Taliban advance in Pakistan

It would appear that a few hundred Taliban have just taken control of a "strategically important district" just seventy miles from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.(1) Certainly, something to worry about and all the more so when the "hype" man's side kick, Hillary Rodman Clinton, says to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that "the deterioration of security in nuclear-armed Pakistan “poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.” and that while “we spend a lot of time worrying about Iran — Pakistan already has them. And they are widely dispersed in the country.”(2) The "Iran" and the "them" in that first sentence are, of course, anaphoric reference to that little worrying matter, "nuclear weapons". You see the problem is the Pakistani government can now only control about a third of the artificial creation that is Pakistan, that veritable British fuck-up and one that was held together only by force. Now it would appear that the force is crumbling and there we have them, our pious Pashtun from "this" side of the 'Durand Line' seizing towns some sixty miles from Islamabad and if we want an inkling of their exact plans for Pakistan we don't have to look across the border to Afghansitan but direct our eyes on the Swat valley, which the Pakistani goverment has long given up control of and where "government officials take orders from Taliban commanders; the regular police uniform has given way to the shalwar kameez — loose trousers and long shirt; notices posted at barbers’ shops warn against shaving; women are not allowed to shop alone and public punishments and beatings are common."(3)
A right "little" mess the incursion into Afghanistan and eight years down the road it is looking increasingly as if Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's President, will be taking on a role not unlike that of his Afghani counterpart, the man with the nice shawls, Hamid Karzai, namely, bunkering himself up in the capital city. Of course, with Pakistan we also have that "little" issue of the nuclear weapons. However, not to worry, "Uncle Sam" has reacted and not only has the "hype" man increased the war effort in the area we have the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates saying, “My hope is that there will be an increasing recognition on the part of the Pakistani government that the Taliban in Pakistan are in fact an existential threat to the democratic government of that country,” Mr. Gates said. “I think that some of the leaders certainly understand that. But it is important that they not only recognize it, but take the appropriate actions to deal with it.”(4) Anyway, it is more or less official, and Georgie boys "little" 'War on Terror' in the Hindikush has spread to Pakistan and, of course, everyone is to blame except the idiots who started it all in the first place and Hillary the evidence would seem to suggest that that mortal threat to the security a the world you are referring to comes from your country.
1 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/asia/24pstan.html?_r=1&hp
2 Ibid
3 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6150376.ece
4 ibd see 1, 2
The picture shows our pious Pashtu pilgrims in Dagger the main town in Pakistan's Bruner district.