Pakistani internal security (catch all)

[George L. Singleton]

The Pakistani Brigadier fails to note that formerly the Paksitan Army maintained large numbers of peacekeeping troops throughout Swat who backed up the local police before today's Taliban take over due to the Gov't of Pakistan "caving" defacto surrendering to the terrorists.

This failure to permanently garrison and help keep daily law and order is the crux of the problem. Some of the very troops formerly inside Swat were moved, under the excuse of troop needs elsewhere, to the border with India after the recent Bombay (Mumbai) hotel terrorist attacks by Taliban from inside Pakistan who went to Mumbai by boat from Paksitan, etc. This is absurd on it's face. Pakistani troops are needed where the were, inside Swat, not on some phoney front with India.

I often receive e-mails from grassroots Pakistani citizens still inside Swat as well as from former Swat residents who in general have fled to Peshawar for personal safety...Peshawar at the moment is still permanently garrisoned by the Pak Army which Pak troops currently still do help maintain civil law and order and peace daily throuout most of Peshawar...but even there in Peshawar the terrorsts can do suicide bombings and such, and there is frankly little militarily anyone can do to stop that sort of terrorist suicide destruction, murdering, and mayhem.

The Brigadier is "off his nut" in my opinion when he panders to public opinion as his/the Pak Army's excuse. Does he really think the average Swat citizne on the street can influence or stop Taliban organized maruding actions and murdering?

Those still inside Swat do not, repeat not, tell me they want "peace at any price" but rather they tell me they STILL want the Pak Army to get out and fight, one on one. The people inside Swat say the Pak Army has only been doing helicopter gunship attacks, artillery fire, and tank fire, and have not been putting footsolders on the ground, one on one, to stop the terrorists. I think we have to accept these statements from inside Swat as true and the statements from current and retired Pak Generals and field grade officers are flat lies to cover up the fact that the reputation of the Pak Army is going down the tubes!

I've noted before and note again here, now, that the Pak Army and Frontier Corp have also been plagued by Pukhtun mutinies within the ranks.

There was a news story worldwide yesterday, 2/27/09 of ethnic Bangladesh troops (army) mutinying, murdering over 120 officers, now being negotiated with to "return" to the Bangladesh army. To me, as least, as an old guard style trooper, this is totally unacceptable and the mutineers should be summarily general court martialed when caught and shot.

But the militants, due to the space and opportunities available to them, reorganized, regrouped and reasserted in the populated areas and used terror as a weapon and civilians as human shields. This posed problems for the military to separate militants from civilians. The military cannot use terror as a weapon, but terrorists do.

This is a partial quote from the Brigadier's letter to the editor of the Peshawar FRONTIER POST of Friday, Feb. 27, 2009.

Whenever I/anyone posts a link to the FP you have to remember that when the "next day" occurs date wise, you then click on the now out of date link, go to ARCHIEVES, find and click on the exact date of the referred to letter to editor, then click on the entire LETTERS menu to find the exact letter which when first posted came up directly.

Messy process but in the case of the FRONTIER POST that is how it works. In the case of DAWN, you never loose the exact letter as originally posted. FP for defensive/security reasons stopped the process exactly as DAWN still has, to hold down likehood of riots and attempts to blow up/burn out their newspaper building. THE FRONTIER POST was burned to the ground circa 1999 for daring to post a letter to the editor inside Pakistan from an Israeli Jewish letter writer.

The following line to the Friday, Feb. 27, 2009 letter works today 2/28/09, but will likely again be blank tomorrow, Sunday, March 1, so the use of the ARCHIVES tomorrow would be necessary to again bring it up to read or study it.

http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News....at=le&nid=1109