Posted on 11/05/2011 1:22:52 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
A group of senior Afghan lawmakers says the Obama administration is wasting its time in trying to make peace with the Haqqani Network, a Pakistan-based terrorist group U.S. officials have accused of killing Americans and attacking the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.
Washington should instead increase pressure on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to cut its ties to the Haqqanis, withhold millions of dollars of aid to Islamabad and attack the militants in their safe havens, the lawmakers told The Washington Times this week.
The Haqqani Network, which is led by Sirajuddin Haqqani and operates from Pakistan’s North Waziristan province, is supported by the ISI, according to Afghan and Western officials. Pakistani officials deny these accusations.
The Afghan lawmakers said the United States should use a combination of sanctions and travel bans against top ISI officers and the Pakistani military to break their support for the Haqqani Network.
The group of 10 lawmakers is in Washington for meetings at the Pentagon and State Department and on Capitol Hill.
U.S. officials met with representatives of the Haqqani Network over the summer.
In congressional testimony late last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the Obama administration’s strategy of “fight, talk and build” while dealing with the terrorists. She said part of the reason for the administration’s approach is to test whether the terrorist groups “have any willingness to negotiate in good faith.”
The Afghan lawmakers were pessimistic about the prospects of such an approach.
“U.S. officials should stop talking to the Haqqani Network. It is the ISI that is important,” said Abdul Rahim Ayoubi, a member of defense committee in the Afghan National Assembly.
“It is the ISI that controls and supports the Haqqani terrorists, and it is Pakistani doctors that treat them when they are injured fighting in Afghanistan,” he...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Some people just refuse to see what he's up to.
If you don' t know the answer to that by now, Hill, you and obama should just stay in and do each other's nails, and let some adults handle the outside world for you.
Smart power. Right.
Oslama agrees: it is a waste of time talking to the Tea Party.
The liberal moonbats eat that crap up!
Even the Afghanis think 0bunghole is an idiot. Well, it isn’t hard to see.
A group of senior Afghan lawmakers says the Obama administration is wasting its time in trying to make peace with the Haqqani Network, a Pakistan-based terrorist group...
Hope these Afghans have an escape plan when the surrender junkey pulls us out.
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