This is the new sound, just like the old sound, just like the noose round, over open ground

Pakistan army chief says tide turned in Swat
Pakistan's army had "turned the tide" against Taliban fighters and aimed to completely eradicate them from the Swat valley, the army chief said, ahead of a meeting with US special envoy Richard Holbrooke on Friday. On Thursday, hours after President Barack Obama's point man for Afghanistan and Pakistan visited Mardan district to see camps set up for some of the 2.5 million people who fled the conflict zone, militants shot dead five police and a soldier after first targetting a convoy with a roadside bomb. Pakistan launched an offensive to expel Taliban militants from Swat last month in a move welcomed by Western allies worried that the nuclear-armed country was sliding into chaos.

Oh you’ve won? Really? Because my reading of the situation is exactly what always happens in the Swat Valley, the Military move in, the extremists move into the mountains and restart their guerilla war against the military. Seeing as this humanitarian catastrophe that has seen millions displaced and the damage done to civilian infrastructure run into a Billion dollars has all been done at the behest of America, it is America’s responsibility to stump up the entire Billion and make sure the rebuilding of Mingora is done because if none of that rebuilding is done, all this military action will have succeeded in doing is causing the next generation of radicalized militants righteously furious at their displacement, ie the military action will end up causing more harm than it ‘solved’.

Obama needs to walk the walk as well as talk the talk because if demanding humanitarian crises via military intervention that they then don’t bother to clean up afterwards is the ‘new America’, I’ve got news for him, it’s the same old bullshit blowback America with a friendly new smile, that ain’t change.