Originally posted by: palehorse
Originally posted by: The Green Bean
Originally posted by: Jaskalas
It confirmed that 11 soldiers were killed including an officer.
Pakistani troops repulsed the Afghan soldiers and the coalition then bombed the area. Coalition aircraft also killed around 15 Taliban militants about a kilometre (half a mile) away, the officials said.
What were Pakistani soldiers doing WITH Taliban militants?
The message is clear ? side with our enemy and you will join them in death.
Don't be arrogant. Once Pakistan stops supporting NATO in Afghanistan there will only be one loser - NATO; without our airspace and supply routes it will be the end of your little campaign in Afghanistan.
We'll see about that -- both Russia AND the majority of the 'Stans have agreed to assist and allow shipments of ALL supplies through their countries. Once Pakistan no longer has the supply routes to use as leverage, what will they do to stop us from entering the frontier and destroying the Taliban ourselves?
My guess is that we'll eventually have the 'Stans -AND- Pakistan routes to bring in supplies; and Pakistan won't do
anything to stop us from entering the frontier region.
IOW, status quo...
Destroy the Taliban?...intresting premise. Easier said than done...
Can your senario be accomplished without Musharraf?. American influence is not as strong since Nawaz Sharif is not prepared to have his strings pulled as yet.
Can NATO really win this Guerilla War with 20,000 or so forces?. With each passing month the Taliban Fighters grow stronger. Last year, was the most lethal year for NATO since the invasion. To even attempt a military occupation of the entire country to "kill" all these Taliban would require a minimum of 200,000 troops."
Resolution of the war in Afghanistan seems naive in the utmost, namely that the neighbouring countries simply decide to make a stability pact for ten years until Afghanistan gets back on its feet. That concept completely discounts the fact that there are seriously disagreeing factions within Afghanistan.
Even without NATO/UN/ISAP forces there will be significant conflict between various ethnic groups, various tribes, and between drugs lords, political lords, religious leaders and the other assorted gang leaders, discontents, lawbreakers and profiteers.
Do you really think we could or should kill them all?
This country will stay at war until each feud is resolved at a local level. And only then will the process of rebuilding anything like a country be possible. Not likely, but only possible. The more likely outcome is that Afghanistan will revert simply to a geographic area that is controlled entirely at the local level by tribal, ethnic or religious leaders. And it may turn out that the Taliban rule parts of the country once again, particularly if the people find that any semblance of order is better than continuing chaos.
Our wonderfully pleasing concepts of rule of law, democracy, freedom of thought and expression, human rights, and economic progress remain our wonderfully pleasing concepts.
They won't necessarily be accepted by the new Afghanistan either now, in ten years, or maybe forever.