[radon]

I would cautiously suggest that the American presence in this region could be viewed as a stabilizing factor. Otherwise the region could be a threat to the oil-producing regions in Caspian and further North. At some point the US planners may have judged that it would be better to deal with the FSU rulers than with the newcomers from the south, as far as the FSU's oil and other resources were concerned.

So there might be a tacit agreement between the US and FSU that the former guide the region, and the latter pump the oil as fast as they can. Otherwise it is difficult to understand why the US army units have been stationed in this unpromising land for all these years, and why Russia amassed all these dollar/euro reserves (essentially, payment for security).

[eXpat]

Not only Pakistan
Russia Considers Blocking NATO Supply Routes

MOSCOW—Russia said it may not let NATO use its territory to supply troops in Afghanistan if the alliance doesn't seriously consider its objections to a U.S.-led missile shield for Europe, Russia's ambassador to NATO said Monday.

Russia has stepped up its objections to the antimissile system in Europe, threatening last week to deploy its own ballistic missiles on the border of the European Union to counter the move. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization says the shield is meant to thwart an attack from a rogue state such as Iran, that it poses no threat to Russia, and that the alliance will go ahead with the plan despite Moscow's objections.

If NATO doesn't give a serious response, "we have to address matters in relations in other areas," Russian news services reported Dmitri Rogozin, ambassador to NATO, as saying. He added that Russia's cooperation on Afghanistan may be an area for review, the news services reported.

Threats to the NATO supply line through Russia come at an awkward time for the alliance. NATO has become increasingly reliant on the Russian route as problems in Pakistan—its primary supply route—have escalated. Over the weekend, Pakistan closed its border to trucks delivering supplies in response to coalition airstrikes Saturday that killed 25 Pakistani soldiers.

NATO began shipping its supplies through Russia in 2009, after the so-called reset in relations between Moscow and the U.S., allowing the alliance a safer route for supplies into Afghanistan. But U.S.-Russian relations have been strained lately by the approach of elections in both countries. In the past week, the Kremlin has sharply stepped up its anti-Western rhetoric ahead of parliamentary elections on Dec. 4.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204753404577066421106592452.html

[careinke]

BBC feeds to Pakistan have been terminated. BBC aired a documentary linking the Pakistan leadership with the Taliban.

As reported earlier, Pakistan has been playing a shell game with their nuclear warheads, transporting them around the country in ordinary trucks to hide them from NATO and the US, who they believe are planning an assault to secure them (take them away from Pakistan).

These trucks do NOT have security convoys, as that would make them easy to spot.

Pakistan is clearly showing they fear the US more than the Taliban and it is suspected that the border attack by a Pakistan checkpoint against NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan, resulting in a counterstrike killing several Pakistanis, was intentionally initiated to provide an excuse for breaking ties with the US and NATO including supplies through Pakistan.

The Karzai government in Afghanistan has been suspected of colaborating with both the Taliban and the Pakistanis.

In other words, they all want us out. The governments we have been paying to allow us military access are now collaborating against us.

It is looking very likely we will have a radical muslim nuclear state in Pakistan in the near future, and that NATO forces in Afghanistan are about to be abruptly hung out to dry. Pakistan is currently the only Muslim nuclear state in the world. Many in the military are already collaborating with or actually belong to the Taliban.

I don't see there is much we can do about it, other than get our troops out immediately and then try to do something about Pakistan's nukes. Pakistan has also been operating closely with the Iranian government.

It looks like it is all moving in exactly the direction we didn't want it to go.

There is nothing to keep Pakistan from giving Iran a couple nuclear warheads, they have 150-200.

This is the one thing no one is talking about. Notice the attack on the British Embassy in Iran coincided with Pakistan cutting off the BBC feeds.

We have no friends over there in that part of the world. It's time to address the situation and limit our vunerability.

I'm sure Israel must be just hoppin' crazy about now.


Cavalier US attitude risks turning Pakistan into another Iran

Anti-US feeling in Pakistan is becoming institutionalised at higher levels of government, while opposition figures such as Imran Khan see their popularity rise on the back of diatribes aimed at the US. Pakistan's Western-educated, secular political elite is under attack from Islamist militants who revile it as Washington's stooge. The knock-kneed government is mocked and despised for failing to stand up to its infidel paymasters even as Pakistan's own ''war on terror'' death toll rises into the tens of thousands.

Since 2001, when the Bush administration told Islamabad it must take sides, be either ''for us or agin us'' in the ''war on terror'', Pakistan has struggled under a plethora of American demands and impositions at once politically indefensible and contrary to the perceived national interest.

The past year has been another humiliating one at the hands of the country's principal ally. Pakistan has looked on as US special forces flouted its sovereignty and killed Osama bin Laden under the army's nose; as the US stepped up drone attacks in Pakistan, despite repeated protests; and as people-pleasing US senators and Republican presidential candidates have taken to picking on Pakistan and its aid bill in uninformed foreign policy rants.

The belief that impoverished, divided Pakistan has no alternative but to slavishly obey could turn out to be one of the seminal strategic miscalculations of the 21st century. Alternative alliances with China or Russia aside, Muslim Pakistan, if bullied and scorned enough, could yet morph through external trauma and internal collapse into quite a different animal. The future paradigm is not another well-trained Indonesia or Malaysia. It is the Islamic Republic of Iran.

link

That's a massively nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Pakistan that we will have pushed into an alliance with Iran.

What sells well to a Republican Primary electorate will push us into war with a nuclear armed Pakistan/Iran alliance. We could see car bombs taken to a new level, with them sailing nuclear-armed container ships into our ports and setting them off.

I know, politicians are notoriously narcissistic and even sociopathic, but come on. What they say could have deadly consequences. They need to STFU.

So you are going to forgo voting for that war criminal Obama, and cast your vote for the only one who would truly get us out of there...RON PAUL!

[Plantagenet]

What sells well to a Republican Primary electorate will push us into war with a nuclear armed Pakistan/Iran alliance.

Don't be silly.

The problems with Pakistan have nothing to do with the Republican primary elections in the US.

The problems with Pakistan have been going on for years, and have gotten worse just now because of a misguided US attack on a Pakistan border post that killed 23 Pakistani soldiers.

[careinke]

What sells well to a Republican Primary electorate will push us into war with a nuclear armed Pakistan/Iran alliance.

Don't be silly.

The problems with Pakistan have nothing to do with the Republican primary elections in the US.

The problems with Pakistan have been going on for years, and have gotten worse just now because of a misguided US attack on a Pakistan border post that killed 23 Pakistani soldiers.

Once again CID manages to blame republicans for something a Democratic President did. Sometimes it is hard to realize your paradigm is wrong.

[Satori]

I'm wondering if maybe the Pakistani government deliberately provoked that attack ?
governments do this sort of crap all the time

I'm not trying to excuse NATO's response

but
elements in the Pakistani government are steadily moving away from supporting US interests and this whole incident certainly is of great benefit to them

[ColossalContrarian]

I'm wondering if maybe the Pakistani US government deliberately provoked that attack ?
governments do this sort of crap all the time

I'm not trying to excuse NATO's response

but
elements in the Pakistani US government are steadily moving away from supporting US interests and this whole incident certainly is of great benefit to them

Fixed it for you.

[basil_hayden]

Not swiftly enough. They still take our dough, though.

[JPL]

Hi Cid

Worth pointing out that the regional superpower is still India, who would take an Islamified Pakistan about as well as you would if your apartment neighbour burns his down to claim the insurance.

Pakistan has few friends and the West doesn't have much regional credability any more as a peacekeeper.

Therin lie the main problems, I think.

JP

[rangerone314]

Kind of a freakin' shame we didn't drop a 3rd and 4th nuke on Moscow and Leningrad in 1945, after Nagasaki. Then we would not have to put up with Islamic cesspools like Pakistan with nukes.

If you don't think Pakistan is an Islamic cesspool, ask yourself if you would rather live in Pakistan or India, Saudi Arabia or Israel, Taliban Afghanistan or the Netherlands.

Thank China for helping cesspool Crapistan develop nukes. We ought to pay that back by giving Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan nukes. And let China choke on it.

[JPL]

Thank China for helping cesspool Crapistan develop nukes. We ought to pay that back by giving Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan nukes. And let China choke on it.

Or Cuba, Mexico and Canada.

[rangerone314]

Thank China for helping cesspool Crapistan develop nukes. We ought to pay that back by giving Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and Taiwan nukes. And let China choke on it.

Or Cuba, Mexico and Canada.

Pakistan is one of the worst choices for countries to have nukes. And China pushed for it.

[JPL]

Pakistan is one of the worst choices for countries to have nukes. And China pushed for it.

I agree. Hence the NNPT.

[rangerone314]

Pakistan is one of the worst choices for countries to have nukes. And China pushed for it.

I agree. Hence the NNPT.

Its working so well lately.

[JPL]

Its working so well lately.

To be honest, I would say it is. Countries like Germany and Japan that could have developed nukes, haven't. I can think of plenty others too. The efforts of NGO's like Greenpeace etc to shame & shut down the last round of nuclear testing (France) are also on the record.

The main issue going forward is potential Nuclear bullying by countries that already have them, gained either within or outwith the NNPT. A couple of names spring to mind here, Israel and N. Korea. Both have superpower sponsors. I can think of a simple way this mess can be stopped/slowed down.

JP

[gandolf]

And lets not forget that their cricketers are a bunch of cheating bas%&rds

[dissident]

it is suspected that the border attack by a Pakistan checkpoint against NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan, resulting in a counterstrike killing several Pakistanis

This is misinformation. The border post is 2.5 km inside Pakistani territory and NATO claimed they were "shot at". But not with mortars or heavy weapons with enough range. This leaves only sniper rifle shots. Only 57 caliber Soviet cartridges can reach 1.8-2.3 km under ideal conditions. Sniping using weapons supplied to Pakistan by the west with ranges less than 2 km would be nonsensical. Any shooting was more than likely done from inside Afghanistan by the Taliban, a routine ploy. NATO forces over-reacted in a meat-headed way.

[JPL]

And lets not forget that their cricketers are a bunch of cheating bas%&rds

Unforgivable and far more important. Send a gunboat!

[pup55]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... n_US#gid=0

Please review the stats on who gave what to whom and when.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiap ... line.reut/

As we have stated in previous threads, we basically bought them off in 1980 after they finally developed nuclear capability, and they took that money and turned it into people. That was the exact moment that their population explosion began.

Now, there are more people under 14, as an absolute number, in Pakistan than there are in the US, and their birth rate is already twice that of the US. You can see the problem.

http://www.indexmundi.com/pakistan/demo ... ofile.html

http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states ... cture.html

This funny little nation is already among those in the world least able to feed themselves.

So this catastrophe is only a matter of time.

[rangerone314]

Its working so well lately.

To be honest, I would say it is. Countries like Germany and Japan that could have developed nukes, haven't. I can think of plenty others too. The efforts of NGO's like Greenpeace etc to shame & shut down the last round of nuclear testing (France) are also on the record.

The main issue going forward is potential Nuclear bullying by countries that already have them, gained either within or outwith the NNPT. A couple of names spring to mind here, Israel and N. Korea. Both have superpower sponsors. I can think of a simple way this mess can be stopped/slowed down.

JP

The Japanese and Germans seem to have gotten their aggression bombed out of them in WWII. NNPT cannot take credit for Germany and Japan.

I have as little use for Israel as I do for Pakistan or North Korea.