Trouble on the Pakistani Border.

[FrodeMk3]

I know everyone's pretty wrapped up in the bailout/credit crisis right now, but some other things' are happening at this moment:

Pakistani troops fire on US helicopters at border By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 37 minutes ago
 


KABUL, Afghanistan - Pakistani troops fired at American reconnaissance helicopters near the Afghan-Pakistan border Thursday, and ground troops then exchanged fire, the U.S. military said.

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No injuries were reported, but the incident heightened tensions as the U.S. steps up cross-border operations in a volatile region known as a haven for Taliban and al-Qaida militants.

Two American OH-58 reconnaissance helicopters, known as Kiowas, were on a routine afternoon patrol in the eastern province of Khost when they received small-arms fire from a Pakistani border post, said Tech Sgt. Kevin Wallace, a U.S. military spokesman. There was no damage to aircraft or crew, officials said.

U.S. Central Command spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith said Pakistan and American ground troops exchanged fire after Pakistani forces shot at the helicopters.

He said a joint patrol of Americans and Afghan border police was moving about a mile and a half inside Afghanistan with the helicopters above them. The ground troops reported that Pakistani forces fired toward the helicopters and when they saw that happen, they fired off suppression rounds toward the hilltop.

They did so, Smith said from Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla., "to make certain that they (the Pakistanis) realized they should stop shooting."

The Pakistani border patrol forces then shot back down on the joint location of the U.S.-Afghan patrol. "The whole thing lasted five minutes," Smith said.

The Pakistani military, however, said its troops fired warning shots after the helicopters crossed "well within" Pakistani territory.

"On this, the helicopters returned fire and flew back," the Pakistani military said in an English-language statement.

And in New York, Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, said his military fired only "flares" at foreign helicopters that he claimed strayed across the border from Afghanistan.

Zardari said his forces fired only as a way "to make sure that they know that they crossed the border line."

"Sometimes the border is so mixed that they don't realize they have crossed the border," he told reporters before he began a meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

The Pakistani military said the matter was "being resolved" in consultations between the army and the NATO force in Afghanistan. A NATO statement said the militaries were "working together to resolve the matter."

The U.S. has stepped up attacks on suspected militants in the frontier area, mostly by missiles fired from unmanned drones operating from Afghanistan. The incursions — especially a ground raid into South Waziristan by American commandos Sept. 3 — have angered many Pakistanis.

Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said last week that Pakistani field commanders have previously tolerated international forces crossing a short way into Pakistan because of the ill-defined and contested nature of the mountainous frontier.

"But after the (Sept. 3) incident, the orders are clear," Abbas said. "In case it happens again in this form, that there is a very significant detection, which is very definite, no ambiguity, across the border, on ground or in the air: open fire."

On Wednesday, Pakistan's army said it had found the wreckage of a suspected surveillance drone in South Waziristan, but denied claims by Pakistani intelligence officials that troops and local people shot down the aircraft.

In Washington, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the coalition immediately requested an explanation from Pakistan for what he described as a "troubling" incident.

"It would be fairly hard to mistake a helicopter flying in that region as anything but ISAF or U.S.," Whitman said.

He said militants have always tried to exploit the border region.

"It's a challenge along the border and that's why we continue to look for ways to improve our coordination," Whitman said.

Asked how Pakistani forces could mistake U.S. helicopters for enemy forces — especially since Taliban and al-Qaida forces don't have aircraft — Whitman said: "Only Pakistan can articulate their intent."

Pakistani civilian leaders have condemned the cross-border operations by U.S. forces, which have been authorized by President Bush, while the army has vowed to defend Pakistan's territory "at all cost."

"We will not tolerate any act against our sovereignty and integrity in the name of the war against terrorism," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told journalists Wednesday. "We are fighting extremism and terror not for any another country, but our own country. This is our own war."

Pakistan's tribal areas have become a breeding ground for Taliban and al-Qaida militants, who are launching attacks inside Pakistan but also across the border into Afghanistan, where the levels of violence have reached record heights since the ouster of the Taliban from power in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

More than 4,600 people — mostly militants — have died this year in insurgency-related violence in Afghanistan, and the levels of violence in the eastern Afghanistan are 30 percent higher compared to the same period last year, officials say.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080925/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan

It's hard to have a case of mistaken identity, when the only Aircraft in the area are American...They had to know what they were doing.

[bustr]

You are forgetting it's SOP for the Pakistanis to do such things. Do you forget the decades of artillery matches near Kashmere with Indian forces. Also on that border the political and family affiliations of those Pakistani troops may be local, meaning they like Bin Lauden...........there may have been a hash mule train hiding in a nearby ravein that they were protecting.

[FrodeMk3]

You are forgetting it's SOP for the Pakistanis to do such things. Do you forget the decades of artillery matches near Kashmere with Indian forces. Also on that border the political and family affiliations of those Pakistani troops may be local, meaning they like Bin Lauden...........there may have been a hash mule train hiding in a nearby ravein that they were protecting.

Oh, so the Afghani's fly their dope in Kiowa's?

[BnZ]

Well, we shouldn't be there. This is not a moral statement on my part. Realistically, we don't have the resources or will to change the people of the most backwards regions on Earth in any meaningful way. I don't think anyone does. We will continue spending lives and billions we can't afford to lose ever there, and in Mesopotamia, until we get tired of the mess and depart with nothing gained. Like the Soviet Union.

[bustr]

Hmmmmmm....neutron nuke the country......B52's carpet bomb seed grass.......10,000 american bison....yummmy. Alexander would be proud........

[Dos Equis]

Pakistan Regular Army may be shooting at US troops.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/the-us-isnt-in.html

Who really shot that Predator down:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/this-much-we--1.html

---

Before the wingnuts pipe up and accuse me of disloyalty, may I please state that I am in favor of expanding the war on terror into Pakistan, and telling Islamabad to go shove off.

We learned lessons from Cambodia. It is not possible to do this in secret. It is time to understand that if Pakistani regulars oppose us, if they give away our position to irregulars in the mountains, or sabotage gear, or take up arms directly against US and UK troops, even unmarked special forces - then Pakistan will have all its aid cut off, and the US Navy can blockade the ports of Pakistan and there will be starvation and riots in the streets in weeks.

[Dos Equis]

Well, we shouldn't be there.

No, we must be there. Ask any US troops you know who came back from Afghanistan. Until we go into Pakistan, Osama bin Laden (dead or not dead, who knows) and other Al queda have safe refuge. Taliban has a home.

It's war. It's on. The only thing that will work is extermination. Without it, they will regroup and try and get nukes from Pakistan. Pakistan is a freaking power keg. 

[BnZ]

Hmmmmmm....neutron nuke the country......B52's carpet bomb seed grass.......10,000 american bison....yummmy. Alexander would be proud........

We are not going to do that bustr, and you know it. And on just how many fronts to we want to spend billions we can't afford and have young men dying to try to make pissed-off Muslims behave? Ain't going to happen.

The whole War on Terror situation, it can be compared to what you might do if a hornet got into your house and stung you. Several rational things...you might simply screen your windows and shut your doors so hornets couldn't get in. Or you might find their nest nearby and exterminate them. Well, judging by our immigration policy, the U.S. isn't seriously trying to use the first option from my analogy. And the latter option, genocide is off the table, thank God. No matter how many jokes Right-wingers make about, "nukem all" ain't going to happen.

Getting back to my analogy, or policy as it stands, is akin to going to the hornets nest, stirring it up, and using a twenty-pound sledgehammer to try and smash the individual hornets (but only the "bad" hornets who actually sting you first). While simultaneously telling the hornets we have only their interest in mind and irrationally hoping that if we implore long enough, they will convert themselves to grasshoppers.

[BnZ]

No, we must be there. Ask any US troops you know who came back from Afghanistan. Until we go into Pakistan, Osama bin Laden (dead or not dead, who knows) and other Al queda have safe refuge. Taliban has a home.

It's war. It's on. The only thing that will work is extermination. Without it, they will regroup and try and get nukes from Pakistan. Pakistan is a freaking power keg. 

When we go into Pakistan, we have another war with an entire people who hate us, who are willing to die to kill a few of us because we are in their country, and whose children will grow up hating us and willing to die to kill us. And when the bogeyman flees to another backwards country with the same conditions, do we open up another un-winnable front?

Just how much of the world do you think the U.S. can try to occupy before it drives our economy to the breaking point and yields an intolerable body count?

[FrodeMk3]

When we go into Pakistan, we have another war with an entire people who hate us, who are willing to die to kill a few of us because we are in their country, and whose children will grow up hating us and willing to die to kill us. And when the bogeyman flees to another backwards country with the same condition, do we open up another un-winnable front?

Just how much of the world do you think the U.S. can try to occupy before it drives our economy to the break point and yields an intolerable body count?

I'm kinda wondering what this bailout deal will do to our taxdollar usage in the Middle East...700 Billion's alotta money. I wonder if they'll have to cut back on the war, in some places...?

[Elfie]

Pakistan Regular Army may be shooting at US troops.

Source: http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/the-us-isnt-in.html

Who really shot that Predator down:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/09/this-much-we--1.html

---

Before the wingnuts pipe up and accuse me of disloyalty, may I please state that I am in favor of expanding the war on terror into Pakistan, and telling Islamabad to go shove off.

We learned lessons from Cambodia. It is not possible to do this in secret. It is time to understand that if Pakistani regulars oppose us, if they give away our position to irregulars in the mountains, or sabotage gear, or take up arms directly against US and UK troops, even unmarked special forces - then Pakistan will have all its aid cut off, and the US Navy can blockade the ports of Pakistan and there will be starvation and riots in the streets in weeks.

We agree on something. 

 

If we didn't learn anything else from Vietnam, I'd hope we at least learned that allowing the enemy to have a safe haven across an international border is a very bad idea.

[Elfie]

I'm kinda wondering what this bailout deal will do to our taxdollar usage in the Middle East...700 Billion's alotta money. I wonder if they'll have to cut back on the war, in some places...?

They will just borrow more from China I'm guessing. /sigh

[bustr]

Remember the father of Pakistans atom bomb gave the technology to Iran and sold portions to Iraq. Pakistans Army does not want the Muslim extreemists to gain power. It is very plausable they would try to launch a nuke. The army would be out of a job and a country after the strategic reponse.

The rank and file militairy along Pakistans tribal boarders come from those regions. During actions against the tribes in the past they would call thier family and freinds and give tactical information. Thats why the core Pakistani militairy was unable to get Ben Laudin. I think Washington has accepted that the tribal areas will have incidents like this.

The most important thing is to keep the core Pakistani Militairy as the secular balance between the extreem religious Muslims and the moderate Muslims who want to run a country and not a Jihad. Pakistan has no oil so their nukes are why we have befreinded them. A surgical tactcal strike is the unspoken stick behind our back.

[BnZ]

If we didn't learn anything else from Vietnam, I'd hope we at least learned that allowing the enemy to have a safe haven across an international border is a very bad idea.

Yes...the strategy in Vietnam WAS pissing in the wind, because we never tried to strike a killing blow to the enemy's means of making war.

However, putting a 100% effort into the Vietnam war might ultimately have led to a nuclear or at least large-scale conventional confrontation with China, surely an even worse outcome than the one we got. So perhaps we should have called the whole thing off before we started.

[Dos Equis]

Just how much of the world do you think the U.S. can try to occupy before it drives our economy to the break point and yields an intolerable body count?

I agree, we don't want every man, woman and child in Pakistan hating us. We don't want a Saigon situation, where women and kids strap bombs and run at US servicemen. We don't want to occupy ANY of this land.

We want to destroy Islamic radicalism.

I've looked at the situation economically, historically, from all these angles. BushCO and his torture took away America's moral high ground. Destroyed it completely. Pictures from Abu Gharib are on every Islamic radical website. Lindsay what's her face, with her cigarette dangling from her mouth, laughing at some insurgent's noodle while he has a bag over his head. It probably created a new generation of terrorist.

But if we stop at the Afghan border, we may as well leave Afghanistan as well, because the Taliban won't stop. They aren't stopping. The Rand Corporation estimates Al Queda is reaching pre-9/11 strength again. They will keep at this.

Pakistan should be helping. We have them money. Alot of money. They pretended to help. They didn't.

Now, we want to go into the land and wipe out certain houses. As precise as we can, but we can't always get it just so. So Pakistan regulars need to know, very clearly - kill one of us - we kill 100 of you.

I don't want regional escalation either. But inaction won't work.

And both Obama and McCain know this. Obama will continue to press into Afghanistan and Pakistan. He'll draw down from Iraq, and you can look at my posts on this website going back years. I said - just take the Iraqi oilfields. Protect the roads.

The oil is ours. We paid for it in blood. We came to take it from Iraq, and we mean to have it. We have NASCARs to fuel up, and I want cheap gas and to break OPEC's back.

Unlike most Bush haters, I hate him not because he's Republican (cause he sure isn't conservative). I hate him because he's a terrible leader. He makes bad decisions. He surrounds himself with crappy subordinates. Rummy totally botched the handling of the Iraq war. We went into Baghdad to get Saddam and to get the papers in the oil ministry. Nothing else. We shoulda stayed outta there.