Joe Biden Was Right

Taliban with Children

Joe Biden was correct, this is the 108th day of Obama’s presidency and he has a major foreign policy crisis on his hands. The nation of Pakistan is on the brink of falling apart. This was my worst fear when Pervez Musharraf was driven from office.

(Musharraf has been traveling abroad since April and has shown no inclination of returning to Pakistan. Like the Shah of Iran, the U.S. will regret the day we did not support our friend Musharraf. I would speculate he will never return because his life is in danger.)

If the Pakistani Army cannot stop the Taliban and Al Qaeda (AQ) in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) our strategic interest in Pakistan will be severely crippled. The Pakistani army is simply not equipped, nor use to fighting a guerrilla force like the Taliban. The Taliban are using human shields as cover and fighting in urban areas so that the Pakistani army is force to inflict heavy civilian casualties. Furthermore, AQ is providing support and troops in the fight against the Pakistani government.

Mr. President, this is not the place to commit our troops. It would be an absolute quagmire for our military, a losing situation for our military that is already stretched thin. Our best tactical option is to use standoff warfare and hit the Taliban and AQ with missiles.

500,000 Pakistanis are fleeing the fighting in the Swat Valley and along the long border with Afghanistan. One million people are now displaced in northwestern Pakistan. Terrified Pakistanis are dodging Taliban roadblocks to flee fighting between the army and insurgents in a northwestern valley. Pakistanis are streaming into refugee camps and crowding hospitals with their fatigued and hungry children.

This situation is critical because Pakistan possesses 50 to 100 nuclear weapons. We must somehow ensure the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. A.Q. Khan, “the father of the Pakistani bomb” will certainly give the bomb to AQ or Iran because he wants to spread the “Islamic bomb”.

Insecurity in Pakistan also creates great fear in nuclear India. So far the Indians have not said much about the situation in FATA publicly.

Meanwhile Pakistan's embattled president appealed to Washington for more help to reverse the expansion of Taliban-held territory to within 60 miles of the capital, Islamabad.

On Thursday, several thousand men, women and children poured through Swat's main town, Mingora, in search of safety.

The hospitals in Mardan treated dozens of civilians with serious gunshot and shrapnel wounds.

Yar Mohammad, a 50-year-old stonemason said, "Now I am seeing the buildings that I have helped to construct being blown up and destroyed." He had "poured his blood" and his best years into the development of Swat, once a haven for tourists drawn to its Alpine-like scenery.

Some residents complained that the Taliban had blocked their escape. Ayaz Khan said he loaded his family into his car Thursday in the Kanju area of Swat only to find rocks, boulders and tree trunks laid across the roads, forcing him to turn back.

Military operations are taking place in three districts that stretch over some 400 square miles. Much of the fighting has been in the Swat Valley's main city of Mingora, a militant hub that is home to around 360,000 people. Witnesses said armed Taliban militants were roaming the streets of Mingora and would not let civilians leave. Pakistani troops fired artillery and helicopters launched air strikes on militant targets in the area. General Ashfaz Parvez Kayani, the chief of Pakistan's army, said the army would commit enough of its resources to "ensure a decisive ascendancy over the militants."

But some frustrated people said there was no sign of a major military push in Swat. Yar Mohammed added, "If the government, the army wants to control and crush the Taliban, why don't they send ground troops to flush them out? Why they are only shelling people, which hurts the public most of all and creates anti-government feeling?"

Pakistan has launched at least a dozen operations in the border region in recent years and most ended inconclusively and after massive destruction and significant civilian deaths. The tribal territory is a haven for AQ and the Taliban. The Swat peace accord between the Pakistani government and the Taliban, reached in February, began unraveling last month when Taliban fighters moved into Buner, even closer to Islamabad. Troops are also fighting the Taliban and AQ in the nearby Dir region. Every peace accord between the Pakistani government and the Taliban or tribesmen in the frontier area has failed.

A spokesman for Sufi Muhammad, the cleric who helped put together the peace deal, said Muhammad's son died in army shelling in Dir late Wednesday.

Izzat Khan accused the government of unleashing the army "to appease America and get dollars," a common view among Pakistanis. This view is strengthened by the coincidence of the latest fighting with Zardari's high-profile visit to Washington.