My four readers know that I tend to concentrate on Pakistan in most of my writings in doing this I tend to read a lot of South West Asian news. Doing so often times leads me to articles and editorials that give me hope that there maybe a way to turn around the terrorism that is the primary product of these areas.
Today an editorial appears in Dawn.com a Pakistani news site. In it the author calls for the Pakistani government and with it the ISI to get its act together in regards to domestic terrorism. It also calls on the government to stop playing regional power broker when the fabric of Pakistani society is being destroyed from within.
Then again I read something like this which is a propaganda attempt by the
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or in the states (TeT). That says the group will give $20 million in aid to the Pakistani flood victims but it has to be distributed by the group and not through the gov't of Pakistan oh and the jihad against the United States will continue. Let us not forget that 10 in foreign aid workers were just killed in Afghanistan by the HIG which is a "good" Taliban group. The aid workers belong to an organization that has been helping the Afghan people since the 1960s.
After awhile depression sets in. This is from the Asia Times. Part of counter insurgency is to get those that will lay down their weapons to do so and frankly to kill the rest. In this case however Taliban had laid down their arms and were going to try and become peaceful citizens. This goes with the poor governance coming from Kabul as these guys should have been held up as shining examples of what happens when you lay down your guns. Now they are back to fighting against the government. Admittedly though they probably made more money helping to run opium and heroin and being bandits than they could as private citizens. Here is the money quote Siawash, a political analyst in Herat province, said he "believed that most of those who joined the peace process were simply armed criminals, rather than part of the opposition. Once they realized they were no longer able to make a living out of crime, he said, they came to the government and claimed to be militants willing to surrender. Then they would turn back to crime again." What most people realize is that a good portion of the "Taliban" are nothing but criminals and drug smugglers albeit heavily armed ones hiding behind religion.
I think I need to go read something on Onion as I am disgusted.
