Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan oh my

Iraq continues to go as Iraq goes. The car bombs continue. There still no water and power at times. Unemployment is at 57% among young people. I was privledged to get a ton of information from a couple of bloggers who inspite of the prying eyes of Sadam's government were able to get information out to the world even while the U.S. and Britan were dropping bombs on them on a daily basis. They gave me a far better perspective of what was happening than any U.S. paper. Salam Pax truely did risk his life getting the real news out until one day he realized that they were on to him and it was time to depart. He left the country as did several other bloggers that I followed. It was just too dangerous for them and their families. His first blog details all of the happenings from before the war up to his leaving Where's Raed? Salam is now back in Bagdad and reporting on life there. His new blog Salam Pax This is a good blog if you want to find out what's going on there that the U.S. newspapers aren't reporting.


On to Pakistan
Taleban withdraw
Now before you hit the link here's a little background. Our tactic or plan if you will was to drive out the Taleban from the major cities and move them to the hills where they'd be of little threat. That was the Bush plan anyway. And like everything he touched it turned to sh*t. From reports the Taleban have regrouped and reorganized and now hold most of the area of southeast Afghanistan. In fact except for the major cities they pretty much hold the rest of the country to the east. What was the problem? The problem was that somebody forgot to read their history of the country. Afghanistan never really was a country like we tend to think of a country. It was more like a loose mish mash of tribes looking out for their own interest. We only managed to to get everybody on the same page when the Russians occupied the country. And who did we train? The Taleban were our best buds and we let them stay in power as they were the strongest faction of all the groups and the most capable of defeating the Russians. Well they defeated the Russians alright. It was said that the money the Russians spend there caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. However I really don't believe that. I think it was when we threatened to build the missle defense system (you may remember it as Star Wars under Reagan) but that's another story. So the Taleban being in eastern Afghanistan have been moving into Pakistan. A smart move for them since we won't go into that country after them. Gee does this sound like a repeat of history? Does Cambodia and Thiland come to mind? The Taleban has moved into an area called Swat a resort area in the very north and has been gradually moving south. This was just after the Pakistan government let them bring Islamic law to the region. Once that was done the Taleban started moving south closer to the capital city of Islamabad.
As everyone knows Pakistan has nukes but I'm sure they wouldn't use them for two reasons. One- they'd be bombing many of thier own people and Two - They have India to the east that also has nukes. What will happen now is anyone's guess. We know that we're scheduled to send more troops to Afghanistan but that won't do much if the Taleban is not there. Pakistan could be getting very crowded in the next several months. So this is the mess George W left us. No real plan. No real mission other than to fight terror (never knew you could fight a state of mind) and no possible end date. So the "No" party rallied a guy with no real military experience. All he did was learn to fly a jet and from his true bio he didn't do that very well (washed out of the guard because he wouldn't take a pee test and finish qualifying). So where do we go from here? All they need to do is wait us out in the safety of Pakistan. If they wait long enough we'll go the way of Russia and run out of cash or credit. Oh that's right we already did.