Originally posted by Tac
They've been at each other's throats for decades miko. There's no real difference.
What the heck are you talking about? CIA report clearly says that the current policy of Al-Kaeda is to topple gen. Musharaff beause he is our friend - by any means possible, including assasination or destabilising the country.
How could they have been trying to topple him for decades? He only came to power recently and until 6 month ago his was the only state recognizing Taliban as a government - untill he joined us!
Musharaff does not want war, neither do most of pakistani's or indians. The problem is that they are manipulated towards war in the context of Al-Kaeda/USA war.
I agree in general that there are often good cases to leave bastards to their own devices. We should never have helped Kuwaiti princes against Iraq. We should not have interfered with attempts of OBL to topple Saudi monarchy. We probably should not have stuck our nose into Israeli/Plestinian conflict. We stupidly did that and Al-Kaeda declared war on us.
So we got scared and went looking for friends to help us fight the mighty Al-Kaeda in the mighty Afghanistan. Musharaff was one of the first and most helpfull to answer our call.
Of course our friends have their own historic burdens - and the enemies we suddenly share with them will try to use those burdens to defeat our friends. To me that is not a good reason to abandon them once going gets tough. Or next time we will not find any friends on call.
miko
