http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/22/pakistan.taliban/index.html

Quote :

"Taliban militants who implemented Islamic law in Pakistan's violence-plagued Swat Valley last week have now taken control of a neighboring district Control of the Buner district brings the Taliban closer to the capital, Islamabad, than they have been since they started their insurgency. Islamabad is 60 miles (96 km) from the district. "Our strength is in the hundreds," said Moulana Mohammad Khalil, as heavily armed men openly patrolled the roads in pickup trucks, singing Islamic anthems. The militants had taken control of the area to ensure that Islamic law, or sharia, is properly imposed, Khalil said. The government called the advance into Buner a breach of a recently-signed peace agreement. "Now Taliban are violating the peace agreement, and if they continue the government will take strict action and not allow the Taliban to create a parallel government in that area," said Mian Iftikhar, a spokesman for the regional administration in the North West Frontier Province, where Buner is located. "

I think i could honestly turn the cheek and look the otherway if Pakistan undertook a massive military campaign to massacre and exterminate these taliban fucks out of their country.

These religious zealots prove time and time again that they are beyond logical reasoning. I do not think anyone would cry and probably many more lives would be saved in the long run if next year this time there was a big mass grave of taliban islamic fundamentalists somewhere in Pakistan.

4/22/2009 8:53:26 AM

oopss can an admin move this to soap box please

4/22/2009 8:58:49 AM

Taliban have always been in Pakistan. Or i should say, the border between Pakistan and afghanistan has historically been meaningless and the pakistani government has never given a shit about it. People cross it freely.

4/22/2009 9:04:54 AM

oh noes....they have "hundreds" like that scares us

4/22/2009 9:32:25 AM

Seems like the only solution we're going to have in Afghanistan, I mean since Pakistan is trying to keep the peace with the Taliban, is to make sure that Afghanistan is really stable before we leave there.

They'd need a stable economy and a strong, well-trained military that was distributed well throughout the country to respond to Taliban attacks, and they'd need to come up with some damn fine border patrol to try to catch any Taliban folks sneaking across to attack.

As it is, I really can't see any of this happening and just wish Pakistan would forcefully occupy this portion of their country and destroy the Taliban by whatever means necessary. Pakistan just needs to go ahead and pull a Thomas Jefferson and send their military against any asshole who tries to undermine the stability of the country. I agree that they have proven, time and time again, that they do not give a shit about actually keeping the peace and are just going to keep trying to spread their extremist ideology until the whole world is under sharia and converted to Islam.

4/22/2009 10:40:38 AM

The current Pakistani leadership lacks spine. They love to bitch and moan about all their problems ("Oh my wife got killed, wah wah wah") but they seem loathe to do anything about it.

The first thing they ought to do is something that should've been done decades ago. Take the army and police and use it to smash the ISI. The military -- or at least, large portions of it -- should be more than willing to participate, since the ISI got out from under their control a long time ago. Arrest the service's leadership, cut off support and funding, and apply pressure to whatever elements remain.

After that, roundly condemn the ISI and their Taliban cohorts as traitors and march on the border territories. Be liberal with the shooting of people. Meanwhile, we should be begging and pleading with India to give Pakistan something, anything that would bolster confidence in the government.

Or we can just wait for the government to collapse and the nukes to start flying, which would probably be more visually spectacular, anyway.

4/22/2009 12:09:51 PM

Quote :

"I think i could honestly turn the cheek and look the otherway if Pakistan undertook a massive military campaign to massacre and exterminate these taliban fucks out of their country. These religious zealots prove time and time again that they are beyond logical reasoning. I do not think anyone would cry and probably many more lives would be saved in the long run if next year this time there was a big mass grave of taliban islamic fundamentalists somewhere in Pakistan."

4/22/2009 3:31:09 PM

BBC radio had an interesting piece this week stating that the taliban has gotten a lot more moderate as it has turned into more of an umbrella term for the elements of the insurgency opposed to a secular government. As such, many of the current members are much more willing to become a part of the political process as they aren't hardline Mullah Omar/bin Laden supporters.

Quote :

"Take the army and police and use it to smash the ISI."

2nded.

4/22/2009 3:57:35 PM

Also I just wanted to say that:

Quote :

""Now Taliban are violating the peace agreement, and if they continue the government will take strict action and not allow the Taliban to create a parallel government in that area,""

Sounds far too much like appeasement to me. "If they continue" there won't be a government soon. They're getting rather close to the capitol and clearly aren't interested in cooperating. Pakistan needs to be like the Israelis on this one. They should've declared total war on those fuckers the moment they violated that truce. Lots and lots of people will die, but they'll think twice before screwing with the central government again.

4/22/2009 8:28:28 PM

Quote :

"They're getting rather close to the capitol"

Holy shit are they really that close???!!!

4/22/2009 8:32:27 PM

I love it. "But they signed a peace treaty..." Don;t say we didn't tell ya so, durr

4/22/2009 8:48:23 PM

^^ Capital then. 70 miles from islamabad according to one article I read, which I can't link to cause, if you're not using google news' direct link, you get a "sign up, bitch" page.

4/22/2009 8:56:05 PM

4/22/2009 9:01:03 PM

I admit, I'm a failure of the public education system. They never properly got the difference between the two drilled into my brain.

4/22/2009 9:16:00 PM

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6164687.ece

Quote :

"Nuclear fears prompt Pakistan to prepare attack on Taleban Thousands of Pakistani troops were massing for an assault on Taleban positions 65 miles from the country’s capital last night after giving the insurgents 24 hours to withdraw from their advanced positions or face attack. The threat of force follows a stern warning from American policymakers that Islamabad was doing too little to stem a growing militant insurgency. Richard Holbrooke, the special US envoy for the region, called Pakistan’s President Zardari on Thursday to convey Washington’s concern. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, accused Pakistan this week of “abdicating to the Taleban”, which “poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world”. The US considers rooting out militant sanctuaries in Pakistan critical to success in the Afghan war. Washington is also worried about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons Related Links Mrs Clinton’s remarks followed a recent deal between Mr Zardari and the Taleban in the Swat Valley, allowing them to establish a fundamentalist enclave in the former tourist area in exchange for laying down their arms. The Taleban have not disarmed, and this week its fighters poured out of Swat into the neighbouring district of Buner, taking control of government buildings and digging in at strategic positions around the major towns. The threat from the army has so far been enough to encourage some insurgents to start pulling out of Buner, but other fighters were holding positions in the hills. Local government officials said that militants were seen leaving a high-walled villa that served as their headquarters in Buner, in the foothill of the Karakoram mountains. The black-turbaned fighters carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades clambered into several trucks and minibuses before driving away. Taleban commanders insisted that their fighters had been preaching peacefully for Islamic law. Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the Taleban, said the fighters were leaving “of their own accord, not under any pressure”. There was no indication that the insurgents were willing to give up control of the mosques and seminaries that they have been using to recruit local youths. A senior officer said that troops had been ordered to eliminate insurgents who refused to surrender. In an unusually tough statement General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of the army, declared that the military was determined to root out the menace of terrorism and would not allow the militants to dictate terms to the Government or impose their way of life on the civil society of Pakistan. “The army will fight to eliminate the militants who endanger the security of the country,” he said, addressing senior commanders in Rawalpindi. "

I admit, I completely forgot about the fact that Pakistan was a nuclear-armed nation.

That is a damn disaster waiting to happen. I'm glad that their spine seems to have firmed up a bit, though the response really should've been a lot stronger to prevent them from trying to make further gains in the future.

4/24/2009 6:32:16 PM

They have no spine.

Pakistan's army is comparable to the Taliban in terms of effectiveness in a fight. As a comparison, are armed forces ability to concentrate firepower turns any engagement with the Taliban into a meat grinding operation.

They have no unity against the Taliban.

There are to many factions, tribes, to make this simple.

The Taliban have to do something so horrifying that it scares the shit out of the entire country.

Its not like you can say, Pakistan go fight them off. They will continue to half ass it and never get the job done which completely demoralizes their forces.

Perfect storm of an insurgency and the country its in.

lulz nukes in taliban hands

4/24/2009 7:20:49 PM

When nukes get even close to the taliban's hands you will see either A: India invade. B: US invade. C: Both invade.

I can guarantee you the US and India are eying the situation there right now and keeping an eye on their tactical options as far as dealing with an unfriendly government takeover in Pakistan.

As far as a full ground invasion, well, maybe that's a bit too far. But there is absolutely no way in HELL both governments would sit on their ass and just let that shit happen.

4/25/2009 12:55:45 PM

Quote :

"A: India invade. B: US invade. C: Both invade."

Would about D. UN or multi-national task force?

A lot more countries have something to lose with a nuclear armed radical islamic gov't in control. Let india wipe them out; do not see why i have to work every week to pay taxes so Uncle Same can play World Police when there are 180 other countries in the world. Many of which have direct stake or tie to Pakistan. Let India do the grunt work if needed. They have a billion people with which to wage war.


Pakistan needs to flat out obliterate the Taliban. This may raise resentment on the home front but this is better than a slow oppression against the Taliban which will just assist them to swell their ranks and gain power.

[Edited on April 25, 2009 at 11:32 PM. Reason : l]

4/25/2009 11:30:36 PM

I dunno. The UN might try to do something, but they seem like such a clusterfuck these days that I question their actual ability to coordinate and intervene on something serious like some assholes getting their hands on nukes.

As for just letting india do it, well, pakistan has their entire army on that border and would not want india "coming to their aid" no matter what.

Everybody would look to us to do it since we're already on the border in question anyway. Plus, given any major military action that would take place in pakistan, we'd be the first ones into the country anyway.

Didn't Hillary say "Stop the taliban now, or we will" or something to that effect? It was just a statement to put pressure on them. I suppose NATO would act against the taliban since it is a NATO op in afghanistan (and the conflict would just expand to the east), but we're the best equipped to do all the killing.

4/26/2009 12:14:27 AM