With thecross-border attack by US forces against the Taliban inside Pakistan and a step-up of attacks on Taliban camps in Pakistan, ties between the two countries have deteoriated quickly.
First is a New York Times story that claims President Bush has allows US Special Forces to enter Pakistan for ground attacks against the Taliban without prior approval to Islamabad. If true would be a significant policy change after years of fighting, previously only allowed unmanned vehicles and limited.
With the step-up in attacks there has been some serious rhetoric by Pakistani leaders, including the military chief and Prime Minister. On Wednesday thearmy leader said:
"the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost"
"No external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan"
Another story came out yesterday with Pakistani opposition lawmakers threatening to "quit" the War on Terror. Today "The Pakistan Army has been ordered to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside the country".
Overall just a very tense situation. However all indications are that the amount of attacks will only increase, hopefully relations with Pakistan can get back to normal.
Despite it being denied officially, it's been known for some time that there is an agreement in place between Pakistan and the US that allows US unmanned planes such as the Predator to enter Pakistani airspace. However they have refused to allow any US forces enter Pakistan, despite it happening 2 years ago and apparently with or without permission, may of happened just yesterday.
According to The Long War Journal via Geo TV (Pakistani) US helicopters launched missiles at three homes in Taliban-controlled South Waziristan. Originally it was claimed by Geo that these helicopters landed and troops dismounted, troops then began searching homes. It has been confirmed by Pakistani military that the attack "occured in the region". (real specific, huh?) The AP reported this confirmation.
So far the only details revealed is the typical evil US soldiers went in homes and killed 15 people, women and children. 2 Pakistani intelligence officials claimed 19 were killed. So far the US has not commented, the military denied US forces were involved.
If this is true, it wouldn't be tough to guess that the target was someone of very high value. What's more, were they able to kill/capture this person? If so, of course, you have to wonder who and if this attack happened, what long-term impact does this have on the new Pakistani government?
So many questions, hopefully some will be answered.
For anyone that follows the news decently, you know all about Russia and our relations with them going cold-war low. I wish it could be an exaggeration, but in several years Russia has gone from "kind of" a democracy to a country that is looking, scarily, so much like the Soviet Union.
I am glad the US media has done a decent job of reporting on Russia and being pretty fair about the country. I know I was absolutely shocked to learn that Russian media is now state-controlled, that's no joke. I visit numerous politics/current events forums and one, I was amazed to see that the Russian posters practically brush aside the fact there media is state-controlled, numerous ones have the belief that Russia tried "Democracy" and it failed, so it's worth moving on and that the US is an empire threatening Russia.
It really opens your eyes and the events that have transpired these past several years only look very, very bad. The main contention, has been and will be for a long time, is the US Missile Defense shield. The idea of the shield is pretty weak and I think would of totally been better to be a project somehow under wraps, that way if another country (like Russia) initiates development we already have the know-how and don't have to worry about being the one that is the instigator.
I tell you this is why I like politics and news. It is so varied, constantly changing and sometimes depressing or exciting. The other day it seemed like Pakistan was completely blocking the possibility to get Bin Laden except for a 1 in a million chance.
Airsoft, Bengals and OneCMS? Well that is pretty much the biggest jist of todays update. For the airsoft part, I am reviewing the M1A1 Thompson (will edit with link to review) and I ordered the Cybergun AK-47 yesterday, very psyched about that. The bengals play on sunday, the first playoff game in 15 years...ironically against our biggest rivals, the steelers so that will be awesome. The most exciting news, due to popularity, is the upcoming version of OneCMS.
Time has been flying by. I wanted to do a blog update yesterday but I thought that my last updated had been the day before, only today did I realize it was 6 days ago, craziness. Anyways I got to launch Dynasty Wizard which people seem to like a lot so far which stats so far show, but the peak of the launch has unfortunately not happened yet. I devoted a lot of time and effort into the site and personally I think it is now the best dynasty site on the web or at least definately rivals the 2 competitors, hopefully people will give the site a try as it is completely free.
