If the US military and the Obama administration do not believe that the Taliban were involved in the failed Times Square bomb plot, why are they pressuring Pakistan to hammer North Waziristan and deal with allied terror groups based in Karachi? From The New York Times:
“We are saying, ‘Sorry, if there is a successful attack, we will have to act’ ” within Pakistan, one of the American officials said…
General Kayani, with whom General McChrystal has forged a positive relationship, was essentially told, ” ‘You can’t pretend any longer that this is not going on,’ ” another American official said. ” ‘We are saying you have got to go into North Waziristan.’ ” …
The Obama administration was planning to use the failed terrorist attack to impress on the Pakistanis of the urgency of getting American development aid in place in the tribal areas where militancy thrives, and into Karachi, the biggest city, where radical religious schools, known as madrasas, are popular.
“Last week’s incident makes it more urgent and more true” of the need to bring stability and security to these areas where the militants have multiplied, an American official said.
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Now all the attention is given to ‘the mother of all bad lands, North Waziristan’ which has literally become ‘jihadistan’. Nobody seems paying any attention to Punjab where ministers hobnob with jihadists openly and beg them to spare Punjab. The madrassas there must be churning out would be jihadists and suicide bombers. While immediate action is required in N.Waziristan, Punjab also needs attention.
What is happening to Gen. McChrystal? Are we going soft again?
Washington (CNN) — The top U.S. military officer is reassuring his Pakistani counterpart that the U.S. military is not pressuring the Pakistani army to increase its operations against the Taliban there, a senior U.S. military official said.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/05/10/us.pakistan.times.square/?hpt=T2
Skepticism about McChrystal’s ambitious aims was implicit in the way the Pentagon report on the war, issued April 26, assessed the progress of the campaign in Marjah. Now, it has been given even more pointed expression by an unnamed “senior military official” quoted in a column in the Washington Post Sunday by David Ignatius.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LE12Df02.html