Speaking just days before President Obama unveils a massive new escalation in neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani warned that he is increasingly concerned that the escalation could imperil Pakistan’s Balochistn Province.
“This is the concern that we already discussed with the US administration,” Gilani noted. The US is expected to commit additional troops to Helmand Province, along the border with Pakistani Balochistan.
And indeed, the concern has been a topic of discussion since July, when the US launched an offensive in the Helmand River Valley. The US has dismissed the concerns about destabilizing Balochistan, insisting they were sure Pakistan could handle any consequences their war creates.
But the escalation being announced is much larger than previous commitments. Pakistan has already struggled to cope with spillover from the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, and it seems the spillover will only worsen over the years to come.
…….???????…… I thought the destabilization of Balochistn (sic) was the main purpose of this exercise.
The U.S. does NOT want nuclear armed Muslim Pakistan to control the Unocal pipeline loading port..
Nuclear armed Pakistan would get WAY MORE in TRANSIT FEES than hobbled Afghanistan………
MvGuy, Bingo!
I’m surprised and pleased to read your astute comment.
Yes, the destabilization of Balochistn [sic] is precisely the point. But it isn’t so much about Pakistan, Afghanistan and pipeline fees as it is about putting a permanent halt to Iran’s IPI [Iran, Pakistan, India] pipeline plan, in which China was keenly interested … most notably.
The goal of the violent shake-up of Central and South Asia — ie, the ‘prize’, the key to world domination, dixit Brzezinski, is to prevent the sale and flow of vital fossil fuels towards the East, in a first phase.
Preventing Iran’s eastward-bound export capability will give Iran little other option than to feed the Nabucco pipeline project which, as things stand, lacks sufficient volume for long-term cost-effectiveness.
In short, let’s be clear. The ultimate goal of this game is the ‘containment’ of Russia and China. The projected, virtually permanent occupation of Afghanistan, the dismantlement of Pakistan and the frenetic drive to return resource-rich Iran to its status as vassal to Western corporate interests, all point to a long-term project whose path is slated to be protracted and extremely bloody.
All this towards the upholding of a system that is ultimately doomed, in the upcoming, post-hydrocarbon era, construct which has become so totally autonomous that not even its master-minds and primary cheer-leaders have the means to reign it in.
Jason Ditz and others would do better to address the real issues rather than to dance around, palpating parts of the elephant which is there for everyone to see.