The more I follow the complexities of the Pakistan and Indian involvement in A-stan, the more I fear we are trying to sit on the fence, with all the risk of serious groin injury that this entails. I think the time has come to seriously re-evaluate the sides we have chosen in this fight. In the following LINK, two passages stand out to me. One.
Wednesday's attack could have a negative impact on Indo-Pakistani ties, which--due to revelations of Pakistani intelligence involvement in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul on July 7, 2008--were already strained.
Does anyone here have confirmation of this? To me this is big, if the Pak Intelligence community is still supporting terrorist activities in A-stan, my support for them would be gone.
Two.
The historical animosity between Pakistan and India has also begun to increasingly manifest itself in Afghanistan, where Pakistan fears it is losing influence to India. New Delhi has pledged over $1 billion in assistance to the Afghan government and increased its political and economic influence throughout the country over the last few years. Pakistan's ability to maintain influence in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s stemmed from its support to the Taliban, whose leadership is allied with al-Qaeda. Other than strengthening ties to Kabul through stronger economic and trade linkages, Pakistan now finds itself with few options to project influence in Afghanistan; any further dealings with the Taliban risk isolation from the international community.
My embarrassing random thought of supporting India as the key counter-terrorist agent in the region has begun to seem less whacko to me all the time. I understand the desire to appease everyone in the region, but my gut says that this is a bad idea, and we will lose ALL support and influence in the region if we keep it up.
Reed
Any thought on how peacekeepers from either Pak or India would be viewed by the Afghan populace compared to the US and NATO?