Posted on 05/22/2009 8:12:29 AM PDT by milwguy
Troops are encircling Taliban militants in their mountain base as well as the main town in the Swat Valley, a Pakistani general said on Friday.
With scepticism growing about the progress of the month-old army offensive in the north-western region, the army flew a handful of reporters from foreign news organisations into Swat on Friday.
An Associated Press reporter aboard the helicopter saw no cars and few people in the town of Mingora or on roads further up the valley.
From the air, there was little evidence of the fierce fighting and air strikes that the military claims have already killed more than 1,000 militants as well as some 60 soldiers.
(Excerpt) Read more at dawn.com ...
The Pakis have perfected the art of getting $ from the US and int'l community.
1. They claim they are finally ready to face down the terrorist Taliban Jihadi's 2. They claim their military is attacking the Jihadi's but needs cash and modern equipment to properly fight the rabble. 3. They claim a 'humanistarian' crisis has ensued as the innocent civilians flee the war zone. Send more money to feed the innocent masses. 4. The UN backs the Paki claims of humanitarian crisis and says send money to them as well so they can assist the Pakis in feeding and housing the innocents. 5. The Pakis claim to be killing lots of Talibs, but please send more cash so we can kill even more. 6. The Pakis claim the operation will be over soon, but the reporters keep asking why they aren't allowed into the war zone to see all this 'progress' the Pakis are making against Al Qaeda and the Taliban 7. The Pakis parade 5 or 6 arabs before the media, dressed in burkas and claim they were caught trying to flee the war zone. 8. Finally, weeks after the battle should be over, the Pakis take a few selected reporters on a helicopter tour of the battle zone. 9. The reporters don't see much fighting, little damage, and no dead Taliban spread around. 10. The Pakis ask for more money and claim they are winning and will soon kill or capture the leaders. 11. The important taliban have quietly relocated temporarily to areas the Paki Army is leaving alone. 12. The Paki Army, after having extorted a couple hundred million each year for five years in $ from Obama, and maybe another $100 million or so from the int'l community, declares victory and goes back to their barracks to divide the spoils amongst the political elite and corrupt generals. 12. The Taliban return to Swat, enforce sharia, and life returns to normal for awhile.
For 8 years of the Bush admin, the Pakis perfromed their dance, now with Obama, they have resumed. The only difference is Obama is too dumb to realize he is being played the same as Bush was.
I liked those BREAKING NEWS! stories here on FR a couple of years ago that breathlessly told how the Pakistan army had CORNERED A HIGH-VALUE TARGET! INTENSE FIREFIGHT RAGING! This was invariably just a few days before a meeting between Pakistan and the U.S. And a few days later we would ALWAYS read that ghost-like high-value target had “slipped away”.
Familiar cycle which could be broken if the Taliban drop there weapons and move on to Islamabad with the refugees, no?
“For 8 years of the Bush admin, the Pakis perfromed their dance, now with Obama, they have resumed.”
Medicare recently has started something called “pay-for-performance.” We should try that with Pakistan. No more money until they deliver bin Laden and Zawahiri.
For a “street-smart” Chicagoan, Obama certainly has exhibited great naivete. I fear for our ability to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan or Pakistan under his watch.
Obama’s only “street smart” in that he knows how to be a weasel, but he seems clueless about detecting weaselly behavior in others. After all, look who he’s nominated for his cabinet positions.
He’s grossly underprepared to be president in dangerous times like these.
Pakis are awesome CI wizards.
Lookit their kill ratio, man, awesome.
Who knew they were so good, CW stated they don’t have the CI experience to do something like this.
actually...Bush kind of did figure it out after a few times and decided to start using predators, with or WITHOUT Pakistans permission.
If you follow what Commandant Obama said in 2007 when he was running for office..............”Obama said he would make hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. military aid to Pakistan conditional on Pakistan making substantial progress in closing down training camps, evicting foreign fighters and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks on Afghanistan”,........ and compare it with his administration now asking to increase the level of funding by 5 TIMES over what Bush was giving them, you realize how over his head Barry is.
Hell today, on Memorial day, after the N Koreans popped off a nuke, where was Barry? Oh yes, he was out golfing. But have no fear, he stopped at 3 pm to observe a moment of silence.
The Messiah will soon be cabling Kim Jong Il another angry letter, and probably will threaten to take him to the UN again, Rather than using our AEGIS equipped ships off his coasts to knock down a few of his missle tests, we will do just like Hans Blix in team America, write another angry letter to him
I will tell you another thing, Kim was not popping off this nuke to show the US and the world, he was demonstrating it for the Iranians. You can bet your last $ they are sending him cash in return for his technology and nuclear material. The Iranians will be testing their own device within 12 months, mark my words. It will not be made with their fissile material ,but with material they buy from the N Koreans.
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