troung

Pakistan supports the Taliban because they saw them as a force able to rule Afghanistan and being reliant on Pakistan at the same time (no grass roots support). The HIA was supported by Pakistan for the same reason.

And the Shiite Hazaras go where?
Sri Lanka.


I agree. He is a man who will say whatever to keep himself in power.

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To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

Deltacamelately

huh? What was that?

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I am the DARK that Rise to Kill..And Soar to Redeem!

Deltacamelately

Indian Army teach Royal Marines how to fight in Afghanistan (GreaterKashmir.com) 9/18/2007
BM, I suppose your argument is true and vindicated...geographical proximity apart...the terrain is also very well known to us.

Blademaster

Yes those leaders may be Pashtun but the source of the power comes from the Punjabi base, the wealthy landowners class, the middle class, etc. which all comes from the Punjabi base. Ergo, you may have Pashtuns at the very top rungs of the ladder but the next ten lower rungs are Punjabi.

Ray

AM,

There was no problems between the Pathans and the Gangetic Indians.

In fact, you should read Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's "Kabuliwala" to understand the symbiotic relationship.

Further, you could also check how many Pathans have come to India for higher education and in colleges in Gangetic India.

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"Some have learnt many Tricks of sly Evasion, Instead of Truth they use Equivocation, And eke it out with mental Reservation, Which is to good Men an Abomination."

I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.

HAKUNA MATATA

Blademaster

He was referring to the pullout of the troops by GoI in Sri Lanka. A rebuttal to our assertion of "staying power" by means of geographical proximity.

A good rebuttal but still at anytime, we can go back in and stay there indefinitely as long as it suits our interests. It will not be that expensive or hard as the Americans are having in Afghanistan or in Iraq.

Blademaster

Then why did Nehru reject the Pathans' offer to join India as opposed to Pakistan right after Independence.

Agnostic Muslim

Was that directed at Blademaster? I don't recall getting into "Pathan and Gangetic Indian" relations.

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Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission - Jinnah

Agnostic Muslim

So you are suggesting, based on your earlier comment, that the federal bureaucracy is almost entirely dominated by Punjabis. Punjab makes up almost half the population of Pakistan, Baluchistan is probably underrepresented - can you illustrate what percentage of the Federal bureaucracy is Punjabi, and whether Punjabis constitute an abnormally larger share than their population size allows? How the selection process works - i.e quotas and then merit, or merit alone? What influence and power the bureaucracy actually has, i.e Prime ministers (or presidents) and their cabinets determine what projects are adopted and executed, so what effect does the Federal bureaucracy actually have on the populations of the provinces who have their own bureaucracies that the residents have to deal with?

S-2

We entered Iraq through Kuwait. Been there now for fourteen years. That would seem to be "staying power". Europe? South Korea? Great distances. A long time.

I'm uncertain why you'd think our re-entry to Afghanistan would pose an unusual challenge to our forces. In any case, I don't envision leaving Iraq anytime soon. Nor Afghanistan.

Do you?

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"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski

Blademaster

In Europe and South Korea, you had an "enabler" for your staying power, i.e., the support of the local populace. A good example would be South Vietnam. Even though you had the support of the government of South Vietnam, your presence was never really popular with the local populace and they didn't do enough to "enable" your staying power, i.e., supporting the government officials that pushed for your presence, not hiding and giving material support to insurgents, providing valuable HUMINT on the ground, etc. In South Korea, you had all three. Yeah you had student protests but that was largely confined to few areas within Seoul and never widespread. You really had the support of the local populace so if the North Koreans tried any attempts of insurgency, they would fail because the local populace would aid you in putting down the insurgency. Same thing with Western Europe. If you hadn't had the support of the local populace, you would have a very hard time staying that long in Western Europe. But the Marshall plan and the Red Menace "enabled" your staying power in Europe by influencing the local populace to support your presence.

Now, IMHO, if you don't have the local populace but you have the geographical proximity, you can overcome the obstacle of the lack of the support from the local populace because your own population will help you to do the job, i.e., they would move into those areas and settle down and put down roots and establish areas of control where you can safely put down local factories that would provide food, war supplies, etc. You get the idea. It becomes much harder as the distance increases.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, I just don't see the support of the local populace because they are doing two things: They are giving material support and aiding & abetting the enemy/insurgents, they provide intelligence to the enemy/insurgents. Essentially, you haven't won the battle for the hearts and minds. Winning the battle of hearts and minds means that you have "been enabled" to use your staying power. The British Raj failed because they really never had their own support of the population in India and to do so would require very costly funding which the British masters were loathe to do so. The USSR failed because their central Asia regions were largely apathic to the Red Army's efforts in Afghanistan, such as moving into Afghanistan, building permanent enclaves with self sustained economies and local manufacturings that would provide the necessary material support and manpower for the Red Army thereby "enabling" the Red Army's staying power. A good example of using your population to "enable" your staying power would be in the Wild West frontier against the Indians. Your own population moved in, established local enclaves, provided material support, "enabled" your Federal Army's staying power and essentially crushed the Indians. Another example would be the PLA in Xinjiang and in Tibet. Look at Japan's failure in China during WWII. Look at Australia's success against the Aborogines. Look at the Boers/white people's success in South Africa, Zimbabwe before the 80s.

S-2

"In Iraq and Afghanistan, I just don't see the support of the local populace because they are doing two things: They are giving material support and aiding & abetting the enemy/insurgents, they provide intelligence to the enemy/insurgents."

I absolutely can't agree about Iraq. Not at all. One-third of the nation is solid in our presence and the sunni support has dramatically increased this year. You know that, I'm sure.

"Essentially, you haven't won the battle for the hearts and minds."

Let's talk about that. We haven't lost them either. Further, Afghanistan entails far more nations than ourselves so you need to account for that- good, bad, or indifferent.

Neither are lost by any stretch. Our stamina is fine. Afghanistan, in particular, is something I can't imagine being abandoned anytime soon. Should Iraq continue to display the very visible improvement thus seen (and which you've ignored, seemingly) we'll likely see U.S. forces increase in Afghanistan.

Now, an interesting question might entail the determination and stamina of our allies. Should they falter, though, I know India will happily provide the necessary forces to see Afghanistan join the family of nations.

Tronic

Ironical thing about these COIN exercises we are conducting with the US and UK is that, the tactics which we share with them may now be shared with Pakistan. So technically, we may just be passing down our COIN tactics to Pakistan.

U.S. Special Forces To Expand Presence, Train in Pakistan | India Defence

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Nabha Sparasham Deeptam
-Touch The Sky With Glory

Tronic

I wasn't aware he did that, but then again, its Nehru, he lacked common sense. Thats why he was asking for a fight with China and at the same time disbanding the Indian army under Indo-Chin bhai bhai (India-China brotherhood).

S-2

"...the tactics which we share with them may now be shared with Pakistan."

We'll try to pass along instruction packets with U.S. Army letterhead. Can't speak for those perfidious albions though.