Pakistan to fire on any US forces

[Vulcan]

Dont forget, Pakistani Intelligence created the Taliban.

*cough* and trained/armed by the CIA.

[68Wooley]

Just out of interest, how would the US have reacted had the British Government decided to have the SAS carry out operations against IRA operatives being harboured in New York and Boston during the 70's and 80's when clearly the US government was incapable or unwilling to do anything about them?

Just asking...

[Stalwart]

How do yo know they didn't?  eh?  hehe. 

But I like your question, it's the best rebuttal I've seen so far.

[Baitman]

Just out of interest, how would the US have reacted had the British Government decided to have the SAS carry out operations against IRA operatives being harboured in New York and Boston during the 70's and 80's when clearly the US government was incapable or unwilling to do anything about them?

Just asking...

IRA  But the US is the good guys...... They couldn't of harboured the IRA


(the stupidest war ever is the war between the orange and the green)

[68Wooley]

(the stupidest war ever is the war between the orange and the green)

At last - something on which I think we can all agree 

[Animl]

Just out of interest, how would the US have reacted had the British Government decided to have the SAS carry out operations against IRA operatives being harboured in New York and Boston during the 70's and 80's when clearly the US government was incapable or unwilling to do anything about them?

Just asking...

We pay them (2 billion+ annually) for results, they yeild nothing butt sad stories and excuses, now we just get the results ourselves. I think they've passed the limits of our patients. The Osama is bought and paid for, whether they like it or not, we'll come get him ourselves. If they want to fire back,... then best I can say is I wish them well on their aiming, because we'd gun smoke them in seconds. All IMO of course. "Your time is UP!!"

I don't mind if we go in after Osama, because if he's there they were probably protecting him anyway. And I don't mind if they fire back, refer to the statement above. I would suggest it's a hint to them to stop sitting on their hands and produce results. We wouldn't go there if we didn't know for sure he was there anyway. If he's there within their reach and they've done nothing for the approx 10 billion we've sent them,.. well then they have some questions to answer.

That money has been tracked BTW by intelligence (not just CIA), part of it goes through payoffs to the taliban of Afgan with Pak whom then ship some to the underground afgan taliban, they take some and with Al Queada pre pay Afgan farmers there to grow poppies, they then sell the poppies ont he market for arms. Now we spend even more money in Afgan to fight to poppy growth because we know it's used to buy arms for Al Queada. The people who farm this and are pre paid for it are the losers, on many levels.

This is how stupid we've been. This is why I have NO objections to crossing that boarded and bringing back 2 heads on sticks.

And this is what I mean about people educating themselves instead of always picking off the top layer of a pile.

There was one show on PBS with an intelligence agent (woman) who layed out exactly where and who the money is going that we ship to Pak. You MAY find it on YouTube, but there has been other such reports since that don't seem to make it to main stream media. Check it out, I would love for someone to prove me wrong on this,...in a serious way,...I really want to believe that this isn't true. It was layed out too perfect for me to deny it.

[Rich46yo]

Just out of interest, how would the US have reacted had the British Government decided to have the SAS carry out operations against IRA operatives being harboured in New York and Boston during the 70's and 80's when clearly the US government was incapable or unwilling to do anything about them?

Just asking...

Which operatives were these? We have an extradition treaty did you know that?

We have large Irish populations in both citys and they pretty much figured the Brits in Ireland were illegal occupation troops.

But name the names of those terrorists the US Govt. colluded with and hid?

[Rich46yo]

*cough* and trained/armed by the CIA.

"cough"! The CIA had nothing to do with the creation of the Taliban. Its true we armed certain factions and provided training for Mujahadeen forces in their war against the Soviets. And its true "some" of these fighters ended up being Taliban. The real truth is the majority of the Taliban were religious students coming out of Pakistan's religious schools, or "madrassas".

But still the illusion exists in the world that "America created the Taliban" like we created everything else. And people stupidly repeat these falsehoods like Dodos enroute to extinction without even making an effort to research the truth.

The ISI, Pakistani Intelligence, weren't about to trust the various Afghan warlords to run the place after the Soviet withdrawal created a power vacuum. They figured they would have influence with the students coming out of their fundamentalist madrassas, including BTW the entire Taliban leadership, which are funded by the Saudis, and have always been hotbeds of anti-Western ideals. Even Osamas recruits were made up of non-Afghan Arabs who stayed on after the war eventually becoming Al Qaeda. Osama himself created "Maktab al Khidamar", or MAK, an organization that funneled non Afghan recruits into the war and collected vast sums of money for it from the Arab world.

The CIA never had direct dealings with him or MAK. BinLaden hated and distrusted Americans and we didn't trust him.

Pakistan's reason for creating the Taliban, and helping them take power, was because they wanted to secure Afghan trade routes and they wanted stability on their western border. Eventually the Taliban bit the hand that created it. Their alliances with Pashtun tribal factions and fundamentalist terror groups began to cause great concern in Pakistan's leadership. They were also worried about their own ISI, "remember Musharraf was set up in a attempted assassination". He was saved by a Yank explosives protection device installed in his Limo. Eventually the Taliban became a Frankenstein monster the Pakistanis had no control or influence over.

Boy, instead of reciting actual history I could have just typed a one liner, "The CIA armed and trained the Taliban". I bet 99% of the worlds population would have said, "Oh yeah, thats right".

99% of the worlds population is an awful lot of Dodo birds. I'm glad I'm part of the 1% that knows how to read, research, and use a search engine.

[Elfie]

Are you saying you believetheres never been foreign government sponsored attacks against the US?0

From foreign militaries? Japan had a couple lamer attempts....Mexico tried years and years ago....The War of Independence, War of 1812.....

9/11 and the World Trade Center bombings weren't sponsored by foreign governments.....various other terrorist attacks on embassies and the USS Cole, none sponsored by foreign governments.

What am I missing? Remember, it has to be on US territory as you originally specified.

[Elfie]

And what did the US do about AQ cells operating WITHIN the USA pre-911?

I wouldn't be throwing stones in glasshouses if I were the US.

9/11 changed everything concerning terrorists and terrorism for the US.

[SD67]

While there is nothing directly linking the CIA to the rise of the Taliban as we know it today, there is a lot of evidence supporting American influence on the tribal resistance movements against the Russians in Afghanistan that became the Taliban we all know and love today.

Arming the Afghan resistance

The decision to arm the Afghan resistance came within two weeks of the Soviet invasion, and quickly gained momentum.(21) In 1980, the Carter administration allocated only $30 million for the Afghan resistance, though under the Reagan administration this amount grew steadily. In 1985, Congress earmarked $250 million for Afghanistan, while Saudi Arabia contributed an equal amount. Two years later, with Saudi Arabia still reportedly matching contributions, annual American aid to the mujahidin reportedly reached $630 million.(22) This does not include contributions made by other Islamic countries, Israel, the People’s Republic of China, and Europe. Many commentators cite the huge flow of American aid to Afghanistan as if it occurred in a vacuum; it did not. According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the Soviet Union contributed approximately $5 billion per year into Afghanistan in an effort to support their counterinsurgency efforts and prop up the puppet government in Kabul.(23) Milton Bearden, Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Pakistan between 1986 and 1989, commented that by 1985, the occupying Soviet 40th army had swollen to almost 120,000 troops and with some other elements crossing into the Afghan theater on a temporary duty basis.(24)

Initially, the CIA refused to provide American arms to the resistance, seeking to maintain plausible deniability.(25) (The State Department, too, also opposed providing American-made weapons for fear of antagonizing the Soviet Union.(26) The 1983 suggestion of American Ambassador to Pakistan Ronald Spiers, that the U.S. provide Stingers to the mujahidin accordingly went nowhere for several years.(27) Much of the resistance to the supply of Stinger missiles was generated internally from the CIA station chief’s desire (prior to the accession of Bearden to the post) to keep the covert assistance program small and inconspicuous. Instead, the millions appropriated went to purchase Chinese, Warsaw Pact, and Israeli weaponry. Only in March 1985, did Reagan’s national security team formally decide to switch their strategy from mere harassment of Soviet forces in Afghanistan to driving the Red Army completely out of the country.(28) After vigorous internal debate, Reagan’s military and national security advisors agreed to provide the mujahidin with the Stinger anti-aircraft missile. At the time, the United States possessed only limited numbers of the weapon. Some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also feared accountability problems and proliferation of the technology to Third World countries.(29) It was not until September 1986, that the Reagan administration decided to supply Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the mujahidin, thereby breaking the embargo on "Made-in-America" arms.

[While there was significant fear of Stinger missiles falling into the wrong hands in the 1990s, very little attention was paid to the threat from the anti-aircraft missiles in the 2001 U.S. campaign against the Taliban. This may have been due to an early 1990s covert campaign to purchase or otherwise recover surplus Stinger missiles still in the hands of the mujahidin factions .](30)

The CIA may have coordinated purchase of weapons and the initial training, but Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) controlled their distribution and their transport to the war zone. John McMahon, deputy director of the CIA, attempted to limit CIA interaction with the mujahidin. Even at the height of American involvement in Afghanistan, very few CIA operatives were allowed into the field.(31) Upon the weapons’ arrival at the port of Karachi or the Islamabad airport, the ISI would transport the weapons to depots near Rawalpindi or Quetta, and hence on to the Afghan border.(32)

The ISI used its coordinating position to promote Pakistani interests as it saw them (within Pakistan, the ISI is often described as "a state within a state").(33) The ISI refused to recognize any Afghan resistance group that was not religiously based. Neither the Pushtun nationalist Afghan Millat party, nor members of the Afghan royal family were able to operate legally in Pakistani territory. The ISI did recognize seven groups, but insisted on contracting directly with each individual group in order to maintain maximum leverage. Pakistani intelligence was therefore able to reward compliant factions among the fiercely competitive resistance figures.(34) Indeed, the ISI tended to favor Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, perhaps the most militant Islamist of the mujahidin commanders, largely because Hekmatyar was also a strong proponent of the Pakistani-sponsored Islamist insurgency in Kashmir.(35) Masud, the most effective Mujahid commander, but a Tajik, received only eight Stingers from the ISI during the war.

Outside observers were not unaware that Pakistan had gained disproportionate influence through aid distribution. However, India, the greatest possible diplomatic check to Washington’s escalating relationship with Islamabad, removed herself from any position of influence because its unabashed pro-Soviet policy eviscerated any American fear of antagonizing India. The U.S. State Department considered India a lost cause.(36)

While beneficial to Pakistani national interests at least in the short-term, the ISI’s strategy had long-term consequences in promoting the Islamism and fractiousness of the mujahidin. However, the degree to which disunity would plague the mujahidin did not become fully apparent until after the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was a bleeding wound for the Soviet Union. Each year, the Red Army suffered thousands of casualties. Numerous Soviets died of disease and drug addiction. The quick occupation had bogged down into a huge economic drain at a time of tightening Soviet resources. In 1988, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev announced his intention to withdraw Soviet troops. Despite Gorbachev’s continued military and economic assistance to Najibullah, Afghanistan’s communist president, most analysts believed the Najibullah would quickly collapse. The CIA expected that, at most, Najibullah would remain in power for one year following the Soviet withdrawal.

However, Najibullah proved the skeptics wrong. Mujahidin offensives in the wake of the Soviet withdrawal failed. Washington had only budgeted money to support the mujahdin for one year following the Soviet withdrawal, but Saudi and Kuwaiti donors provided emergency aid, much of which went to Hikmaytar and other Wahabi commanders.(37) While the United States budgeted $250 million for the mujahidin in 1991, the following year the Bush administration allocated no money for military assistance. Money is influence, and individuals in the Persian Gulf continued to provide almost $400 million annually to the Afghan mujahidin.(38)

Many Afghan specialists criticized the United States for merely walking away from Afghanistan after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ed Girardet, a journalist and Afghanistan expert, observed, "The United States really blew it. They dropped Afghanistan like a hot potato."(39) Indeed, Washington’s lack of engagement created a policy void in which radical elements in the ISI eagerly filled. However, to consider Afghanistan in a vacuum ignores the crisis that developed when, on August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. Washington’s attention and her resources shifted from the last battle of the Cold War to a different type of conflict.

Islamist commanders like Hikmaytar, upset with the U.S.-led coalition in the Persian Gulf, broke with their Saudi and Kuwait patrons and found new backers in Iran, Libya, and Iraq. [Granted, while the break was sudden, the relationship with Tehran was not. Hikmaytar had started much earlier to collaborate with Iran]. It was only in this second phase of the Afghan war, a phase that developed beyond much of the Western world’s notice, that Afghan Arabs first became a significant political, if not military, force in Afghanistan.

Quoted from http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2002/issue1/jv6n1a1.html
It's an interesting article for those with the patience to actually read it.
It's not a smoking gun and the blame is multifaceted. The two biggest contributors were both Russia and America, one being the the catalyst for involvement of the other. We will be feeling the effects of the "cold" war for a long time to come.

[Vulcan]

From foreign militaries? Japan had a couple lamer attempts....Mexico tried years and years ago....The War of Independence, War of 1812.....

9/11 and the World Trade Center bombings weren't sponsored by foreign governments.....various other terrorist attacks on embassies and the USS Cole, none sponsored by foreign governments.

What am I missing? Remember, it has to be on US territory as you originally specified.

Libya.

[Elfie]

Libya.

Libya attacked US soil? When?

[Hangtime]

A PanAm 747... US Flagged air carrier = attack on 'American Soil'

[crockett]

This article pretty much describes the problem with Pakistan spot on.. Too bad the powers that be only realise this once it's a bit too late.

http://www.slate.com/id/2200134