There has been moderate coverage of the recent push by the Pakistani Military to purge the Swat & Buner provinces of the Taliban. Much of it seems to have taken a relative accepting view of the Pakistani Government’s reporting from the area (further example) and seems upbeat about the hopes in the region. But I think the US military and intelligence agencies are taking a different view of the entire process. To begin with, I do not know how successful the military has been in actually eliminating the Taliban from major urban areas. For example, they have claimed to secure Mingora, the major city in Swat (and former hotbed of Taliban activities) but at the cost of leveling the city forcing half the population (of 325,000 people ) to flee or die. The Pak gov’t might claim to be able to handle the large numbers of displaced persons (currently estimated around 2.2 million people), but I would venture to say that the government lacks the capacity to handle them, let alone, handle their demands for restitution for the large amounts of destruction the government will have likely inflicted on the city. Zadari might have released 6 million dollars for assistance, but this turns out to be roughly 3 dollars per person. The US has released a much larger amount around 110 million, but due to Pakistan’s previous inability to get aid money to go to the right places (look up scandels of US relief funds being diverted for Nuclear arms), I doubt much of this is going to meet the needs of those stricken by the conflict. Thus, what is going to be left is a festering bombed out city that will be worse off than it was before the operation, which will likely make it A) easy for the Taliban to operate within the city and attack/bomb police & military targets B) provide an easy recruiting pool for fresh footsoldiers to replace current casualties. I foresee the Pakistani Gov’t quick to claim victory in this, but won’t do the follow through necessary to actually hold the territory it has claimed.
Another indicator that the fair weather media reports will turn to a storm cloud is the utter insufficient amount of forces the Pakistani military is devoting to this operation (roughly 15,000). If the problems with Iraq are a lesson, than we should remember that rapid advances without sufficient occupation personnel do not a victory make (Woodward’s State of Denial anyone?). So far we have seen no independent verification of the government’s claims of success in the area, especially in regards to casualties among the Taliban. Think of it this way, there are over 50,000 NATO troops along with over a 100,000 Afghani troops still battling the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan is attempting to do the same in a area that has been free of gov’t and Coalition interference (except for occasional Drone) with less than a 1/10 of the force in a vast and mountainous region?? This operation is a farce.
What is most disturbing about this is the trend by American media outlooks to take such a positive view of the developments within Pakistan without any shred of evidence and from the snippets I’ve seen from television reporting. It took over a year for the media to start saying that the surge had been effective (I even remember when General Petraeus first reported to Congress about the surge in March of 2007, leading Democrats attempted to undercut his report by referring to the success as marginal and temporary) and despite its success against tremendous partisan opposition, still never materialized into a political success for politicans that had put their reputations on the line to support it. They were unwilling to accept reports from our military AND from reporting from the media in Iraq in the surge, yet the lap like dogs from scattered and ridiculous claims by the Pakistan Government? WTF? The real culprit, in my opinion, for such contradiction in opinion is the starry eyed grandeur that they have for the administration. Now that the Pakistani gov’t is trying to root out the terrorists after Obama endorsed it, everyone has done an about change in their opinion and put in place a willing suspension of disbelief in order to suck up and off Obama.
The is no doubt the media is biased and has a credibility problem. The vast majority of the media is basically a propaganda machine for the current administration and are not likely to give accurate reporting.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have seen on the news, I get the impression that things are going well and that the Taliban are being rooted out, but I have not done much looking into the situation.
Does the Pakistani military have the means to root out the Taliban without destroying the city? Do they have surgical weapons strike capability? Do they have the money and means to provide for the Pakistani people and rebuild the cities? I am no military expert but isn't it hard to root out an insurgency in a city without destroying the city? I don't know the other options or means to do this. I am not saying there aren't any other options. Isn't this part of the Taliban's strategy to make fighting them too costly? Like hiding behind women and babies.
What was the view by the Pakistani people of the Taliban before the push by the Pakistan military? I can see your point maybe they won't be so short sighted and are able to learn from recent history.
What would have been your course of action? I don't see any good way to root out the Taliban. Maybe they are making the tough decisions but I am sure there are smarter ways to go about doing this. I guess you can win the war and loose the peace.
Good questions Jeff.
ReplyDeleteI think this has to be an all or nothing fight. A "War Against Terrorism" is the common parlance. It seems the Pakistan Government treats terrorism like organized crime or something. Raids here and there, but not for what it is: an insurrection against the government and their semi-secular British learned freedoms.
You are right that it would be difficult to move into a built up area and clear it of terrorists without destroying a few buildings. Fallujha is a good example for the inability of us to do it without leveling the city. Nonetheless, the government has declared (without counter assertions by the US) that there are between 5-10,000 Taliban they're attempting to root out. Mingora was 350,000 people. The grand total people displaced by this operation is 2.2 million. I sincerely doubt all 5-10,000 were solidly in MIngora but even if they were, those kind of numbers don't justify the destruction wrecked by the Government (not if you want to win this war anyway). The reason the government is going through in such a haphazard fashion is that they don't actually want to to do the real mission that would be necessary to exterminate the Taliban: occupation. They think a spectacular show of force will do the job of bringing a bunch of aid money from the US, little of which will go to things that are necessary.
He needs more troops, and to bring in more troops means units need to be pulled off the Indian border. Pakistan needs to realize that the Taliban are a greater threat to their regime than the Indians. Which means the people need to think this is true. There were a few signs from the pro-Pakistan gov't articles I listed that there is a shifting attitude from the populace. But every citation of which was based on the words of editorial with no evidence. Remains to be seen.
We'll know they're serious when the government has the will and political capital to send units from the east to the west, and also, when they begin capturing leaders (leaders that no doubt, have links to the ISI).
The Pakistani military also needs the discipline in order to risk their neck to bomb the right house, instead of standing like cowards from outside the city and calling in artillery to level a village.
ReplyDeleteYeah, in other words, they need the intensive training that the Iraqi army has gotten the past 5 years! They're just another 3rd world piece of crap army right now facing motivated opponents. They can win temporary battles with their heavy weapons, but they will melt if/when they need to peacekeep.
ReplyDeleteSo, what's next, Melkor? I guess we need to see if they can actually hold Swat. If they can, then there is hope and we have been overly pessimistic (never on Robinson Talking Points!!!). If they can't and then succeed in turning the population even stronger towards the Taliban, can we start picking them off again? And what's the next step for us?
Send me and a cupple motivated fuel dogs in there. We'll show those Talibani whats up. We don't need heavy artillery when we got a 4 inch hose of JP-5 pushed by a 600 gpm pump of flaming fuel straight at the Talibani's faces.
ReplyDeleteDean, you're coming with me. Cover my six. Watch those pressure gauges!
ReplyDeleteLet me grab my purple hat first.
ReplyDeleteI know we call it a cranial. Get yourself together damnit!! I need your head on straight marine!
ReplyDeleteThe word _hat_ has a specific connotation that I was trying to convey. What do you associate with a purple hat?
ReplyDeleteWow, I never heard about hozin' down Jihadis. Someday, you may be able to tell Patrick those war stories.
ReplyDelete