Pakistan to crush Taliban amid refugee dilemma

by lalith | May 15, 2009 at 04:12 am

110 views | 10 Recommendations | 0 comments

Pakistan says it will definitely defeat the Taliban but expresses concern over the plight of refugees displaced by the Swat war.

"Militarily we will win the war but it will be unfortunate if we loose it publicly," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the parliament in Islamabad on Thursday.

By "publicly", Gilani sought to describe how the propaganda unleashed against Pakistan since the beginning of the military operations and the Swat takeover has hurt the image of his country.

Army sources say 54 militants and nine soldiers have been killed in Swat Valley over the past 24 hours.

The army crackdown on militants has killed nearly 1,000 insurgents and dozens of troops since two weeks ago -- when the offensives began from the Lower Dir and Buner districts, located about 62 miles (100km) from the capital Islamabad.

Around 15,000 troops are facing an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 militants in the troubled northwestern Swat region, according to military sources.

Some reports say that over 30,000 heavily armed insurgents from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan along with local Taliban have ensured their presence in the volatile valley and its adjoining regions.

The militants have entrenched themselves for a long-drawn-out war by planting mines and explosives across the valley.

As per UN figures there are approximately 834,000 at the last count. Most of them don't have proper shelter or food. Injuries and deaths deaths of civilians are denied by the Pakistani forces ably covered by the Americans.

Here, it is difficult to fathom the standards which the Americans are setting for each war area in asia. In Pakistan, the forces are fulfilling an American agenda for Afghanistan, by trying to eliminate the Taliban.

Taliban is a terrorist organization and therefore it must be eliminated. This however does not give the United States to turn a blind eye when it comes to the refugees.

Hillary Clinton, admired the performance of the Pakistani forces. She only made a mild statement about the refugees and nothing at all about the dead and injured civilians.

She has stated that the IMF loan to Sri Lanka has to be withheld because of the humanitarian situation there. Little does her naive head realize that in Sri Lanka, every effort is being made to look after the refugees. This will be confirmed by the foreign dignitaries who visited Sri Lanka recently.

USA, most of the time failed in its foreign policy. Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Panama etc. When down, they let down some of their closest allies. The Shah of Iran, Ferdinando Marcos of the Phillipines, and even Saddam Hussein are classic examples. No show of gratitude was ever shown to these personalities. When the Shah of Iran was in power, Iran was known as the 'Policeman of the Middle East" - USA's Policeman. But, after the Shah was deposed, he seeked permission to go the USA for medical treatment and was refused.

What is Clinton talking about when it comes to Sri Lanka? Perhaps, she does not understand the phrase 'double standard' since it is a truly British one.