Where is the crack down on the terrorist in Pakistan

Max Boot:

General Pervez Musharraf justifies his imposition of martial law—he prefers to call it a “state of emergency,” which makes him sound like one of the sinister characters from a Costa-Gavras movie—by citing the increase in terrorist attacks across his country. There has indeed been growing militancy by extremist Islamic groups, which serves as a severe indictment of Musharraf’s eight years in power.

And yet he is using his “emergency” powers not to crack down on Islamic terrorists, but on peaceful civil society activists. As this Washington Post dispatch from Lahore notes:

Over the weekend . . . an estimated 70 community leaders were arrested here during a cookies-and-tea meeting of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Those detained included a college dean, a well-known poet, an economics professor, and a board member of the International Crisis Group.

Through such actions, Musharraf is undermining the anti-terrorist coalition that should include the vast majority of Pakistan’s people and its leading political parties. He is also casting the United States into ever deeper obloquy because the Bush administration has provided such unstinting and uncritical support of his misrule. The administration should now make clear, by holding back further aid to Pakistan if necessary, that its support for democracy is more than rhetorical.

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Indeed Bill Roggio reports:

President Pervez Musharraf's state of emergency five days ago has done little to curb the Taliban's march in the Northwest Frontier Province. As the security forces continue to arrest opposition leader and work to curb protests in the major cities, The Taliban have taken control of two more major towns in the settled district of Swat, while attacks continue elsewhere in the Northwest Frontier Province.

On November 6, the Taliban overran police stations in and around the town of Matta in Swat. "About two dozen police officers and several troops offered no resistance to militants who seized three police stations and a military post," the Associated Press reported.

The police and soldiers abandoned their posts and handed over their weapons to the Taliban. The Taliban fighter in Matta raised the white Taliban standard over the police stations and military outpost.

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This does not sound like the soldiers are cracking down on the Taliban. I have seen other posts indicating that Pakistan has actually turned terrorist loose in exchange for some of their captured soldiers. What I have not seen is any reports of crack downs on terrorist.

Hugh Hewitt interviews Laurence Wright who offers some keen insight into what is really happening in Pakistan. I think he is pretty close to the mark.

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HH: Do you think that Musharraf and his closest aides are genuinely committed to the war against the jihadists? Or are they doing the minimum they can do to maintain relations with the United States?

LW: I think that’s the case. And you know, my feeling…I was there in Peshawar, which is where al Qaeda was born in 1988. I was there in 2004, and there was firefight outside the city in the tribal areas, which are right adjacent to that region. And the information came out that they had just caught the son of Ayman al Zawahiri, who is the number two man in al Qaeda. And they said they had caught Ahmed al Zawahiri. And I thought well, that’s strange, Zawahiri doesn’t have a son named Ahmed. And then the next day, there was a banner headline, you know, Ahmed is talking. And then the next day, nothing at all, because there was no Ahmed. It was like changing the shop windows. Every year, we put on a show about how we’re going to round them up, and then really, for the last four years, we’ve got nothing to show for our efforts for countering al Qaeda in Pakistan.

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He does not think it would be much better under Bhutto. The interview is worth reading in full. Hugh Hewitt does his usual good job of bringing out the knowledge and intellect of his guest.

The Times say that Pakistan's soldiers are in fact surrendering to the Taliban in the Swat Valley area where 2,000 were sent.

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The surrender, in the scenic Swat Valley, was deeply symbolic at a time when President Musharraf is pleading for continued Western support as a key regional ally.

General Musharraf argued last week that he was imposing martial law to help the fight against extremists. Yesterday’s cave-in illustrated the limits of Pakistan’s efforts to combat the spread of militancy. And the unwillingness of those in uniform to fight allies of al-Qaeda in northern Pakistan contrasted with the brutal repression by the security forces of lawyers on the streets of the capital.

“The security forces and intelligence agencies are fighting the people instead of the militants,” Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister, said yesterday.

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The "crackdown" certainly has not enhanced the army's effectiveness against the Taliban.