Revisiting Afghanistan…
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, The WorldThe NY Times writes today about the recent terror strikes along the border of Afghanistan, and how the WOT relations are going…
Two incidents in particular, which each killed more than a dozen people, have revealed just how tenuous relations among the countries have become.In the first, U.S. missiles struck a house in the Pakistani village of Damadola where Ayman Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al Qaeda, was thought to be having dinner. In the second, three days later in the Afghan town of Spin Boldak, a man drove a motorbike into a crowd gathered to watch a wrestling match and blew himself up.
Because the incidents took place on opposite sides of the border, they elicited responses with vastly different focuses. After the U.S. missile strike, thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets to condemn the United States. After the suicide bombing, thousands of Afghans took to the streets to condemn Pakistan.
The United States — long frustrated because its soldiers are in Afghanistan while most of the militants they are hunting are believed to be in Pakistan — has begun using unmanned aircraft known as Predators armed with Hellfire missiles to reach across the border. Pakistani officials are apparently notified in advance of such missions, and assist with intelligence. But the angry public response there to this month’s attack raised questions about whether the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf — which has sought to cultivate ties to the West without alienating radical Islamic groups at home — can handle the domestic political fallout.
Hearts and minds people…hearts and minds. We can wonk on about the ins and outs of the policy decision of the Bush administrations, but apparently it’s not enough to simply say we need to spread democracy throughout the world. And yes, liberating countries is a noble task, but our nobility quickly turns to local hostility when we don’t follow through.
In short, what is the cost of our new, bold foreign policy…
Pakistani tribal leaders, for their part, look a few miles west for the source of their troubles: the American military presence in Afghanistan. Throughout the past week and continuing Sunday, tens of thousands of Pakistanis have participated in boisterous rallies at which protesters burned effigies of President Bush, chanted “Long live Osama!” and denounced the Pakistani government for cooperating with the United States.“People are so angry that this could become a major movement against the American slaves who are ruling Pakistan these days,” said Liaquat Baluch, a leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest Islamic party.
Are dangerous days ahead for the WOT?
This entry was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 and is filed under Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 11th, 2006 at 1:31 am
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March 24th, 2006 at 9:56 am
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