H16522
Headlines : "War on Terror"U.S. Commander Orders Plans on Pakistan
American involvement in Pakistan’s border disputes and internal schisms is becoming ever deeper. While the Bush administration is steadily converting its monetary backing of President Musharraf into military training and “advisory” capacities, and U.S. forces have regularly assisted in raids within Pakistan, Democrats like Barack Obama have promised to escalate such involvement.
This will be made much easier by plans tabled by Admiral William Fallon, commander of Centcom, to hugely increase U.S. training of Pakistan’s military. Recent instability, including the death of Benazir Bhutto and tribal clashes in Waziristan, have provided an opportunity for the U.S. to increase its role in the South Asian nation.
This has also coincided with attacks on supply-lines from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan by Pakistani rebel groups. No doubt U.S. advisors will want to crackdown on any disruption of this “Ho-Chi Minh Trail in reverse.”
South/Central Asia is becoming more like 1960s South-East Asia all the time.
[Posted By Szamko]Republished from Associated Press
The commander of U.S. forces in Central Asia has launched planning for more extensive use of U.S. troops to train Pakistani armed forces, a senior defense official said Wednesday.
Adm. William J. Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command, issued a planning order, an internal instruction to lower-level commanders, to propose ideas for a long-term approach to helping Pakistan combat what has become an expanding, homegrown insurgency that threatens the stability of the government.
Fallon’s intent is to develop new approaches to help Pakistan, with a time horizon stretching to 2015, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the order has not been made public.
A central assumption in the planning is that no such U.S. training contribution would be made without the Pakistani government’s prior approval, the official said.
Posted by Szamko
Just tries to tell the truth.
Enuf is enuf !!!
I gotta tell ya, Shazam, I’m putting this in the same category as their arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Did we see a sale there?
OPEN QUOTE (The Guardian — January 17, 2008)
Fresh evidence that the Saudi royal family demanded secret commissions on arms sales emerged yesterday raising further questions about the propriety of Britain’s dealings with the kingdom and the government’s defence of them.
END OF QUOTE
What’s that then? An attempt to punish Saudi Arabia for not cooperating. Oh my goodness, I do believe it is.
Luckily Mubarak is about to commit an incredible sacrilege for a mere 100 Million US.
Think about tomorrow’s Middle East, Hosni, not yesterday’s. I’m pretty sure Mushie’s already made it over that hump.
With the coming elections in India and the chances of an Indu nationalist government getting in power, Pakistan’s support and training of the Kashmiris fighters could bring India and Pakistan close to nuclear exchange once more.
I think it’s more likely that the imploding US economy will bring India and Pakistan closer together. Although India will probably bond with China and Pakistan will probably come out of the closet with their Saudi connections.
And the Gulf States (with the possible exception of the UAE) are headed into closer cooperative ventures with the European Continent.
Asia’s coming together around the SCO.
That’s mucho dinero guys. Real dinero.
Iran will probably go with Asia. And that’s the direction the people of Pakistan would rather take as well. Mushie’s going against the will of his people and it’s going to saddle him with more headaches than, in the end, he’s going to feel it was worth.
Dwindling numbers in India’s armed forces – 26 Jan 08
Cuidado Mushie. Think about what you are REALLY competing with.
BADAbing . . .
A China base in Iran?
OPEN QUOTE
In the aftermath of President George W Bush’s recent tour of the Persian Gulf, coinciding with a similar trip by France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy, culminating in a deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for a small French base, Iran’s security calculus has changed. It has almost reached the point of Tehran considering the option of reciprocating the perceived excess Western intrusion into its vicinity by allowing a military base for China at one of Iran’s Persian Gulf ports or on one of its islands.
Without doubt, this would be a significant geopolitical move on both Iran’s and China’s part, bound to unsettle the US superpower that enjoys unrivalled hegemony in the oil region and which has unsettled China with its recent civilian nuclear agreement with India, widely interpreted as a long-term “containing China” initiative.
In the tight interplay of geopolitics and geo-economics, with China heavily dependent on energy imports from Iran and other Persian Gulf states, the trend is definitely toward China’s naval complement of its flurry of energy deals in order to secure its precious oil and (liquefied) gas cargo ships exiting through the narrow corridors of the Strait of Hormuz.
Ya neva know when or where “Al Qaeda” might rear it’s ugly head. Everyone everywhere needs to be prepared.