Pakistan could collapse within six months: US expert

[cosmicone]

Source: Times of India

NEW YORK: Pakistan could collapse within six months in the face of the snowballing insurgency, a top expert on guerrilla warfare has said.


The dire prediction was made by David Kilcullen, a former adviser to top US military commander General David Petraeus.

David Kilcullen is the best known practitioner of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations and had advised Gen Petraeus on the counter-insurgency programme in Iraq. Few experts understand the nature of the insurgency in Af-Pak as well and he is now advising Petraeus in Afghanistan.

Petraeus also echoed the same thought when he told a Congressional testimony last week that the insurgency could "take down" Pakistan, which is home to nuclear weapons and al-Qaida.

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Pak-could-collapse-in-6-months-Expert/articleshow/4365030.cms

[tekisui]

1. It has deteriorated so much that it doesn't have far to go.

6 months to a complete failed state is believable.

[L. Coyote]

2. Translation: Pakistan could collapse within six months: Military budget due out again.

": US expert" oxymoranic tip off that something is not to be believed! :rofl:

[burning rain]

5. Hey, be respectful!

Some of our experts on foreign countries saw something on CNN once about those countries, and some can even ask where a bathroom is in a local language!

[L. Coyote]

18. Diplomacy, noun, Behavior related to needing to find a bathroom in foreign country

One of several reasons to talk to natives.

[xchrom]

3. how can anyone tell?

pakistan has been so chaotic for so long.

[nomorenomore08]

4. No kidding. The "tribal areas" and the central government have virtually nothing to do

with each other. Pakistan, much like Afghanistan, is a cobbled-together "country" that is anything but a unified nation.

[soothsayer]

6. Where will OBL go?

[Summermoondancer]

7. I think he is already dead and we are just chasing ghosts...

he hasn´t shown his face in an eternity...i think he died of kidney disease long ago...it was just an excuse to keep dropping bombs.

[druidity33]

23. Bhutto said as much...

before she was assassinated.

:(

[bdamomma]

57. yea, she did say it, and was the interview with David Frost?

and he didn't even blink when she said it.

[downindixie]

8. Since it has nuclear weapons

we will be forced to take action and ensure the safety of the U.S. and Pakistan.

[customerserviceguy]

10. We probably won't

but India will. With our satellite intelligence help, of course.

[closeupready]

29. It depends on their appetite for risk.

Because that's a very risky game to play.

[customerserviceguy]

30. I've no doubt

that there are fundie Muslims who would love to nuke India, sending the region into an apocalyptic death spiral for some vague reward in an afterlife. I'm sure the Indians are keeping a close watch on political events in their neighbor for just such a thing.

[closeupready]

31. I'm referring more to retaliation. People shouldn't think that

either Pakistan or India have failed to plan for aggression from the opposite side. They've both been through this before, and know how much pain can be inflicted. Mutually assured destruction isn't just for breakfast anymore.

[cosmicone]

34. Pakistan can't even pay its bills

It will take a lot of nukes to destroy a big country like India and the two or three primitive nukes Pakistan has been given by China won't cut it.

Use a nuke and get destroyed by India's HUGE conventional force advantage.

[closeupready]

39. LOL - do you get uncomfortable keeping in all that hot air?

If I felt you were informed, I would maybe be upset, but this post demonstrates that you are not, so I think I'll just put you on ignore, since I don't really enjoy flamewars just for the hell of it.

[Psephos]

59. Pakistan has between 60 and 100 nukes, and they aren't primitive

Might want to update your sources.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103865467

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8d0ce1c8-397f-11de-b82d-00144feabdc0.html

This has the potential to turn into a global nightmare. I hope those who pooh-pooh the Iranian ambition to nuclear weapons get a double-dose of reality from observing this. lol Who am I kidding?

[ohio2007]

12. US generals thought the Mekong river delta of South Vitnam was worth saving. I think history will

I think history is going to repeat.

How much of Pakistan is really worth saving ?


Worried about the nukes?
Seriously, Taliban Tet is already underway and are at the nuke base gates.

Send in the bunker busters



blame the madrassas mountain men




Will China or India lodge a UN protest ?

[Alamuti Lotus]

24. Are you paying that guy for any kind of likeness rights or residuals?

He gets more face-time here than Obama himself.

[ohio2007]

25. You like the poster child ?

Muhammad "Mad man" Mahmud,

Red Mosque Madrases

class of '03

Majored in cricket (sniping)

[Alamuti Lotus]

27. Yes, big fan, as you must be as well

Which is why I seek to protect his likeness rights.

[ohio2007]

37. Barbarians at the gate ( a journalist rants before he loses his freedom or even his head)

How possibly could a party such as the secular ANP get into such a low deal with those of the Taliban’s ilk?


snip
But back to the matter of the increasingly successful assault on Pakistan by the Taliban. What gives? We will know all if a few very basic questions are answered. One, how come the Pakistan Army, the ISI, the Intelligence Bureau, Military Intelligence and the Frequency Allocation Board could not find Mullah Radio’s FM station in six years?



Two, ditto. Three, ditto. Four, ditto. Ninety-nine, ditto. Just who is preventing all these when-they-want-to-be most oppressively efficient organisations from finding the clandestine broadcaster that is the foundation upon which Mullah Fazlullah has built his dreadful empire of death and destruction?



To the government I say this: If it is true that the cake and pastry and tikka-selling, property-dealing industrial and banking conglomerate, the Pakistan Army, has failed to tactically defeat (I did not say bomb and shell and strafe, sirs) a ragtag militia, then demob large parts of it and distribute its weapons and equipment among the populace. We well know how to defend our hearths and homes, and wives and daughters and sisters and mothers; and neighbours, against the advancing barbarians.

To our visiting paymasters ( ? ) who are presently in the Citadel of Islam, I say this: if the choice is between having a strategic and a transactional relationship with this regime when it comes to doling out money please do yourselves, and us, a favour. Please opt for the transactional, COD (cash on delivery) as they say in business. Only then does this country have a chance of survival.

Otherwise it is dead in the water.

Witness Chakwal. It broke my heart to hear friend Ayaz Amir, MNA, say, ‘I never thought Chakwal would become a target, sir’ when I called him on Sunday afternoon to condole the wanton death and destruction spread in his city by the self-same barbarians.



He was at the hospital at the time and the screams of pain in the background made me invoke the Almighty’s curse on those that kill and maim innocents.





http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/barbarians-at-the-gate-ha

that Journalist knows he will see freedom of the press replaced with freedom to repress shortly

Yes, big fan, as you must be as well
Posted by Alamuti Lotus
Which is why I seek to protect his likeness rights.

yes, go ahead, protect him. He is comming, trampling the rights of others and hurdling the dead killed all the way to the gates of civilation as you know it. Of course,all with the help of the ISI and other high government and pak miltary officials.


jmo

I'm sure it will all end with a whimper for one side

[La Lioness Priyanka]

32. yes, because one thing the us is GREAT at doing, is making other countries safer. nt

[roamer65]

54. I would not doubt that AQ Khan has a few stored away for sale to the highest bidder.

[bertman]

9. Where's Dickless Cheney when we need him? Use the Israelis as proxy first-strikers

and nook the bahstids back to the Stone Age. That'll keep those Eyerainians in line.

[stillcool]

11. Pakistan Experts: U.S. could collapse..

within 6 months.

[defendandprotect]

13. That was my post-! " Hey, US could collapse in 6 months, or sooner . . ."

[stillcool]

17. Gosh..I just realized..

I'm a reporter!!

[closeupready]

28. ROFL

:rofl:

[ohio2007]

15. That was a Russian economist prediction from three months ago

[L. Coyote]

19. American Stock Portfolio readers: U.S. did collapse six months ago, one reason

because we are over in Pakistan, Afganistan, Iraq, ....

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

51. Yeah, because of all that instability in, uh, Kentucky. n/t

[bemildred]

14. "Vietnam could collapse in six months!"

Lyndon B. Johnson ready to suck it up and stay the course. And there is light at the end of the tunnel, just around the corner.

[EFerrari]

16. Petraeus underling, former advisor to Condi Rice?

Whoa! I'm scared! :scared:

[progressoid]

20. Some may joke about this but it's a very serious issue.

Pakistan is a powder keg ready to blow.

A powder keg of lots of nuclear weapons and the 7th largest military in the world. That's not the kind of thing you want to just fall apart. Especially with neighbors like Iran, Afghanistan, India, China.

[bemildred]

21. Just because it's a serious issue, that doesn't mean the comment is not stupid.

People make stupid comments about important issues all the time. That's almost a complete description of Bush foreign policy in fact.

[EFerrari]

26. Because it is serious, we don't need spin masters putting out press releases. n/t

[Alamuti Lotus]

22. "And those you cannot teach to fly, help to fall faster!"

[Marrah_G]

33. It's quickly snowballing to collapse

Imagine monsters like the Taliban in control of nukes. Lots of targets in range: India, American troops, Eastern Europe, Israel...

[ohio2007]

35. but what kind of education do they get in a madrassas to understand such technology ?

rocket science is limited to home made IED's in shop class and the "manuals" they have those kids memorize won't land them a real job in the real world anyway.

Needing real book smarts to launch a missile ?
wrong !

They'll just lob off a few melons of family and friends and intimidate the real rocket techs into doing the will of the righteous for the good of mankind.

Hopefully, before that week arrives,bunker busters will fly under the unmanned radars and the MSM will report ;
"An earthquake epicenter struck the heart of a Pakistani missile base yesterday sources have indicated......"


or
The only alternative is to have the Chinese remove those warheads this summer at the latest. Chinese have had 'technicians' and engineers in Pakistan for a long time.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4716820.stm



They too have experienced the clash of civilizations first hand.



Pakistani soldiers carry the coffin of one of three Chinese engineers to plane at Faisal Air Base in Karachi,
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-02/17/content_4192711.htm

[NeoConsSuck]

36. Would more drone missles

crashing into innocent civilan homes help the situation? If so, then we're definitely on the right track.

[ohio2007]

38. ‘No’ to joint operation in tribal areas ( Pakistan wants the drone technology)

and most likely send it to the Indian border with US taxpayers funding the toys
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/us-to-respect-pakistans-sovereignty-qureshi-ha

[cosmicone]

40. Exactly.

The best strategy is to starve Pakistan by denying any aid whatsoever. The drones can be launched from bases in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan quite easily.

Pakistan is a terrorist state and unless it dances to the Obama tune, there should be no music.

[ohio2007]

41. Pakistani Taliban said moving closer to capital ( the fat lady is warming up )

but

the Taliban have outlawed music
:shrug:

Pakistani Taliban said moving closer to capital
MINGORA:
Pakistani Taliban are moving into a new area in northern Pakistan, clashing with villagers and police in a mountain valley, police and district officials said on Wednesday.

snip

The day is not far when Islamabad will be in the hands of the mujahideen,’ Pakistani Taliban commander Mullah Nazeer Ahmed said. — AFP

snip

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistani-taliban-said-moving-closer-to-capital--qs



Militants seize more territory in Buner
snip

The militants, after consolidating their positions in Gokand valley, claimed more territory by occupying Kalabatt village (some two kilometers from Pacha Bazar) the, strategic Bagra police post and a government-run school on Wednesday. They also established their base-camp on the roadside in the area, just four kilometers from district headquarter Daggar.

snip

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/nwfp/militants-seize-more-territory-in-buner--szh

A catalyst for change?
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/a-catalyst-for-change-ha

Are women going to be the "best man" for the job ?

dunno

But don't expect any quotes on the situation comming from NOW

jmo

[Alamuti Lotus]

44. Pakistani girl denies flogging

Pakistani girl denies flogging

ISLAMABAD, Apr 07, 2009 (Arab News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The girl who was reportedly whipped by the Taleban in Pakistan's Swat Valley has denied the incident even as a rally was taken out in Karachi to condemn the public lashing. The Supreme Court yesterday ordered a probe into the matter. The girl was reportedly flogged by a Taleban cleric for "coming out of her house with another man who was not her husband." The girl's statement before a magistrate was presented in the Supreme Court through Attorney General Latif Khosa. "The girl has denied the alleged flogging incident," Geo TV reported. The lashing footage was telecast on many TV news channels worldwide. The victim was not present during the hearing.

http://unified-communications.tmcnet.com/news/2009/04/06/4111198.htm

Such a shame, getting yourself so worked up over crude fabrications.

[ohio2007]

46. ...right . wonder what she would say if given a free pass out of the country ?

So go tell the UN they once again have all the wrong facts;


Flogging of girl in Swat ‘unacceptable,’ says Ban
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/flogging-of-girl-in-swat-unacceptable-says-ban--szh
and uh....
got any other (MSM)links to cross check your "unified" link ?

Lets examine the the photo's taken of her back ?

...why don't you find it and post it here lol

I'll wait since this thread will be reviewed in October

[Alamuti Lotus]

42. Do you ever sense any kind of tragic irony in your remarks?

The nation should be splintered, starved and bombed from a distance if they won't take orders from your sockpuppet... furthermore, they are "terrorist", and you're the good one.

[ohio2007]

43. Tensions high as Taliban refuse to leave Buner ( another picturesque valley "liberated" )

the creature of the ISI is alive.

Tension mounted here on Sunday after a group of Taliban that entered the scenic valley of Gokand on Saturday via Kalil Kandow, rejected the warning of a local jirga to leave the area.

Sources said a group of about 90 armed Swat Taliban entered the scenic valley of Gokand on Saturday and took positions at strategic area of Manyarai, some 12 kilometres from district headquarters Daggar. Sources said that number of militants reached to several hundreds till late Sunday as reinforcement from Swat as well as local Taliban joined them.


snip



http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/nwfp/tensions-high-as-taliban-refuse-to-leave--za

Irony could also be said that the ISI filled a void left when the British empire carved the artificial country called Pakistan.

[ohio2007]

48. Taliban announce enforcement of Shariah in Bajaur ( citizens welcome them with open arms -- up )

Taliban announce enforcement of Shariah in Bajaur

Saturday, April 11, 2009
Bans shaving of beard, movement of women, CNICs for women; ANP leader beheaded

By Hasbanullah Khan & Mushtaq Yusufzai


KHAR/PESHAWAR: The Taliban on Friday announced the enforcement of Shariah in the Bajaur Agency and stopped women from going outside without male relatives, banned shaving of beard and warned the people against availing assistance from the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).


The announcement was made by Maulvi Faqir Mohammad, Taliban chief in the agency, in his 40-minute speech delivered through his group’s illegal FM radio channel. Faqir, who is deputy leader of Baitullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), addressed the tribesmen on the FM radio on weekly basis. He said he and his men would spare no efforts to strictly implement the Islamic laws in the region.


In this regard, the Taliban had prepared a special armed force named “Action Group” to ensure the enforcement of Shariah and punish the violators.




Faqir said shaving of beards and walking of men without having cap on their heads were practices of the Jews and their followers, which, he warned, the Taliban would not allow in Bajaur.
People, who listened to his radio speech, told The News by telephone that the tone of the militant commander was aggressive and he directed his Action Group to start taking action against men shaving their beards.

Faqir said he would not allow the BISP to operate and “mislead” simple women of the tribal region. He said work on preparation of lists of people supporting the BISP and other NGOs had already been initiated. Faqir threatened that the Action Group would soon produce such people before their Shariah Court. Also, he strictly warned women against coming out of their homes and acquiring Computerised National Identity Cards (CNICs), which is reportedly mandatory for getting monetary benefits from the BISP.

The militant commander said if the people were found guilty of supporting the BISP or getting its monetary benefits, the violators would be punished according to the Shariah law in which minimum fine would not be less than Rs 10,000.

He admitted that the Taliban had arrested over a dozen people, reportedly belonging to Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s JUI-F and the PPP, who would be dealt with according to Shariah. Meanwhile, unknown assailants beheaded ANP leader and president of local traders Mohammad Islam Khan near his house in Nawagai subdivision.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=21459

[friendly_iconoclast]

45. Anybody notice CIA director Panetta's visit to India and Pakistan

Like three weeks ago?

[ohio2007]

47. post the links if you got them

If they would give up some DNA the whole situation will change over there.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/gilani-rejects-us-claim-of-bin-laden-in-pakistan--zj

no more "money for nothing"
jmo
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/obamas-new-strategy-sours-us-pakistan-ties--bi

[peace_to_world]

49. US will collapse much more earlier

as situation is much worse there then in Pakistan.

The only problem with US is Pakistan's nuclear weapons and that is why all this Taliban drama is created.No Taliban exist in Pakistan.There are some clashes with locals but peace deal could settle everything if US would allow the dummy Zardari to do anything.People or maybe army would throw him out before situations goes that much critical.We have seen worse moments than this one and will surely regain the strength.

[Coventina]

52. Please give details on how the US is in worse shape than Pakistan

With links to your sources.

TIA

[truebrit71]

50. Don't think it will be that soon...maybe within the next 12-24 months...

..either way India will not sit idly by and let religious loonies get their hands on nukes...simply not going to happen...That region will be the first to have a nuclear exchange in the planet's history though...

[ohio2007]

53. Fortifications are springing up across Islamabad as foreigners retreat from public view

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3837541&mesg_id=3837864

I'll bet they won't even make it to Jan 1st, 2010, as the way we currently recognize them;
The fat lady will sing this one;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoBaZmmdluM&feature=related

[roamer65]

55. India will invade a at a certain point.

They will invade and take most of eastern Pakistan to create a "buffer zone". Pakistan is where World War III will start, IMHO.

[bdamomma]

58. hmmm.. at one time both countries were pointing nukes at each other.

scary shit.

[ohio2007]

56. One month down, five months to go

Fierce gunbattles in Swat, Malakand

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/11-gunship-helicopters-pound-mingora--01

[junior college]

60. Oh wait, I thought this was the bird flu thread nt

[sam kane]

61. drones hitting weddings will help! nt

nt

[peace_to_world]

62. US looking for reasons to bomb Pakistan