And the US IS to blame for not sticking to its commits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. That much is without doubt and is widely acknowledged including within the US itself. It's not so much a matter of blame as it is reality. Just watch 'Charlie Wilsons War' if you are un-inclined to read a decent book about the events before pretending to be indignant about some else’s view.

May be you can't see the contradictions in your statements in claiming the credit and blaming others for any fallout. All of the countries involved in rearing those militias had a responsibility to rein them back in. It was a collective failure but most of all it was a failure of the Afghans to come together. They destroyed their own country beyond redemption. And you guys kept on supporting those criminals who were destroying the whole country. People like Hikmatyar ring a bell. He destroyed the whole countryside including the capital and you are supporting him till date.

Thanks for the movie suggestion. I do intend to watch it.

And there is no pretension as you would like to feel. Its just a bit amusing.
 
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Everything you all said is right! i just ask one question!
Whoes war are we fighting!!!!!!??
our?.........where were these taliban before 911 or US attack on Afghanistan??? YES i am talking about ' TALIBAN'.....a miltia formed and tranied by OUR OWN army officiers and ISI!
What made you call the war of Aghanistan "JIHAD" against USSR and "terrorism" against US?
I dont support Taliban infact i DESPISE them for what they have done to us.....and i dont support U.S ,infact i HATE them from the core of my heart for how they have tracked us!
I am talking for my own country! my own army and my OWN PEOPLE! who are dying out there!
Where we stand today? what is our foriegn policy? where is our sovereignty?
i need an answer!
 
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"And the US IS to blame for not sticking to its commits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. That much is without doubt and is widely acknowledged including within the US itself."

Great. Provide some of that wide acknowledgement for my reading pleasure.

It should go something like this-

"U.S. leadership accepts world-wide condemnation for the abandonment of Afghanistan and Pakistan to their fates."

Some presidents or GHB as he's still alive and was both Director of the C.I.A. and former vice-president to Ronald Reagan. How about a few key generals? A senator or two from the day?

Oh! Don't forget that "global presence" too. Key Euro leaders who've blamed the U.S. for abandoning Afghanistan back in the day.

Your contention is VERY MUCH IN DOUBT. Prove it instead of tossing innuendo out as accepted fact.

"The Americans only took their gloves off at the very end, with the Singer being the first significant US made weapon system arriving in Afghanistan, and that was just a couple of years before the end of the war."

1986 to be exact for STINGER. It would have been earlier but the C.I.A. feared that the Soviet Union might use it's presence to justify attacks upon Pakistan. Seemed timed about right. What were the other "significant US made weapon system, if any, please? Lots of money, small-arms, explosives. No stealth dune-buggies. No laser ray-guns. Oh!!! No IEDs or EFPs. Just very useful and simple battle implements.

"gloves off"? Alan Wolfe, the C.I.A.'s chief for the Near East and South Asia Division set the wheels in motion in late 1978 at the American embassy in Pakistan. Read the date carefully. Late 1978. That's a year BEFORE the Soviet intervention. How's that for "gloves off".

Your stuff is very, very weak.
 
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King Abdullah offers asylum to Mula Omar
Saturday, November 22, 2008

BERLIN: King of Saudi Arabia Shah Abdullah has offered political asylum to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, a German weekly reported on Saturday.

The offer had been pushed by U.S. President George W. Bush and Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, the magazine said in an advance report from its Monday edition, quoting government sources in Kabul. It did not give further details.

A Saudi foreign ministry official was not available for comment.

Saudi Arabia hosted a meeting between pro-government Afghan officials and former Taliban officials in September for discussions on how to end the worsening conflict in Afghanistan.

An Afghan government official said on Wednesday Afghan government representatives and former members of the Taliban were expected to meet in Saudi Arabia soon for a second round of talks.

The official said Karzai, King Abdullah and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari had discussed the initiative on the sidelines of a U.N. conference in New York this month.
Omar is suspected to be hiding in the mountainous areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Karzai has said he will guarantee the safety of Omar if he wants to talk peace to end the hardline Islamist group's insurgency.

Saudi Arabia has a history of providing sanctuary for exiled and controversial politicians, including Uganda's Idi Amin, who died in exile there in 2003.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates were the main supporters of the Taliban when they ruled from 1996 to 2001. The Taliban were overthrown by U.S.-led troops in 2001, weeks after the Sept 11. attack on the United States.
 
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How difficult do you think it was for the USSR to just press a button and put everything to a real quick stop? Why do you think they didn't do that?

Same reason the Americans didn’t nuke the North Vietnamese or the North Koreans and the Russians didn’t just nuke the Hungarians or the Chechens or the Chinese?:crazy:
Because it would be political, social, moral and yes, military suicide. One sure way to have the world gang up against you just by the “press of a button” as you up it, hardly worth one warm water seaport.
C’mon why didn’t the US win the Cold War when USSR could have just nuked them to oblivion with their superior quantity of warheads? Why did the Soviets lose when their vast armies could have just bulldozed through Europe in 15 days? Because everything has consequences, the USSR and the US were not ready to deal with those consequences.
LOL did you even put an ounce of thought into it before you framed that “Why didn’t Russia nuke Pakistan” question?:lol:

Where were the engagements between the USSR and the Pakistani army? I know some Pakistani army soldiers were part of the Afghan militias but an army to army fight! Please prove your assertion with some decent sources.

Another contradiction there, if I might point out. You just acknowledged that Pakistani soldiers and officers were involved in combat with the Soviets. And yet you see fit to dispute my observation that it was Pakistan that defeated the Soviets more than can be said for any other country short of the Afghans themselves. So do you seriously disagree or is this another failure to comprehend my post resulting in an impulsive and little thought through rebuttal (as usual)? The training, planning, organization, logistics and aye direct professional on the ground military contribution came from Pakistan. It is very fair to say that if any country, other than Afghanistan can claim to be victors when the Soviets withdrew, that would be Pakistan.

And do you really think Pakistan had the resources to take on a Superpower? Did China and Saudi have the might to take on a Superpower? Remember its 1980s we are talking about? They could have contributed with money and some weapons, but defeating a Superpower with more than 10,000 nukes.

Just gimme a break please! Who on Earth said you need to beat someone nuke by nuke and dollar by dollar in order to defeat them in any one particular theatre?

So, while no doubt Pakistan was the staging ground for arming and training the militias, you are claiming much more credit than the reality warrants. You simply didn't have the resources to sustain it, nor the might.

I'm afraid we did have the might and the resources. Where we got them from is secondary to the fact that we had them and used them. The Indians had Soviet technical, military, financial support and backing, and they defeated our garrison in East-Pakistan but I'm not going to claim that it was the Soviets or their communist allies that did it.
The weapons that came to us from the west were mostly not from the west, they were recycled, faulty, unreliable and inappropriate in almost any way you can think of other than the fact that they made it harder for the Soviets realize that the west was on our side. All of the manpower came from Pakistan and our Muslims allies, Saudis payed every bit as much as the Americans did and that’s not even counting the Chinese. So yes we had allies and friends, and we made use of them just like every other country has allies and makes use of their contribution in its endeavors. But that does not mean that you get to ridicule the fact that it was a Pakistani victory. We live in an inter-dependant world especially where finance and security are concerned. All the weapons, money and recruits you name it, went through us (despite the CIA persistently insisting on direct battlefield supply).

Of course you took a neat cut from all the supplies that poured in for the Afghans and that explains the massive militarization of your population and later the same arms and militants were used in kashmir.

It was something that was essentially ours to give. Supplies ‘poured’ into us, our garrison and depots, not Afghanistan directly.:disagree:

May be you can't see the contradictions in your statements in claiming the credit and blaming others for any fallout.

I used the words ‘American commitment’, not ‘contribution’. They are spelt quite differently if you would care to note. During the campaign American aid was faulty, inconsistent and insufficient at times but after the conflict it was completely non-existent.

All of the countries involved in rearing those militias had a responsibility to rein them back in. It was a collective failure but most of all it was a failure of the Afghans to come together. They destroyed their own country beyond redemption. And you guys kept on supporting those criminals who were destroying the whole country. People like Hikmatyar ring a bell. He destroyed the whole countryside including the capital and you are supporting him till date.

It’s very funny you should raise that. Okay we supported ‘criminals’ like Hikmatyar who ‘destroyed their whole country’ but who the hell supported the Northern Alliance might I add? The KNOWN drug smugglers, wanted-for-human-right-abuses warlords? People who were/are every bit if not more brutal than Hikmatyar and any of his friends. You don’t suppose they were destroying their country much were they? India sure was keen to ‘help’ them ruin their country and pump drugs into Pakistan despite the fact that India had no part in the war before. Why is only Pakistan crucified for looking out for her interests?

Thanks for the movie suggestion. I do intend to watch it.

Reading some books too won’t be so bad either.

And there is no pretension as you would like to feel. Its just a bit amusing.

No please, as always, the pleasure is all mine.

Great. Provide some of that wide acknowledgement for my reading pleasure.

It should go something like this-

Why should I bother finding you internet links? Almost everyone knows it’s true, they must’ve heard or read about it on occasions (including you probably). If you are too stubborn to acknowledge it that’s not my problem. This is not the place for it either.

Some presidents or GHB as he's still alive and was both Director of the C.I.A. and former vice-president to Ronald Reagan. How about a few key generals? A senator or two from the day?

Oh! Don't forget that "global presence" too. Key Euro leaders who've blamed the U.S. for abandoning Afghanistan back in the day.

Your contention is VERY MUCH IN DOUBT. Prove it instead of tossing innuendo out as accepted fact.

Um that was pretty lame. You just highlight some BS written by yourself pretending they were my words. My words are pretty clear, “widely acknowledged including within the US itself”. Surely you realize your demands of written proof by ‘key’ Euro leaders is pretty retarded. You can’t compensate your lack of factual counters with a mixture of trash talk and ridiculously out of context assumptions, everyone can see that. Heck I’ve even seen Obama mention it in one of the debates, it’s actually a pretty common theme about how ‘we left Afghanistan after our cold war needs and it came back to bite us in our ***’. But I guess you’re not likely to hear it much on Fox News. Open your eyes, instead of wasting my time with denial.

Your stuff is very, very weak.

Funny I was about to say the exact same thing about your 2 preceding paragraphs. What ‘wheels’ did the CIA set into motion in the Pakistani embassy before the threat even materialized? Do you even know what ‘gloves off’ means, I wonder? I would have loved to quote from my Oxford Press printed book called the Military History of Afghanistan (by Stephen Tanner) to the both of you where it says late 80s was when America finally took her gloves off. But this is not the place. So instead might I suggest you read it yourselves instead of bombarding people with stereotypes and trash talk. bye bye.:wave:
 
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Thanks for the details. You could have simply provided your commonly accepted proof and saved everybody the trouble.

Worthless. You tap-dance and dissemble around your common knowledge. Tells me it's not common at all.
 
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Thanks for the details. You could have simply provided your commonly accepted proof and saved everybody the trouble.

Worthless. You tap-dance and dissemble around your common knowledge. Tells me it's not common at all.

Not a tap dance at all - quite a few analysts and authors from the US have argued that the US should not have left Afghanistan - Wilson himself argued for continued engagement and support.

I have doubts about whether support for the idea of continued engagement with the region post Sovites was/is 'widespread', but that a school of thought subscribing to that POV exists there is no question.
 
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May be you can't see the contradictions in your statements in claiming the credit and blaming others for any fallout. All of the countries involved in rearing those militias had a responsibility to rein them back in. It was a collective failure but most of all it was a failure of the Afghans to come together. They destroyed their own country beyond redemption. And you guys kept on supporting those criminals who were destroying the whole country. People like Hikmatyar ring a bell. He destroyed the whole countryside including the capital and you are supporting him till date.
Pakistan had a crucial role in running the anti-Soviet operations, and had it soldiers and airforce involved (successfully) in quite a few skirmishes.

Could we have done so without the financial and military backing of the Saudis and the US?

Probably not.

The chaos in Afghanistan post Soviets was not of our making, but that of the different Afghan factions. If it was of our making, then it was alos of teh making of the US and the Saudis, since without their funding and support the Jihad would not have been carried out. Most of all, the Soviets were to blame, for starting the whole fiasco in the first place.

We did not strongly support Massoud or Dostum during the Jihad, and we obviously were opposed later, and these warlords were part and parcel of the violent strugge for power in Afghanistan.

If there were 'criminals', then they were all the factions, including Massoud's forces, who massacred thousands of Heratis in a bout of ethnic cleansing. And these are the people India ended up supporting, so lets not pretend like there were any 'good guys' in Afghanistan

And there is no pretension as you would like to feel. Its just a bit amusing.


I've already edited your earlier post to take out the language designed to instigate, unfortunately before Kasrkin could respond. That Pakistanis and Indians will disagree on many issues is obvious - condescension will not improve the atmosphere of discourse.

Keeping what you find 'amusing' to yourself would be a good idea, you can get your points across perfectly well without generalizing about "Pakistanis this or that', as I have pointed out to you before.
 
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"...a school of thought subscribing to that POV exists there is no question."

That's a far step down from this-

"And the US IS to blame for not sticking to its commits to Pakistan and Afghanistan. That much is without doubt and is widely acknowledged including within the US itself."

I can just imagine had we actually done so.:lol::lol:

You'd still be screaming about our neo-colonial aspirations.
 
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Not a tap dance at all - quite a few analysts and authors from the US have argued that the US should not have left Afghanistan - Wilson himself argued for continued engagement and support.

I have doubts about whether support for the idea of continued engagement with the region post Sovites was/is 'widespread', but that a school of thought subscribing to that POV exists there is no question.

Blaming the US for every cause and effect does not subside with me at all. Infact the afghans and it people had freedom that they fought for, and in return what did they actually created. A complet and devestation of a throwback society that was not seen in earth for last 100 years.
 
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