Chowrangi

As the Frontier Constabulary is fiercely engaged in a severe battle with the local Talibans of Swat, and FC is shelling at the hideouts of PPP in the mountains near Matta, there are new threats emerging at the bordering areas of North Waziristan and there is yet another buildup of forces there.

This war on terror has become multi-dimensional and the blame game has become serious, and at one side Afghanistan, United States and India are trying their hard to implicate ISI in the bombings in Kabul and they are accusing Pakistani agency to have heavy involvement in supporting the Haqqani Network.

According to the media reports, in Afghanistan since 2001, more than $170 b has been spent on military presence and operations and more than $25 billion on economic uplift programmes. More than one hundred thousand civilians have perished in fighting, including those who were killed in the bombing in the wake of the removal of the Taliban government. Thousands of Afghan security forces have been killed; hundreds of coalition forces have also been killed or wounded. Opium production, down to 45 tons in 2001, has soared to 8,000 tons.

Only if that amount had been spent on the ROZs in tribal areas, there is every likelihood that there would be no war at all in that area nowadays.

Other posts by Commoner

• Rare Chink in FATA - August 28th, 2008
• Presidential Campaigns Pick Momentum - August 28th, 2008
• Just Brought About Change - August 27th, 2008
• Speck of Hope - August 27th, 2008
• Daggers Drawn - August 27th, 2008
• More Load Shedding - August 27th, 2008
• Whose Writ is This - August 26th, 2008
• So They Parted - August 26th, 2008
• New Alignments - August 24th, 2008
• Vindicated Operartion in Swat - August 24th, 2008