What's the purpose of missile tests?
Are we ever going to use these?
PKPolitics Discuss » Current Issues
Defence : Missile Test
(16 posts)-
runaway
MemberPosted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 17:49 # -
This was a coded message to US not to put too much pressure on pak army and ISI.
Also for the internal consumption for a feel good factor
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:09 # -
Dusky
Member@FJ_ Pak: Otherwise, they do what?
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:11 # -
d0ct0r
MemberDusky
Suicide,our f16s can't shoot down a drone,so our missiles too couldn't should down a bird..These will only be good for committing suicide..
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:17 # -
runaway
Member@FJ
US is not giving any attention to clear pleading from Pasha & Kiyani. Remember Pasha's return from US was announced by a drone attack.
Yet you think , somehow this will get 'coded' message.
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:20 # -
spruce
MemberOn Monday the Head of Pakistan’s Chief Intelligence Agency, the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmed Pasha met in Washington with the CIA Director Leon Panetta, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Mike Mullen. As it appeared, Islamabad has demanded, that the United States reduce the number of the CIA operatives and special operation forces, working in Pakistan, and hold the CIA drawn strikes against militants in North-Western Pakistan. The New York Times called a request “a sign of the near collapse of cooperation between the two testy allies”. The requested reduction amounts to some 345 American personal, the CIA officers and contractors and special operation forces, which, according to the New York Times report, roughly amounts to some 25 to 40% of the US special operation forces, currently based in Pakistan.
The United States has regarded Pakistan as its key regional ally for the major part of the 6 decades of Pakistani independence. After the 9/11 terrorist attack Washington requested Pakistan’s assistant in the international contra-terrorism operation in Afghanistan. However, with the international coalition in Afghanistan still failing, the White House has become increasingly exasperated with what it labels as “Islamabad not doing enough” to find extremists, hiding in the mountains regions on the Afghan border.
Starting from the year 2007 the allies have been engaged in public argument, with the United States insisting on more action on the part of Islamabad, and Islamabad demanding, that American policy-makers adopt a more realistic stand on what needs to be done to improve the situation.
Speaking to us now is Ahmed Quraishi, senior research fellow at an independent Pakistani think-tank Project Pakistan 21, coming to us all the way from Islamabad.
I think, what we’ve seen for the first time since 9.11 Pakistan is trying to renegotiate the terms of cooperation, and that is exactly what we’ve seen happening. Of course, this would be understandably very alarming for the US government and for CIA, because that would mean a change on the ground and a change in the way they’ve been operating in this region for the past 9 years. So this is a big deal. I’m sure, you know that the Pakistan government, the previous one, the current one, have been under tremendous pressure from departs it the public opinion to renegotiate the terms. A lot of Pakistanis believe that the confession, that former President Pervez Musharraf gave, the Americans were detrimental in some major ways to Pakistani insurance and they were very favorable to the American insurance, and so there was no balance. And now we see despite the grave imbalance in the Pakistani-American relationship, the Pakistani side trying to play its cards in a smart way to renegotiate those terms without giving this relationship a huge shock. So it’s understandable, when we see this kind of reports, the one in the New York Times for example, some of the US government officials describing the co relationship as a very close to a near collapse. But from the Pakistani side the objective is very clear; I don’t think, anyone is really want to collapse, but it is certainly embarking very hard to renegotiate the terms of cooperation.
The New York Time maintains that the nature reason for the present deterioration of relations between the United States and Pakistan is the situation around the CIA agent Davis. Perhaps, they are oversimplifying the situation?
There is no doubt about that. Imagine, that for the past 9 years ISI Intelligence Department has been cooperating with the CIA and all of a sudden ISI discovers, that the CIA is maintaining a network of informers, of intelligence operated inside Pakistan without the knowledge of ISI. In spite of all the spy agencies do that, everybody does it, but because of the close nature of cooperation between ISI and CIA for the past 9 years, what was disturbing this time that Mr Davis, and I will not going into details, but he was in contact with some of the terrorist groups that were killing Pakistani civilians. And there are some material evidences of the deep briefing, that was done with him before he was handed over to the Americans, indicated, that he was in touch with lot kind of people without informing the Pakistani authorities. Obviously, that was a breakdown in communication and a breakdown in trust between ISI and CIA. Of course, there is a whole list of the issues also in the background that unfortunately are not coming up in the media very clearly. For example, Pakistanis have certain grievances with regard to CIA that go beyond just request enough the grown tax. There is much more, there is a question of the attacks that some of the terrorists, who are operating in insurgency activities in South-Western Pakistan, in the province of Balochistan, have a very good safe saving in American controlled Afghanistan. Pakistanis are asking, why is it their territory, which is under control of the United States, has become a safe saving for terrorists, who are waiting an insurgency inside Pakistan. This is the bone of contention; it also gives drive to certain furies. It is possible, that there are some broke elements within the CIA, who are sort of punishing the ISI Pakistani military for not cooperating in Afghanistan. There are other questions also. Some of the members of the so-called Pakistani Taliban, who were evicted by the Pakistani military from Salad in the Salad Operation also took refuge in Afghanistan. The question raised here, how they managed to cross over into Afghanistan and find safe savings there, where are NATO forces, where are American forces, where is the Afghan national army. And Pakistan is asked to control the Afghan Taliban, who come into Pakistan, then why is it that we don’t receive a reciprocal cooperation from the other side, from the international forces on the Afghan side. So this is a very natured issue that goes much beyond just a question of Raymond Davis, just the question of the Americans running parallel intelligence network inside Pakistan without informing the ISI because of cooperation and also goes beyond the fact that there are drawn attacks and all. The last drawn attack, resulted in the murder of 40 innocent civilians, was a clear case of somebody somewhere in the CIA in Afghanistan actually converted that particular attack. It appeared to be more the sort of revenge, than anything else; there was no intelligence of any Al-Qaeda authorities or senior high-value targets attacked. It just seemed very inexplicable, that the CIA would attack a gathering of civilians that would fire back on the Pakistani government and would increase their insurgency in Pakistan’s tribal belt.
What you are telling me coincides with what President Zardari said yesterday. He said that the war in Afghanistan was destabilizing Pakistan and seriously undermining efforts to restore democratic institutions and economic prosperity. But he also added, that more and more people now start to think, that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. But what is the American stand?
The Americans slowly and gradually by the force of ground realities will have to come around this fact. Already there is a huge debate in Washington on this, because the ground realities have proven the fury, what the Pakistan president said. And it is clear now, that Afghanistan is a mess. Some analysts were saying that NATO is embarking on an expending mission in Libya for example and studying various options for Libya, whereas the mission in Afghanistan is a complete failure; in 9 years they have a country, which is not under their complete control and it’s a complete mess. So it is very clear, that there is no political solution to Afghanistan for the time being. I think, that there is quite bit of a progress being made on that.
What is Pakistan planning to do in this situation?
The Pakistani strategy is pushing toward the equal political reconciliation in Afghanistan. Pakistan is trying to show its good intention. One final, that came last week, when Pakistan announced that it would not even object, if India participated in some of reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan, which is a huge change in the Pakistani position. Pakistan basically wants to say, that we have no bad intentions towards Afghanistan, we are willing to cooperate with all the parties concerned and our foremost priority is stability in Afghanistan, and for that we have no problem, if even India joins the efforts. So for the first time India would also join the efforts, that Turkey is spearheading regards to recompilation inside Afghanistan, and India would be participating in these meetings, which would take place in the next three days. So this is a major change in the Pakistani position. Pakistan also wants to show these skeptical elements in the Washington establishment, that we have willing to cooperate, and if you withdraw troops, if you get out of Afghanistan and begin withdrawal, this would not mean necessarily a return to the situation, that we saw in Afghanistan back in the 1990s, when the Taliban ruled and different parts of Afghanistan were under control of different fractions; that should not really happen. And all the furies about Pakistan waiting out for the American withdrawal, so it could restart its great game in Afghanistan and start playing the same old game through proxy, this is not true. The biggest final that Pakistan is giving, is that we never been on the same page with India, what regards Afghanistan, but we are more than happy to cooperate. Pakistan also opens a new cooperation with Russia as well. Pakistani diplomats now seem to be increasingly hopeful, that the Russians will also have a role to play to stabilize Afghanistan. So it is now a collective game, and hopefully this would reduce some of the initial suspicions, that various players have about each other on the regards of Afghanistan. That an essence of the strategy.
Is it going to be a part of the agenda of Mr Zardari’s visit to Turkey these days?
Actually the unsaid words about this visit have to do with the reconciliation according Afghanistan. Turkey is playing a major role: over the past few months there was consent between various countries with regard to Afghanistan that we need to find a country, which will play the role of a neutral player, which everybody could trust. For example, there was also some talk about the fact, that the Afghan Taliban also needs a place, where they could freely conduct their part with the Afghan government representatives and others. And it emerged, that Turkey came up as a good venue for all of these, and probably we are going to see in the next few days the opening of the representation office in Turkey, where the negotiators from the Afghan Taliban could be based. So Turkey has emerged as a neutral venue for reconciliation talks in Afghanistan, and all of us will see increase the activity in Turkey with regards to Afghanistan in the next few days. And the purpose of the visit of the Pakistan president to Turkey basically is all about this point – reconciliation of Afghanistan.
Thank you very much, Mr Quraishi!
So most exports believe that the New York Times has overreacted talking of the near collapse of the US-Pakistani relations. Despite the difficult situation in Afghanistan, effecting Pakistan in a number of ways, the alliance is too important both for Washington and Islamabad to effort a breakup of relationship.
And now I’m joining by Javed Jabbar, the former Senator and Minister of Information and Media Development under Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
New York Times, even though it is an independent newspaper, it is sometimes used by the US government to deliberate illegal information in order to test public opinion or to send out messages. In this case is probably sending out its parallel signal just to test public opinion as well as to indicate problems, while coincidently yesterday at the election in Islamabad the American ambassador to Pakistan has said that we want to enter into a new relationship with Pakistan and we started the country’s commitment to maintain the present relationship and to improve it.
So what needs to be done to improve it?
What needs to be done is the United States to place greater confidence in its partner, and vice versa we need to realize that the US is in a very tight corner: they want to leave Afghanistan and yet they cannot leave Afghanistan because of the unstable situation there. So we are in the opposite corner, we have tried to lift understanding to the maximum extent possible, but the onus again in this case lies on the United States. It has to realize the very high price, that Pakistan has paid for participating with the USA, and ally in the battle against extinguished violence and fanaticism.
But are the Americans in position to hear your concerns?
I think only some people in the United States are conscious of an acknowledge in the benefit of our perception. Many members of the US Congress do not seem to be well informed about the actual situation in our country.
Now we can take a Russian perspective of what is going on in Pakistan, and here is Vyacheslav Belokrenitsky, Deputy Director of the Institute for Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Mr Belokrenitsky, thank you very much for joining us. So do you think there is a chance of collapse in the US-Pakistani relations?
I don’t think that there is a real crisis in the relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It is a kind of irritation that has grown up between the two countries recently. It has started probably with the affair of Raymond Davis, or it was mostly exacerbated by all these events related to the killing of two Pakistanis by the American agent Raymond Davis in the end of January this year. Before that the irritation was present because of the attacks by the American grounds on the territory of the so-called independent tribes in the area, bordering Afghanistan. And of course there is a difference, how Pakistan sees this relation involving Afghanistan and how it affects Pakistan. Actually this is the official position, expressed recently by President Zardari, that the events in Afghanistan could threaten even Pakistan’s integrity and affect badly the situation in Pakistan. But I think that all these things are not actually the essence of the relationships, even though both those countries are very interested in each other. Pakistan is dependent on the economic and financial help, rendered by the United States; the United States are interested in Pakistan because of this Afghan problem, and in Washington they understand very clearly, they cannot solve the issue of Afghanistan without the help of Pakistan. Therefore the establishments of both countries are very much interested in each other and they cannot break the relationship, and the recent visit by Ahmed Shuja to Pakistan is a proof of it, because, whatever he says during his visit in Washington, they are trying to get in touch with each other and trying to find a solution. Of course Pakistan wants to have some benefits and the leadership of Pakistan wants to have.. an image of the leadership is at stake in Pakistan. This is an internal consumption mostly that Pakistan - as far as I understand it - is so much insisting upon demands of the United States, and they just try to extract the most from concessions from the United States. I think that these drawn attacks can be really to certain extent, they have already diminished the number of attacks and I think that in future there can be a solution to this problem. So in general there is a small crisis, which is actually a means of solving problems, therefore I think that this crisis can be viewed from this point of view.
Mr Zardari is travelling to Turkey these days.
It’s very symbolical, and significant, that Pakistan tries to use Turkey as an allied country, and this can influence the United States’ decisions too. Turkey is very active in the regional developments and the regional policy these days, Turkey has become a sort of a regional superpower, that exerts its influence to the Arab countries, to Iran; and Pakistan also is in the orbit of the Turkish foreign policy. Both these countries are very much interested in strengthening their relationship. It is actually a kind of regionalization of this policy in Afghanistan and around it. These visits can be a symbol of this kind of process.
Mr Belokrenitsky, thank you very much!
To sum up what we have been discussing in this program, it looks like the relations between Pakistan and the United States are going through a difficult phase, which nevertheless could hardly be described as collapse. However the question remains: is there anything to be done to stop the war in Afghanistan? The decade-long International Contra-Terrorism Operation has failed, and Pakistan is so much closer to Afghanistan, than the US.
http://english.ruvr.ru/radio_broadcast/25298789/48833050.html
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:26 # -
Thats the very reason for a test to evaluate if such missiles are:
-effective as per/according to their technical specs.
-will disable/distract/deter enemies of Pakistan.Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:30 # -
spruce
MemberDirector General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja PashaPakistan's spy chief has demanded that the United States steeply reduce the number of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and halt drone attacks on its soil.
This comes as the current Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha met with CIA chief Leon Panetta in Washington on Monday.
In the meeting, Pasha called for Islamabad's control over CIA operations in Pakistan.
According to Pakistani and US officials, Islamabad also asked Washington to reduce the number of CIA operatives in the county.
Meanwhile, reports say US President Barack Obama has rejected Islamabad's call for more transparency regarding CIA operations in the country.
US-Pakistani ties have been strained over Washington's deadly drone attacks as well as the case of Raymond Davis -- a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in January.
Reports say Pakistan has also demanded that the United States stop its drone attacks inside its territory.
The developments come as President Obama has frequently blamed Pakistan for not doing enough to fight terrorism in its troubled northwestern tribal belt along the Afghan border.
This is while US planes and helicopters have increasingly violated Pakistani airspace over the past months.
The US claims its air raids target militants who cross the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. But locals say civilians are the main victims of the unauthorized attacks.
The unauthorized US drone attacks have drawn strong criticism from the Pakistani nationals and officials.
The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the region, however, after nine years the region remains unstable and militancy has expanded towards Pakistan.
Analysts say the US is looking for an excuse to expand its military operations in the troubled South and Central Asian region to secure bases near Russia and China.
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 18:58 # -
runaway
Member@Mirza
Which enemy?
The one who is dropping missiles freely on Pakistani soil is not disabled/distracted/deterred by any of the toys of Pakistan military
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 19:26 # -
oneUp
Memberwhat coded msg? They're geting smacked around.
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 19:36 # -
shirazi
MemberNadeemfParacha Nadeem F. Paracha
Pak Army test-fires new nuclear-capable missile. Literacy rate and economic growth shoots up by 200%! Salute!Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 19:43 # -
oneUp
Memberthe above quote should be in junkies corner
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 20:01 # -
spruce
Memberamerica is a slow poison for pakistan it is better to have eye to eye talks then leave on Allah at least we will kill thousand american soldiers..better then being killed daily.same messege i sent to establishment i think finally they understood my openion.
Posted 1 year ago on 19 Apr 2011 20:11 # -
"same messege i sent to establishment i think finally they understood my openion"
Good! Now we will have all our issues resolved 'cause Irshad got thru to the 'establishment' ;-)
Posted 1 year ago on 20 Apr 2011 6:51 # -
Ofcourse we need missiles. What are you guys thinking?
Their is a defence spending that we do. The point here is that the forces have always delivered something against their budget.
Al-Khalid, jf-17, one of the most lethal missile stocks in Asia, f22P frigate etc all incurred a cost but are indeed a reality now.
What does the elected govt do with their cut of the budget? These bunch of incompetent goons have larger funds then the forces and they cant give a proper hospital or school to the people of Pakistan.
Posted 1 year ago on 20 Apr 2011 8:14 # -
Assalam-o-Alaikum-Warahmat-ULLAH ALL,
(1) Our people (Muslims) have "got to";
(a) "come out" of the "slave mentality" we'v been clinging on to for decades and decades, in-fact centuries
(b) "understand", have "got to" "realize" the fact that "selling" or "mortgaging" our "freedom" in return for "luxuries of life" is not a deal worth making
(2) We have "got to" "abandon" the idea of;
(a) living off of other's money
(b) easy money
(c) free money
(d) foreign moneyWe have "got to" come out of "indirect" "slavery". We have "got to" "start" "earning" what we live our lives on.
We have "got to" say no to merchants/sellers of slavery.
(3) We Muslims "desperately" need to "re-invigorate" "community spirit" among ourselves
Posted 1 year ago on 20 Apr 2011 8:27 #
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