Pakistani President: ' the step we have taken will not be withdrawn '

Pakistan's President, Asif Ali Zardari, has pledged that the military operation taken by the Pakistani military in the Swat Valley will NOT be withdrawn. In other words, he is saying that like EVERY OTHER TIME, there will be no wimping out and letting the Taliban off the hook. We'll see, I guess. Here's some of the details from the Pakistani President's speech here in America from the article at Dawn:

In his address to the Pakistani community in Washington on Friday night, the president urged the militants not to fight the Pakistani military and lay down their arms.
‘This is my pledge to you, the step we have taken will not be withdrawn,’ said the president when a member of the audience urged him not to recall the army from Swat until the militants were defeated.
The president said he delayed a military action in Swat because it was a difficult decision to make.
‘It is easy for an army to fight the enemy in another country, but to launch a military offensive inside your own country is not easy,’ he said. ‘But we accepted this challenge.’

You know, this all sounds fairly good and proper but one has to challenge the Pakistani President about this whole idea of launching an offensive inside of Pakistan is suspect. It has been documented, the number of foreign fighters that have swarmed into Pakistan - whether it is the Taliban fighters from the north or the Arab elements of al Qaeda and yet he is saying that they dragged their feet on launching an offensive because it was inside of Pakistan? Well, the questions begs: Why did you allow the influx INTO your country, sir, in the first place? And second, if you have enemies killing people inside of your country, why the hesitation?

I'm not convinced that this guy will not stop the offensive at the very first sign of a surrender/peace offering by the Taliban and we all know that you can't trust the Taliban as far as you can throw their scrawny bodies. I've said it before - Pakistan has one chance of getting out of this and that is driving the Taliban out of Swat completely and then systematically pushing through all of the NW Provinces and doing the same thing. If they claim some sort of victory in Swat and pull back, they will be back in there in less than 3 months.

No turning back on Swat offensive, says president

WASHINGTON: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the operation against the militants in Swat will continue and he will not withdraw the step he has taken.
In his address to the Pakistani community in Washington on Friday night, the president urged the militants not to fight the Pakistani military and lay down their arms.
‘This is my pledge to you, the step we have taken will not be withdrawn,’ said the president when a member of the audience urged him not to recall the army from Swat until the militants were defeated.
The president said he delayed a military action in Swat because it was a difficult decision to make.
‘It is easy for an army to fight the enemy in another country, but to launch a military offensive inside your own country is not easy,’ he said. ‘But we accepted this challenge.’
The government, he said, went to Parliament and got ‘political ownership’ for its strategy to combat the militants.
Before ordering the offensive, the government engaged the militants because it was seeking a peaceful end to this crisis, he added, but the militants mistook it for a sign of weakness.
‘They rejected our peace gesture and challenged the government, we accepted their challenge,’ Mr Zardari said.
‘We told them, if you want to harm Pakistan, you are not Pakistanis and we will fight you. We will fight to protect Pakistan. We will fight to protect our coming generations.’
The president said that those who took up arms against Pakistan were not Pakistanis either. ‘I urge my misguided friends not to harm Pakistan. We will not let you do so.’
The president said that those who want Pakistan to fight a superpower were also misguided. ‘We do not want to fight anyone because we have no differences with the international community.’
The president also said that the government was taking some difficult measures to pull the country out of the current economic crisis. ‘These measures are painful but we have to take them,’ he said.
Mr Zardari said the government had made a comprehensive plan to deal with the power shortage and the people will soon see the results of this plan,
The president said that the PPP stood for Pakistan when everybody after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination when everybody thought it would not so, but the party workers proved them wrong.
Mr. Zardari said that while Pakistan had close relations with China; his government wanted good relations with India as well and he was taking steps to achieve this target.
Both India and China, he said, were major markets and Pakistan wanted to enter those markets and benefit from their prosperity.
Earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmud Qureshi told the audience that the government was following a balanced foreign policy, seeking good relations with all major world powers and with the neighboring states.
The minister said that the trilateral talks held in Washington this week led to a comprehensive strategy which will enable the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan to defeat the militants.
The foreign minister said that several important decisions were taking during these talks:
Afghanistan and Pakistan signed an MOU for opening a transit route which will encourage trade between South and Central Asia. They also reaffirmed an understanding with the World Bank for electricity trade between the two regions.
The US Congress introduced a bill to provide $1.5 billion of annual aid to Pakistan. The US gave five helicopters to Pakistan and also released payments for the held-up military bills. Important decisions were taken to promote agriculture and for water-management.