On Wednesday in Pakistan militants carried out an attack in the eastern city of Lahore killed 30 and injured more than 200 people. This is the third attack carried out in Lahore in recent months, however it was the first attack in the eastern city since the Pakistani army began their offensive earlier this month in the Swat Valley.

The 3 men arrested for the attack are said to have ties to the Taliban, however local analysts say that the men could be connected to one of many splintered militant groups in the East of Pakistan.

This is a familiar scenario for those who have followed US foreign policy over the last several years. A US funded and supported government forced to wage a war within its own borders, among its own people. Then militant forces attack the government for complying with the US forces and planners in Washington.

The attack was likely in retaliation for the military campaign launched by the Pakistani government against a ragtag band of militants in the Swat Valley.

One of the places we have seen a similar situation in the last several years was in Iraq. The similarities are that in Iraq the Shiite US backed government suffered destabilization of their country by Sunni rebel forces.

These are by no means identical situations; Pakistan’s government is in decline, while Iraq’s government was retooling post collapse. The Sunni fighters in Iraq were a mix of foreign fighters and men already embedded in the communities in Iraq. By all accounts the Taliban moved into the Swat valley.

However, what is important is the underlying similarity of the theme of rebel fighters retaliating against a puppet government supported by US and Western money, arms and soldiers.

It is not difficult to make the case that the expansion of the war was initiated by US and Western forces, by way of predator drone bombings in Pakistani territory, which led to the Taliban fleeing the Tribal area, which lead to the US to pressure the government in Islamabad to launch the offensive in the Swat Valley. Follow that? And that is all just in the last several months of the war.
Now that the war is more than 7 years old, it has become easier for the Pentagon and the White House to frame defensive maneuvers on the part of the Taliban fighters as offensive maneuvers on the part of the militants, while these same planners in Washington justify the collateral killing of civilians through 9/11 rhetoric.

The places the Taliban was using a retreats are being turned into war zones, therefore the violence is escalating.
The Pakistani government was happy to have the Taliban quietly inhabiting the northwest lands of their country. But because of US pressure they had no choice but to act against the Taliban forces.

The target of the most recent attack was a police station and offices of the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence agency. The ISI is being used to collect intelligence to kill Taliban militants.

That is a clear indication that the militants are growing more and more bold and unlike the Pakistani government, they are not fearful of taking the fighting into the cities of Pakistan..

Meanwhile back in the Swat Valley the Pakistani government’s offensive continues against the militants. On Wednesday the fighting ended in the Swat Valley’s largest city, Mingora, where the Pakistani army claims to have killed 258 Taliban fighters and reclaimed the city.

Its important at times to step back and once again ask fundamental questions, such as “why was this region destabilized in the first place?”
When one realizes that the answer was to destroy Taliban training camps and capture or kill Bin laden, we begin to realize just how far down the rabbit hole the motivations for this war have disappeared, with the originators bowing out of the scene one by one.