The Taliban's Fourth Attack In A Week
Quick question: does this make you more or less likely to support the Pakistan military going into Waziristan? Isn't it fair to say the uptick in violence -- the World Food program bombing, the Peshawar suicide attack, the GHQ siege, and now this -- has coincided with the fact that army is readying itself for the mother of all counter-insurgent conflicts?
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Pakistan
5 comments:
definitely more. its honestly naive to believe that you can negotiate with people who have no qualms in murdering innocent civilians. i know the conspiracy theory among pakistanis is that the US or the pakistani military is behind this so that theres no excuse left to go into south waziristan, but this is a war that pakistan has to fight. i could care less that it happens to be in the interest of the yanks. this is pakistans future and pakistans image that these thugs are destroying. the uptick in violence need not necessarily mean that we should cower or take away that these militants are stronger than us. it could very well be desperation attacks we see here. the army has a distinct advantage in that popular support has swayed very much in its favor. this was not true in 2003/4 when the army went into south waziristan and got beaten back. as much as everyone believes president musharraf was a dictator, the reason the army backed away was because the public opinion was sharply divided, and as COAS and president he understood that well. hence the peace deals. now i say no more peace deals. the country should be ready for a bloody showdown, but we have no alternative but to win here.
Quite frankly, I have concerns whether the army can pull this one off. The terrain, the financial costs, the lives lost and the support that the TTP have in the Mehsud tribe make me uneasy about the prospects. Lets not forget we got whipped in the last two cases.
Ahsan,
the LeT trials (of Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah, and others) in the anti-terror court in Rawalpindi were scheduled to start on Saturday and have, I think, been delayed by another week. Considering that the terrorist, Aqeel Ahmed, they captured was from the punjabi TTP I wonder if there is a connection there.
slightly off topic, what are your thoughts on Haqqani's (soon to be?) dismissal?
Greywolf:
I am in agreement with everything you say, but what these attacks shows is that the Taliban is not a spent force, far from it. So we should definitely recalibrate our estimates of how this war will go.
Rabia:
Thanks for the info on the trails. Haven't been following the news very closely lately.
On the Haqqani front, I don't think he's going anywhere, mainly because he's Zardari's ambassador to the US.
lol @ greywolf
pakistans image was destroyed much before anything like the taliban came around.
pathetic country with a pathetic history- including persecution of its minorities and subservience to america.
the TTP is the best thing that ever happened to pakistan - pakistanis need to be taught a lesson!
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