Jeff Binkley -> Ed Hulett wrote:



 RS>>> Yeah right. (sarcasm off)

 EH>> If you had been paying attention for the last couple years you'd know
 EH>> that Pakistan is no longer an ally. We have been supplying our troops
 EH>> through one of the other 'stans to the north for some time now.

 EH>> Pakistan is the birthplace of the Taliban and they have strongholds
 EH>> all along the Paki/Afghani border on the Paki side.

 JB> Notice how Bush allowed the generals on the ground to decide troop
 JB> levels and the battle plans.  Obama himself will decide troop levels.
 JB> This is very much what happened early in The Clinton administration in
 JB> Africa with disastrous results.

Yes it is and it will be even more disastrous. The bulk of the fighting is
along the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Around the
Khyber pass area. That pass has the reputation it does for a very good
reason. Alexander the Great was stopped there by an inferior force, so was
the British army as well as the Russians.

The tribes in and around the Khyber pass area shift loyalties like the wind
shift direction during a violent thunder storm. The resulting whirlwind can
and will catch a large opposing force off guard.

Adding thousands of troops will only make it more difficult to react to the
changes that will undoubtedly occur.

The US backed government barely control Kabul let alone the whole of
Afghanistan. There has never been a time in Afghanistan's existence where a
government had control over the entire country.

 JB> http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090326/D975T99O1.html



 JB> The forthcoming White House review also says the U.S. will add hundreds
 JB> of civilian advisers to those already in Afghanistan. The so-called
 JB> civilian surge would concentrate on improving life for ordinary Afghans,
 JB> and would include experts in agriculture in a country where subsistence
 JB> farming is the norm. The civilians are also meant to help extend
 JB> government services and the administration of justice.

Only a community organizer would think this kind of thing would be meaningful.

 JB> The plan notes that the top U.S. general in Afghanistan still wants some
 JB> 10,000 or 11,000 additional U.S. forces next year, but does not say
 JB> whether Obama intends to fulfill that request now, sources said. That
 JB> decision would come by the end of this year.

Unfortunately there are still generals who think throwing more troops at a
problem is the solution.

 JB> The plan also strongly backs a recommendation to increase aid to
 JB> Pakistan, conditioned on improvements in that government's handling of
 JB> militants in the border region, officials said. The plan would triple
 JB> humanitarian aid to $1.5 billion a year for five years. It would tie
 JB> military aid to performance, with a specific caution that Pakistan must
 JB> cut government ties with insurgents.

Throwing good money after bad at a time when we can't afford it.

 JB> Last year, then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,
 JB> proposed legislation that would triple humanitarian spending in Pakistan
 JB> to $1.5 billion a year, but threaten to cut military aid unless
 JB> Islamabad does more to fight terrorists.

I bet that made the Pakistanis tremble.

 JB> Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who took over from now-Vice President Biden as
 JB> chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he planned to
 JB> introduce an updated version of the measure.

That's the Dem's answer to everything... spend more of the taxpayers' money.

 JB> The legislation would specifically authorize $7.5 billion to be spent in
 JB> the next five years for development, such as building schools, roads and
 JB> clinics. At the same time, the bill would withhold military assistance
 JB> unless the State Department certifies Pakistan's security forces were
 JB> making "concerted efforts" to go after al-Qaida and
Taliban forces and
 JB> not interfering in political or judicial matters.

Pakistan's current government was put into power by the efforts of the Taliban.

Ed

-- 
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of
his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who,
or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to
violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee
to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired
by it." --Thomas Jefferson

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