Sorry was on my way out the door this morning when I came across that little nugget of news. I had a few immediate thoughts: The first was the same Rob mentioned; how much of the Mumbai attacks was geared towards getting this reaction out of Pakistan? Was it planned accordingly with the time of year, winter is a slow time in Afghanistan, therefore enabling them to broaden their power base in Pakistan? Or was it simply coincidence? Secondly is now with a larger land base how much can the Taliban recruit, train, equip? Are they again moving to a larger scale military force to be reckoned with inside Pakistan to eventually cross over in strength into Afghanistan? The problems that arrise when an insurgency grows to military might. Thirdly how does this affect our policy on going into Pakistan? NATOs policies in Afghanistan? Pakistans ability to squash it when things with India calm back down? Just a few of the immediate thoughts and I'm sure there are a miliion others out there. Talk about on effect based operations, maybe we should take note if this was planned!