The commando strike in Pakistan

[Adept]

QUOTE (TakingArms @ May 26 2011, 04:14 AM) Yeah I don't get how this makes any sense. As a "terrorist" attack it makes no sense because it attacks a military target and few civilians, so it causes no "terror" per se. As a military strike, it makes little sense because you're sending a highly trained team on a suicide mission? That doesn't seem very smart or very cost effective, unless the target is REALLY high value.

Those Orion planes are very expensive and hard to replace. For a while now Pakistan's radar survailance ability will be seriously hampered (especially since I doubt the US will just give them replacement planes in the current frosty climate).

QUOTE As to Adept's question of how to get people to go on a suicide mission, different militaries of all kinds throughout history have found ways to do it, often with religion. See e.g. islamic suicide bombers today and japanese kamikazis during WWII. Even US troops have been known to go on suicide missions, or at least do suicidal things like throw themselves on grenades, given proper motivation.[/quote]
This is what I was thinking about as well. 50 million dollar's worth or radar surveilance planes are a serious blow, but not enough to motivate people for such. Now if taking out those planes opens up the possibility for something really important, then it's a different matter entirely.

So... what can whoever sent the commandos (India?) do now that those Orions have been taken out?


/edit typos

[djrbk]

Well the P-3s are for detecting/eliminating missiles from missile launchers and submarines, so if those targets being destroyed was paramount for the preparation for anything, it'd be a missile strike.

idk what other missile defense systems Pakistan has though, to know how badly this actually hurts them.

If its just a 50M$ purchase though, I believe that they probably still have some of that ~2.7B$ or whatever the US forked over to more or less give them a free pass to do what they wanted to do in their region.

[Adept]

QUOTE (djrbk @ May 26 2011, 06:11 PM) If its just a 50M$ purchase though, I believe that they probably still have some of that ~2.7B$ or whatever the US forked over to more or less give them a free pass to do what they wanted to do in their region.

Even if that money isn't long gone, I doubt the Orion's are an off-the-shelf item.

[_SRM_Nuke]

I don't get this conspiracy theory. What makes this attack any different from the others that occur on Pakistani military targets on a daily basis? This even had fewer casualties than most do. The country is the most violent on the planet and in the midst of a major civil war of its own making. The only difference is that it was in Karachi so it got Western media attention. Today alone one attack killed 25 people. If you think this attack was an extraordinary event, you have had your head in the sand, ignoring the thousands of Pakistanis who have been killed every year for the past half decade. Not even Buyo and his Mexican narcotraffickers can catch up to their casualty rate.

Edit: I should add that this attack in Karachi also pales in significance to the 2009 attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in Rawalpindi, in which the terrorists OCCUPIED THE BUILDING. This was the equivalent of the Pakistani Pentagon and they were so incompetent as to be unable to defend it.

Just because the base has Chinese intelligence at it doesn't mean anything. P-3s are used to track submarines, read: nuclear-armed Indian subs. Most of the major Pakistani bases have at least an occasional Chinese presence. Pakistan is by far China's most important ally, much more so than North Korea. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out (hell, even look at the plans announced by Pakistan this week to give the Chinese control over Gwadar).

Frankly, the more Pakistanis killed by the Taliban and other Islamic extremists, the better. Maybe then their government will wake up and stop supporting, financing and harboring groups that kill Americans, Indians and countless others.

[djrbk]

QUOTE (_SRM_Nuke @ May 26 2011, 04:17 PM) I should add that this attack in Karachi also pales in significance to the 2009 attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in Rawalpindi, in which the terrorists OCCUPIED THE BUILDING. This was the equivalent of the Pakistani Pentagon and they were so incompetent as to be unable to defend it.

Woowww!

.worst.military.ever.

[djrbk]

I feel bad for one of the boys in my unit. He's a Paki, and his parents are visiting the country to see one of their mothers before she dies (which is predicted to be soon, otherwise they probably wouldn't be making the trip)...

News that I'm getting from him from overseas is that around their parts of the country is that electricity exists maybe 8 hours out of every day at best (and randomly too), meaning that it interferes with all of their jobs, like sayyy... manufacturing. It cannot be done with the power being so twitchy, so all the plants end up closing down and so many people end up unemployed as a result.

Man I'm happy I live in Canada , the world is so $#@!ed.

[Adept]

QUOTE (_SRM_Nuke @ May 26 2011, 11:17 PM) <stuff>

Nuke, if I read that right you think it could have been just a regular talibanesque insurgent / terrorist / freedomfighter (pick one) strike. Not one carried out with a great deal of skill and planning, but just against an incompetent enemy?

[HSharp]

What makes you think that terrorists/rebels can't pull something like this off?

[djrbk]

Their lack of access to COD: Black Ops for starters!

[takingarms1]

QUOTE (_SRM_Nuke @ May 26 2011, 04:17 PM) *good @#(!*

Didn't know a lot of this stuff because as you said, it's not reported on. I guess that's why they pay you the big bucks!

I take it suicide missions like this are pretty common, then?