Pakistan Taliban: Swat deal is dead

[Turborama]

Source: Al Jazeera English

A spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan has told Al Jazeera that the peace deal with the government in the Swat Valley is over.

=snip=

The statement comes as Zardari prepares to meet his counterparts from Afghanistan and the US on Wednesday to discuss how to handle the conflicts in the region.

The government has warned that up to half a million civilians could be displaced by the fighting and troop movements on the ground on Wednesday indicated it was preparing a major operation in the Swat valley.

Deadly clashes took place on Wednesday in Mingora, the main city in Swat, where local officials said Taliban fighters had defied curfews to occupy government buildings.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/2009567324513142.html

---

Is Pakistan's security situation out of control?

A senior Pakistani government official has urged residents to flee the Swat valley where a peace deal with the Taliban appears to be crumbling amid intense fighting and said that the provincial government in the North West Frontier Province was pleading for help to house tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting. Can the peace deal be salvaged? What would deal's collapse mean for Pakistan?

Some very interesting comments on all this from Pakistanis, here: http://english.aljazeera.net/your_views/centrals.asia/200933074743137615.html

[annabanana]

1. The taliban may have overreached in regard to Pakistan's tolerance

for beheadings.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKTRE5421AQ20090503

[HereSince1628]

2. That seemed inevitable...

What a mess.

[Aslanspal]

3. I will say this and then you can throw bricks at me

War against Taliban is a just fight...they are zealots...they beat women senseless...they kill two lovers who kiss in public...they are from the stoneage....declare war...yes, kill them if they join the fight...defeat them...diminish them....black turbins and black minds...gladly pay more taxes to declare war and wreck their zealot lives for good.

[nyy1998]

4. Agreed

But some of the hard-core pacifists will go after your comment.

[Mari333]

6. you enlist too.

if you feel that strongly.

[FreakinDJ]

7. I served my time and I feel he is correct in what he is saying

They want to impose freakish zealot idealism on the world and the world wants them extinguished. Its as simple as that>

I hope your suggestion of his enlistment comes from a Veteran who like myself has served

Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal and there is NO WAY IN HELL the US could sit by and watch them take control of that

[Mari333]

8. this occupation has nothing to do with the Taliban

and everything to do with oil pipelines being secured.
there are atrocities committed in every part of the world by 'freakish zealots'. Saudi Arabia , for one. yet we dont run bombing raids on them or kill innocent people.
this is about oil, again, and corporate interests. http://www.crescentlife.com/heal%20the%20world/afghanistan_and_oil.htm
THEIR CULTURE IS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS TO CHANGE BY MILITARY FORCE.
that never works anyway.
in the meantime, re enlist
and Vietnam was a clusterfuck just like this occupation is.
this IS Obama's Vietnam.

its time to leave.

edit to add:

well, nuclear arsenal...lets get rid of the ones we have in the United States first.
WE put the Taliban in power...WE funded them...WE created our own mess..WE occupied countries and killed millions of their citizens..and now we whine about them being angry?? wtf...
WE need to look in the proverbial mirror

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mari333]

14. personal attacks dont validate your views.

enlist.

[dionysus]

45. your "go enlist" shit is so pathetically weak, there are no other words to describe it.

are you suggesting that people go enlist in the pakistani army? :shrug:

[WheelWalker]

43. I don't think you are a fool, at all. You have articulated an abundance of valid counterarguments.

It is instructive that simply looking into a mirror can give one vision to see the other side. Through the looking glass.

[ohio2007]

57. and where are those oil pipelines you have been saying this war is all about ?

this occupation has nothing to do with the Taliban

and everything to do with oil pipelines being secured.





at this rate, your "oil piplines" hot topic point will be going up in smoke as the nation continues to descend into the dark ages.

THEIR CULTURE IS NONE OF OUR BUSINESS TO CHANGE BY MILITARY FORCE.


...but they want to "spread the word" and convert you to the burka clan believers world of peace.
Or you will need to pay your extortion tax to be left alone for awhile.

Thierculture will be your culture enevtually since you have no objections to and even enjoy feeding that aligator the peasants living in Pakistan to appease its hunger.

[dionysus]

71. by calling the taliban a "culture", you display your intelligence level for all to see....

:spray:
only on DU folks... do you see taliban apologists... :puke:

methinks if some dudes showed up in your neighborhood chopping peoples heads off for listening to music or getting a haircut, women walking around not fully covered, or being gay, you'd change that tune realllllly fast...

and any vietnam comparison is bullshit because the viet cong were not religious extremists like these chaps.

[Name removed]

44. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mari333]

5. thats not our problem, nonetheless

you go enlist or have your son or daughter enlist. saudi arabia sucks too but we arent bombing them.
we are there to secure an OIL pipeline. thats all. corporate profits.
again, enlist. if you feel so strongly about it.

[nyy1998]

13. Then what's your alternative?

Just let the Taliban take ove rboth Pakistan and Afghanistan and basically enslave millions of women and children. I'd rather see a few greedy SOB CEOs get their ******* money then to see two culturally-rich countries continue to get destroyed. Oh, and btw, one of those countries has nuclear weapons and has them pointed toward Hindu-majority India. So let's screw up a third country while we're at it.

[Mari333]

17. well , we have to protect India

so we can keep our corporations supplied with cheap labour.
WE CREATED THE TALIBAN, WE FUNDED THEM WE MADE THEM WHEN RUSSIA WAS IN POWER THERE.
WE are OCCUPYING THEIR COUNTRY
when we leave, let the chips fall where they may
maybe if we get down on our knees and apologize to the whole frigging world for our behaviour in every country we have bombed and occupied, maybe if we get rid of all OUR nuclear weapons maybe when we stop being such arrogant bastards everywhere we go

LET Pakistan deal with it. let them figure it out. let NATO deal with it. we are reaping now what we have sown.

[nyy1998]

22. That is a moronic comment if I have ever seen one.

"let the chips fall hwere they may" I just outlined what would happen. The taliban take both Pakistan and Afghanistan and return to their pre-invasion life of Sharia Law and flagging women and beheading man for doing civilized things such as getting their daughter an education. They have nuclear weapons ready to point at India because as someone else pointed out, they can't stand anything non-muslim and taking out Hindu-controlled India(where btw, I have a ton of families).


As for your dumbass cheap labor argument, companies are leaving India because it's too expensive now in Bangalore.

We were arrogant in Iraq, we weren't when we went into Afghanistan.


Oh and lest you forget, WE'RE A MEMBER OF NATO. Oh, and it so happens that we are allies with Pakistan too.

[EFerrari]

25. WTF is more arrogant than bombing a whole country

in order to pick up one criminal? You sure have a strange way of measuring arrogance.

[nyy1998]

28. The taliban & al-queda are just one criminal?

This is news to me.

[EFerrari]

32. There was not a single Afghan on those planes on 9/11.

And al Qaida is an idea more than an organization. If you want to bomb al Qaida into extinction. you have to do it from space.

[nyy1998]

34. And there were 19 Al-Queda operatives on those

planes too. So I'm still wondering which one guy we're going after. I am under the illusion that the Taliban and Al-Queda both consisted of more then one person. Do you have any evidence to contradict this?

[EFerrari]

52. Bush told the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.

He said, hand him over and we're friends again. Take it up with the Torture President.

Conflating the Taliban with al Qaida is what Bush did to justify an invasion. There was zero need to do that and especially considering that bombing the ef out of Afghanistan doesn't deny sanctuary to anyone. It's like kicking an anthill.

[NickB79]

37. So the only reason to protect India is to protect cheap labor?

Funny, I thought that it had something to do with not wanting to see a billion people incinerated by nuclear warheads :eyes:

[dionysus]

48. whoa, how dare you use reason and rational though tin this thread?

:thumbsup:

[dionysus]

46. if the taliban takes over pakistan its everybody's problem...

you gonna stick up for those murderous assholes?

[NickB79]

53. If Pakistan and India exchanged nuclear weapons in war, it will DESTROY global agriculture

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=2720173&page=2

"Many of the conclusions are based on the consequences of two nations, each with 50 bombs, delivering their full complement of weapons on each other. That's not a hypothetical figure, they suggested, because both India and Pakistan are believed to have at least that many weapons.

About 20 million persons in that area would die, the scientists concluded. But the weapons would send up such a plume of smoke that the upper atmosphere would become opaque, blocking out so much solar radiation that temperatures around the world would plummet.

"You would have a global climate change unprecedented in human history," said Alan Robock, associated director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers Cook College and a member of the research team. "It would instantaneously be colder than the little ice age." There would be shorter growing seasons, less rain, less sun, and starvation around the world."

It is most certainly our problem, unless you can live off of sunlight and water.

[customerserviceguy]

9. I think they showed us who they were

when they blew up those two ancient statues of Buddha, in spite of the urgings of every religious leader of a non-Buddhist religion urging them not to.

Anybody who is that afraid of fucking statues must find religious freedom to be horrifying. They're as dangerous as any other evil force in human history.

[EFerrari]

30. Not as dangerous as we are.

US Bombs Fallujah Mosque; More Than 40 Worshippers Killed
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0407-06.htm

Mosques are not Immune from War in Iraq
http://www.linktv.org/scripts/episode_transcript.php?episode=mosaic20080919

US tank bombs Iraq Sunni mosque
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13538§ionid=351020201

Seven children die as US bombs Afghan school
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1555005/Seven-children-die-as-US-bombs-Afghan-school.html

Civilian catastrophe as US bombs Afghan wedding
http://www.rawa.org/s-wedding.htm

Civilians ravaged by US-NATO bombs
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JI12Df02.html

Cluster bombs kill in Iraq, even after shooting ends
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-10-cluster-bomb-cover_x.htm

47 Afghan civilians killed by US bombs, group says
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2008/07/11/47_afghan_civilians_killed_by_us_bombs_group_says/

Afghanistan's civilian deaths mount
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1740538.stm

Afghanistan Under the US "War on Terror" (Warning: graphic)
http://www.rawa.us/s-photos.htm

[Mari333]

33. thanks for the links!!

bookmarking

[customerserviceguy]

72. There's a difference, however slight you might perceive it to be

We did not deliberately target mosques because they were mosques, we did so to deal with the "enemy". That's way different from deliberately destroying a harmless statue.

[EFerrari]

24. Why do you think killing people will make their society less violent?

When has that ever worked?

[dionysus]

50. well since the taliban are trying to take over pakistan by the barrel of a gun, what do you suggest?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

51. The experts have already weighed in.

We stop funding the Pakistani military until they stop funding the Taliban.

We start supporting the civilian government and the police who do much better work.

We help Pakistan get back in charge of their military.

We work with the people instead of bombing the cr@p out of their villages and families. That's usually what you do when you want people on your side.

[dionysus]

54. do you expect the police to take back the Swat valley?

[EFerrari]

56. Do you expect the army to take back the Swat valley?

[dionysus]

58. so you have no answer?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

63. I've discussed this problem up and down this thread. Have you read it?

When the Pakistani army goes in there, there will be half a million refugees and nothing set up for them. They will also have defections and sabotage. They are beginning a fight that they probably can't win.

Maybe they can take some territory back but they won't be able to hold it. You can't bomb ideas out of people's heads.

[dionysus]

64. neither can you offer to educate the taliban out of their fucked up belief system.

you honestly think you can reason with those guys? they chop peoples heads off for running a barber shop for crying out loud...

i will agree that generally in the muslim world your approach would be good, but good luck with a faction as extreme as the taliban. they're trying to impose their beliefs, not the other way around.

[EFerrari]

65. If you had read the thread, you'd know they aren't the target.

They are a small minority and just like our own extremists can be sidelined.

[dionysus]

69. who's the target? what are you talking about? this thread is about pakistan fighting the taliban

[InfiniteThoughts]

10. good for the Taliban ..

now they can be shot dead and rot in hell ...

the world needs to have no sympathy or regret when Taliban is exterminated.

For the first time in my life, i am actually rooting for Pak Army. Go, you guys, show you are a professional unit. Decimate these anti-humans!

[Odin2005]

11. You cannot have reasonble discussion with people who prefer shooting you over being...

...convinced by you.

When fanatics get militant the only way to shut them up is through bullets through their heads.

[Mari333]

15. my god, boy, you need to get over there

and start shooting.
UNCLE SAM WANTS YOU

HERES THE FORM. now go shoot someone.

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/joiningthemilitary/l/blcontract.htm

why did I take you off ignore....click.

[nyy1998]

16. Are you seriously going to do this everyone who disagrees with you?

Instead of having an intelligent conversation, you're just going to attack everyone? You're just as bad as the Bush if you keep trying this crap.

[Mari333]

18. I dont like chickenhawks.

never liked them during the Bush admin, dont like them now.

[nyy1998]

19. Then stop attacking everyone that disagree with you

Instead of telling us to enlist. it's Bush level. Tell us about the abundant natural resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan that would make this war about CEOs and not about going after the Taliban.

[Prometheus Bound]

66. Mari, I think you're being unfair to these warmongers.

I'm sure they wouldn't be so cowardly as to advocate war and then let others do their fighting for them.

They sound very brave to me.

[DrCory]

68. I Served My Time...

So, not a "chickenhawk', and think every Taliban asshole deserves a bullet. I don't much care who it comes from, Pakistani or American, so long as the result is a dead fanatic.

[Odin2005]

20. She's a one-trick pony.

Apparently people that are not in the military are not allowed to have opinions on how to use the military. :eyes:

[MUAD_DIB]

21. Perhaps instead of just yelling at people to enlist you might

offer an alternative to how to cope with religious extremists.

You don't have to of course, but it might make your argument a little more valid.


Frankly, Pakistan needs to take care of their internal matters. My concern would be making sure that their nuclear arsenal is safe and out of the hands of Muslim crazies.


And yes, India should be protected as the Pakistani people should be, and frankly everybody else, from the clutches of religious fundamentalism. I would rather not think what might happen if Pakistan fell, and India felt compelled to defend itself or extract/destroy Pakistan's nukes.

[EFerrari]

26. The way to cope with religious extremists is to foster civil society.

You give the people education, jobs and secure homes and they themselves will turn on the Taliban. It's not rocket science. It's just the opposite of what we're doing right now.

[Mari333]

27. amen nt

[nyy1998]

29. Why thank you Eferrari for an actual alternative

I agree that should be our best option in Iraq. But in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, they're already against the Taliban but guess who has the weapons and aren't afraid to use them?

[EFerrari]

31. You mean, besides us? The same process is even more needed

in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. It will take time. But there is really no other way to tamp down influences like the Taliban.

You might be interested in David Kilcullen. He's a counter-terrorism/insurgency consultant who actually seems to know what he's talking about. Here's an interview on Charlie Rose:

http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/6180

[nyy1998]

36. I understand you're trying to make the

US military look like the bad guys here and by no means were they perfect. Far from it. If anything, these two wars have shown our flaws and yes, arrogance(Abu-Gharib comes to mind as the most visible example of this). However that said, there was this interesting New York Times and CNN piece on how the Taliban thinks:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/world/asia/05fighter.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/05/afghan.taliban.transcript/index.html?iref=newssearch


They refuse to negotiate with us until we leave, which from an American standpoint is a dumb negotiating ploy. If they were so stubborn on these reasonable claims then they would. And if you recall the "deal" the had with Pakistan, it was an awful deal for the people of Swat. They try to impose Sharia Law in a region of moderate Muslims and the results have been terrible. People are getting flogged because they send their daughter to school? The New York Times right now has two pieces up on people fleeing the region because of both the fighting and the Taliban's strict laws. The people are against the Talban, but they have the weapons and unfortunately the power.

And yes, I've read David Kilcullen(there was a piece in the LA Times about him yesterday). He sounds very good and intelligent. I just don't agree with him based on what I've been reading.



P.S. This is totally random, but I noticed the Giants logo, and they're actually my NL team behind the Yanks. I love going to ATt park or w/e it's called now. Beautiful park. Anyway, good luck this season, they're not playing too bad this year.

[EFerrari]

38. No, I'm not trying to make the military look bad.

They are just the wrong tool for this mission.

[ieoeja]

41. Is the Pakistan Army the right tool?

Because, unless I am missing something here, this thread is about a war between Pakistan and the Taliban, not between the US and the Taliban.

As to how the people of Pakistan feel, wiping the Taliban off the face of the Earth was one of the major campaign issues for Bhutto. And wasn't Bhutto polling almost 80% before her assassination?

[EFerrari]

49. Supporting civil society in Pakistan might help their government

get back in control of their armed forces because they sure aren't right now, are they?

The military and security apparatus have been playing both sides against the middle. They need to be pulled back into line. The police there do much better counter-terrorism than the military. We should be supporting them instead of pouring money into a military that turns around and pours money into the Taliban!

[ieoeja]

59. But the non-military faction is socialist!

Had we simply never encouraged/supported the Rightist coup in Pakistan in the first place.... But we can't change what has already happened.

Fortunately, the Taliban is much like our own Rightists in that they apparently believe their own propaganda of divine invincibility. The military might have been happy using the Taliban to further their own agenda. But with the Taliban now challenging them for outright control of Pakistan, I would hope they'd know better than to re-initiate support for the Taliban in the future.

I don't see how the Taliban can remain a serious threat for long if Pakistan genuinely decides to eliminate them.

[EFerrari]

61. It depends on who will peel off and side with the Taliban, doesn't it?

Very high stakes poker and the people always lose.

[closeupready]

62. Thank you. 100% agree. What is it with the warmongers here?

They make me puke. :puke:

[ronnie624]

23. The comments from the readers are quite fascinating.

Thanks for posting.

[WheelWalker]

47. Agreed. This is worthy

of thoughtful discussion, and there are several who have articulated counterpoints with some understanding of the confronting issues.

[Xithras]

35. The Taliban have a big problem in Pakistan.

When they took over Afghanistan, they faced a weak central government with little military support and weak armies. The majority of the country was ruled by local warlords who were poorly armed and unorganized.

Pakistan has the worlds seventh largest army, with over a half-million ground soldiers on active duty and another half-million in reserves. That military is highly trained, well armed, and has been in a ready state for war for the past 20 years. By most estimates, the army outnumbers the Taliban by somewhere around 50-1 to 100-1.

Many people have suggested, and I strongly suspect, that the giveaway of the Swat Valley was a PR move by the Pakistani government. Pakistan is a fairly religious country, and before the giveaway there was a lot of sympathy for their cause (and resentment towards the Pakistani government) over their relationship with the U.S. and Afghanistan. By letting the Taliban take over Swat, the government gave the rest of the country a preview of what was coming for them...beatings for uncovered women, forced beards, public executions, and general oppression. This has scared the hell out of the remainder of the country and is unifying them against the Taliban. Seeing large hordes of refugees fleeing Taliban held areas is only going to reinforce the perception that they're coming to destroy their lives.

If the much larger Afghani Taliban can't hold Afghanistan against 60,000 foreign troops, what chance does the smaller Pakistani Taliban have against a half million soldiers fighting for their home soil?

No sympathy, just pointing out that this fight could be over fairly quickly.

[Aslanspal]

39. Good post.......

and the United States will support them in the Talibans demise as it should be...this religious cancer called the Taliban and Sharia law needs to hit a brick wall and say no more and less to you.

In the United States I am hopeful we are turning the corner away from right wing religion and its power brokers who want to control us at their abusive leisure ...but in comparison to the Taliban and Sharia law...they have got to go from Planet Earth...religion needs to find itself in charity and build on that theme...moderate muslims in droves must join the fight against these backward stone agers of Sharia law and reform their faith...Pakistan is the proving ground...Hillary lit a fire under them and they readily agreeded.

Like I said this is a fight worth fighting and supporting Pakistan with the green light to smack these black turbaned bullies back into caves and if the United States has to declare war to help ...I WILL ENLIST IF THEY WILL HAVE ME.

[Xithras]

40. One of my coworkers is from Pakistan

We've had some interesting discussions about the country and the perceptions of the Taliban. Over the past few years, they've largely been seen as freedom fighters working to drive out the "American invaders" in neighboring Afghanistan. He told me that people in Pakistan are only just now, and very slowly, waking up to the reality that the Taliban want to oppress them all back to the stone age. What happened in Swat was a big part of that wake-up call.

I support the idea of providing arms and funds to the Pakistani government if they need it, but I don't think we should be involved directly. The moment American boots hit the ground, a HUGE portion of the population will switch sides and join with the Taliban. The war would become unwinnable. So my opinion is that our involvement should be limited to providing the material resources needed for their fight...ammunition, weapons, money if needed, that sort of thing.

Of course, India won't be happy about us reinforcing Pakistan, but they recognize the danger of the Taliban as well. They know where those nukes will be pointed if the Taliban take Pakistan.

[truebrit71]

42. The Pakistani Taliban is different from the Afghani Taliban...

..they are both religious zealots, but they are not the same group...

[Xithras]

60. Uh, that's just plain wrong.

The Taliban are a Pashtun religous movement that spans the borders of both countries. The Taliban Pakistani's are led by guys including Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is a sworn follower of Mullah Omar. While the Taliban's structure is fairly loose, the highest levels of leadership are shared between the countries.

In a nutshell: The Taliban movement has been present in both countries since the 90's, originating from border madrassas. They have been connected from the beginning. After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, many of the Taliban poured across the border into Waziristan, where they led a rebellion that led to essential independence of the region in 2006, with the Taliban solidly in charge. Waziristan is now the base that both the Pakistani and the Afghani Taliban movements get their soldiers, their weapons, and their orders. The fighters in BOTH nations are ethnic Pashtuns and foreign Arabs with no allegience to either country. They even fight under the same flag (a plain white banner with an Islamic inscription on it).

It's true that the day to day operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan are handled by different groups, but their allegiance lays with the same leadership.

[truebrit71]

67. Um...not so much...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warbriefing/themes/taliban.html

[EFerrari]

55. What chance do they have? Support of portions of the military

and ISI.

[ohio2007]

70. Militants warn doctors not to wear western clothes ( guess they plan on killing doctors as spies )

PESHAWAR: Hospitals in Peshawar have received threatening letters from local militants warning their doctors against wearing western clothing to work, DawnNews reported. Doctors from two of Peshawar’s major hospitals, Hayatabad Medical Complex and Khyber Teaching Hospital have confirmed receiving these threats.
The hospital administrations have circulated the information to all wards, and have asked their staff to take precautionary measures.

Meanwhile, the hospital administrations have not ruled out the possibility that the letters could be fake and may have been issued to create panic.



According to sources, the letter has also been forwarded to the NWFP Inspector General of Police.



The move comes against a background of heightened Taliban activity, with militants targeting barber-shops, music stores and shrines in their bid for moral policing.


http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/11-militants-warn-doctors-not-to-wear-western-clothes--04