MaggieD
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2010
- Messages
- 43,244
- Reaction score
- 44,664
- Location
- Chicago Area
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
Excerpt:
ISLAMABAD -- Like an anxious matchmaker nudging a nervous couple together, the Obama administration has persuaded Afghanistan and Pakistan to take their first tangible step toward bilateral cooperation -- a trade agreement that will facilitate the ground shipment of goods between and through the two countries.
The accord has been under negotiation for years; Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari promised President Obama more than a year ago that it would be completed by the end of 2009. During marathon talks between the two sides that began last week, U.S. officials helped forge a deal in time to announce it Sunday night, just hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived for a two-day visit....
On Monday, Clinton and the Pakistanis will unveil their own bilateral agreement to spend an initial $500 million in new U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan. Primarily for water and energy projects, the aid is part of a $7.5 billion, five-year development package approved by Congress last fall.
The trade and aid agreements are part of the administration's ongoing efforts to facilitate President Obama's struggling Afghanistan war strategy. It hopes that a long-term investment here, along with repeated visits from senior officials, will convince Pakistan to more solidly align its own interests with those of the United States.
Most immediately, it would like the Pakistani military to take more aggressive action against Taliban groups that use Pakistan as their headquarters and base of operations for attacks into Afghanistan. The groups, including the Haqqani network based in the Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghan border, and the Quetta Shura based in the southern province of Baluchistan, have historically close ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
Please post a link so we can read the real story instead of your edited partisianship.
Nevermind, I'll do it for you, along with the part of the story you LEFT OUT.
washingtonpost.com
I would also like to point out that President Bush also spent BILLIONS for similar nation building tactics in Iraq just like this and I didn't hear a ****ING PEEP out of you guys so don't start now.
@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.
What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.
I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.
@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.
What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.
I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.
Where does it stop?
@ The Dane -- Well, aren't you on the attack? I forgot to post the link. "Mea culpa ten thousand times," as she bows in your presence. And it wasn't a partisan post. It was the part of the story I was interested in. The part that fried me.
What is your point? Our country is bleeding red ink and we're bribing -- make no mistake, that's what it is -- Pakistan in an attempt to secure their cooperation. THAT was my point.
I am also sick and tired of the posters on the internet who do nothing but run everything back to, "Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. Your guy did it, too." It's such a pp argument.
@ The Dane -- Well, I feel much better now! I thought, "What the heck??!!"
@ Lord Tammerlain -- I hear you. We ought to find better ways to compromise -- or forget compromise all together and use other methods. Reminds me of The Little Mouse That Roared.
American forces cannot enter Pakistan. However, if serious trade develops between Pakistan and Afghanistan and those trade routes and Afghanistan civilians are compromised then military forces suddely have a very good excuse to commit military forces in the border regions which can either be IN Pakistan, or IN Afghanistan. Which just also happens to be where most of the militant forces are hiding.
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