Pakistan expects 500,000 refugees to flee Taliban fighting
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adaydream
There will be blood all over Pakistan. < :-)
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TokyoHustla
The West is tired of their government's lies and will put it next on the list of terror states to be taken out.
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Pukey2
Too bad there isn't any oil in Swat Valley.
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JoeBigs
Wrong President if it was still Bush then you would correct in your comment. But President Obama does not work for the Oil industry.
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bamboohat
I hope Pres. Obama takes the hint. When you become friendly with bad guys, and assume everything is hunky dorey, they will only build up their strength and resolve to kill you. Whether its 2009 or 3000 BC, the law of he jungle will always apply.
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teleprompter
There's probably lots of patchouli oil. So what's keeping the "pacifist" hippie crowd away?
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teleprompter
Indian press reports:
"Taliban militants were holding 2,000 people in Buner district of restive North West Frontier Province in Pakistan to use them as human shields in case the army attacked."
Does the int'l Left still call these guys "freedom fighters"?
http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/0EBE020FEBAB2112652575AB002009A4?OpenDocument
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Molenir
Standard lie. How typical, and how pathetic.
Wondering if Obama has the balls to do something here. Hope so, but so far at least, he has been completely incompetent at foreign policy. Too bad we don't have Bill Clinton back. He at least was decent when it came to foreign policy, even if he did let Bin Laden go when he had the chance to grab him.
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TheQuestion
The U.S will be there by November. Either in full force or protecting the nukes they will be there.
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Den Den
The tribal villagers are tired of their government's lies and will put it next on the list of terrorists to be taken out, along with US with it's missiles that murder their elders, women and children.
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Sarge
"Black turbaned Taliban miltants... laid mines"
I thought that was against international law.
"Eveything willbe OK once our rulers stop bowing before America"
Or, everything will be OK once everyone is wearing black turbans and has stopped listening to music, flying kites, and girls are no longer going to school.
JoeBigs: "President Obama does not work for the Oil industry"
No, but he's just as dependent on it as you and everyone else is.
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bushlover
Peace with a group that gains political advantage through force and threat of executions is just not on in my books. I hope Pakistan's government learns a valuable lesson from this: Don't trust Islamic extremists who support terror and use it against their own populations. Right Den Den?
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30061015
Ha-Ha Haaaaa!!!! Success??? What success in Afghanistan? Security?? What security?
Why is the Pak military so impotent? Even women and children with sling shots could do a better job!
I predicted this, now it is happening. THIS is exactly the hell you get from appeasing evil.
On 2-19-09 I wrote:
Taliban forces quickly cut through the Swat region shooting innocents and beheading the opposition. Now, as a reward, they get what they want; a license do continue doing the same with impunity... in the name of God.
And what did the Pakistani govt get in return for negotiating? Nothing. This kind of appeasement resulted in Adolf Hitler's WW2 march across Europe. Make no mistake, the Taliban will not stop until they have toppled the Pakistani Govt.
4-23-09
Now that these whackjobs have been appeased and rewarded for their brutal behavior, they wont stop at the border of Pakistan. When they have the nukes, don't think for a minute that they wont threaten the world unless we all submit to sharia law. All of you who love to apologize for the murderous islamist thugs, what will it take? A mushroom cloud in your back yard, or just your head in a basket?
So today 5-5-09, Whatever it takes ( ARE YOU LISTENING ALL YOU PACIFIST Neval Chamberlin MORONS!!?) these spawn from hell need to be sent back where they came from, or we will all go to hell with them. Rise up and kill! Time for talk is over, its kill or be killed.
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moonbeams
they laid landmines. idiots
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SuperLib
....because that's how the militants set it up, just like Hamas. They're like flesh eating bacteria that forces you to cut off your arm just to save the rest of your body. Once they get into an area there's a minimum amount of civilian casualties that they take along with them if they're ever forced out. And in the end the people forcing them out get the blame.
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adaydream
Correction SuperLib, This last Israeli invasion was because Israel attacked Gaza twice before Hamas retaliated. Israel used Hamas' retaliation as a reason to attack Gaza.
But I agree with your analogy that the Taliban are:
Pakistan is in some serious trouble. < :-)
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smithinjapan
NOW I can understand some funding going towards Pakistan, since they're willing to take on the Taliban instead of simply harbouring them and allowing them to strengthen themselves and impose extreme laws in the land. If Pakistan is serious about getting rid of these guys, they deserve at least the patience (albeit part and parcel with irritation) they've gotten from the US as an 'ally' thusfar.
Hopefully they can get rid of these guys.
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USNinJapan2
A story with the words 'truce' and 'Taliban' in the same sentence belongs in the comedy section, if JT had one of course...
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TokyoHustla
This will take down the Obama administration.
How long has the US been looking for Bin Laden? And Obama still can't find him? Pathetic!
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likeitis
I can accept that if you accept that Bush not being able to find bin Laden is an executable offense, as he had an 8 year head start on Obama.
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saruzenki
"Truce with the Taliban" ? Ha-ha-ha ! Sorry, but Pakistan was offered the opportunity to be "either with us or against us". They backed the wrong pony, obviously.
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likeitis
It did not always seem to be that way with the Taliban. They were pretty much minding their own business but made the mistake of having bin Laden as a house guest. The U.S. gave them two choices: Hand over bin Laden or die. No negotiation. The Taliban did not jump fast enough and so the U.S. decided to crush them. Sporadic success so far. You reap what you sow.
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likeitis
Ah, now I see the source of your ridiculous comments. You have no ability to compare, and you also have no realization of how the past affects the present. Ignorance is bliss they say, similar to Alzheimer's I expect.
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Madverts
"It did not always seem to be that way with the Taliban."
Their brutal stone-age methods have always been shocking. The more they grow, the more they co-erce recruitment into their ranks and the geater threat they become.
Negotiations, nor "peace" deals can be trusted with this lot. It's the equivalent of having Josef Fritzl as a house guest, and leaving him in the cellar with your daughter.
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skipthesong
I can accept that if you accept that Bush not being able to find bin Laden is an executable offense, as he had an 8 year head start on Obama." And Clinton had just as long. Why did they have to wait for 9-11?
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SuperLib
They were brutal. Just because they weren't brutal to anyone you know doesn't make them less brutal. Personally, I think the world should act when they see people like this come into power. But we're too obsessed with lines on a map and we don't care until they cross over that line and start to affect us.
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teleprompter
"They were pretty much minding their own business but made the mistake of having bin Laden as a house guest. The U.S. gave them two choices: Hand over bin Laden or die. No negotiation. The Taliban did not jump fast enough and so the U.S. decided to crush them."
Again the same mawkish litany from the Left (there are only victims and oppressors) and this time it's an exercise in projection, with people they know next to nothing about and living thousands of miles away.
Poor Pakistanis are just victims, Big Bad America (even under Obama) just can't stop the "war-mongering." LOL.
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TokyoHustla
Why is it that the Taliban have been getting stronger since Obama took power?
Are you going to tell me there's no connection?
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likeitis
MadAdverts, Superlib, Teleprompter, its not like I ever liked the Taliban. I hated them. But when they had majority control of Afghanistan they were not much worse than any other warlord being in control. So the question is, if you don't like the Taliban, and you don't like the warlords, who should control Afghanistan? Who are you going to put in control? Oh yeah, Karzai. Great job he has done is quashing the Taliban!
Look, there are consequences to your actions, no matter how much you may dream of a utopia without the Taliban.
So long as they had Afghanistan we hardly ever heard about them in Pakistan. But since the invasion of Afghanistan, they have been acting like an animal backed into a corner. They have lashed out, and now, they have control of the Swat Valley. Instead of controlling just the no account backwater of Afghanistan, now they are causing serious headaches for an ally and they have a nice emerald mine now. And they still persist in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is and was and always will be hopeless. But trying to make something out of it beyond all possibility has brought us this. Instead of the Taliban making life hard in Afghanistan, they are making death easy in not only Afghanistan, but Pakistan as well.
The ante was upped and the Taliban called your raise. You reap what you sow.
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teleprompter
WHO estimates that since the Taliban's ouster by the US - led coalition in 2001 the decline in infant mortality translates into a minimum of 40 000 lives/year saved, something to keep in mind when discussing death tolls. When we multiply that figure by the years passed I think Afghanistan, the 'moderate' Mohammedan world beyond and the supposedly pacifist Left need to admit the US - led coalition forces do deserve some recognition for genuinely good work, of a humanitarian variety few of us are capable of.
What a cheap, silly cop-out.
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Madverts
"MadAdverts"
It's Madverts. Please.
"But when they had majority control of Afghanistan they were not much worse than any other warlord being in control. So the question is, if you don't like the Taliban, and you don't like the warlords, who should control Afghanistan?"
The warlords weren't as backwards as the Taliban, but I agree they are not a solution, despite it being none of our goddamned business.
"Who are you going to put in control? Oh yeah, Karzai. Great job he has done is quashing the Taliban!"
It's not as simple as that. For one, Karzai was actually elected after the NATO invasion to topple the Taliban and un-succesfully root out binny. History shows that Afghanistan remains un-occupiable, but people still keep trying.
"So long as they had Afghanistan we hardly ever heard about them in Pakistan. But since the invasion of Afghanistan, they have been acting like an animal backed into a corner."
Not "like" - they are animals. In fact, I take that one back as even animals don't behave in their evil manner. Do you think the NATO efforts to crush them in Afghanistan, twined with the obvious border link might be an indicator for their re-surgence in Pakistan?
"You reap what you sow."
Are you suggesting that America should have done nothing after the events of 9/11?
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likeitis
I am just going to reply with my usual complaint that everyone seems to be able to see two possibilies: 1)what they did and 2) do nothing.
I might be bothered to answer with some detail if you bother to rephrase the question into something that makes me think you can actually conceive of more than those 2 possibilities.
Moderator: Stay on topic please. The subject is Pakistan today, not 9/11.
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Madverts
"I might be bothered to answer with some detail if you bother to rephrase the question into something that makes me think you can actually conceive of more than those 2 possibilities."
Bud, that's a tall order from someone's prior opinion being "you reap what you sow".
I supported toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan because I'd deen the barbary and intorlerance they were capable of prior to September the eleventh. Much like Saddam in the 1980's, nobody in the international community really gave a shit until 9/11 happened....
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Den Den
The Taliban are just protecting their land, families and beliefs. It has been proved that the US military has been distributing bibles, giving large amounts of cash to elders, killing civilians, destroying crops...and smashed the peace that the Taliban brought to Afghanistan after so much clan fighting. Big mouthed yanks marching over Muslim lands will only make the resistance stronger and it will grow. Time to change tactics.
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likeitis
So would I have, the second I thought the Afghans could come up with something significantly better. That would have been demonstrated by Afghans taking down the Taliban all by themselves, particularly by the method of not joining up.
The way I see it, after 9/11 they got stupid like only a people in a panic can be. They ignored all the lessons of history and thought regime change could be done easily, quickly and was actually worth the price.
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Molenir
lol. That was funny. Those 8000 rockets Hamas fired at Israel don't count I suppose.
Yes, their belief is that everyone who doesn't believe as they do, must be killed. Girls who want to attend school, and who think they should have some rights, splash em with acid so they learn their place. And no, the US Military wasn't distributing bibles. Its been proven that that actually wasn't the case. Perhaps you should try reading the article again. Though all things considered, I wouldn't have a problem with it if they were. Converting to another faith gets you murdered, proselytizing is a death penalty. Talking about Mohammed in anything less then worshipful terms is a death penalty. I think these people could use a few Bibles.
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likeitis
Is there some problem with that opinion? I am not saying we reaped and sowed the Taliban. I am saying sowed the ground for the Taliban to flourish. Sort of like pruning the dead branches off a bush.
We might have actually killed the whole bush had we not divided our forces. Maybe. I still would not have supported that attempt.
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WilliB
While Obama is sending ever more troops on a wild goose chase in Afghanistan and bashes Israel to score brownie points with the muslim world, the Jihadists are taking control of Pakistan.
(Afghanistan too, of course, but that would be nothing to lose sleep over.)
Change we can believe in...
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SuperLib
That point would actually be irrelevant to a man who thinks no forces should have been there in the first place....
In reality the US didn't want to commit massive troops to Afghanistan for the reason that we had no interest in taking over the entire country like Russia did. It was about removing the Taliban and starting a democratic government that could stand on their own. It wasn't about sending a half million troops to have them patrol every city and every corner of the country. That was the exact opposite war that the US wanted to fight, mostly because taking control of the entire country would probably never happen and because all of those troops suddenly become nice targets for the jihadists.
People talk about learning from Russia, and that's what the US did. Most of the tribes in Afhganistan don't care about the US and they don't care about the Taliban unless they're next to them. And putting US troops in their areas isn't going to fly. It's a balancing at between having enough to defeat the Taliban but not having too many to be a threat to the tribes who aren't interested in being involved.
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likeitis
Not true. But just because I cannot call the shots and people do not do as I think they should DOES NOT render me incapable of predicting a small chance of success despite my belief in a large chance of failure.
You are expecting me to never admit facts even if they go against my opinion, past or present? Not going to happen. That would be pushing an agenda. Not my realm. I just tell it likeitis.
One cannot be done without the other. That seems clear enough to me.
The only goal I approved of in Afghanistan would have been pushing the Taliban any direction necessary to get bin Laden, then getting out. But if something is ever made of Afghanistan despite my recommendation, I will be grateful. If it meets the cost/benefit analysis, I will happily say I was wrong. But I can't see that happening after all thats happened.
Russia. Britian. The most important lesson from them is that Afghanistan is hopeless. America did not learn that lesson, despite all the little lessons learned.
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SuperLib
So you're OK with Afghanistan being an open playground for international terrorists as long as Bin Laden was in US custody?
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