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Pakistan promises to do more to secure border

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Contributed by: William Kus on 7/29/2008

It's unfortunate that seven years after the "war on terrorism" began, it's only now that the US has gotten any firm promises about securing the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

When the US invaded Afghanistan, Bin Laden and whoever else that wasn't suicidal decided to slip over into the lawless areas of Pakistan to regroup and replan their attacks on "freedom."

There they were able to do whatever they wanted with the full protection of Pakistan and the political mumbo jumbo that often accompanies wars. This harkens to a similar dilema back during the Vietnam War where the North Vietnamese could slip in and out through neighboring countries like Laos and Cambodia to fight a guerilla war against the US and the South Vietnamese.

They were protected because the US was only at war with Vietnam, much like the US was only at war with Afghanistan.

Now 7 years later Al Qaeda is apparently as strong or stronger than it ever was with growing anti-US sentiment and a globally unpopular war in Iraq fueling terrorist recruitment.

I hope it was worth all the blood and tears shed in Iraq to form a government that will probably just be a Shiite version of Saddam or otherwise be pure anarchy with the country split into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions fighting over oil and power. Is the US going to stay there forever? The troop surge will be over soon and hopefully all the gains won will stay where they are.

Also all the US has gotten is promises and movement of troops from Paqkistan. This has probably happened already to some degree in the last 7 years. Hopefully there will be actual results for once, mainly the closing of border crossings and a drop in Taliban activity in Afghanistan.

If the Pakistani military is serious, it probably won't be able to do much to reign in the Pakistani tribes, but it can at least close off the 80 or so border crossing or at least have them fully monitored for "suspicious" activity.

Maybe it would be unreasonable to close off the border completely, since people want to be able to move back and forth so they can trade their opium and stuff (maybe food.). Seems even if they manned the border it would be easy enough to slip through by saying they are on business other than insurgent tactics.

Maybe they should close off the majority of border crossings and allow the US troops to watch a small choke point of people going through. Although I imagine closing the border to traffic and harassing tribal people going back and forth may only inflame the tribes to even more violence.

It seems sort of a no-win situation. Using conventional means to combat an unconventional foe. What really needs to happen is the US needs to understand the rational behind what they're doing and step into their enemie's shoes and try to understand the world from their point of view. Then they might understand the suicidal mindset of the enemy. Then maybe they might realize the only way to win the "war" would be to completely destroy the opposition. But every "militant" they kill will probably only create two more, or ten more.

I hope I didn't offend anybody!

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