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"We have to face the fact that if Pakistan collapses it will dwarf anything we have seen so far in whatever we're calling the war on terror now," said David Kilcullen, a former Australian Army officer who was a specialist adviser for the Bush administration and is now a consultant to the Obama White House.

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AS the government of Pakistan totters, we must face a fact: the United States simply could not stand by as a nuclear-armed Pakistan descended into the abyss. Nor would it be strategically prudent to withdraw our forces from an improving situation in Iraq to cope with a deteriorating one in Pakistan. We need to think — now — about our feasible military options in Pakistan, should it really come to that.

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
Musharraf came to power from a military coup that toppled the legitimate government. The USA had nothing to do with that. All we ever did was give him money in exchange for some very limited cooperation towards our efforts. He took constant heat from radicals within his country for only having a mere pretext of friendship with America.

The way I see it, the ignorant Muslims there who've been clamoring for fundamentalism and jihad for years, now get their wish come true. They can find out just how swell life's gonna be under fundamentalism and Taliban brutality.

As for their nukes, I think India will do what it has to do, much like Israel as well, to eliminate any real threat.

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Originally posted by rue:
In a Ralphie Wiggum voice:

And I'm just posting so I can change the title !

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Originally posted by startroop:
Just a point of clarification; I thought we were talking about Afganistan and Pakistan? I don't see the Iran reference?

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Originally posted by whozit:

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Originally posted by startroop:
Just a point of clarification; I thought we were talking about Afganistan and Pakistan? I don't see the Iran reference?

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I thought the chat was about ALL loonatics with or about to have nukes.

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My wife's advice for the whole of the Middle East was to build a huge wall around it and then keep throwing ammunition over the wall until the shooting stops.

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Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

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My wife's advice for the whole of the Middle East was to build a huge wall around it and then keep throwing ammunition over the wall until the shooting stops.

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I like that idea!

Really though, whatever militant leader came up with the idea of blocking the Kyhber pass on us is a VERY dangerous fellow, and one we should most certainly try to negotiate with, cause the bastard has our number good and solid.

-F

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
If ya could stuff the genie back in the bottle, the answer might have been to do something really cruelly vengeful to Afghanistan after 9/11, and leave Iraq alone. Dunno how vengeful-- Nuke everything there back to the Stone Age? which wouldn't take much. Neutron bomb the place, kill all the folks and leave the place intact? Saturation bomb the place with nukes, leave it glowing and poisioned for the rest of human history?
Then clobber ANYBODY who supported them or complained, even verbally.

WE shoulda stayed out of the entire place, a place where we can't understand 'em, and can't change 'em.

Since we didn't, we're stuck with the Pottery Barn rule: we broke it, now we gotta buy it. And the more we thrash around like the Old Bull in the china shop, the more stuff we bust, and the more we gotta buy.

'Bout the only other solution is to walk away, declare victory, and forget about the entire place.

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Originally posted by rue:
That whole thing about Aghanistan being willing to give up bin Laden as long as there was some evidence and as long as he went to the ICC or EU - and the US refusing the deal - it went past most people.

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Silence is consent.

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

If the US had of acted like you proposed, Americans would be hunted down and killed worldwide, without a whole lot of sympathy from anyone either...


And frankly it would be deserved.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

If the US had of acted like you proposed, Americans would be hunted down and killed worldwide, without a whole lot of sympathy from anyone either...


And frankly it would be deserved.

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Gino, I detect some animosity here- don't forget the Americans that ARE world-friendly, and disagree with their government's hawkish policies.
Just sayin'.


The laughing Chrisisall

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

How long would Americans put up with it, if it were a foreign power doing exactly the same to them ?

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

If the US had of acted like you proposed, Americans would be hunted down and killed worldwide, without a whole lot of sympathy from anyone either...


And frankly it would be deserved

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Originally posted by startroop:
I get the feeling that what I said and what you read were two different things. My apologies if what I said wasn't clear. This may just be the fact that we are communicating via the internet instead in person but my point was that we have the ability to do something in Pakistan, but that anything we do is fraught with consequences we haven't been historically good at forecasting and often requires long term consistancy in policy that we can't seem to provide anymore.

Your reference to McArthur is just that. It worked in Japan because frankly, McArthur set himself up as the sole power in the country and because he was very smart (if somewhat eccentric) he was able to provide a consistent policy.

I said it would take many more years than our society, after having been conditioned by TV with it's 38 minute solution to every problem extent, is willing to carry out. I think we said the same things.

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:

If the US had of acted like you proposed, Americans would be hunted down and killed worldwide, without a whole lot of sympathy from anyone either...


And frankly it would be deserved

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Which is why I said maybe we should have done that. But MAYBE some extreme action, like A- bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki in retaliation for Pearl Harbor, MIGHT have scared somebody enough to make them think that attacking America is a very expensive idea and deterred later attacks. And it MIGHT have made it clear that there are some lines in the sand that one had better not cross with America.







" They don't hate America, they hate Americans " Homer Simpson


Lets party like its 1939

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Originally posted by Jongsstraw:
We dropped the A-bomb on Japan twice, but neither was a "retaliation" for Pearl Harbor. I hope you don't think that becuase it's dead wrong. We had island-hopped our way across the Pacific. The closer we got to Japan the worse the fighting got. Okinawa was the last big island and sea battle and it was total war, kamikazes, and the kitchen sink thrown at us. It was clear that they would fight to the very last man, and it would cost untold more thousands of American lives. Truman made a decision to drop one bomb on Hiroshima to prevent the necessity of a land invasion. When the Japanese didn't surrender he made the decision to drop a second. Neither Truman or even the people that invented the Bomb fully knew what the results were going to be in terms of casualites. The lingering radiation deaths and disfigurements were not anticipated as it had no precedent. It was a penultimate event which brought a rapid end to years of bloodshed.

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