Pakistan vs. Afghanistan -- a perspective | StandardNET – Ogden, Layton, Brigham, Weber, Davis, Top of Utah News
An intense debate is going on about sending more troops to Afghanistan. Republican leaders are chastising President Obama for not acting quickly and sending 40,000 troops as General McChrystal has requested. Democratic leaders are urging that troop buildup would be irresponsible.
An attempt is being made to define who our main adversary is: al-Qaida or Taliban, so that we should send only enough troops to keep al-Qaida at bay.
The Taliban, it is being argued, is too ingrained and ...
needs to be accepted in some role in some parts of the country. As expected, the common individual is too confused about all this.
Our focus on Afghanistan needs to be challenged. Obama is doing the right thing in taking his time to make a decision. The real danger to the free world is Pakistan for the following reasons:
1. There are no nuclear weapons in Afghanistan, but there are in Pakistan. Having the nukes fall into the insurgents' hands is a big worry and a possibility.
2. The entire Taliban movement was endorsed, nurtured and funded by us through Pakistan during the Russian regime in Afghanistan. Expecting Pakistan to root out the Taliban is like asking someone to kill their extended family. The current battle is the third effort by Pakistan to wage war against the Taliban and was announced weeks ago so that many of them could escape.
3. Pakistan's dictator Musharraf was extremely shrewd in fooling Washington by offering small al-Qaida fish off and on and leaving the core terrorists like Osama untouched. Musharraf has openly admitted to using funds to arm against India rather than crush the terrorists. Osama and his cohorts are hiding in Pakistan (as is the Taliban leadership) with no serious attempt being made to capture him, because doing so would bring retaliation.
4. It was Pakistan's nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan who provided bomb secrets to Iran, North Korea, Libya etc. and could not have done so without government approval at the highest level (Musharraf). He continues to be free and we are not given access to him.
6. Pakistan is a hotbed of terrorist groups that have been nurtured by their intelligence agency (ISI). It is an open secret that the Pakistan government and ISI are helping terrorists with our dollars. The terrorists responsible for recent bombings in Mumbai and at the Indian Embassy in Kabul (a year ago) have yet to be brought to justice, in spite of being provided proof of their involvement by the Indian government and the FBI.
7. Insurgents openly cross the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan because their training grounds are in Pakistan. And as long as these exist. there will be a never-ending supply of insurgents fighting our troops in Afghanistan (remember Viet Nam and the North Vietnamese).
8.According to experts, Pakistan, in 2025 will have about 70 percent more men between the ages of 15-30, and probably largely unemployed and uneducated. This is the perfect breeding ground for insurgents.
The Iraqi insurgency started to subside when the Sunnis were brought in as partners. A similar effort needs to be made to bring in the various Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan away from the Taliban.
The corrupt Karzai government needs to be challenged and not coddled. They have alienated the Pushtuns, causing them to join the Taliban.
Joe Biden's widely publicized statement at the recent security briefings when told that this year we will spend $65 billion in Afghanistan and $2.25 billion in Pakistan, asked, "That's a 30 to 1 ratio in favor of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan and they have nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we are spending in Pakistan we're spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?"
Population centers in Afghanistan are under Kabul's control. It does not make sense to send troops to gain control of 35,000 villages.
So we need to stop obsessing over Afghanistan and start worrying about Pakistan.
Kulkarni lives in Perry.
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