Peace in the valley posted by Richard Seymour

The Swat valley peace deal is over, which is exactly what President Obama wanted. The US and its allies opposed the deal from the beginning, applied immense pressure to the Pakistani state to overturn it, and finally offered another massive bribe to get them to resume war. This has resulted in the Pakistani army resuming its indiscriminate attacks, "flattening villages" into the bargain. As a consequence, the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) rescinded the deal and yesterday took control of the valley's largest town. The latest refugee exodus, apparently taking place on the instructions of the Pakistani state, comes on top of 1m refugees who had already fled Obama's air strikes and the attacks of the Pakistani army. The US administration has been using the threat of a nuclear-tipped "Talibanistan" to justify this intensified aggression, and that scaremongering has worked with the American public. (The surrounding press campaign also seems to be working with some antiwar liberals.) So, the Obama administration is now driving a regional apocalypse, using much the same propaganda tactics as the Bush administration to galvanise a sceptical public. Needless to say, it is also continuing that titanic air war in Afghanistan, which has just killed another 100 civilians in a single massacre. The next thing you'll hear is that the TTP caused the breakdown of the peace deal by seizing Mingora and that it just goes to show that you can never negotiate with such people.

Labels: 'global balkans', afghanistan, insurgency, pakistan, resistance, taliban, US imperialism