For the last few years, since 9/11, we've been told repeatedly about how we must fight this "war on terror" including preemptive war on nations, how we must stop the likes of Osama Bin Laden, how we must stop "radical islam", etc., etc., etc.

SO WHAT THE **** ARE WE DOING SELLING ARMS TO PAKISTAN?!?!?!?!?

If there really is a locus of radical Islam, Pakistan is it.

There are probable ties linking Pakistan intelligence to 9/11.

Pakistan has WMD, including nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Pakistan has harbored Islamic terrorists, including Osama Bin Laden.

Pakistan routinely tortures people, and is guilty of other human rights abuses.

Furthermore, India and Pakistan have been at each others throats, and have fought wars over the Kashmir region. In fact, if one remembers the news from a couple of years ago, those two nations came close to having a nuclear exchange. Anyone bother to think that selling additional arms to Pakistan would only help to destabilize the region that much more?

Then there is always the issue of these weapons falling into the wrong hands.

So what is it? Stupidity, hypocrisy, or both?

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http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1110264,00050001.htm

US ready with $ 1.2 billion arms package for Pakistan
S Rajagopalan
Washington, November 18

The United States is gearing up to offer Pakistan a $ 1.2 billion arms package, the first major sale of military hardware since Washington lifted sanctions and named Islamabad as a major non-NATO ally.

Three separate deals have been finalised and the Pentagon has sent the proposals to the US Congress for clearance.

The package includes sale of eight P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft (valued at $ 970 million), six PHALANX close-in weapon systems and upgrades ($ 155 million) and an ammunition complement of 2,000 TOW-2A missiles and 14 TOW-2A Fly-to-Buy missiles ($ 82 million).

Pakistan, however, has not yet succeeded in getting the nod for the big ticket item (the F-16 fighter planes) that it has been seeking for long. Official sources are emphatic that no decision has been taken at any level of the US government to provide F-16s to Pakistan.

Lawmakers have 30 days to block or raise objections to the three sale proposals forwarded on Tuesday. But defence and congressional circles do not anticipate any serious obstruction to the move, which is being seen as a reward for Pakistan's help in the US's war on terror.

Each of the three notifications to the Congress also asserts that the sale "will not affect the basic military balance in the region".

just more governmental bull**** that never makes sense with the message they give us.

it isnt new, it isnt surprising but it is stupid.

just like the israel palestinian conflict, lets claim we want to them to have peace but lets give billions of dollars and aid to one side so they can level the other side into a parking lot all the while claiming to be impartial and wanting whats best for everyone.

as long as its within our government's interest that is. or dare i say? those who run the government's interest.

We support Pakistan despite the fact that they are one of the few nation-states which actually support terrorism. Not Al-Q, of course, but they do support terrorists in Kashmir.

So what ? May as well pass the nukes and get it over with I guess. Since the whole world hates each other .

Whats pitiful is the fact that alot of our young joined miltary after 911. And thats the only ones I'm concerned with anymore, because most of the rest of us don't deserve this nation so many fought to protect. Even though I wish they never were sent off . Its not if they knew they would be in this kind of war. Only consulation is that at least we know someday even the bush,kerrys and clintons will answer for all of this in hel. Along with the arab elitist who use religian to control the ignorant and create demons that torture,maim and chop up other humans.

Insanity.. :nonono:


I thought doing business with terrorist supporters made on a terrorist? Now arming them is ok? :confused:

And people jump all over me because I say we were "mislead."

no op its HOW you say it. you tend to do it in an insulting manner, thats what i have a problem with. i wont speak for anyone else.

no op its HOW you say it. you tend to do it in an insulting manner, thats what i have a problem with. i wont speak for anyone else.

Hey prank I wrote a poem for you.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
If you don't like the way I post,
Then F-you.

Was that insulting? Oh, sorry. :D

kids say the darnedest things!

With the fall of Soviet Russia, the military/industrial complex needs new 'threats', and has to create them; otherwise that $500+ billion a year in welfare programs goes down the tubes. Al Quada and the Taliban were Reagan creations, after all, as was Saddam and several more dictators and 'threats', it pretty much defines 'The American Century', all the way back to Teddy Roosevelt. Hey, build up Red China too, get their industries and manufacturing up to snuff, increase their missile capabilites, get Boeing over there to beef up their long range aircraft capabilities, etc.

Are you guys watching the same news i am? Pakistan has helped the US in every way they could since 9/11. Their army has been hunting for and capturing terrorists in the hills between them and Afganistan. They have done more for us than we ever could have expected them to do.

I haven't seen one report stating that the Pakistani government harbored any terrorists.

Someone please provide a link to a credible source saying otherwise.

Stipidity. We shouldn't be arming anyone.

During the cold war we armed dictators to supress the greater evil that was communism, likewise, we arm dictators in the culture war to supress Islamo psychopaths. It isn't pretty but someone has to do it.

bin laden fled to pakistan, so they say. pakistan is an ally. yet bin laden is still free. pakistan is allso a militairy dictatorship and has islamic law. and is armed by the USA.

I haven't seen one report stating that the Pakistani government harbored any terrorists.

Someone please provide a link to a credible source saying otherwise.

Ahem... You were saying?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0A11FE355A0C728EDDAB0994D94044 82

Even the neo-clowns admit it....

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/11/3/115133.shtml

Bin Laden could be sheltered in any of Pakistan's major cities. The sprawling port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea, surrounded by miles of slums, has some 15 million people. In Peshawar, a city of 3.5 million, many Pathans, like bin Laden, are over six feet tall. In FATA, rickety local buses display posters of bin Laden captioned "Freedom Fighter." Bin Laden also enjoys the protection of renegade members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Before Operation Enduring Freedom crushed the Taliban regime in November 2001, some 1,500 ISI operatives ensured the security of Mullah Omar's rule. They maintained permanent liaison with bin Laden and his top lieutenants as he moved around a score of terrorist training camps and safe houses in Kandahar and Jalalabad.

Conventional wisdom among the al-Qaida watchers in Pakistan says President Pervez Musharraf's regime is reluctant to launch a countrywide crackdown to find bin Laden. If bin Laden were captured, dead or alive, Mr. Musharraf would feel obligated to turn him over to the United States. And Pakistan might then face a disinterested U.S. administration and lose billions in aid.

Mr. Musharraf has said at different times he knew bin Laden was dead, then that he was alive but ill. Today, he concedes bin Laden may be in a mountain hideout where fiercely loyal local tribesmen would not betray him for the $25 million offered by the U.S.


That's hardly "sheltering" the man. Pakistan is a big country and it would indeed take a lot of resources to find him. Even in the US, where law enforcement has the support of the people, there are dozens of fugatives that we can't find. President Musharraf can't help the fact that 60% of his people support Osama Bin Laden and won't help capture him.

Musharraf is trying to do whats best for his people. He's staying on good terms with the world's largest superpower despite the fact that most of his people support it's most wanted fugative.

So, saying that the Pakistani government is "harboring" Osama Bin Laden simply isn't true. However, there may be other reasons not to arm Pakistan, such as their unbridled hatred for India and the fact that their next leader may not posess the foresight to stay on good terms with the US.