Appeasement sometimes doesn't work

The Pakistan government essentially bought its peace with the Taliban by ceding their administrative province of SWAT to the Talibani. The math escapes The Doser but the area involved appears to be about the same as if Canada had taken over Ohio to Maine. More recently, they worked out a deal for granting a cease fire but this time had to agree to impose Islaami law in order to purchase "peace for our time,*" as it could, reminiscently, have been termed. Pakistan has not appeared to have the heart to defend its own territory. The US wants Pakistan to run the Talibani back across the border into Afghanistan. (As though we didn't have enough trouble there with the Talibani already.) The Doser thinks we ought to take several careful looks at our involvement in that area. Is the control of that part of the world valuable enough to take on the Jihadists virtually single-handedly for it? The Oregonian today published the pictures of some of the 2600 Oregon men and women being deployed to Afghanistan. (In keeping with The O's customary inept dealing with the Web, one will have to wait until tomorrow to see the pictures at Oregonlive.com)



* As some remember: "The phrase 'peace for our time' was spoken on 30 September 1938 by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, in his speech concerning the Munich Agreement....... The Munich Agreement gave the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler in an attempt to satisfy his desire for ..... 'living space' for Germany. The German occupation of the Sudetenland began on the next day, 1 October. One year after the agreement, following continued aggression from Germany and its invasion of Poland, Europe was plunged into World War II." (Wikipedia)