Yes.
Afghanistan and Pakistan seem like a forever 'no-go' region.
Yes.
The casualities of both military and civlians are escalating. But, what the Pakistani people have done is incredible. They have placed their futures in the hands of people they elected to clear their land of vicious killers and global terrorists.
Do we say the going is getting to rough and leave or do we find ways to make peace, including the ever escalating tensions between Russia and Georgia, with countries where trouble brews and persist.
Can anyone state Sri Lanka is worse for their own war? It still needs vigilance. There were very tight elections recently. It was difficult for candidates to get clearence to campaign in some areas of Sri Lanka. I don't blame them for that. Their people died in the war to clean up the country and unit it, not to start all over again. That won't stop for at least a generation or two. (click here)
LONDON: Reporting without any ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ the as -yet -unconfirmed news of Baitullah Mehsud’s death in a drone attack, the mainstream media in Britian credited the ‘success’ to close coordination between Washington and Islamabad in the battle against militants in Pakistan’s tribal area.
There is always a question as to what one calls peace. Does it mean that a particular government holds power by consent and demand of the populous and governs with strength and compassion as is expected in the USA? Or is peace a matter of oppression and managing the populous to the government's favor? Or? Is peace an initiative? Where by we understand each other, respect each other and work to live on the same planet together while improving the quality of lives of all the people alive in our time?
Certainly, the Pakistani people did not have peace within their country nor did they own their own lives. The Taliban are brutal men. Don't ask me what it took to 'survive the day' as a woman among them. I don't believe The Western Woman can begin to understand the oppression, the fear and the pain it took day to day to survive in a society like that. They behead women for flirting. Dear God, what kind of mind is that? I don't know. I don't want to know.
The laws within these militarized societies are brutal, cruel, primitive, arcane, any word that can describe uncivlized and heineous and it is that!
He's dead. They'll never admit he's dead. The evidence points to it.
It is a relief for Pakistanis to realize the advances Pakistan has made in such a remarkably short period of time with the best leadership within that society. Finally. I wish Benazir Bhutto could see her Pakistan today. Struggling for freedom and winning. We cannot turn our backs on that. Not with the world's worst killer there.
Maybe the task seemed to daughting for Rumsfeld and Bush. Maybe Iraq was a good side show for everyone because they were confident if the USA did not exit quickly we might have a real war on our hands.
Is Afghanistan our 21st Century Vietnam? I can't answer that. There is decades of time that has gone by with advances in technology. We are seeing some success with it? The people that can answer that question, should.
Honestly.
It seems we have an honest and sincere Pakistan government trying to achieve a goal nearly impossible to achieve in the days of Vietnam. Is it different today? I think it is to some extent. I think they have it right in Pakistan. Where the country's military has control with support from allies there is good results.
Even Bush had to face that when he allowed the alliances of Sunni Sheiks into the fold.
Where the people defend their own countries there is respect and success. If that could be achieved in Afghanistan then we have a winning plan.
But.
It also means that Russia has to come to our alliance and control their side of the problem as well. There needs to be some concessions on Georgia. What the Georgian President did was wrong. No one can deny that. He is attempting an arms build up that will begin confrontation all over again. It seems brutally unwise.
