Monday, February 23, 2009

US Military Advisors in Pakistan

The NYT reports that

More than 70 United States military advisers and technical specialists are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the country’s lawless tribal areas, American military officials said.

Well, I guess they're not secret anymore. Then this:

Officials from both Pakistan and the United States agreed to disclose some details about the American military advisers and the enhanced intelligence sharing to help dispel impressions that the missile strikes were thwarting broader efforts to combat a common enemy. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the increasingly powerful anti-American segment of the Pakistani population.

Despite the political hazards for Islamabad, the American effort is beginning to pay dividends. A new Pakistani commando unit within the Frontier Corps paramilitary force has used information from the Central Intelligence Agency and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official said.

I'm really glad that the Obama administration is doing a full review of our policy in that region. Because this just feels like really high risk stuff to me. But Pakistan is clearly a lot more crucial in this part of the world than Vietnam ever was, what with its nuclear weapons, that cannot fall into the hands of Islamic, Al-Qaeda radicals. Ever.

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