Afghanistan and Pakistan

Afghanistan and Pakistan:


Response that opened a deadly Pandora’s boxBy Matthew GreenOsama bin Laden’s dreams of establishing a global Islamic caliphate are dust. Only a handful of his longest-serving lieutenants are alive or at large. Fears that al-Qaeda might stage an even more horrifying reprise of the 9/11 terror attacks have so far come to nought.
Failures, perhaps, but in Afghanistan and Pakistan the chain of events triggered by the fall of the twin towers has cost the west far more dearly than even the man who reinvented terrorism might have hoped.
Ten years ago, both countries were on perilous trajectories, but largely at peace. They are now trapped in an accelerating whirlwind of violence that could make the region even more dangerous in the decade to come.
In Afghanistan, the price of US reprisals after 9/11 has been high, and the outcome uncertain.
Washington has lost more than 1,750 troops and almost $500bn in an intervention that could end with the country mired in a new period of civil war. Only the seemingly remote prospect of a settlement with the Taliban is likely to avert such a catastrophe.
The knock-on effect of the 9/11 attacks has been the opening of an even deadlier Pandora’s box in Pakistan.
Bin Laden’s flight across the mountains of Tora Bora as “daisy-cutter” bombs rained down, served as a catalyst to energise a throng of Pakistani militants who hate the US as much as they do their own government.
The country’s poisonous cocktail of growing radicalism, weak government and nuclear weapons makes even the west’s dilemmas in Afghanistan look relatively straightforward.
Bin Laden was killed by US Navy Seals during a raid on his compound in an army town outside Islamabad on May 2. The cycle of bloodshed he set in motion on 9/11 will have no such tidy end.
More than 8,800 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan since the UN began counting four years ago. An estimated 12,000 civilians have died in Pakistan’s welter of insurgency and terrorism in the same period, according to the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, a think-tank.
Historians will argue over the legacy of 9/11 for decades. What can already be stated with some certainty is that the fallout from the attacks helped germinate dormant potential for chaos in both neighbours.





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did not affect their Cricket  :undecided:

the cost of drones is now part of de DEFICIT....

it did the pakis

Pakis put a licking pun Zim :

after giving up 400 + 1st innings runs...

Afghan rise has beeen meteoric,,

watch dem get Test status b4 Ireland ...

Pakistan , Bangladesh and Afghanistan....

will add to the Sub continent  Test teams

Guyana will be in ICC South America

That is an explosive side! ::rofl::

Meanwhile Team India lost its # 1 Test staus :

and the British Raj putting a Likk pun them in the ODIs....

Sri Lanka , Googs Buddha Team  :

.....getting Manhandled by the Kangaroos !

Them deserve a good beat-down. Murda them...serves them right...the stars didn't want to go to the WI...who is the loser??? ::