US threatens to intervene in Swat

[jimmy olsen]

Holy Shit!

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/25/peter-goodspeed-taliban-noose-tightens-on-pakistan.aspx

The Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are now established in a district that straddles two crucial targets.
Just 50 km southeast of Buner lies the Tarbela Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It provides central Pakistan with most of its electricity and the country's farmers with most of their water.

Thirty km further on is the Wah Cantonment, an army ordinance complex that produces almost all Pakistan's weapons and military supplies – including nuclear weapons – in 14 massive factories employing up to 40,000 people.

According to some reports, Wah is the chief storage and maintenance site for Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. It may also house a uranium enrichment plant built in the 1990s with assistance from China.

[The Brain]

I'm sure the Vast Moderate Muslim Conspiracy will prevent any nuttery from happening.

[DisturbedPervert]

I'm sure the Vast Moderate Muslim Conspiracy will prevent any nuttery from happening.

They always do.   

[KRonn]

I am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.

I doubt if even that's possible.

The Andorians will join the coalition:

Hehe...


How could the US lose, with such advanced allies? 

[Tamas]

Holy Shit!

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/25/peter-goodspeed-taliban-noose-tightens-on-pakistan.aspx

The Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are now established in a district that straddles two crucial targets.
Just 50 km southeast of Buner lies the Tarbela Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It provides central Pakistan with most of its electricity and the country's farmers with most of their water.

Thirty km further on is the Wah Cantonment, an army ordinance complex that produces almost all Pakistan's weapons and military supplies – including nuclear weapons – in 14 massive factories employing up to 40,000 people.

According to some reports, Wah is the chief storage and maintenance site for Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. It may also house a uranium enrichment plant built in the 1990s with assistance from China.

It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.

[Josquius]

Ballsy if true, wonder what the leftists on the blogosphere would think of that! 

The left is quite agreed on the taliban being a bad thing (tm)

[DontSayBanana]

It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.

Only the most extreme pinko peaceniks believe the Taliban can be dealt with in any non-military fashion.

The plus side is that Pakistan has been almost as much of a pushover with respect to the US as it has been to the Taliban, so talking them into allowing military action to protect the supply pipeline shouldn't be too difficult.

[jimmy olsen]

Holy Shit!

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/25/peter-goodspeed-taliban-noose-tightens-on-pakistan.aspx

The Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are now established in a district that straddles two crucial targets.
Just 50 km southeast of Buner lies the Tarbela Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It provides central Pakistan with most of its electricity and the country's farmers with most of their water.

Thirty km further on is the Wah Cantonment, an army ordinance complex that produces almost all Pakistan's weapons and military supplies – including nuclear weapons – in 14 massive factories employing up to 40,000 people.

According to some reports, Wah is the chief storage and maintenance site for Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. It may also house a uranium enrichment plant built in the 1990s with assistance from China.

It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.

That's because major intervention in Pakistan can easily escalate into a full fledged war, not the relatively bloodless police action in Iraq. I'm talking a Vietnam scale bloodbath or worse.

[Neil]

Ballsy if true, wonder what the leftists on the blogosphere would think of that! 

The left is quite agreed on the taliban being a bad thing (tm)

And the left is also quite agreed that nothing should be done about it.

[Sheilbh]

It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.

It depends what you mean by the US and military action.  Most military action in Pakistan was meant to be carried out by Pakistan, they are an ally after all.  Unfortunately the Pakistani military and intelligence services are rather linked to the Taliban, through their own Islamisation and also through their attempts to use them to control Afghanistan (the Iranians were similarly chummy with the Northern Alliance).

Also the US has been using some military force within Pakistan for at least 6-9 months, though not in the troops on the ground way.

The single greatest success of the US in Iraq was getting major tribal leaders and landowners to turn on al-Qaeda in Iraq and form their own militias that helped guarantee a sort of security there.  The problem with Pakistan is that the Taliban aren't al-Qaeda.  These aren't foreigners stirring up discontent, they are locals using the unpopularity of major tribal leaders and landowners to help their own cause.

I think the best hope would be if we could peel off from the Taliban those who are, effectively, Pushtun nationalists and who aren't keen on the whole 'exporting the revolution' mentality.  I don't think we can get the tribes on side in the way we did in Iraq because, unlike in Iraq, the tribal leaders are part of the problem (they're unpopular feudal lords).  If we could co-opt the sort-of bread-and-butter Taliban that would be useful.  But I've no idea how possible it is.

This is also a wider threat because Pakistan's political parties are basically tied in to the feudal land-owning system, as Benazir Bhutto and her husband's success demonstrate.  The old strategy of supporting a Colonel to stabilise the country strikes me as unlikely to work because the army and the intelligence services need confronting and it's not clear to me how someone whose popularity stems from the army and intelligence services could do that.  At the same time we've got Zadari who's hugely corrupt and probably lacks the ability to effective confront the army or take on the Taliban while the main opposition party led by Sharif utterly lacks the will to do it.

[Neil]

Wouldn't the best solution be to convince India to go for reunification?

[DontSayBanana]

[snip]

Not too feasible. Even the "bread-and-butter" Taliban are intensely xenophobic.

[Sheilbh]

Not too feasible. Even the "bread-and-butter" Taliban are intensely xenophobic.

That's exactly my point.  We get the Taliban who are, in effect Pushtun nationalists, to come to our side.  Basically we support land reform in Pakistan and let them do what they want in the tribal regions, while we help rebuild a Pakistani state, while encouraging them to come into the Afghan political society.  We get those, who I believe can be (and probably have to be) accomodated within Afghanistan and Pakistan, to turn on those who want to turn their movement into a global revolution.  I think we can separate the xenophobic, bread and butter Taliban from those who are al-Qaeda supporting Islamic Trotskyists.  I think it would be similar to what happened in Iraq. 

The Sunnis didn't like the Americans but they, ultimately, came to realise that the Americans didn't want a Shia dominated state and that their own tribes were being hurt by hosting al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and so on.

[Alcibiades]

Did you know that we almost got OBL 8 months ago?

[edited out how]

Damn, I hope this is not still OPSEC.
/I mean , come on, it was 8 months ago.

....

[Iormlund]

Wouldn't the best solution be to convince India to go for reunification?

That would be like asking Spain to take charge of the mess that is Latinamerica. Why would India want to do that?