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.
In early 2006 the attack that sprung forth quite possibly the lowest point in the Iraq War, he Gold Mosque attack. The holy site spurred hundreds of killings in the following days and was likely al-Qaeda's biggest victory in the War.
Around that time the anti Iraq-war sentiment was also at it's highest point, President Bush's ratings were low and the thought of a Republican President being elected in November 2008 was though of not as difficult, but impossible. Now here we are 2 1/2 years later and not only did the person who first proposed the now successful surge stands as the Republican nominee, with Sarah Palin re-energizing the base like few ever expected, we now have a good Presidential Race.
I'm still just in disbelief that I'm writing here as a sane person after the low points in the Iraq War that we've had, that we actually have a toss-up on who will be the next president. There are still some tests and a heck of a lot of time before one can even seriously think of picking a winner, but it sure looks like it'll be close.
Despite what all experts expected, after basically being told "No" by his own advisers when McCain wanted Liberman, he could of easily picked someone like Romney who many conservatives like (don't ask me why), Bobby Jindall (would of been a good pick actually), Tim Pawlenty and a myriad of other typical republicans. Instead just as McCain came way out of right field to get the nomination, he rolled the dice on a little-known Alaskan female Governor.
We still have 60 days to find out if McCain will be the next president and if his Vice President choice will work out in his favor or not, but at minimum his pick as taken the republican party and re-energized it in a way I haven't seen in my very young life and also mixed up this race. For the first time the headlines are not about Obama, but a republican. (in a good light...excluding the dailykos type attacks)
Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, you have to be excited. Also whether or not Palin was the right choice, some might argue she was the only choice in order for McCain to have a chance at winning. Get ready because this is going to be a crazy 60 days up to November 4th!
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 has watched the news in the past week, at least knows about the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia. I unfortunately wasn't able to post about the conflict until now.
This was probably the most difficult conflict for me to read about - simply because the propaganda on both sides were so strong. Both still insist the other side committed genocide, intentionally killed hundreds/thousands of civilians and many other claims...oh yeah, almost forgot ethnic cleansing.
Once the dust somewhat settled, some facts were found out:
Technically Georgia started the War. South Ossetia, some elements, fired upon Georgia which sparked the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. (ironic, invading your own country...)
The 2000 killed by Georgia in South Ossetia, accused by Russia, was discounted by Human Rights Watch, citing hospital sources at about 44 dead and 273 wounded.
After the initial cease-fire was declared, Russia advanced further into Georgia.
There have been incidents involving South Ossetia, Russia and Georgian troops actually firing at Journalists. Angry Georgian troops started pointing and firing a pistol at Journalists (video shown on FOX News), a now famous youtube video of a Russian sniper shooting at a Journalist and another video of two Turkish journalists in a car being caught in the cross-fire, one was shot in the head. (but is somehow okay)
In the end of this...well there isn't an end in sight. Russia has no intent of letting Georgia EVER get back South Oessetia or Abkhazia. Whereas Georgia (as well as it's citizens) intend to get both back someday. If there's good news, it could be if UN troops take over "peacekeeping" duties from Russia, this will at least delay the inevitable.
Maybe the worst part of this, aside from the negatives of war, is the long-term relations hit this will have on the US and Russia. What's more is that it has now peaked a big question in the minds of analysts and normal everyday person - does this now mean Russia will take action against other countries that were once under USSR control?
I'm a HUGE news guy, especially middle east news and I'm always watching out to see what's going to be big news or at least something that I have to keep an eye out for, news wise. Although the media coverage will probably be weak, the one area you have to keep an eye on is Pakistan.
I posted a little over a month ago questioning whether Pakistan could even be an ally - Pakistan is an ally?
At the time I thought it was a big deal, but it would cool down - wrong. Just two weeks after my blog I saw quite an interesting article on The Long War Journal:
In a nutshell, not only is Pakistan struggling to keep control of some areas of there own country, but in several areas they have no control and in others, are losing control. Ironically one story that was heavily reported was when 9 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, one story that has not been heavily reported is that once again the US was fired upon from fighters inside Pakistan - US returns fire on Taliban inside Pakistan. So what's all this mean?
Although I think it's for political reasons, Obama is right to shift the focus to Afghanistan. We can send over 10,000 troops and that would help, but it's also a situation that requires a second aspect being fixed - Pakistan. How? That's the un-answered question.
The ISI (Pakistan Intelligence) is often said to have at least element cooperating with the Taliban, at minimum. Musharaf won't be in power for that much longer and he's not in a situation where he can do that much.
A prime example is the Indian Embassy bombing in Afghanistan, more than 60 killed. Shortly after there were articles questioning Pakistans involvement - Is ISI behind Kabul embassy blast?. However the tip of that iceberg was the Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, publicly accused Pakistani agents of involvement in the embassy bombing, specifically even the ISI of orchestrating attacks in Afghanistan - Link. I'll keep updated on this topic and I recommend all readers do the same.
I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I honestly thought that this newest truce between Hamas and Israel wouldn't last a day, heck I wouldn't of been surprised to hear that it was blown in an hour. (I think that's happened before...) But somehow it took 5 days for Hamas to violate the cease-fire agreement.
Depite at times the media having trouble covering anything related to Isreal fairly, I was surprised to see the only one who had a little trouble was MSNBC - Link. It's kind of funny how they go from reporting the story fine and then take a deep dive. Let's take a look:
"Militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip fired at least two rockets into southern Israel on Tuesday, breaching a five-day-old cease-fire."
I still have no idea why groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are regarded only as "militants" and not "terrorists", but whatever. Anyway, starting out it looks good.
"The attack came hours after Israeli troops killed two Palestinians in a West Bank raid. The victims included an Islamic Jihad commander. The militant group later claimed responsibility for firing the rockets, saying the attack was intended to avenge the Israeli operation."
Okay, a prelude to the violation, that's good to note.
"The West Bank is not formally part of the Gaza truce. But the Israeli raid could be seen as violating the spirit of the cease-fire."
See, this is why I went through the first few paragraphs. We go from the general situation to a crafty two sentences where the writer actually says that the area Israel had the raid (West Bank) was "not formally part of the Gaza truce", then preceeded to say that it could be considered as a violation of the truce. (or the spirit of it, whatever that means)
It truly is crafty writing. "not formally" part of the truce in reality means the West Bank is NOT part of the truce, period. Then "violating the spirit of the cease-fire" means that actually they may have violated the cease-fire.
As part of the cease-fire, Hamas claimed responsibility to keep the other groups in check (they are in charge, after all). This means that they didn't and it violates the cease-fire, Hamas being the one that broke it. To end this post, I leave you with a pretty funny headline from "Ace of Spades HQ":
MSNBC: Israel Violates Hamas Ceasefire By Allowing Itself to Be Attacked By Rockets — Ace
I know to say that Pakistan has been big friends with the US would be overstated, but we are "allies". Unfortunately our "ally" has been unable to even control a decent chunk of it's country (Waziristan), allowing Taliban to flow right into Afghanistan. On February 27, 2007 the top US intelligence official even said officially, that Bin Laden was in Pakistan.
If all that wasn't bad enough, not one but TWO stories have come out today that are quite startling. The first story is about an attack on US forces in Pakistan commited by the Taliban. When the story first came out, it was said 10-13 Pakistani soldiers were killed by US-Afghan forces, but in the recent several hours we found out a key piece of the puzzle missing. Here's a few quotes from a Washington Post article:
"Taliban militants apparently opened fire and were then joined by Pakistani military forces, setting off an hours-long battle. It is unclear what prompted the exchange of fire."
"We have inflicted heavy damages," Omar said. The Taliban spokesman
said Islamist insurgents fought "side by side" with Pakistani soldiers
against the Afghan forces during the operation."
The reason Pakistani soldiers and Taliban were killed in the border clash was because the Pakistani soldiers were fighting with the Taliban. Okay, so isolated incident, right? Wrong.
"Pakistani intelligence agents and paramilitary forces have helped train
Taliban insurgents and have given them information about American troop
movements in Afghanistan, said a report published Monday by a U.S.
think tank."
It said NATO officials have uncovered several instances of Pakistani
intelligence agents providing information to Taliban fighters, even
"tipping off Taliban forces about the location and movement of Afghan
and coalition forces, which undermined several U.S. and NATO
anti-Taliban military operations."
The report said Pakistan's intelligence service and other government
agencies provided Taliban and other insurgents with training at camps
in Pakistan, as well as intelligence, financial assistance and help
crossing the border."
These startling accusations were not from WorldNetDaily or some cookey website, but from the very reputable RAND - Source. Good ally, right?
It's been quite an exciting (at times) political season, we now know for certain it will be Obama vs. McCain - one will be the next president of the United States. Although it has been fun to follow, the craziness and the stakes of the 2008 election may dwarf what we've seen so far And so it begins.
As I posted previously, I am a McCain supporter, so I am obviously rooting for McCain, but I would be quickly vote for Obama than Clinton. I have nothing against Obama, the background and how they have gotten this far for both candidates, is quite amazing.
The main issue that has my vote for McCain over Obam is easily Iraq. I don't want 100,000+ troops there for the next 10 or so years, but I want my president to base his decision on what the people who matter say - military commanders. To me, Obama doesn't have this intention, although if he wins I know we will be there longer than what he says now.
Government solving our problems is also a set of ideals Obama and the Democratic party has, I'd be lying if I said I didn't want government to get involved in anything - but some things suggested, I'd be seriously worried, government screws us regulary.
Either way in all of this, this should be a great 2008 election and I look forward to it!
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.
After a very surprising Kansas and Louisiana win, it looked like Huckabee had some momentum. After Super Tuesday, McCain is essentially "the" guy for the Republican party, if they want to keep the White House.
As a McCain supported I was worried. Not that Huckabee could come back, but that McCain could be somewhat embarrassed if Huckabee gets close losses and strong wins. Not that it has changed completely, but McCain today had a strong win.
McCain won DC (5,000 votes compared to over 150,000 in the democratic race?!), Virginia and Maryland. DC and Maryland were crushing wins, Virginia looked close for a while but turned out to be a 9-point win.
It wasn't anything compared to the sheer momentum and dominating performance Obama has had the past few weeks, but I think it kept McCain looking good as the republican nominee. Now the questions if Huckabee will "really" stay in the race if McCain does strongly on March 4th, Ohio and Texas are huge ones.
Let me start this off by saying that I decided to support McCain after Super Tuesday, the process of "picking" someone was one that was tough for me and I had no idea that candidates would be dropping so quickly.
Like many people, I wanted to pick a candidate, but then had trouble finding one where I could agree with on enough policies to support one. In the Beginning I leaned heavily towards Tom Tancredo. He had a great illegal-immigration policy and seemed like a very intelligent person. Unfortunately he was not a front-runner...or close to it...so he bowed out fairly early.
John McCain has been someone that I have liked, admired and very much respected. I disagree on some issues with him, especially immigration and has made it tough for me to support him. However there is a lot of things I agree with him on, staying in Iraq and the fact he was the one that wanted the strategy before Bush put it in and has been working, is a very good test result.
He is also someone that has worked with people on the other aisle. Right-wingers call him a liberal for it, but it's called compromise and a president that works with both sides is a positive, not a negative. In our present situation I think we need a strong leader who does have strong national defense and I think John McCain is the only one.
I like Obama as a person and is very charismatic, but I simply don't think he has the experience. An 2 (or 4?) year Senator becoming president at a time of war, with no foreign policy experience? I don't like it. Hillary Clinton I disagree with, but I do think she is quite smart, but I do disagree with her on key policies such as Iraq, Taxes and other very key issues to me.
To wrap it up, I'll be doing a write up on "What Now?" for the republicans and democrats shortly.
Super Tuesday Posted: Feb 05, 2008 - 4:55 pm Author: admin Section: Politics
Predictions are already being made and the consensus seems to be that it will be extremely close between Obama and Clinton. On the republican side, McCain is looking to have a big day. Either way, it's very interesting and should be fun to watch.
I'll be writing up about the republican and democrat candidates in the coming few days, hopefully I can pick a final candidate I can and want to become president.
Be sure to tune into CNN, FOX News or the local channels (coverage on at least nbc, abc, cbs) to watch this very important day. Google Maps also has a feature, supposedly will be having "live results", check that out - here.
It feels really like a race, watching CNN & FOX as the percentages total up. At this very moment, McCain is leading Huckabee by 5% with only half of the votes in. (no declared winner right now)
This election, more than any I have witnessed, not only is a winner not clear at all, but the candidates have had extreme highs and lows. McCain was doing real well then fell and it looked like he was done, instead he will either win or get 2nd place in a state that, the winner has gone onto be the Republican Party's choice. Guliani not too long ago was dominating polls and is now losing nationally and has struggled to beat out Ron Paul. Fred Thompson started strong and looked good, now just a few short months later, it looks like he done for.
Should be real close and is interesting to watch. I'll be breaking down the candidates shortly (like in my democrats post). Keep an eye out on CNN on TV, we may be finding out the winner shortly.
EDIT: It's now finally been called with 82% in, 33-29 right now, McCain wins South Carolina. On an unrelated note, I finally got my pictures up, check it out - Gallery.
I don't really feel like coding tonight and am switching between the Debate and football. I figured I'd jot down some thoughts, as I still have NO idea who I'm going to vote for. I considering myself more Republican, am not a fan of the current president (but don't have a "hate" for him) and only am/got to see the Democrat debate (which only had Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson).
What I am and have been trying to do is take all the contenders and basically "eliminate" one by one. If they have certain policies I just can't get on board for, say some things that I just can't get on board with, etc.
Seemingly forever, the United States officially never recognized that Bin Laden was in Pakistan. Infact for years they denied it being a possibility, it was considered big news when they said "possibly" but they have finally came out and said it.
In the most definitive statement in years, America's top intelligence official said Tuesday Osama bin laden is in Pakistan actively re-establishing al Qaeda training camps. The newly appointed Director of National Intelligence Jack McConnell made the assertion about bin Laden and his No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
As a direct quote he said:
"to the best of our knowledge that the senior leadership, No. 1 and No. 2, are there, and they are attempting to re-establish and rebuild and to establish training camps."
Not many have heard of him but he believe the military is "overpaid", thinks 9/11, those who did it were "not terrorists" and it was even "good for this country" as well as other outrageous things. Lately he has been sending out DMCA notices to get the Hannity & Colmes interview off, the notices are forged and he might face some legal trouble but a lot have complied not knowing or wanting to risk trouble. Luckily after searching along with a friend, I finally found the video:
"Nov. 28, 2006 — ABC News has learned that Pentagon officials are considering a major strategic shift in Iraq, to move U.S. forces out of the dangerous Sunni-dominated al-Anbar province and join the fight to secure Baghdad."
"U.S. intelligence agencies say, based on preliminary indications, that North Korea did not produce its first nuclear blast yesterday, WASHINGTON TIMES star reporter Bill Gertz is set to report in Tuesday editions."
The Drudge Report is now saying that according to several people such as the above one, the test may not of actually been nuclear after all. We will definitely follow this one.
There have been incidents involving South Ossetia, Russia and Georgian troops actually firing at Journalists. Angry Georgian troops started pointing and firing a pistol at Journalists (video shown on FOX News), a now famous youtube video of a Russian sniper shooting at a Journalist and another video of two Turkish journalists in a car being caught in the cross-fire, one was shot in the head. (but is somehow okay)