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originally posted in:Sapphire
4/21/2013 3:36:39 PM
6
Pakistan
Clearly there have doubts about the trust of the nation ever since the death of Osama Bin Laden. If you don't the story, the US and NATO forces had been asking permission from Pakistan for every attack they would commit on al-Qaeda in their country. Because it wasn't working (Osama would disappear every time), the US eventually decided to go in to their country without permission and they finally found their target... just 20 miles away from a Pakistani military base.
Pakistan receives a substantial amount of aid from the US each year, they have a good reason to remain allied with us, however, if not for that aid and international support, it is not guaranteed they would still be allied. In other words, I'm hinting that they may only be allied with the US for international aid and support.
Pakistan's major religion is Sunni Islam. Al-Qaeda's religion is a radicalized form of that. That doesn't mean Pakistan is a sponsor of terrorism because of its main religion, but rather it could be suspected of that because of the anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East combined with the tendency to radicalize due to poor education and poverty (Pakistan is a candidate for both).
There is also the case of India. India is clearly a closer US ally than Pakistan is. India is also in a massive arms race with Pakistan and tensions have never been higher. The US is trying to calm the tensions, but they're just not going to solve the history of bad tensions, and the current disputes. The US is also finding itself in a hard position to support Pakistan with the way they treat their women (by culture and law).
Overall, I'm basically saying that because of what happened during the SEAL raid to kill Osama in 2011, followed by the line of evidence in the paragraphs above, that we should, at the very least, question the intentions of Pakistan.
Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?
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-blam!- the USA
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how about this?
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It's more of a difference of priorities then Pakistani government being sympathetic to groups like Al-Qaeda or the Taliban. While some elements of the government and military probably are friendly to them, the majority of the government and military view them as a tool to be used. As you mentioned, Pakistan is in a rivalry with India, and Pakistan helped create groups like the Taliban to use a way to combat them. That is why a couple years back, when the Pakistani Taliban was making gains in the country, the US had to twist the arm of the Pakistani government to fight them, not because the Pakistani military was weak, but because they where more concerned about what India might do if they pulled military forces away from the border and used them on the Taliban. Also, as I mentioned before, there are elements of the Pakistani Government, Military, and intelligence services who do support them, so the Civilian government can be telling there intelligence agency to stop supporting the Taliban, and the Agency says they will, but there can still be elements who support them anyway. Therefore, as long as the Pakistani government believes that India is the biggest threat to there security, and that groups like the Taliban can be used to check India, they will not do everything to combat those groups.
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1 ReplyEdited by Dragon029: 4/22/2013 2:49:28 AMNvm, this is a public thread.
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Their intentions are to create a puppet state in Afghanistan. Simple as that.
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Dustin, I'd be more concerned with the relationship between the ISI and the plethora of terrorist organizations fighting ISAF forces within Afghan; such as, the Haqqani Network, the Taliban, the "good Taliban" (several groups of the Pakistani Taliban who made it clear to the Pakistani government that their fight was not with them. As a result, the Pakistani government does not target these groups.), and possibly even al-Qaeda. One could argue that the ISI is basically a state-within-a-state, much like Hezbollah or Iran's Revolutionary Guards where a separate entity carries a lot of power within the country. I think questioning their intentions is completely fair.
