Making Friends In Pakistan

by Steve Soto

You've all heard by now about how US forces called in an air strike along the Afghan-Pakistan border this week that managed to kill 11 Pakistani forces. The American commanders in the NATO Afghanistan command who called in the strike claim that they identified the source of hostile fire against our forces along the border and called in the strike, but the Pakistanis say that our wonderful intelligence actually called in a strike against a Pakistani border station.

The attack comes at a time when relations between the Bush Administration and the new Pakistani government are not going well. And as usual, the administration rubs salt in the wound when it claims that the new Pakistani government makes things worse by pursuing agreements with tribal leaders along the border that will only make it easier for Taliban and Al Qaeda forces to move freely between the two countries and undermine the Karzai government. However, such complaints by the Bush Administration ring hollow. These are misdirection attempts to place blame on the new regime, when in fact it was the Bush Administration that encouraged Pervez Musharraf back in the fall of 2006 to seek truces with these same tribal leaders, which our own intelligence community now confirms have allowed Al Qaeda to reestablish a new sanctuary along the border.

Any complaints by the Bush Administration on this subject are groundless, especially from a regime that let Osama Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora in December 2001.