[Lillie_Steins]

"Although they were vastly outnumbered, the fighters managed to persuade the soldiers to surrender without firing a shot. "

That suggests most of the soldiers were in sympathy with their "captors" and are traitors.
If not, they deserve to be executed for a spectacular display of cowardice, so either way I wish them ill.

Perhaps we'd be better off if Pakistan finished becoming 'Talibanistan II" so a proper war with India could end it.

India has the ideal combination of nukes to destroy Pakistan, ground troops to finish the job, and a large enough country to survive a nuclear exchange. There is no hope for a non-Jihadist Pakistan because as a Muslim state that is all it can be. It needs to be removed as a threat to civilization. The region would be vastly better off with India dominant.

[brraverishhh]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1908641/posts

Pakistani nightmare-The US erred in placing all its eggs in Musharraf's basket
Jerusalem Post ^ | 10-9-07 | CAROLINE GLICK


If Musharraf is unable to meet the challenges facing his regime, there is a reasonable chance that this state, with its nuclear arsenal, will soon fall into the hands of the Taliban and al-Qaida. Such an event, of course would have horrific geopolitical consequences.

......First of all, with its largely illiterate population of 165 million, in most respects Pakistan is a failed state. The only well-functioning body in the country is the military. Until the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence agency was the Taliban's main ally. Indeed the ISI basically created the Taliban. Al-Qaida too, has always had an extremely strong presence in the country.

Aside from that, since Sept. 11, popular support for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden has hardened in Pakistan. I

In a poll taken in August by Terror Free Tomorrow, bin Laden was more popular among Pakistanis than Musharraf. The al-Qaida leader received a 46 percent approval rating ...........


It was thinness of the Pakistani support for the US in its war against the Taliban and al-Qaida that informed Musharraf's decision to allow Pakistan to serve as a sanctuary for al-Qaida and Taliban leaders who fled Afghanistan.

From their sanctuary in Pakistan, al-Qaida and the Taliban have been free to conduct their insurgency in Afghanistan. Then too, rather than thank the Pakistani government for its hospitality, ...........

And truth be told, their task has not been particularly daunting. Since the 1970s, the Pakistani military has defined itself as a jihadist force. Its motto is "Faith, Piety and Jihad in the Way of Allah."

...... Musharraf has been allowed to play his double game of helping both the US and the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Moreover, the Pakistani nuclear deterrent has made it immune from US proliferation pressures. Unafraid of the US, the Pakistanis allowed their chief nuclear scientists to open a veritable nuclear Walmart, selling nuclear technologies and materials to anyone who could pay for it. And once A.Q. Khan was exposed, Pakistan has refused to allow US investigators to interrogate him.


It is impossible to rely on dictators. The war is as deep as it is wide. And to win it, the battle for the hearts and minds must be more than a slogan. It must be a war cry that sustains a deliberate, unrelenting effort to convince the Islamic world to dump jihad or face real, physical consequences.