Pakistan squeezes the balloon

ARTICLE: Pakistani troops capture militant stronghold, AP, Oct. 26, 2008

Either way you spray, the roaches will shift to the other side of the border, meaning--eventually--somebody commits to the full kill of the unredeemables and the co-optation of the locals you've got to live with.

(Thanks: Jeff Jennings)

Comments

[Louis Heberlein]

Key goal. Draw roaches to go where and when it is most suitable for the Clarke guy and customers, and perhaps to take the poison bait back to main nests.

[arclight]

I just finished Winston Churchill's "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" which almost exactly parallels the current situation in Pakistan down to the particular tribes and valleys. It's a short read, fraught with talk of Empire, but has a very interesting political analysis. The book is available free from Project Gutenberg; I got it from manybooks.net in Amazon Kindle format (again, free; linked above.)

It reminds me of Twain's line "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."