Inuyasha said:INAYAT QALA, Pakistan - Thousands of angry Pakistanis protested Sunday against a U.S. airstrike that killed civilians, chanting "Long live Osama bin Laden!" as anti-American rallies in the country entered their second week.
About 5,000 demonstrators assembled on a dry riverbed in a mountain market town near the site of the Jan. 13 attack. Shouting pro-bin Laden, anti-American slogans, they burned effigies of U.S. President George W. Bush
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10972951/
When we do things like this all the good work goes down the tubes and the extremists seize on this. IMO to neutralize the effects the Bush administration should not be as silent as they have been and a few token heads (God knows there are enough of them) should role. Having the President of Pakistan deposed and losing the country as an ally is the last thing we need at this moment.
Stu Ghatze said:Once Bin-Laden is liquidated, ..IF he has not been already, & his corpse video'd it will put an end to that kind of hero worship, & perhaps be a very good teaching tool for future terrorists who lust to be a disingenuine "somebody" for the people.
Terrorists can run, ..but they cannot hide forever!
Or culminate into one or more radical anti-American fundamentalists who'se father was killed in the attack. Did we have permission from the Pakistani government to be conducting air strikes inside their borders?GySgt said:Meh, that shiit'll buff out.
Binary_Digit said:Or culminate into one or more radical anti-American fundamentalists who'se father was killed in the attack. Did we have permission from the Pakistani government to be conducting air strikes inside their borders?
Binary_Digit said:Or culminate into one or more radical anti-American fundamentalists who'se father was killed in the attack. Did we have permission from the Pakistani government to be conducting air strikes inside their borders?
GySgt said:Yes. Do you know anything about the Pakistani government and its people? These people are already anti-American.
....and besides that, I said "meh."
Inuyasha said:Are you telling me that all 162 million Pakistanis are anti-American and therefore we don't need to pay any attention to what any of them say or think? Or that since they are anti-American it is not worth any effort at all to change that? Seems pretty extreme if that's what you are advocating.
Inuyasha said:Are you telling me that all 162 million Pakistanis are anti-American and therefore we don't need to pay any attention to what any of them say or think? Or that since they are anti-American it is not worth any effort at all to change that? Seems pretty extreme if that's what you are advocating.
Calm2Chaos said:We don't need to payt attention or appease the sympathizers though. It was one incident and it was unintentional. And there reaction is to rally around a man that initiates the killing of civilians intentionally all over the world. Seems to me the missle wasn't big enough to take out the terrorist that it was meant to.
Inuyasha said:Of course we know from Neville Chamberland that appeasement is fatal and I am sure you can see that I am not suggesting that. I think, according to some sources, that this has far less to do with Bin Laden than it has to do with Pakistani pride and sovereignty. Naturally there are some supporters of Bin Laden and Islamic fundamentalism that are going to take advantage of this but that is a minority. We can win the alliance of the Pakistani people, which at this time we need. But it can't be done if border incidents continue to occur. This is the most serious one that has happened but it is by far not an isolated incident. Again I ask that you put yourself in the position of the other guy. That is not hard to do.
If an ally of ours (even a half hearted one) was fighting a war with Canada and they bombed Bellingham Washington the reaction here would be the same. To dismiss it flippantly as "just one incident" will not endear us to the Pakistani people. Such an attitude also unwittingly gives ammunition to those who would play the race card as "The Americans don't care about those people of color."
Any single incident is a potential powder keg. Just look at how the opposition allowed the Cindy Sheehan thing to get out of control when in reality it was only one of two thousand similar cases.
GySgt said:Very true, but how was this matter "dismissed so flippantly?" It was publicly announced what the target was. We didn't just throw a dart on a map and send in a missile, nor did we carpet bomb the town. Much of the Muslim world does not care that the Muslims killed were Al-Queda. All they care about is that they were Muslim.
Our enemies in the “War on Terror” are men who believe, literally, that they are on a mission from God to destroy our civilization and, who regard death as a promotion, are not impressed by our morals and restrictions to remain civil. Everyone must be made aware that these men are not safe in their homes, not in churches or mosques, and not in foreign countries to which they might flee. We must find them; no matter how long it takes, and then kill them. Civillians must know that if they harbor or surround themselves with terrorist then they are in danger. Terrorist leaders use their relatives and neighbors as shields, and they die with them. Their deaths are the extremists fault, not America's. They will learn.
And again. You really got to know the politics of Pakistan and the state that it is in right now. While Pakistan has been wracked with phenomenal corruption and suffers from a ravaged education system that opened the door for the expansion of fundamentalist religious schools, and even though its economy is in shambles, this most-endangered state still has not strayed irretrievably into the extremist camp. We cannot push them away, but we cannot allow an Al-Queda element to take root either. And right now, we deal with a Pakistani Government that does not wish to "antagonize" their Radical element.
GySgt said:Very true, but how was this matter "dismissed so flippantly?" It was publicly announced what the target was. We didn't just throw a dart on a map and send in a missile, nor did we carpet bomb the town. Much of the Muslim world does not care that the Muslims killed were Al-Queda. All they care about is that they were Muslim.
Our enemies in the “War on Terror” are men who believe, literally, that they are on a mission from God to destroy our civilization and, who regard death as a promotion, are not impressed by our morals and restrictions to remain civil. Everyone must be made aware that these men are not safe in their homes, not in churches or mosques, and not in foreign countries to which they might flee. We must find them; no matter how long it takes, and then kill them. Civillians must know that if they harbor or surround themselves with terrorist then they are in danger. Terrorist leaders use their relatives and neighbors as shields, and they die with them. Their deaths are the extremists fault, not America's. They will learn.
And again. You really got to know the politics of Pakistan and the state that it is in right now. While Pakistan has been wracked with phenomenal corruption and suffers from a ravaged education system that opened the door for the expansion of fundamentalist religious schools, and even though its economy is in shambles, this most-endangered state still has not strayed irretrievably into the extremist camp. We cannot push them away, but we cannot allow an Al-Queda element to take root either. And right now, we deal with a Pakistani Government that does not wish to "antagonize" their Radical element.
Inuyasha said:We made a promise to them not to do this then we went ahead and did it any way.
oldreliable67 said:Did we? I confess I don't remember specifically, but my vague recollection is that we agreed to consult with them on any usage or incursions of their territory. In fact, we haven't seen an admission, and probably won't, but my guess would be that we 'consulted' with them on this as well. We most likely told them what we were going to do, at just about the time we did it (to avoid a leak from the Pakistani Intelligence Service), and tried to give Musharraf a way to save face.
Inuyasha said:I think we are all well aware that Musharraf is hardly representative of what we believe in but he is better than the alternative which obviously would be a theocracy unfriendly to the west. This is not the first time we have supported a military dictatorship either (Peron, Samoza, Chan Kai Skek, just to mention a few). My point is how ever is that such incursions over Pakistan's border just serve to fuel the radicals and help them gain more support among the Pakistani people. We made a promise to them not to do this then we went ahead and did it any way. This simply breeds mistrust in our policy. It is essentially what we did 100 years ago with the native Americans. Make promises then systematically break them. We could learn a bit from our own history.
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