Pakistan/Afghanistan: On Ground Updates
“We are reaching the limits of our patience,
and for that reason it is extremely important that Pakistan take action to prevent
this kind of safe haven.”
Defense
Secretary Leon E. Panetta
Kabul, Afghanistan, June o7, 2012
READ the story
HERE
DoD photo by
Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo
…
* NYDailyNews.com had this report up Friday afternoon and it
starts off like this… Expressing both public and private frustration
with Pakistan, the Obama administration has unleashed the CIA to resume an
aggressive campaign of drone strikes in Pakistani territory over the last few
weeks, approving strikes that might have been vetoed in the past for fear of
angering Islamabad… Now, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of
anonymity in discussing sensitive issues, the administration's attitude is,
"What do we have to lose?"… Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta made
clear the deteriorating relations with Islamabad on Thursday, saying the United
States is "reaching the limits of our patience" because Pakistan has
not cracked down on local insurgents who carry out deadly attacks on U.S.
troops and others in neighboring Afghanistan… "It is difficult to achieve
peace in Afghanistan as long as there is safe haven for terrorists in
Pakistan," Panetta told reporters…
Read the
rest at link below…
.
* FOXNews.com
also had a great report posted up on their website Friday and it starts off
like this… Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has not visited
Pakistan since taking over as defense secretary a year ago… In a visit to India
and Afghanistan this week, he skipped Islamabad again and expressed outright
frustration with the Pakistani leadership and the safe havens they provide the
Taliban in the Northwest Frontier province, especially the so-called Haqqani
network… Admiral Mike Mullen in a parting shot at the Pakistanis did not mince
his words when he said Pakistan's intelligence service provides direct support
of the Haqqani network, whose fighters are killing US troops in Afghanistan….
Read this
report in full/watch the News Video at link below…
US will do whatever necessary to protect forces in Pakistan, Panetta says
.
* DAWN.com has the following report posted Saturday and it starts off like this… So it was a bad sign this week when the US defense secretary joshed in front of an audience of Indians about how Washington kept Pakistan in the dark about the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden a year ago… “They didn’t know about our operation. That was the whole idea,” Leon Panetta said with a chuckle at a Q&A session after a speech in New Delhi, raising laughs from the audience… The Bin Laden raid by US commandos in a Pakistani town infuriated Islamabad because it had no advance notice, and it was seen by Pakistan’s powerful military as a humiliation… The US and Pakistan are starting to look more like enemies than allies, threatening the US fight against Taliban and al-Qaida militants based in the country and efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan before American troops withdraw…
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* DAWN.com has the following report posted Saturday and it starts off like this… So it was a bad sign this week when the US defense secretary joshed in front of an audience of Indians about how Washington kept Pakistan in the dark about the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden a year ago… “They didn’t know about our operation. That was the whole idea,” Leon Panetta said with a chuckle at a Q&A session after a speech in New Delhi, raising laughs from the audience… The Bin Laden raid by US commandos in a Pakistani town infuriated Islamabad because it had no advance notice, and it was seen by Pakistan’s powerful military as a humiliation… The US and Pakistan are starting to look more like enemies than allies, threatening the US fight against Taliban and al-Qaida militants based in the country and efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan before American troops withdraw…
Read the full
report at link below…
.
* HindustanTimes.com has this interesting Book Review that goes in
part like this. … Pakistani
Journalist Ahmed Rashid, an astute chronicler of the troubled region, believes
that talk about a peaceful transition to a workable Afghan State in 2014 is delusional,
and smacks of tired spin. In
‘Pakistan On The Brink’, a collection of essays on the future of Pakistan,
Afghanistan and the West, Rashid’s vision of the region is unrelentingly bleak.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan, he writes, is on the verge of State collapse and
becoming an international pariah, Afghanistan is far from ready for competent
self-rule, and the US has no strategic vision for stabilising the region. So it
is hurtling towards “greater conflict and contradiction rather than peaceful
resolution and reconciliation”…
Read this
review in full at link below…
……….….……
AubreyJ………
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