Thanks to the unilateral Bin Landen raid, China gets its first base in Arabian Gulf

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Saturday it wanted China to build it a naval base, in the latest sign of moves to strengthen ties with Beijing as relations with Washington falter.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/21/pakistan-says-wants-china-to-build-naval-base.html

Flying along the border when shot at by Pakistani troops is “NATO helicopters attacked by“. Returning fire after being shot at is self-defence.

Hmm not for the aviation news thread, But last few weeks have shown that US hardly cares where the border lies. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the helicopters had crossed over into Pakistan, again.

No war needed. Israel is playing a dangerous waiting game and is fast loosing the strategic advantages it has.

Israel’s backers won’t have the same power that they used to have, the rise of other countries who are not that sympathetic to Israel’s cause should be a concern for Israel. Although no one would want Israel to be destroyed, but its current state with occupied territories would become extremely difficult to justify.

I don’t know whether it is sheer hate or delusion which is stopping Israel from taking the initiative to work for a lasting peace. They have every advantage at the moment, they need to cease the moment and get a better deal out of it.

Iran is a sideshow, every Muslim country dislikes Israel. Iranian govt is just saying it loud and clear.
If all the Western intelligence agencies of the world put together couldn’t figure out if Iraq had nuclear weapons or not, what hope do we have for Iranian weapons programme?

You say Pakistan fought Americas war !? 😮

The first Afghan war was to beat the Soviets back from Afghanistan.
If that wasnt done, then next country to face an invasion could very well have been Pakistan.And there was nothing Pakistan could have done alone against the then Soviets militarily ..
So although the Americans did have an interest, Pakistans interest in that war was Primary !

And the second time around, Pakistan just didnt have a choice !
Pakistan with either “With US or against US” …. Whatever Pakistan did was to save itself from getting bombed back to stone age by the US along with Afghanistan …

So, Pakistan hasnt really done any favours for the US.. It has/had acted only to save its own skin ! :rolleyes:

And making deals with those terror groups wasn’t a “necessity”… It was more of delusional “If they bought the Soviets down, they will easily bring the Indians down too and also give us Strategic depth” !
Sorry, it didnt work ! :diablo:

Also if one were to accept your reasoning of why Pakistan isn’t going all out for the US this time around, then why is Pakistan as a nation accepting American AID by going all out ?

Where does the “pride,honour and dignity” go ? :rolleyes:

Pakistan would have been much better, had they cut a deal with the Soviets in those days. America essentially used and dumped Pakistan; where as the Indian Soviet relationship has been far better. Af-Pak region have been in reverse gear since they took on the Soviets. Pakistan could have allowed Soviets same access as they have provided to NATO forces for using their ports.

I agree that Pakistan is fighting the current war because US threatened to bomb them to the stone age, but that’s like getting raped under gun point not consensual sex!

Pakistan has a choice of fighting the war with or without aid, what would you choose?

But I guess some American will always be bitter, after all this wacko cost them 2 trillion dollars and led them in into 2 wars.

Has the Pakistani government done everything it could? Some would say they have. I don’t believe that to be the case. I think they are trying to play both sides. They are saying they are a big part of the war on terror, while at the same time trying to cater to some of their own population that supports groups like AQ…in other words not doing what they should to stamp out these maniacs.

Last time Pakistan went blindly into a conflict for American interests, US cut and ran and Pakistanis were left with a myriad of these Jihadist groups to deal with, If Pakistan made deals with these groups, than it was partly out of necessity. So I’m sorry if you feel Pakistan is not going out of the way for you this time. Maybe they have longer memories than the US govt.

They might be hedging their bets now. Why should they keep on fighting once US leaves again? It wasn’t their war after all. And US will leave Afghanistan in a mess, they simply don’t have the time and resources to fix it.

The general Americans were supporting during the Soviet Afghan war, filled ISI and Pakistan Army with jihadists, and Americans couldn’t be more pleased as they were getting what they wanted out of it.

doesn’t at this point either

In other words, they are beginning to question just how much the Pakistanis can be trusted as a result of all of this. Perhaps I’m claiming too much for it, but it is my opinion that many in my government are starting to become wary of the Pakistanis….perhaps I’m wrong though.

But you entirely trust your own government?

You must be one of those conspiracy nuts….

To answer your question, yes and no. I don’t trust everything my government does…I don’t think anyone on this planet trusts everything their respective governments do from time to time. I do work for my government though and anyone who knows me would know that I’m proud to do it. Thus I do place some confidence in them…if I didn’t I’d be in the wrong line of work.

I trust them a lot more than I do the Pakistani government though. I’ve said it before…the bin Laden thing isn’t what made me begin to distrust them…I’ve been uneasy with Pakistan for quite some time now…this incident just bores out my concerns.

In case you’re wondering pagen, I know the secret location of where they filmed the moon landings….would you like for me to tell you where it is? 🙂

Your own president has said he was 54/45 percent certain than OBL was in that compound.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/08/bin.laden.obama/index.html?hpt=T2

That’s after 6 months of surveillance by the worlds leading intelligence agency, with every resource one could think of and more. CIA even had a safe house in the same area which they used for months to get intelligence.

Now either CIA is so lame that it took them 6 months to get to a 54/45 percent situation just to guess if one dude is living in that compound, or this was a really tough nut to crack, even for ISI.

But I guess some American will always be bitter, after all this wacko cost them 2 trillion dollars and led them in into 2 wars.

So a solo raid was purely political and had zero operational reason.

Oh there was a reason outside of politics…keeping the Pakistani government out of it was probably the best way to keep bin Laden (or at least those close to him) from finding out they were coming for him. The only way for that to have happened was to keep the Pakistani’s in the dark. I know you don’t believe that, but there is not a doubt in my mind about it. We’ll have to agree to disagree.

What you say about the ISI claiming to have raided the compound in 2003 is interesting in that many sources are saying it was still an empty field in 2004…

http://maptd.com/aerial-history-of-osama-bin-ladens-hideout/

Simply put, I don’t trust the Pakistanis and I’m glad my government doesn’t at this point either.

You trust them and that’s fine. The world always has multiple viewpoints.

Funny way of showing distrust, $ 3 Billion to be paid this year!

Plus had ISI known they wouldn’t have let US know about the couriers whereabouts, that’s like shooting themselves in the foot.

You kinda lost me on this one…care to elaborate?

Sure. According to Pakistan this compound was amongst the list of suspect locations forwarded to CIA as back as 2009. ISI raided this location in 2003, when it was not fully constructed.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/04/pakistan-alerted-us-about-compound-in-2009-bashir.html

Ofcourse CIA with better resources traced the courier to this location.

Now the only problem for US was, if they had asked the Pakistanis to take action, people in America wouldn’t be jumping up and down chanting USA, USA. So a solo raid was purely political and had zero operational reason. The mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was even captured in a joint operation.