Pakistani Villagers Strike Back

"Villagers are rising up against the Taliban in a remote corner of northern Pakistan, a grassroots rebellion that underscores the shift in the public mood against the militants and a growing confidence to confront them." This report from Sarina Tavernise and Ifan Ashraft on the ground in the region for the New York Times underscores an essential principle in the volatile region and in the effort to defeat Islamic militants in general: the only real way to accomplish it is through the cooperation and support of the indigenous people themselves.

Events in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan have shown that foreign firepower coming in and indiscriminately blasting insurgent and innocent alike has won neither hearts and minds nor lasting military results. In Iraq it was not the "surge" but the "Sunni Awakening" and "Sons of Iraq" groups turning on the extremists out of revulsion against their outrageous behavior that pacified places like Fallujah, Ramadi and Tikrit.

So it is now in Taliban-controlled areas of Pakistan. "These people, six months back, were not willing to share anything," said a military official. "Gradually they've been coming out more and more into the open." Why? In the words of a local man, "It was not Shariah, it was something else. It was scoundrel behavior." Draconian "justice" and most recently, the suicide bombing of a mosque that killed thirty people, have been the last straws that have turned the populace around. Jmail Roghdani commented, "This has made the people violent." The ranks of local militia has grown to over 1,000, and they have driven the local Taliban out of town and reportedly encircled them in an area called Gazigeh.

One of my own students has family in Pakistan. She recently returned from a trip there. At one point she saw a group of men chanting prayers by the side of the road. "I was asking my cousins if there was going to be a bomb blast. Everyone shrugged it off. Not even five minutes later, I saw ambulances going by and our phones ringing. Turns out someone blew up the area where we were eating. After that I was ready to go home." For the people who live there, that is not an option. There comes a point where they are pushed to resistance against fanatic and murderous thugs on their own. Before that point is reached, when groups like the Taliban can pose as domestic patriots against foreigners, they can gain popular support, or at least acquiescence. But once they have and begin misusing authority they lose the people and nothing can save them.

This is a fight for the Pakistani Army and people. The more directly the United States is involved the worse it will be for us. One would think we'd learn after all these years.