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Current music:	Collective Soul - December

US bombing kills Pakistani soldiers

Bad news of the day: US bombing kills 11 Pakistani soldiers at the Afghan-Pakistan border (more) (more). Pakistan has been freakish about every US offense to their border going back to 1998 when Clinton struck an al-Qaeda base in Afghanistan and some of the cruise missiles fell short. This time there is a body count. We saw how the US's closest allies reacted when Canadians and British forces were accidentally bombed. This is going to heavily damage public opinion for the US in Pakistan.

We may be at a strategic turning point in the Afghan theatre. The Taliban has seized chunks of Pakistan over the past few years, and from there it trains and sends troops across the border to fight the Afghan government and the US. Pakistan cannot stop them and they will not let the US in to try. As a result, the Taliban has established a safe haven like North Vietnam was during the Vietnam War. History suggests it is very difficult to defeat a well-supplied enemy living in a safe haven who will not stop fighting. On the political front, Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, who has been a steady US ally or else, has been losing his power to the pro-democracy movement which has taken a more friendly stance to the Taliban. The US bombing of Pakistani forces strengthens their hand and weakens his.

A few days ago, Denmark's embassy in Pakistan was bombed. Everyone blames al-Qaeda for the embassy bombing, but the culprit could have been anyone because al-Qaeda's ideology is so widespread. The Pakistani ambassador to Denmark told Denmark they deserved it for allowing a private newspaper to publish those Mohammed cartoons. That's what is considered a moderate's opinion. The political side of the war is not going so well.