More worrisome developments in Pakistan

It appears that the US is set on creating more chaos in Pakistan and, thereby, entend the geopolitical instability all the way from Iraq to Bangladesh. The latest developments?

• “If they (U.S. troops) tried to walk in from Afghanistan it would be the duty of the Frontier Corps or the Pakistan Army to repel them. And U.S. ground forces, these days, are incapable of fighting without massive air support. So if they called in airstrikes within Pakistan the PAF would have no alternative but to support their own kin, and use their American-supplied F-16s to counter violations of Pakistan’s airspace by US aircraft.”So is the United States walking into a quagmire in Pakistan’s border areas? Or will a series of “surgical” raids be enough to destroy the leadership of al Qaeda and the Taliban and turn the war in Afghanistan back in Washington’s favour? Reuters-UK
• Islamabad was stunned by President George W Bush's speech at the US National Defense University on Tuesday in which he named Pakistan as one of the major battlegrounds in the fight against terrorism and that the US has stepped up raids into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan to attack militants. On Wednesday there was another shock in the form of a detailed roadmap of American strategy outlined by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, during an address to the US Congress. The key element of this is the conviction that the only way to win in Afghanistan is to open a new war theater in Pakistan. Asia Times
• If the United States sends troops across the border from Afghanistan, and its alliance with Pakistan is weakened, or, worse still, Pakistani forces try to repel them, who wins?
  The answer to many Pakistani analysts is obvious -- al Qaeda, the Taliban and a host of Islamist militant groups who want the United States out of the region and Pakistan in chaos. Reuters-India
• Despite the political divisions in Pakistan, no one in this country can possibly endorse what Admiral Mullen may have in mind. Attacking across the Durand Line in recent days has cost the US a lot of Pakistani support by forcing even those who fear Al Qaeda more than American action to retreat from their defence of the international coalition against terrorism. ...
  The latest Mullen pronouncement is adjudged by everyone in Pakistan as the last hurrah of an administration that has committed many mistakes in the conduct of the wars it undertook under its neoconservative ideology. If the American army chief says he is not winning the war in Afghanistan he probably knows why the war has gone wrong. It is acknowledged on all hands that the Afghanistan invasion under the UN Charter failed because the Bush administration had a flawed vision. Daily Times
• There is an escalating sense of furious impotence among the ordinary people of Pakistan. Many -- perhaps most -- of them are strongly opposed to the spread of Talibanisation and extremist influence across the country; people who may be described as 'moderates'. Many of them have no sympathy for the mullahs and their burning of girls' schools and their medieval mindset. But if you bomb a moderate sensibility often enough it has a tendency to lose its sense of objectivity and to feel driven in the direction of extremism. If America bombs moderate sensibilities often enough you may find that its actions are the best recruiting sergeant that the extremists ever had -- and the extremists will be quietly delighted at the civilian deaths as they know that more feet will turn to the path that leads to their door.
  There seems little that we can do to stop the Buzzers killing non-combatants; and by the same token it is difficult to construct a rhetoric that would dissuade those new recruits from joining the extremist camp. America is daily deepening the well of resentment against itself that no amount of aid input or pious diplomatic platitudes will ever fill; and Uncle Sam should not be surprised if his interests and assets within Pakistan become the target of extremists -- because at least some of those extremists will be the product of his own actions, his very own recruits. General Kayani's men will have to fight these new recruits as well, and fighting one's own people never sits easily in the mind of any fighting force. Be careful what you bomb Uncle Sam, be very careful. The News