"Pakistan is living a lie." Pakistan is "playing Russian roulette." "We're living on borrowed time."
All quite true. "Status of US ties with Pak was like a 'cold shower' for Obama: Woodward," from Asia News International, September 27:
Well-known author-cum-journalist Bob Woodward has revealed in his latest book "Obama's Wars that President Barack Obama's focus is turning increasingly to Pakistan, even as his administration's military efforts continue to be directed at Afghanistan.
Woodward told ABC News that Obama was told of deep problems in the US relationship with Pakistan in his very first intelligence briefing, and it seemed like"a cold shower" coming days after his triumphant 2008 presidential victory.
"Imagine the high of being elected on that Tuesday and they come in two days later and say, by the way, here's-here are the secrets, and one of the secrets is Pakistan," Woodward said.
"We're attacking with a top-secret, covert operation, the safe havens in Pakistan, but Pakistan is living a lie. And this is a theme throughout the whole Obama presidency: 'How do you get control of Pakistan?' "
Uh-oh: something you can't fix by just being nice?
In Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zardari is depicted as quietly providing help to U.S. enemies, with the CIA suspecting that his government compromised its intelligence.
"You can't keep playing one side against the other," Biden warns Zardari, according to Woodward's book.
Interesting contrast of public and private conduct:
For his part, Zardari expresses frustration that Americans are too concerned about civilian casualties. Woodward reports that Zardari told then-CIA Director Michael Hayden that his poll numbers were high enough to weather blowback from casualties.
"Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me," Zardari told Hayden, Woodward writes....
More on this story: "US warned Pakistan against selective action on terror groups," from Indo-Asian News Service, September 29:
Washington, Sep 29 (IANS) Shortly after the failed Times Square bombing plot, the US warned Pakistan against playing 'Russian roulette' with terrorist groups associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, threatening the US.
President Barack Obama dispatched his national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and CIA director Leon Panetta to Pakistan to convey this warning less than three weeks after a Pakistan-born US citizen tried to blow up an SUV in New York City's famous Times Square, according to a new book, 'Obama's Wars' by Bob Woodward.
'We're living on borrowed time,' Jones told Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the first meeting in Islamabad.
'Jones thought that Pakistan - a US ally with an a la carte approach of going after some terrorist groups and supporting others - was playing Russian roulette. The chamber had turned out to be empty the past several times, but Jones thought it was only a matter of time before there was a round in it,' Woodward writes.
Asking Pakistan 'to reject all forms of terrorism as a viable instrument of national policy inside your borders,' the two officials told Zardari whatever Pakistan was doing with the many terrorist groups operating inside its borders, it wasn't good or effective enough.
Panetta pulled out a 'link chart', developed from FBI interviews and other intelligence that showed how Pakistan-based Tehrik-e-Taliban (TTP) had assisted the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad.
The two officials pointed 'to the disturbing intelligence about Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the horrific 2008 Mumbai attacks that had killed 175, including six Americans'.
Pakistani authorities are holding the commander of the Mumbai attacks, Jones said, but he is not being adequately interrogated and 'he continues to direct LeT operations from his detention center'.
Intelligence shows that Lashkar-e-Taiba is threatening attacks in the US and that the possibility 'is rising each day'.
The two in effect told Zardari that if there is a successful attack in the US, there might be no way to save the strategic partnership, the book suggests. 'If that happens, all bets are off,' Panetta is quoted as saying.
Afterward, the American officials met privately with Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, the most powerful figure in the country. But he had other concerns.
'I'll be the first to admit, I'm India-centric,' he is quoted as saying. ...
Appeasement, nothing but appeasement:
Bishop of Leicester leads a call for solidarity ahead of protest by EDL
http://www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/news/Bishop-s-solidarity-plea-ahead-protest-EDL/article-2698655-detail/article.html
More Moe-toon jitters: Denmark seeks to avoid renewed cartoon uproar
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jL9no4nO_TIB4nYKYZ3cHQ_HOrDwD9IHLT5G0?docId=D9IHLT5G0
Ugh. Pakistan really is one of the biggest problems on the planet. Too bad - the area used to be far more enlightened when it was Buddhist and Hindu.
"Pakistani authorities are holding the commander of the Mumbai attacks, Jones said, but he is not being adequately interrogated and 'he continues to direct LeT operations from his detention center'."
Gee, that's great!
In case anyone needs to be reminded of the atrocities of Mumbai - and the 80 million Indians who have been slaughtered in the name of Islam over the past centuries - take a look at my blog post:
http://freethoughtnation.com/contributing-writers/63-acharya-s/194-in-memory-of-the-mumbai-massacre
Absolutely sickening.
"'Collateral damage worries you Americans. It does not worry me,' Zardari told Hayden, Woodward writes...."
Life is cheap to Islamists - death is glory.
Here is a meme that needs to spread across the world:
"Islam is false, Allah is an Arab tribal moon god, Mohammed is not a prophet of God, and the Koran is hate speech."
http://truthbeknown.com/islamquotes.htm
Keep up the good work, Marisol.
I suspect the Pakistanis know some really really dirty secrets of the CIA. The extent to which the CIA goes to accommodate one of the most criminal countries on the planet is amazing considering it is beating up on Iran and NKorea and Cuba for relatively minor issues.
Pakistan is a country created by fundamentalists, who ethnically cleansed non-Muslims in '47, again in '71, clandestinely developed nukes in the 80s, smuggled that tech to Libya and Nkorea, has been actively sponsoring terrorism in a non-Muslim neighboring country for a good 20 years now, created the Taliban and seized power in Afghanistan and continues to treat Afghanistan as its fifth (failed) province, has aided groups with money and training who have been responsible for deaths of thousands of American soldiers if not civilians (yet, not sure about this).
I mean what is it?!?! Do the Pakis know the JFK assassination secret or something?
The is a new book all written by a US miliary of man, which the US State Dept tried to stop by buying up all his books. anyhow he says the military did not tell much if any of the op work to the CIA, since the CIA was in touch with pak and that information was leaked to the taliban.
This is what you can expect when a nation is founded PRECISELY because Islam exists. Pakistan is a joke; it's chaos with a Parliament and a negative for the world at large. And how can anyone with a sense of decency, proper knowledge of Islam and still in possesion of common sense not find Zardari's statement about overreacting about civilian casualties repulsive and so very, very Muslim?
Here's the bigger picture: The world at large is still in its initial stages in comprehending that Islam is, in effect, a monster. There's no compromising or appeasing this religion. It want's it all--- and in this world and not just the next one (a key difference from all other major faiths). Grasp that Islam is spiritual Nazism and all else falls into place. Continue to think of Islam as "merely" another world religion and all conclusions proceeding from this assessment will be fallacious to not only an egregious degree but a very dangerous one as well.
In short, Islam's got to go---or what man at his best has established has to. It's the ultimate either/or. Showdown time.
'How do you get control of Pakistan?' "
Start by shutting down the cash pipeline.
-----------
'For his part, Zardari expresses frustration that Americans are too concerned about civilian casualties. '
How can you tell a civilian casualty in a guerilla war?
-----------
'Intelligence shows that Lashkar-e-Taiba is threatening attacks in the US and that the possibility 'is rising each day'.
Probably set for U.S. election day to give Obama an excuse to shut down free elections...things aren't looking good for spineless politicians here.
... by the way, here's-here are the secrets, and one of the secrets is Pakistan...
I wonder if Woodward was surprised. This has to be the worst kept secret in world history, so naturally the CIA and Congress were the last to find out. I've known this "secret" for, oh, I dunno, 20 or 25 yrs maybe?
When was Zia-ul-Haq shot from the sky? My my, about 20 or 25 yrs ago. Can u spell ISI (hint: I-S-I).
Maybe Rasool Obama should offer to buy Pakistan out right, and turn it into a state...
"...The commander of the Mumbai attacks...'...continues to direct LeT operations from his detention center'." -- from the story
Sounds like a new entry on the Predator/Reaper target list might be in order.
I recall seeing Obama on the news after that intelligence briefing. He looked like someone who was recovering from a hard sock in the stomach.
Duplicitous Pakistan is one reason why the war in Afghanistan should never have been pursued. With an ally like Pakistan, one doesn't need an enemy. And, JR, the reason the Pathological Pakistanis' butts are being covered by our government is because of geography. There are no other land routes into Afghanistan.
Wellington, our Western elites are probably not waking up to the true measure of Islam because they badly, badly, badly want to believe that theology, a pursuit about which they tend to be clueless, doesn't really matter; and that the "real" business of politics, such as economics, treaties, laws, and institutions (regardless of their content) are the things that do. This way, our current Western elites can congratulate themselves on being the true enlightened masters of the universe. This is also why they remain more frightened of conservative Christians than they are of Muslim fanatics, and lie to themselves that Imam Rauf is just another guy trying to do things while the Tea Party is something sinister.
Good comment, Kepha. I believe you are correct on all counts.
If Pakistan creates difficulties then surely the problem lies not in Afghanistan but in Pakistan itself. So why bother about transit facilities to Kabul and deal with the main problem? And in any case a route is still needed to Central Asia, here's a bit of stale news of January 2009:
"On January 22, 2009, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Afghan President Hamid Karzai inaugurated a new Indian-built road in Western Afghanistan. The Delaram-Zaranj highway was built six months ahead of schedule, by the Border Roads Organisation."
The said highway so obligingly built by the Indians actually joins the Iranian part of Baluchistan (Sistan province) with Afghanistan and provides a road link to the seaport of Chabahar (also obligingly made into a modern seaport by the Indians), in Iranian Baluchistan and quite close to the Pakistani border. All America has to do is to get the entire Baluchistan free - the whole of it which at present lies divided up between Pakistan and Iran and there you are. A functioning seaport, a highway and a friendly (for the time being at least) government of Baluchistan.
Interesting you should mention this. I just posted a comment on another thread ("Recent strikes on Pakistan...." that expresses similar sentiments:
Looking at a map of Pakistan, the thought occurs that there are several responses the U.S. could make to remove ourselves from being hostages to Pakistan:
1. Enter into a formal mutual defense agreement with India, including extending our nuclear umbrella requiring nuclear retaliation in case India is attacked with nuclear weapons. As part of the agreement, begin a long-term program of helping India upgrade and modernize its military. This would force Pakistan to focus its military resources on its border with India, thus drawing them away from its Western border. Why this? Because at the same time we would do the following:
2. Start providing support to the separatist movement of Balochistan, with the goal of creating a separate and independant Balochistan carved out of SW Pakistan and SE Iran.
An independent Balochistan client state would allow for the development of port facilities on the Indian Ocean, perhaps at Pasni, from which a road would run northward to Afghanistan, completely removing dependence on Pakistani protection. The same port could be the terminal for an oil/gas pipeline running northward across Bolichistan, across Afghanistan to Turkmenistan.
I would bet that some such plan has already been developed somewhere within the bowels of the Pentagon, but it's easy to find flaws with it. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to see the response from Islamabad were the plan to be casually mentioned as a counter response to Pakistan's threat to withhold protection from the convoys into Afghanistan.
Now, let's see. What do Zardari and the Taliban and Al Qaeda have in common? Don't tell me, don't tell me. It's a book. Yes, a book. It's around a thousand years old and preaches hatred against all non-Muslims. The name escapes me for the moment.
Could it be that this is the reason......?
The American government, simply by ending its gigantic aid to Pakistan, including an end to all military aid (and spare parts for what Pakistan has), cutting off air traffic to and from Pakistan (which Western governments should do for security reasons, and to make clear that we have ways to deal with terrorist threats emanating from various parts of the world without shoveling trillions of dollars to the sources, or putative sources, of those threats), and halting -- and encouraging other Western governments to halt -- the import of Pakistani textiles (many of which are made by child labor and should not be bought in any case) -- can simply watch for Pakistan to be brought, at long last, to its knees, And if the four major groups in Pakistan start to battle it out, if Pakistan's military are kept busy full-time not in helping the Taliban (or Al Qaeda), save where their own economic interests, and those of the civilian large landowners, in Waziristan are threatened (the only reason the Pakistani military decided to act against the Taliban there was when part of the Taliban's program became the seizure and redistribution of land)'s disintegration as the four major groups battle it out.
And the idea of an independent Baluchistan (Balochistan) mentioned by "Eastview" above appeals not only because of the resources, including natural gas, that could keep this least-populated part of Pakistan going without American money, but because Baluchistan straddles both Pakistan and Iran, and its independence, or even something a little less, would hearten Baluchhis in eastern Iran, and be one more worry (along with the Kurds, the Arabs in Khuzistan, and the Azeris too) for the Islamic Republic of Iran. An independent Baluchistan possesses, for the West, the same geopolitical appeal, that is, as an independent Kurdistan did, and still does.
Lashkar-e-Taiba, is the official terrorists group of Pakistan
Its membership is entirely Punjabi and consists of relatives of the Pakistan army, who did not meet fitness or mental level to join the regular Pakistani army
The brother of the head of Lashkar-e-taiba is a legal immigrant in the USA
Their website used to have pictures of the flags of India, Israel and USA being burnt
Eric Royer of CAIR who got arrested for terrorism in the USA was trained by Lashkar-e-taiba
Lashkar-e-taiba was founded by CIA in 1984
The head of Lashkar-e-taiba has openly called for Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton to be sent to muslim harems
OT, in reply to your reference of the story - "Bishop of Leicester leads a call for solidarity ahead of protest by EDL" -
we'll *know* that the tide has turned in the UK, when instead of folks like the Bp of Leicester playing the dhimmi game, the EDL suddenly acquires a 'Friar Tuck'.
That is, when a Christian clergyman - whether Catholic priest, or Anglican priest, or pastor of one of the nonconformist groups, maybe even a black minister from one of the noisy 'happy-clappy' Afro-Caribbean inner city congregations whose members are copping Muslim aggression and racism quite often - publicly joins the EDL as spiritual adviser and chaplain to those of a nominally or actively Christian persuasion among their number, and is prominently seen at their rallies. And when a 'fighting' rabbi joins them.
They need a 'Friar Tuck'.