Why the Obama Administration is So Worried About Pakistan
The Taliban are advancing in Pakistan and it's unclear whether the government can push them back
The Obama administration is sounding a loud alarm over deteriorating security in Pakistan, particularly the movement of Taliban militiamen closer to the capital city of Islamabad and the attempt by Pakistani officials to buy domestic peace by making concessions. "I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on Capitol Hill last week. Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the Taliban an "existential threat" to Pakistan's weak democratic government, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, flew to Islamabad for the second time in two weeks to talk with top military and intelligence officials.
What set off the latest alarm was the penetration of Taliban units into the Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital. They set up checkpoints, broadcast radio sermons, and skirmished with police. The Taliban advanced from the adjacent Swat Valley, a scenic former tourist destination where two years of fighting have left hundreds dead and hundreds of thousands uprooted. After a few days, the Taliban units in Buner appeared to be withdrawing, at least partially. In a controversial bid for peace in the area, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari recently approved a deal that exchanges a Taliban cease-fire promise for the imposition of sharia, strict Islamic law.
U.S. officials fear that such government concessions will only embolden the Taliban. Already, Taliban leaders in Swat, for instance, say they want to see sharia eventually instituted throughout Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation that is key to U.S. strategy to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda in next-door Afghanistan. Other signs of rising militancy include recent terrorist attacks in the Pakistani heartland of Punjab and the public return of a hard-line cleric to Islamabad's Red Mosque, the scene of a 2007 fight in which the complex was stormed by Pakistani troops and at least 100 people died.
Reader Comments
Pakistani '' Nukes''
As a common Pakistani NATIONAL , i would like to add few things for the betterment of this region and as whole for the global peace..!
Who financed and give weapons to these talibans or extremeists or jihadi groups against Russian invasion...
America Itself...!!!
When Russia was beaten here Ameriicans left these people like a used ''tissue papers''
Resulting the sleaves without a master...!!
They are extremely poor people,illetrate and hv nothing to do or to earn there livlihood..!!
Resululting the hv nothing to loose but only there lives which for them is good for nothing..!!
So as Pakistan has stop doing the proxi war with INDIA in Kashmir and Punjab or even in Asaam,they INDIANS are paying back to Pakistan in the same coins ..!!
India using the money making clerics as their agents funding them,and urging them to keep fighting and destablise the Pakistan it's Nation and it's Nukes to be held in UN custody once it was declared a fail state.
Israel is on the Back of India and America is on the back of Israel,we Pakistani's hv trusy Americans since the first day this country was made an independant state in 1947 BUT regret to say the course of history proves that these americans never proved to be a good friends...!!
Not even a good foes,who hits from the front on the face,Americans stab in the back of their friends,if they are muslims,because Americans never ever has considered muslims as their friend from their heart.
Pakistan Existension threat
Way back in 2007 primary then Sen. Obama was asked the greatest foreign threat to America in a debate with Hilary, and he immediately said Pakistan. Unlike Iran which is still hoping to develop nuclear weapons, Pakistan already had the nukes but Bush Co. preferred bribing General Musharaff with billions that never went to fight the Taliban.
President Obama understands this threat more than anyone, it didn't just happen, its the result of decades of corruption and unconditional American dollars. Rattling about Iran does nothing, dealing with Pakistan is what America needs to face up to
Peace Love and Happiness
I'm sure these Taliban boys are just nice fellows who are misunderstood. We should try and understand what we Americans have done to offend them and then approach them with an outstreatched hand instead of a fist. We must talk to the inner child in each and every one of them. Evil Mr. Bush should have at least apologized to them after 9/11. Please let them go back to repressing women, destroying ancient pre-Islamic heritage sites, disallowing kite flying (under penalty of death), cutting off heads, stoning women to death, eliminating education, executing parents in front of children, massacring entire villages, raping women and children (oops that was the UN too), using human shields, savagely beating infants, burning people alive as punishment, and various other traditional pastimes and cultural rituals. We need to live and let live; focus on our own shortcomings; and allow others, like these poor misunderstood Taliban boys, to follow their hearts without our pesky interference. Only then will there be peace in the world.
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