As negotiations of terms for restoring the NATO Supply Route start, pitting the indignant Pakistani government against their American counterparts certain issues need to be brought into consideration in the light of certain ground realities in Afghanistan. After a decade of fighting a lost war and spending up to a trillion dollars to “capture Osama Bin Laden and bring him to justice” in Afghanistan, the US is no close to meeting the objectives of its war than it was eleven years ago. At the recent NATO Summit the US claimed that a 4 billion dollar package for post war Afghanistan would cement the US installed government there and “trainer” garrisons posted in the country will further ensure the stability of the Karzai regime. This as far as previous warfare experiences have taught is utter poppycock. The aid will eventually dwindle, the soldiers slowly back off and Karzai will have to exit before you can say Taliban. That’s what happened in 1989 when Soviet Union stopped sponsor...
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‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ George Santayana Like the storm that throws the desert into disarray,tearing down the castles it built in sand erecting new structures out of oblivion and vanishing without trace;so it is with this nation that when shoved into murky waters gets up,shrugs and accepts the slough as fate. We Pakistanis have a proclivity for forgetting;banishing incidents to the deep dark recesses of our grey matter where they bide their time,to emerge only when we fall prey to the same mistakes. And we of this admonish ourselves for lacking the astuteness to learn from our past. The cyclical pattern would condemn any human being to an asylum,who after several incidents of being burnt will still go play with fire. Sometimes forgetting can be cathartic. Relegating disappointments and let-downs to the subconscious is a means of coming to terms with failure and moving on with a positive outlook. The only difference is that ...
The Afghan Drug Trade, A Threat to Russia and U.S.-Russian Relations By Prof. Peter Dale Scott Preface for a North American Audience I delivered the following remarks at an anti-NATO conference held in Moscow on May 15, 2012. Unlike other speakers, my paper urged Russians — despite the expansionist and aggressive activities in Central Asia of the CIA, SOCOM, and NATO — to cooperate under neutral auspices with like-minded Americans, towards dealing with the related crises of Afghan drug production and drug-financed Salafi jihadism. Since the conference I have continued to reflect intensely on the battered state of U.S.-Russian relations, and my own slightly utopian response to it. Although the speakers at the conference represented many different viewpoints, they tended all to share a deep anxiety about US intentions towards Russia and the other former states of the USSR. Their anxiety was based on shared knowledge of past American actions and broken promises, of which th...