Pakistan's out of touch ambassador

CNN:

It would be "completely counterproductive" for the United States to launch military strikes in the Pakistani tribal regions where al Qaeda and Taliban militants have created safe havens, Pakistan's foreign minister said Sunday.

Khurshid Kasuri further told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that 85,000 Pakistani troops were already in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a mountainous and notoriously dangerous region at the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"The Pakistani military is already there in the tribal area," Kasuri said. "Pakistan's commitment cannot be doubted by anybody."

If the United States were to take unilateral military action in the area, Kasuri said, "you will lose the war -- the battle for hearts and minds."

"Our commitment is total, but this war -- or whatever you would like to call it -- can only be won if we have hearts and minds on our side," he said.

Kasuri also said using Pakistani rather than U.S. troops will result in "far, far less collateral damage."

"Look at the ratio of casualties between your troops and Iraqi civilians," he said. "The difference is that we cannot afford what is conveniently called 'collateral damage.' "

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That last statement is an outrageous misstatement of the facts in Iraq. The vast majority of noncombatant casualties in Iraq are a result of the deliberate war crimes of the enemy who explodes people and car bombs around as many civilians as it can, some by luring them to an area with phony bargains. When civilian casualties do result from our offensive actions in Iraq, they are almost always the result of the enemy war crime of not wearing an uniform and the enemy's cowardly use of human shields.

The other aspect of his statement that seems out of touch is that Pakistan is engaged in trying to take out the enemy in the tribal areas. The "truce" has been a boon for our mutual enemies and has led to a resurgence of al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area. When Pakistan troops were sent back into the area they were unprepared for the Taliban ambush tactics and failed to use a combined arms approach to dealing with it. Similar ambushes in Afghanistan against US and NATO forces have been disastrous for the Taliban.