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Pakistan, the Taliban and the swat valley
bezerk bob
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In the news recently i have been reading about how the taliban in Pakistan. Operating out of the tribal areas of pakistan they have captured the swat valley, one of the northern provinces of pakistan. They have apparently been killing police officers, destroying buildings - "girls schools" and setting up sharia courts.
The swat valley is not far from the capital of Islamabad, but the civilan govt have opted not to move against the Taliban forces. Apparently the moral in the pakistani armed forces is low and they are stretched thin as it is.
The sucess of U.S operations in Afghanistan on the Pakistani border has been attributed to the migration/invasion of the taliban into pakistan. The use of predator drones has been listed as a major factor in these operations.
Pakistan was somewhat unstable to begin with. Has nuclear weapons as does their neighbour India, both disagree about khasmir. Relations are strained due to pakistani militants attacking mumbai recently. Also the visiting Sri lankan cricket team was shot at and some team members were wounded.
All of this makes for a troubled situation in Pakistan, what does this mean for the country? for their neighbours? the US and the war in afghanistan?
The swat valley is not far from the capital of Islamabad, but the civilan govt have opted not to move against the Taliban forces. Apparently the moral in the pakistani armed forces is low and they are stretched thin as it is.
The sucess of U.S operations in Afghanistan on the Pakistani border has been attributed to the migration/invasion of the taliban into pakistan. The use of predator drones has been listed as a major factor in these operations.
Pakistan was somewhat unstable to begin with. Has nuclear weapons as does their neighbour India, both disagree about khasmir. Relations are strained due to pakistani militants attacking mumbai recently. Also the visiting Sri lankan cricket team was shot at and some team members were wounded.
All of this makes for a troubled situation in Pakistan, what does this mean for the country? for their neighbours? the US and the war in afghanistan?
You can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of beer a day, no matter how rich you are. -- Colonel Adolphus Busch
bezerk bob on
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Newsflash, it isn't the only country under threat by Islamic fundamentalism. And this one actually has nukes already.
Nah, fuck 'em.
Well, we better do something about/with them quickly, we're fast running out. I'm not really sure what's to be done here other than attempt to bolster the Pakistani civilian government so they can give more support to their armed forces.
I mean, the Taliban takes over a chunk of the country after we force them in, and now they've declared a cease-fire? Unilaterally? It would be like if Mexico invaded part of Texas and then said, "I think we're done fighting, right guys?" and the US said, "well, I don't really have the energy to go after you right now, so, yup."
We can't very well do all the work for them, it's their boots that need to be on the ground, (the visible ones, anyway) but we'll be stuck trying to defend 1000+ miles of border if we can't help them get on top of that shit.
But we can hardly go around bombing more mountainous terrain in the hopes that we'll get lucky and maybe hit some taliban all the while killing more civilians than actual taliban.
There's really not that much more we can do, does America even have more money to spend on this? Aren't you utterly skint?
We're in a huge global recession the likes never seen before. The last thing the West needs now is another black hole in which to pour copious amounts of money needed elsewhere.
Its a place that burned people all the way from Alexander the Great up to the Soviet Union.