Pakistani troops fire on US soldiers near Afghan border

[kpete]

Pakistani troops fire on US soldiers near Afghan border

...............

Pakistani troops opened fire on US soldiers trying to enter the country's lawless tribal area today, according to reports, marking a dangerous further deterioration in relations between the two anti-terror allies.

Details of the incident, in South Waziristan, are unclear. According to local security officials and tribesmen, however, two US helicopters breached Pakistani airspace in the early hours but were forced to retreat when they came under fire.

The US forces were likely to have been on a hit-and-withdraw mission against suspected militants in the area, similar to the first documented US ground raid into the tribal territory earlier this month, when choppers flew in commandos. That enraged the Pakistani army and public

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/15/pakistan.afghanistan1

[TwilightGardener]

1. OK, that's problematic. Condi or someone high-ranking needs to get

their asses over to Pakistan to address this situation.

[Hugabear]

2. Pakistan has every fucking right to defend the sovereignty of their borders

And I applaud them for doing so. Just because we're the United States doesn't give us the right to violate international borders on a whim.

[TwilightGardener]

4. They have done virtually nothing to keep their border from being

a safe haven for AQ. Despite the fact that we've given them shitloads of money to do so. Obama supports over-the-border raids on actionable intelligence to kill high-ranking AQ, and so do I.

[sui generis]

8. not our problem.

Anyone who thinks we are concerned with ANYTHING in the middle east or south asia for any reason other than oil has OD'd on the koolaid.

If we are acting unilaterally and without adhering to international rules of engagement and accountability, we have no moral imperative to take action there.

We need to invade or keep the fuck out, and screw Obama if he thinks guerilla warfare is American.

[TwilightGardener]

10. How are cross-border raids to kill AQ targets about oil?

Chimpy is just trying to do what he should have done years ago--act to take out the people responsible for 9/11. If NATO forces are in support of this mission, then it's not just us acting unilaterally. But we have a right to protect ourselves from known killers who plan to kill again, and we should be holding serious talks with Pakistan to secure their cooperation, even if it means they publicly condemn us while looking the other way--allowing their troops to fire on our troops, when we're just doing the job THEY REFUSE to do, is a problem that needs to be addressed.

[sui generis]

12. cross border raids are cowardly.

Period.

Weak countries do raids because they can't finish what they start. Well I guess you're right. We suck at war.

[TwilightGardener]

13. ??--we're not looking to take over and defeat Pakistan. We are seeking

very specific terror targets--this is supposed to be surgical strikes against stateless terror entities that are NOT ASSOCIATED with Pakistan--they just happen to keep finding safe haven just over the Afghan border. We haven't declared war on Pakistan, and we're not interested in causing the fall of Islamabad--both the US and Pakistan need to get on the same page so that it doesn't turn into war with Pakistan.

[sui generis]

16. except our intelligence sucks

so, collateral damage is always okay, always excusable, and our actions as usual are unaccountable.

No, I disagree. Raids are one solution, and primarily a political one. There are other options, starting with, let's not make more terrorists.

I imagine you would have a problem with Mexico invading Huntsville to get back their serial killers who happen to be on death row here? What about a country just claiming they have a prurient interest in assassinating a non-U.S. citizen in America? Using targeted weaponry.

Seriously, how many standards do we have?

[tburnsten]

32. Who said anything about collateral damage?

Or are you just 100% sure that every single US military action results in truckloads of dead children?


Pakistan has been taking our money so they can secure their border and help us defeat the Al Qaeda organization, but they have not been following through with their commitment, not even a little bit. Raids are not a political solution to anything, they are a military tool to accomplish a military goal which is the destruction, apprehension of, and dismantling of the entire Al Qaeda organization. If Pakistan wants to take our money so they can help out in the effort to rid the earth of AQ, they can either do what they are receiving money for or they can stay out of the way while we do it for them.

That whole region is lawless and unsecured anyway, the only "political" thing going on there is the Pakistanis puffing themselves up over our raids.

[sui generis]

39. that's fucked up thinking

sorry - the U.S. lawless and unsecured too.

we are not heroes, and we do inflict collateral damage all the time. al qaeda? We MADE al qaeda. By blowing up weddings and shooting people in traffic and being the general culturally uneducated tits that we are in foreign policy.

Pakistan is a sovereign country. Your ideas don't change that. You also did not address that we believe people who hate America are terrorists while if we hate Pakistan we're heroes.

That's the fucked up thinking I'm talking about. It's okay to waterboard and torture them and hold them without charging them with a crime, but by gollee it's an act of terrorism when they do it to us.

Like I said, WE made al qaeda and we nurture and grow it every day.

[tburnsten]

40. Civilian deaths are awful

One thing about middle eastern weddings though, is that they are often composed of a thousand people, many firing into the air. Occasionally someone blending into the crowd will take a potshot at US troops, who can't fire back unless they can determine exactly where the specific threat is coming from and safely eliminate it. A common tactic is to have local air support, either fixed wing or rotor, buzz the crowd at a low altitude to deliver the message that it is time to disperse or move on.


I never said or ever will say that torturing prisoners is acceptable, I do think some of the people who end up in gitmo are lucky they are fighting against US forces, because if they were fighting against anyone else they would not have survived the incident they were captured in.

I also never said anything about hating Pakistan, just that their handling of border security, an obligation they have since we are paying them to do it and it is in their best interests even if we weren't on the other side of the border, is pathetically incompetent. If they want to bungle it that badly, fine, but there is no reason they should fire on our troops when we pursue fighters temporarily across the border. They have a vast safe haven because Pakistan is unwilling to even try to stop the Al Qaeda fighters from crossing freely. Who cares who made Al Qaeda? They are a legitimate threat to the safety of US citizens and the stability of all the areas they operate in, nobody is better off because they exist, therefore there is no reason not to eliminate their leadership and disband the organization.

[Hugabear]

22. So you would have no problem with Cuba sending military troops into the US?

After all, we are harboring people that they consider terrorists. Would it be acceptable for Cuba to send a sortie of military fighters to launch a military strike against a specific target in south Florida?

Fuck no, you know damned well that we would defend US airspace.

[Selatius]

25. War as a general venture is pretty cowardly. It's why we bomb from 45,000 feet instead of direct...

combat. If it were direct combat, like it was in the jungles of Viet Nam, the US would be pulling troops out of Iraq like there's no tomorrow because of the body count. We send in APCs and tanks and level each city block with sheer firepower to clear out the enemy formations rather than sending in soldiers directly to fight face-to-face. If we did that, the enemy might actually put up a real fight like the Viet Cong did.

Then we can talk about other issues, such as the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ostensibly because the US wanted to avoid 1,000,000 dead soldiers taking the home islands of Japan. In contrast, the Soviet Union lost something like 22,000,000 people fighting Hitler and his Nazi thugs.

[sui generis]

28. yes, but the difference is declaration of war

Not just tossing a bomb at somebody's country because we think we know what we're doing.

You gave a reasonable answer, but are you satisfied that a foreign country has the same right to do that to us? Is the military the only organization that has a right to conduct sorties? Would an organization that believes Ellen Degeneres to be an enemy of their state have a right to bomb a studio backlot?

Why is it when they want to bomb us we call it terrorism, and when we want to bomb them, it's justice?

The methods of war are not cowardly if there are military targets and you are in a declared war against a nation. The methods of war used against a civilian criminal in a war declared on an idea are merely criminal.

[tburnsten]

31. A quick point

I think you are missing the fact that our cross border raids into Pakistan are not aimed at Pakistani targets, they are specifically to go after Al Qaeda targets. What is so "cowardly" about taking down AQ fighters and infrastructure (in the form of their command organization) in a raid? As the other poster noted, we have been doling out shiploads of money and aid to Pakistan so that they can secure their border against AQ fighters and not give them a huge unoccupied safe haven. If they won't do it themselves, I think we should deliver them the message that we will send them no more aid, and we will secure their borders for them whether they like it or not.

[Sebastian Doyle]

38. Chimpy isn't trying to take out anybody. Except Barack Obama (rhetorically speaking)

The guy who needed to be "taken out" has been dead for years, and all that is going to take place in Pakistan is to create a scenario under which the Osamacicle can be dragged out of the freezer, paraded in front of the whore media cameras and watch Chimpy be proclaimed the "hero" for capturing the "terraist madman who killed all those people at the World Trade Center". Even though Too Much Cappucino Perino said just the other day that he wasn't.

And for added dramatic effect, they could always claim that they used "John McCain's Super Secret Plan" to capture the frozen terraist boogeyman, ensuring a great cover story for the stolen election.

[tburnsten]

41. Sounds pretty out there

[Regret My New Name]

14. Then we stop our support for the Pakistan government.

However, if for whatever reason military action is in fact taken that leads to US troops entering Pakistan then it's not unreasonable to to assume they would 'defend' their territory. I'm not debating whether or not the raids are right or not, I'm simply stating that it's not unreasonable for the Pakistanis to take such actions in their defense. What is unreasonable though is that we seem to still be supporting a government that many in and out of the military see as supporting/protecting real enemies.

[TwilightGardener]

17. Well, if the administration had ANY diplomatic competence, it wouldn't

come down to Pakistan "defending" their territory, because the Pakistani Army wouldn't be allowed to fire on American forces. We should have made US/NATO cross-border raids to target terrorists a condition of our aid packages--if Pakistan is too afraid of upsetting radicals in their midst by taking the terror haven seriously and fighting it, then we should have at least secretly bargained for their cooperation in sneaking in to do it ourselves--but seems we didn't, and yeah, I'm getting tired of us supporting this country and sending our tax dollars to it... for nothing.

[E-Z-B]

36. What if the border raids shift to Afghanistan/China?

Would your support for action still be the same?

[varun]

24. Pakistan's border with Afghanistan is questionable

The "Durand line" is controversial.

Pakistan has hardly any control over the border regions - they are almost like the wild west.

[tburnsten]

33. Except our wild west was pretty civilized

There was very little murder in our old west, "wild west" is almost entirely a hollywood inspired myth, with a few high-profile exceptions. Then, as now, eastern cities were far more dangerous than western frontier land. Murder rates were astronomical compared to the frontier lands.

[tburnsten]

34. Except our wild west was pretty civilized

There was very little murder in our old west, "wild west" is almost entirely a hollywood inspired myth, with a few high-profile exceptions. Then, as now, eastern cities were far more dangerous than western frontier land. Murder rates were astronomical compared to the frontier lands.

[stillcool]

3. a 'hit and withdraw' mission..

The Pakistani army admitted a skirmish had taken place, but it denied that its soldiers had been involved. "The villagers had some firing incident," said Major General Athar Abbas, a Pakistani army spokesman. "But who fired at who, I cannot confirm."

The US military denied that there had been any operation.

The US raid earlier this month, which killed up to 20 people, including civilians, was finally admitted by the Pentagon - though not on the record. "We did not have any forces or helicopters on or near the border," said Mark Swart, a spokesman for the US military at Bagram airbase, in Afghanistan. "I don't know where the reports are coming from."
--------------------------------------------
As well as the unprecedented ground assault, there has been a huge increase in the number of US missiles fired from unmanned aircraft at militant targets in the tribal area. These, too, have claimed dozens of civilian lives.

"This kind of situation cannot go on, because any government in Pakistan will get destabilised," said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a security analyst based in the eastern city of Lahore. "This is what the Americans don't realise: that if there is an instability in Pakistan, their war on terror cannot be pursued. If everybody turns against America, then no government will be in a position to support the war on terror."

[TwilightGardener]

7. The Pakistanis have been telling us that for years--that any serious

effort to wipe out terrorists who seek haven in the border mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan will cause "destabilization" that will allow radicals to take over. They want our aid and our support as an ally, but they continue to do next to nothing about the folks who killed Americans and are plotting to do so again.

[stillcool]

9. Perhaps if the United States..

stopped making bloopers by killing women and children things might be different? I don't know..We've been paying for dictators in the middle-east for a long time now, and it never seems to work out well. But Afghanistan and Pakistan seem to be getting along swimmingly.

[TwilightGardener]

11. As I said above, there are people in those mountains who killed Americans

and are plotting to kill again, according to very reliable sources that are not Bush/Cheney. It's been said that we are in as much danger from a terror attack now as we were just before 9/11. This is why Obama supports acting on intelligence to take some of these targets out, IF Pakistan refuses to cooperate or do their job. It's a shame if we kill civilians, but we should not be in the position of having to either beg and plead the HOST country to fucking DO something within their own borders, or turn our own guns on this region. It's a bad situation all the way around, which is why I'm hoping there's some seriously high-level diplomatic and military discussions being scheduled between the US, NATO and Pakistan.

[tomp]

15. people who killed americans?

so goes the official story, which you have apparently bought hook, line, and sinker. we should not even be in afghanistan until we have completed a thorough investigation of the 9/11 attacks. I'm not holding my breath.

[TwilightGardener]

18. OK, well, we disagree on the fundamental question on who is responsible

for 9/11, so there's not much I can say in response. Suffice it to say that I do believe the Democrats and non-partisan sources who are saying we're in danger of another attack from this region.

[tomp]

27. ok, you're naive. nt

[stillcool]

19. oh please...

it's a shame we've killed over a million Iraqi's too, all in the battle for oil. Pipeline Politics is a deadly game isn't it?
http://www.worldpress.org/specials/pp/pipelines.htm

[TwilightGardener]

20. Well, unlike you, I'm able to mentally separate our mission in Afghanistan

from our mission in Iraq (oil/strategic ME foothold)--unless you think Obama is a liar? You think Obama and Biden and all the other Democrats are lying to us about the threat we face if we fail in Afghanistan/Pakistan?

[stillcool]

23. well, unlike you, I'm able..

to grasp the fact that all of our troubles in the middle east are directly tied to oil, and they started long before the Bush Administration. We will not leave, and neither will the rest of the worlds oil companies. It is a resource that even with the advent of alternative energy sources is vital.

[Puregonzo1188]

30. I'm just going to show you two quotes from your post, and ask you if you don't see a contradiction

in your attitudes.

"there are people in those mountains who killed Americans"

"it's a shame if we kill civilians"

And I also you never asked the question further up if Cuba, in your opinion, is allowed to do cross border raids into Miami. After all, Orlando Bosch is a known terrorist (according to the FBI) and freely admits to having killed Cuban civilians. He lives in Miami.

So, what should happen?

[tburnsten]

42. There is no contradiction there

"in your attitudes.

"there are people in those mountains who killed Americans"

"it's a shame if we kill civilians""



Unless you think that "it's a shame if we kill civilians" is in some way negated by "there are people in those mountains who killed Americans". I don't see the relationship, unless you feel that American troops are murderers and that everyone killed by them must be innocent civilians.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

21. Ingrates!! How dare they defend their own borders against killers.

Of course, we're only defending our borders aren't we. I mean, those pesky Pakistani choppers are shooting up Texas and Arizona all the time. Aren't they?

[EFerrari]

5. This so dangerous. n/t

[ladjf]

6. OMG and we are selling them some new F16's. That could get

dicey.

[Obamanaut]

26. An ideal time to stop foreign aid to them. nt

[malaise]

29. Would the US open fire on a foreign government's troops

in a similar situation?
The US does not own the world.

[Disturbed]

35. According to the Bush Doctrine, the US could invade Pakistan.

Any nation that is harboring Terrorists will be invaded. Isn't that part of the Doctrine?

[malaise]

37. True but maybe Condi should have checked

the Pakistan Doctrine :D