I don't get it, why don't Pakistan army launch a massive campaign to finish them? Pakistan is too big to be played with by those people. The biggest enemy of Pakistan is definitely those.
Exactly Pakistan is indeed too big ! We're a country with a Population 30 times that of Jordan living on an area nearly 9 times that of Jordan. And we've got a 1000+km porous border with Afghanistan with thousands of ravines, gullies and caves ! We've got an equally large border with Iran. Which means the size of the country, the number of our people and the length of a completely porous border poses huge problems for us ! Add to that the fact that Pakistan is an extremely ethnically, linguistically and religiously (in terms of sects !) diverse country, we have an another problem - so many proxies and lobbies operating within the country ! Add to that our abysmal state of governance, our failing economy and our sold-out leaders...we're pretty much foOked right now !
Having said that Pakistan pulled off a successful operation in SWAT, South Warizistan and other parts of Pakistan's Tribal Areas ! And we've cleared these areas of insurgents (barring the odd one out !) and reestablished the Government's writ ! In the process we've ended up suffering immense losses to our economy, loss of life, livelihood and a place to live in for the common Pakistanis ! You know apart from hosting the biggest refugee population (Afghan Refugees) in the world (4-6million) for decades, we're now also hosting the biggest population of Internally Displaced People in Pakistan !
Additionally whenever we've tried to fight against these Taliban...they attack, they sustain losses and then melt back into the mountains, hills, ravines and gullies of Afghanistan ! This constant deployment has not only incurred huge losses for Pakistan (40,000 of our own dead including thousands of our soldier martyred !) we're also straining our already dilapidated economy to the breaking point.
So when it comes to attacking these people - the ones who attacked us in Kamra and Minhas - what do we do...? Where do we go...?
(1) Do we cross the International Border into Afghanistan and take out their sanctuaries ?
(2) Do we go into North Warizistan which is infested by about 30 different groups of Taliban (the Taliban are not a unified, monolithic body...they're a confederation of militants !) ?
(3) Or do we just continue to do what we're doing - Man the borders, respond when the threat arises based on intelligence feeds ?
Of the 3 options we can't go for option (1) for obvious reasons ! If we go for option (2) then we risk doing one of two things or if the worst comes to pass - both of them; We attack North Waziristan (and this is Pakistani territory !) and the Taliban pack up and leave for Afghanistan...what then ? Are they going to sit back and wait it out or are they going to retaliate in full-force with the same impunity that their friends from elsewhere (the other Taliban factions !) have been doing for the better part of 2-3 years ? Or conversely what happens if we attack North Waziristan and instead of targeting that one group responsible for the attacks on Pakistan (its the TTP faction of the Taliban !) we end up striking an enmity with the other 30 groups too ? Now don't get me wrong...we don't like them but they don't fight us, decapitate our soldiers, kill our civilians or do anything of the sort - they reserve that for the Americans and the ISAF forces over there ! Why invite the same treatment for ourselves when we know that we're already stretched thin and out of finances to prolong this conflict to begin with ! What happens if the Afghan Taliban decide that the State of Pakistan too is the enemy and that the Pakistan Army needs to be fought ? We'd have every bloody faction of the Taliban breathing down on our necks ! So its not as if we like them but why stir up a hornet's nest when you know that its suicidal !
You see our predicament ? So for now we're sticking to option (3) - Try to stop as much of their intrusion into Pakistan by manning the borders, try to take out as many of them who'd attack our people and our soldiers, try to nip their attacks in the bud as soon as we have the intelligence information and to try to root out as many of the TTP as we can from areas we know that we can clear them from (Swat, Bajaur, Mohmand, Khurram, South Warizistan and a few others !) !
We're just trying to make the best of a pretty bad situation here !
