Is The Battle For The Swat Valley A War Of Extermination?

No good guys in this war

Today's Washington Post mentions a battle for Mingora, the capital of the remote Swat Valley, which is held by "the Taliban." The Taliban? Osama bin-Laden, the World Trade Center, Saddam Hussein? No, none of the above. Brutal, primitive religious fundamentalists with guns? Yeah, that-- battling against a corrupt government whose boots are on the neck of Pakistan's 150 million poor people. Wait, wait. Are they the good guys? No-- not any more than Pat Robertson and James Dobson are (not that Robertson or Dobson are champions of the poor on their least worst days)-- but this isn't as black and white as the western media paints it either. And part of that painting is preparing us for a war of extermination.

As of yesterday the war had turned into a street by street bloodbath, "an apparent escalation of the army's effort to retake the picturesque area, which has become a symbol of insurgent defiance and government deficiency." Something like two million Pakistanis are now internal refugees, fleeing for their lives with whatever they could carry as the army and the militants fought it out with little regard for anyone caught in the middle. (That's always what happens when you have "God" on your side; anything goes 'cause it's what "He" wants.)

Something like 15,000 American-equipped Pakistani troops, with artillery and air support, are battling 3-4,000 rebels in Swat. The military is vowing "to take it to a logical conclusion" and the Pakistani Prime Minister, Yousaf Gillani, says his government "is determined to stamp out terrorism."

A Mingora resident reached by telephone said there had been intense fighting in the center of the city Saturday. Nasir Khan, a merchant, said that he had been stranded in the city and that from his home he could hear the two sides trading fire. The battle, he said, was apparently unfolding in several parts of Mingora, including the central bus terminal and along the main road near the city's primary gateway.

"Taliban militants are offering tough resistance," he said.

The army said Saturday evening that 17 Taliban fighters had been killed in the previous 24 hours. Overall, more than 1,000 militants have been killed, the army said, although the number is impossible to verify independently because nearly all journalists and civilian officials have fled the valley. About 100 security officers have been killed in the operation, the army said. Accounts from residents who have fled suggest that dozens of civilians have also been killed.

This afternoon we get reports from Mingora that the Pakistani Army has captured Green Chowk (or Square) after fierce fighting. The suddenly righteous Pakistani government, which was perfectly comfortable ceding the Swat Valley to the Taliban last year, are calling the re-taking of Green Chowk a great symbolic victory for the cause of... whatever they claim to be fighting for.

Under the Taliban, it had gained notoriety as “Slaughter Square.” Beheaded bodies-- often of people accused of spying or of un-Islamic behavior-- were thrown in the square to intimidate residents.

None of that bothered the Pakistani government in the slightest until the Taliban started expanding southward towards Islamabad and until Obama told them if they didn't clean up the mess, the billions of dollars in U.S. aid would cease flowing. Now they're bombarding their own citizens from the air.