I haven't really written on the war up to this point, but I've been following it since it started in 2001. I've been getting particularly interested in what was going on in Pakistan over the last couple of months, primarily through an excellent site, The Long War Journal. If you haven't seen this site yet, I strongly suggest you do, since it's an invaluable information tool to get daily events on what's going on with the War on Terror (I refuse to use the terminology by the current jackass administration).
One thing that caught my attention was what has been going on in the Northwest Frontier region of Pakistan. From what I've seen in the mainstream media, they aren't covering this important news anywhere near the level that they should. In a nutshell, Pakistan is much worse than what is reported, and it's not improving. The media makes a point to herald various Pakistani army offensives against the Taliban, and then leaves it hanging. What generally happens is that the army or security forces move against the Taliban, take a town or a small amount of territory, declare victory and then withdraw. That's assuming that they aren't thrown out of their gains by Taliban counterattacks, which has happened frequently.
Even the US military is skeptical about Pakistani military claims in its latest offensive, which is spanning the Northwest Frontier districts of Buner, Shangla, Dir and Swat. If our own military is saying that the Paks are full of shit, I think it's time to get worried. God help us if the Taliban actually gets ahold of some of the nuclear weapons.
And from Afghanistan, there's this "cute" article about the Afghan lawmakers (I use that term loosely) wanting to restrict our soldiers there. Yeah, anything to help the Taliban out...
In a nutshell, these guys are pissed off that civilians are getting killed by our soldiers (which may or may not be true, since they could easily be getting killed by their own people) and so they want to put restrictions on our troops to make sure no civilians are hurt in the future. They say that if it doesn't happen, there will be uprisings.
Well, my call on this to pull that quote out by William Tecumseh Sherman: "War is all hell." People do get killed in war, it's unavoidable. Our soldiers are being put between a rock and a hard place. They're told to fight a war, then have restrictions put on them telling them how they can fight, where they can go, etc. Personally, I'm not a big fan of the "winning of hearts and minds" mindset of warfare. I think it's bullshit. The way to win is to smash the enemy up and do as much damage as possible. Beat them into submission. In the long run, you take much less casualties. But of course we won't do that, and I'm sure there are many people who would tell me that I'm full of shit. Perhaps, but we'll see what the national mindset will be when (not if) the enemy sets off a nuclear or biological device in this country and coldly exterminates thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of American citizens. Unfortunately, that's the enemy we're up against. Ignore it at your peril.
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Where the enemy isn't tied to holding territory and not more than tangentially interested in the welfare of the population around it, smashing is pretty much dumb.
ReplyDeleteThe Northwest frontier region of Pakistan, even before it became "Pakistan", has always been like that. Its the wild, wild west of South Asia. Its like the Hilliblly Hatfield and McCoy's on emphatimenes. (and ironically these are amongst the most hospitable peopole you could ever meet). If it didn't bother us 30 years ago, it shouldn't bother us now.
ReplyDeleteI was in South Asia before the war on (t)error started and the pipeline and the lithium reserves were both discussed in the south Asian newspapers I read.
Don't get it twisted. That is what we are there for - their natural resources. Same goes for Iraq, and now Libya.
Just wait and see.
And please, nobody believes "Osama been Laid-in" still exists, do they?