Code ORANGE,..& the next war,..the next country.

The importance of a democratic Pakistan,...

July 25: The United States urged President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday to build a sustainable and more functional democracy in Pakistan. The comments by Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns came at a Senate hearing when Senator John Kerry reminded him that the war against terrorism cannot be won without restoring full democracy in Pakistan.
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“The Supreme Court may have to rule whether President Musharraf can stay on as the army chief and whether he can be elected by the lame-duck parliament,” he noted. “With the Chief Justice’s restoration, there’s a strong possibility that the court may rule against Gen Musharraf on these questions. We need to be prepared for these developments.”

source - 7/25

The US is willing to act alone in Pakistan...

PENTAGON and State Department officials have said US special forces will enter Pakistan if they have specific intelligence about an impending terrorist strike against the US, despite warnings from Pakistan that it will not accept US troops operating independently inside its borders.

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Nicholas Burns, the State Department's undersecretary for political affairs, told the Senate foreign relations committee: "Given the primacy of the fight against al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, if we have in the future certainty of knowledge, then of course the United States would always have the option of taking action on its own."

source 7/27

And now, not surprisingly,...

The Pakistani military says the country has successfully test fired its nuclear-capable radar-dodging cruise missile.

A military statement says the indigenously developed Babur (Hatf-VII) missile has a range of 700 kilometres and "near stealth" properties.

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"The Babur, which has near stealth capabilities, is a low flying, terrain hugging missile with high manoeuvrability, pinpoint accuracy and radar avoidance features," the statement said.

"The test will consolidate Pakistan's strategic capability and strengthen national security."

sourcr - 7/26

[edit on 26-7-2007 by smirkley]

Just adding things as I find-'em.

Bring 'em on: Militants in Pakistan await US


Islamabad is now caught between militants spoiling for a fight and US and coalition troops in Afghanistan ready to give them one - and there is little Pakistan can now do to prevent this from happening.

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Other emerging young al-Qaeda leaders include Gul Bahadur and Baitullah Mehsud. Their opposition is centered in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, where they aim to expel Pakistani troops (or any others who might venture there). In addition, they support the Taliban movement in the cities of Bannu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat Valley (all in NWFP) and nearby Bajaur Agency. The ultimate objective is to boot Musharraf from power.

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Then Islamabad signed a peace deal with militants in the tribal areas that allowed for its troops to withdraw, leaving the militants in charge of stemming cross-border activity - a bit like placing prisoners in charge of their jail keys, and this in an area crucial to the "war on terror".

At the same time, Pakistan looked on (until the Red Mosque saga) as the Taliban consolidated their assets, breeding countless fresh militants to go and fight in Afghanistan, while also appearing deaf to repeated US calls to share intelligence on what turned out to be a highly successful spring offensive for the Taliban in 2006.

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While Washington wants to take action in Pakistan, it does not want the country to turn into a jihadist playing field, so it is preparing for the consequences. This includes the encouragement of liberal democratic forces to step into any power vacuum should Musharraf be forced out or choose to walk into the sunset.

Man, if this was a football game, I am talking serious strategy going on.

And the two minute warning has sounded.

I have no idea what this could mean for Pakistan or President Musharraf, but it is definetly a turn of events.

Pakistan on the Verge

Hanging in the balance: the presidency of Pervez Musharraf and the future of Pakistan itself. "We always have one or two crises on our hands [in Pakistan], but this is critical," says I.A. Rehman, chairman of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, a non-governmental group.

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Musharraf has long said he would not cut deals with Bhutto or with Nawaz Sharif, another former prime minister from whom Musharraf seized power in 1999 and who is now also living in exile. If Musharraf has met with Bhutto, it is a measure of how vulnerable he feels. Many Pakistanis share the sentiment. As I rose to leave after an interview Saturday with Syed Kamran Zafar, an Islamabad-based official for Bhutto's PPP, he urged me not to visit any markets in Islamabad. "Stay clear of anywhere it is crowded," he implored, sounding scared himself. "I mean it. These bastards are killing innocent people. Why don't they go after army generals?"

A continuing change in Pakistan to me means evolution of their political system, whether that means in the right direction for it's people, or otherwise. The only time I have ever known a person to seek partnership with his enemies, is when the person is on the brink of losing something big.

If I were President,.....

Obama says he might send troops to Pakistan

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Wednesday that he would possibly send troops into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists, an attempt to show strength when his chief rival has described his foreign policy skills as naive.

The Illinois senator warned Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that he must do more to shut down terrorist operations in his country and evict foreign fighters under an Obama presidency, or Pakistan will risk a U.S. troop invasion and losing hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid.

“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

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Obama said that as commander in chief he would remove troops from Iraq and putting them “on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

With the Pakistani president suggesting he will step down as General of the army, as well as share power with the exiled leader of the PPP, imo, destabilization is well on it's way anyway. What else is there to do but invade?

Some interesting things going on over there,..

Super-secret prisons, releasing al-Qaeda operative suspects, ..

Pakistan Frees Alleged Al-Qaeda Operative

An al-Qaeda operative suspected of involvement in plots targeting the United States and Britain spent more than two years in a secret prison run by Pakistan's spy agencies before he was released, a human rights group said Tuesday.

Muhammed Naeed Noor Khan, an engineer by training who served as a computer guru for al-Qaeda and conduit to the group's top commanders, was quietly freed by Pakistani officials in recent days -- three years after his capture in the eastern city of Lahore and subsequent disappearance. Khan never faced criminal charges, and Ali Dayan Hasan, a Pakistan-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, said evidence suggested he had been held for most of his three years at a secret detention center in Lahore operated by the Pakistani intelligence services.

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While Khan's release did not come as the result of a court order, the government has been looking for ways to appease the chief justice, Chaudhry, as he takes up a list of cases that threaten Musharraf's grip on power. Among them are challenges to the president's plans for reelection while staying on as army chief.

Chaudhry had been pressing the government for information on the missing persons earlier this year when Musharraf attempted to remove him from office. After a four-month, nationwide campaign, Chaudhry was reinstated in July, and he has since picked up the issue with renewed vigor.

Hmmm,...interesting,....


But on a lighter note....

Pakistan Will Review Nuclear Moratorium If India Resumes Tests

Pakistan said it will review its nuclear moratorium in the event India resumes testing and warned that an Indian-U.S. cooperation accord will boost its South Asian neighbor's atomic capabilities.

"We take seriously the assertion by the Indian leadership about the possibility of renewing nuclear tests,'" Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said in Islamabad yesterday, according to the official Associated Press of Pakistan. India's accord with the U.S. should be of concern to Pakistan and the international community, she said.

India's agreement doesn't prevent it from conducting nuclear tests or deny it the right to reprocess spent fuel, Anil Kakodkar, chairman of India's Atomic Energy Commission, said Aug. 17 in Bangalore.

yea relation with pakistan and america is changing but it will be stupid if america does attack them a. they would need a good reason b. pakistan also has nukes not many but they can still do some damage but really i think its iran naval buil up in the gulf and america needs oil which iran has alot of

Originally posted by manzoor
yea relation with pakistan and america is changing but it will be stupid if america does attack them a. they would need a good reason b. pakistan also has nukes not many but they can still do some damage but really i think its iran naval buil up in the gulf and america needs oil which iran has alot of

I dont think America wants to attack Pakistan per se', but the US does want to do some clean-up work in the western region.

The issue with the nukes is that if the current regime is turned over, the nukes may fall into new hands, and the current general of the army is also the current president, and if he leaves the general position, it allows the army to release its seemingly obligation to do as he says, unless a coup occurs of course.

As far as Iran's oil, I think China already has bought and paid for most of it anyways, already.

Exiled ex-PM back in Saudi Arabia

www.cnn.com...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's attempt to return to Pakistan after seven years in exile ended quickly Monday as police ordered him to board a flight for Saudi Arabia, government officials said

thats crazy and stupid they both are allies also pakistan has nukes and most the country is rural and there army is all over i have been there and it would be very hard for us forces to destroy them war wouldnt go good for us with pakistan plus i will turn even more against america because pakistan has all my family

Originally posted by smirkley
Given the interplay of these complex factors, Washington may have to resort to the one available "exit strategy" - imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan. It is not Washington's problem that the survival of Pakistan is in the medium term critically dependent on the restoration of democracy and rule of law. ...... If the end justifies the means, Washington will not hesitate to engineer a pretext for the imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan.

One has to wonder, is the recent establishing of a new dictatorship a result of the Pakistani government?... or a function of US influence.







[edit on 3-11-2007 by smirkley]

if history is any teacher i'd say the US played a part.
the US has said several times how important it is for pakistan to remain stable, and the current leaders to remain in power.


i thought this was interesting..

Several sources inside Capitol Hill noted that the CIA opposes the destruction of the Afghan opium supply because to do so might destabilize the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to these sources, Pakistani intelligence had threatened to overthrow President Musharraf if the crops were destroyed.

The threat to overthrow Musharraf is motivated in part by Islamic radical groups linked to the Pakistani intelligence service, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The radical groups reportedly obtain their primary funding through opium production and trade.

archive.newsmax.com...

so if i got this straight, we decided against destroying the poppys to keep the radical groups happy because that was their source of income, then poppy production increases to record numbers, thereby giving the extremists more money and now we are in danger of a possible takeover by the now more well funded extremist groups.. ??? the word blowback keeps popping up lately.

It seems that the current Pakistani government will in fact remain in power.

It also seems that US forces are already, and have been inside Pakistan, regardless of what was suggested prior.

Now, if the current government begins to falter, what would you expect to happen next?

US seeks to increase combat forces in Pakistan - MSN Video