Pakistan is responding with force, including fixed wing aircraft--up to now, never used:
There has been intense fighting since Saturday night around the town of Mir Ali, and nearly 200 people had been killed before Tuesday's air strike.
"Aircraft were used to attack militants positions near Mir Ali this afternoon," military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.
Perhaps General Musharaff has taken to heart the lesson I wrote should be learned from the Red Mosque crisis--there is no compromise possible with such jihadi scum. So-called ceasefires are just opportunities for jihadis to gather strength before their next attack.
Pakistan may at long last be making the final leap in the long transition from supporting the Taliban prior to 9/11, to trying to hedge their bets to avoid siding between America and domestic jihad sympathixers, to finally fighting to destroy the jihadis inside Pakistan before the jihadis destroy Pakistan.
Make the Pakistan Jihad the last jihad.
UPDATE: Ralph Peters notes the futility of the Pakistani effort to deal with the jihadis in his country, which of course reflects our faith in conferences that produce nicely bound reports in several official languages affixed with bright ribbons and wax seals:
But we never learn. There are many in our own country who insist that, if only we didn't annoy Allah's assassins, we wouldn't have any problems with them. We just need to "respect their culture."
No matter that their culture is murderously intolerant, criminally vicious toward women and deadly not only to those of other faiths but even to fellow believers who don't measure up to the absolutist doctrines of the fanatics. If only we made nice, the world would live in harmony. All those suicide bombers are our fault.
Well, the historical fact is that the world has never lived in harmony. Never. Peace has never prevailed across the planet. And the most intract- able butchers have been those who believed they were on a mission from their god.
It would be lovely, if it were otherwise. But we need to deal with the facts we face today and the factual patterns of history. And those facts insist that no compromise is possible with men who believe they know exactly what their god intends for all of us.
Our Western cult of negotiations produces no lasting successes for the simple reason that those ablaze with lethal faith never hesitate to break deals with unbelievers the moment they find it useful to do so.
Musharraf, who hoped to buy peace by ceding a vast stretch of his country to fanatics, soon found that the fanatics were only encouraged to believe that all of Pakistan is theirs for the taking.
Surely, many Pakistanis are whining about why they (al Qaeda) hate us (Pakistanis).
Hopefully, the Pakistanis answer that question by acknowledging the jihadis hate them because the jihadis are hateful, murdering scum who must be killed wherever they are found.
