Pakistan is known to be covertly supplying, training, equipping & sheltering the Taliban and several other groups (http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/26/idUSN25163580; http://www.theworld.org/2010/12/pakistan-funds-taliban/) while the ex-head of Afghanistan's Intelligence Network, Amrullah Saleh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amrullah_Saleh; a Tajik from the Panshir Valley: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panjshir_Valley) has recently launched an Anti-Taliban, Northern-Alliance (Indian backed) based Political Party (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kvCozBebwM), has criticized Kharzai as a Pakistani Puppet (Kharzai is a Pashtun, as are the Taliban, whom Kharzai wishes to make a deal with).

Why, given that the USA is in a $14 trillion hole, is it paying to field both sides in this war? Is it because of Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons? If so, why worry? Remove American Support for Pakistan and any Nuclear Weapons they do have will be taken out by the inestimably stronger Indian Armed Forces (India is about to overtake China as the most populated Country on Earth).

Allowing India to overrun Pakistan is about the only realistic option to bringing peace in Southern & South-West Asia at any time in the foreseeable future. Allowing the new Country (that lies where Pakistan is now) to split off Baluchistan into a new nation, while allowing Afghanistan to split along ethnic grounds is also a good option. The close ties between Tajikstan in the North and the Northern Alliance would see that area strengthened, while the lawless border areas would revert to Pashtun control.

Trying to hold everyone's hand in this war is nonsense, we cannot afford to field both armies and to incur casualties from weapons purchased with our & our allies aid money. True peace for Afghanistan lies in finding a Pashtun leader with enough strength to hold out against both Kharzai (whose brother was recently killed by NATO) and the Taliban themselves. Some of the anti-Pakistan rebels in Baluchistan might hold the key.

I mean, it is one of the worlds worst kept secrets, that the Taliban is really the only surviving Pashtun player from the last Afghan civil war (http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011314162928307158.html). They, with the help of the Pakistani Armed forces removed all the other outstanding Pashtun warlords (according to some estimates, the Taliban consisted of about 1/4 local Pashtuns and the rest were Pakistani "volunteers" at the time of September 11: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_war_in_Afghanistan_%281996%E2%80%932001%29). Nor is it a secret that the Northern Alliance had an Air Force base (built by the Soviets during the occupation) rebuilt entirely at the expense of India (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayni_Air_Base & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farkhor_Air_Base) as well as a hospital built on the border of Tajikstan & Afghanistan.

All the current NATO/UN led initiatives are really achieving is to weaken various tribal warlords, for whom the Taliban is an overarching "home-guard" type movement, while strengthening others. All the while, other, more prudent, Pashtun nationalists (which is all the Taliban are) are working their way further and further into the corrupt Kharzai Government, with funding, weapons and training provided by our supposed ally, Pakistan. The very best outcome possible, playing by those rules, is to cause the rise of a non-Pakistani backed warlord, that can represent the areas that are predominantly Pashtun. Unfortunately, most have been killed by the Taliban (see above links).

Meanwhile, our "allies" are engaged in a spot of ethnic cleansing in the Baluchistan Province (Pakistan/Afghan Border : http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/29/balochistan-pakistans-secret-dirty-war), where they are responsible for the deaths by torture of many, many Baluchi Nationalists (http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/pakistan-must-provide-accountability-rising-atrocities-balochistan-2011-02-23).

Why on earth are we protecting these scum? While we continue to do so, we continue to ensure the virtual enslavement of Baluchistan, most of Afghanistan and continued terrorist attacks against our allies, our friends and ultimately, ourselves.

Meanwhile, the Baluchi-People have repeatedly requested the assistance of India (and the rest of the world), seeking independence from Pakistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balochistan_conflict - the map form that page - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Major_ethnic_groups_of_Pakistan_in_1980.jpg) shows what the fighting is about (A free Baluchistan would be a major supplier of natural gas and would leave Pakistan landlocked and without resources). Pakistan would consist solely of the western Punjabi and tribal Pashtun areas, redistribution of which along ethnic lines would provide a solely Pashtun Afghanistan (which would solve most of the problems) while India would resume the remainder of the Punjab.

Removal of the export route for opium (produced mainly in the Helmand Province - bordering Baluchi-Pakistan) would bankrupt the Afghani Taliban (the Pakistani Taliban is only slightly related to the group of the same name in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban is motivated almost solely by its desire to resist the Pakistani Army). When the Pakistani Army is reported to be advancing into Taliban territory, it is not clashing with its proxy in Afghanistan, but with internal elements who wish to remove the Pashtun areas from Pakistani control.

Allowing or supporting India in its absorption of Pakistan, or part thereof (to the Indus in the South and the Punjabi region in the north) would be the shortest route to decreasing tension in the area, particularly if it were accompanied by Indian Assistance to the Baluchi people to form an independent Baluchistan in the South (with the border at the Indus River & the upper junction of the same).

Pakistan has no real value, it is not an ally - it has played its friends false for far too long. It was the bastard child of Indian Independence, it was never truly considered and time is up. The west can not continue to prop up rotten regimes that bite the hand that feed. Its importance in the region came solely due to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980's and as a counterbalance to Iran. However, friends like this we don't need.

Guess what Aaron.The USA is covertly protecting the poppy fields that the Taliban destroyed prior 2001.Remember the heroine drought.Now Afghanistan under the auspices of the USA produce 90% of the world's heroine.A good little money spinner for the sale of arms to the Taliban by Western arms dealers.

The subject should be talked about.
Should be reviewed.
It is true that we just can not trust this country.
In my view unlikely we ever will be able to.
Its sins however do not equal those of Saudi Arabia.
Lies are currency and weapons in this part of the world.
As time passes my view has changed I doubt it is worth the costs we pay to *free* this part of the world.
Education , true education not blinded by a religion that seems no longer to care about it, is a better weapon than our blood.
Arjay, it gets harder to ignore your silly ideas.
I truly think you add to miss information, just maybe that is your aim.

Harrumph! Bloody right! Let's just nuke these people! Leave it to the Indies to bomb Pakistan, we can always get the Chinese to nuke the Indies if they get too big for their boots.

What about the Saudis though, can we get Israel to nuke them, along with Iran and Iraq?

Let's clean up the world in the only way we can be sure.

A clean slate, start again in a few hundred million years.
I know, we'll call it 'Project Noah' and retire to a few underground bunkers till the sun comes out again.

Good thinking old chap.