Could you imagine if they actually captured or killed OBL with these raids? Politically speaking, something like that would totally help out the Bush legacy.
As for pissing off Pakistan? I think the only ones mad would be the pro-Taliban and pro-Al Qaeda folks who are in pretty large numbers in Pakistan. Obviously these groups will frame these raids as an attack on Pakistan and Islam.
To me, we are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. I tend to lean towards doing what we have to do, in order to shut down the FATA region. That area has been a safe haven for far too long. And to me, that safe haven equates to Coalition deaths in Afghanistan.
The Taliban has enjoyed way too much security and safety in that region. They train there, get weapons there, and recruit more guys there. It stinks, and this safe haven must be shut down in order to save lives in Afghanistan. That is the reality.
The other thing that is important to note, is that now that Russia has shut down transportation routes for NATO, that Pakistan will be even more important to the war effort in Afghanistan. So either we do nothing in Pakistan, and expect to have our logistics convoys be attacked, or we are pro-active and stick it to the Taliban and the other Islamic extremists there that certainly plan on attacking those convoys. -Head Jundi
————-
Pakistan raid may signal more U.S. attacks
Thu Sep 4, 2008 4:32pm BST
By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. commandos entered Pakistan this week to attack an al Qaeda target near the Afghan border in a move that could signal more intense American efforts to thwart cross-border attacks, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The Bush administration has not officially acknowledged any involvement in the attack on Wednesday on the South Waziristan village of Angor Adda that killed up to 20 people, including women and children, according to Pakistani officials.
Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the raid by special operations forces targeted suspected al Qaeda operatives and signalled a possible intensification of American efforts to disrupt militant safe havens in Pakistan.
In a separate incident on Thursday, a missile attack by a suspected U.S. drone killed four Islamist militants and wounded five other in nearby North Waziristan, Pakistani security officials and witnesses said.
The commando raid spawned a furious response from the Pakistan government, which opposes any action by U.S. troops on its soil. Foreign Minister Shah Memood Qureshi said it was a shameful violation of the rules of engagement.
But officials and analysts said the raid appeared to be part of an increased U.S. effort to disrupt al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan that are blamed for fuelling an increasingly sophisticated insurgency against U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in eastern Afghanistan.
This year, Afghanistan became a deadlier combat zone for U.S. troops than Iraq.
Militants operating along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border are believed to include al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who remains at large seven years after the September 11 attacks.
As President George W. Bush prepares to leave office in four months, both of his would-be successors — Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama — have stressed the need for Pakistan to focus on security.
VIOLENT REPRISALS
U.S. officials say Pakistan has not done enough to combat the militants despite a recent increase in Pakistani military operations that have drawn violent reprisals.
Wednesday’s raid has been described publicly as the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S.-led troops since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
But Pentagon officials said privately the presence of U.S. troops in Pakistan marked a return to tactics used by the American military soon after the Afghanistan invasion.
In recent years, the United States has tended to limit its cross-border actions to artillery and air strikes against militants, particularly those escaping into Pakistan after carrying out attacks across the border.
U.S. concerns about the growing threat of militant attacks from bases inside Pakistan prompted top U.S. military officials including Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen to meet secretly with Pakistan’s military chief last week aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean.
“The safe havens in the border regions provide launching pads for these sorts of attacks, and they need to be shut down,” Mullen later told reporters at the Pentagon.
But some analysts said U.S. military action in Pakistan could erode the credibility of the Pakistani government in the tribal regions and inadvertently help militants destabilize the nuclear-armed country.
“It would be a serious mistake to risk the destabilization of Pakistan to try and avert failure across the border in Afghanistan,” said Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations.
“If you think the No. 1 threat to U.S. interests at the moment is al Qaeda’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon, far and away the likeliest scenario for that to happen is some sort of collapse of the Pakistani government into chaos.”
The United States and other allies are increasingly concerned about Pakistan’s stability as its new civilian government grapples with political and economic challenges.
On Wednesday, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
U.S. special operations forces, which lead the Pentagon’s counterterrorism effort, are among 19,000 U.S. troops deployed to Afghanistan under U.S. command.
A further 14,000 U.S. forces are in Afghanistan as part of NATO’s 53,000-strong International Security Assistance Force.
(Editing by David Alexander and David Storey)
Story Here
