Man, I love this administration... they never make a wrong call or back the wrong guy... ________________ Pakistani Truce Already Falling Apart October 24, 2006 2:27 PM http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/ Gretchen Peters Reports: U.S. military officials tell ABC News cross-border attacks by the Taliban are up "300 percent" since President Musharraf declared a "truce" with tribal leaders in the troubled Northern Waziristan region that borders Afghanistan. "Politically, it is very sensitive for us to raise this issue with Pakistan," said a senior NATO officer in Kabul. "But the facts are the facts." Reports from the district capital Miram Shah say Taliban vigilantes now patrol the streets, while Pakistani government officials and the military are all but absent. U.S. military officials say militants are openly ignoring the truce's requirement that they lay down down their weapons. NATO took over the Afghan coalition in early October, amid the fiercest fighting since the Taliban government was toppled five years ago. Senior NATO officials say there is growing fury among the 26-nation alliance that Islamabad is doing little to stem the violence coming from its border areas. "If the Pakistan army is not willing to clean this up in a sustained manner," worries a top U.S. military official, "I just do not know what we are going to do." Although the peace deal with Islamabad specifically forbade the Pakistani tribesmen from forming a parallel government, Taliban rulers in the region have issued a strict legal code, even announcing plans to begin taxing vehicles that pass through their district. ______________ Q Thank you, sir. There's been a back-and-forth this week over whether the U.S. needs permission to strike inside Pakistan if Osama bin Laden is located. Could each of you give your position on that? And did you -- are you satisfied with his assurances on the tribal deal? THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I appreciate the briefing on the tribal deal. When the President looks me in the eye and says, the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people, and that there won't be a Taliban and won't be al Qaeda, I believe him, you know? This is a person with whom I've now had close working relationships for five-and-a-half years. And when he says, if we find -- when we find Osama bin Laden, he will be brought to justice, I believe him. And we'll let the tactics speak for themselves after it happens. We're on the hunt together. It's in the President's interest that al Qaeda be brought to justice. And it's in our interest. And we collaborate and we strategize and we talk a lot about how best to do this. Q So you do have permission to go inside Pakistan? PRESIDENT BUSH: All I can tell you is, is that when Osama bin Laden is found, he will be brought to justice. And that's what we've continually discussed. PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: May I add? PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes, please. PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: I think, as the President said, we are on the hunt together against these people. Now why are we bothering or how to -- the semantics of the tactics of how to deal with the situation? We will deal with it. We are on the hunt together. You want the person -- if at all we confront him, if at all we find out his location, we are quite clear what to do. But let's not get involved in how it ought to be done, by whom it ought to be done. There's total coordination at the intelligence level between the two forces, there's coordination at the operational level, at the strategic level, even at the tactical level. So, therefore, we are working together, and when the situation arises, we need to pick the right decision to strike. That's how I -- PRESIDENT BUSH: You probably don't want to let them know what we're thinking about anyway, do we? PRESIDENT MUSHARRAF: And may I also say that we need to have -- ladies and gentlemen here, we have the pieces of -- a relationship is trust and confidence. Now, if we don't have that trust and confidence in each other, and we think that we are bluffing each other -- I don't think that's a good way of moving forward, anyway. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060922.html ______________ Afghan's Karzai skeptical of Pakistan tribal deal By Steve HollandTue Sep 26, 1:35 PM ET Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday expressed skepticism about Pakistan's plan to suppress a resurgent Taliban as he and President George W. Bush prepared for talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Karzai has said Taliban militants carrying out armed attacks inside his country were being sheltered on the Pakistani side of the rugged border, leading to tense relations between two key U.S. allies in the war on terrorism. Musharraf last week defended a deal Pakistan signed with Islamic militants in Pakistan's border region as a "holistic approach" to fighting terrorism that would require them to leave the tribal area of North Waziristan or take up a peaceful life. Karzai, at a joint news conference with Bush after Oval Office talks, said "the most important element here is item number one in this agreement: that the terrorists will not be allowed to cross over into Afghanistan to attack the coalition against terror -- that is, the international community and Afghanistan together." "We will have to wait and see if that is going to be implemented exactly the way it is signed," he said. "So, from our side, it's a wait-and-see attitude." Bush, Karzai and Musharraf sit down to dinner at the White House on Wednesday for three-way talks aimed at smoothing over ties at a time of the worst violence in Afghanistan since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban from power five years ago. Bush said he did not believe any tensions between Karzai and Musharraf would dampen the effort to find the elusive Osama bin Laden but that he wanted to see the body language between Karzai and Musharraf "to determine how tense things are." He later said he was teasing when he made that remark. "I'll be good," Karzai, wearing his trademark hat and robe, interjected with a smile. Many of Bush's Democratic opponents blame the president for starting the Iraq war to the detriment of efforts in Afghanistan, which U.S. and allied forces invaded after the September 11, 2001 attacks to topple the Taliban and its al Qaeda supporters. Democrats seeking to overturn Republican control of the U.S. Congress charge the Iraq war is a distraction from the original battle against Islamic militants in Afghanistan. "How do you explain the resurgence of the Taliban and increased attacks more than three years after we invaded?" the office of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada asked in an e-mail listing questions for Bush. Bush sought to assure Karzai that the United States was sticking with him. "I know there are some in your country who wonder whether or not America has got the will to do the hard work necessary to help you succeed. We have got that will," he said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060926/ts_nm/bush_afghan_dc&printer=1 ________________ Poor Karzai. Sucker. Lord help us all over the next 2 years.
I can appreciate the position Musharraf is in; he's faced with a very, very difficult balance here. Unleashing the military on an entire region of his country could be political suicide and would threaten internal strife within his own ranks (i.e. the military and intelligence community). At the same time, he has to do just enough to keep the U.S. somewhat satisfied and off his back. He's in a no win situation...
Things are tough for the poor dictator of Pakistan who sold nuke material to N. Korea. He is in a situation that is no win for him. This is one situation where if the U.S. was seen to have a higher moral stance re: the wot then perhaps anger to Pervez wouldn't be to such an extreme that he is forced to make peace with the Taliban. Diplomacy does play a roll even though this administration doesn't like to see that. They have really botched the world up.
