Thread: Taliban advance on Islamabad

Originally Posted by ramananda

Duh: 'The hill tribes seem to be driving out the Indian muslims.' Since when have "Indian Muslims" started living in Pakistan?

I think he meant the ones living there since Partition. Not today's Indian Muslims.

Having watched a few doco's on just the sort of brutality dished out by the tribal area's, I've considered it not a bit better than the spanish inquisition. Akin to uprisings of the sort in Laos / Cambodia akin as in, where we do very little and the killings continue until it somewhat climax's...

After numerous debates on what is and what isn't a failed state, I think it is clear that if a central government can't even enforce it's own law and makes a deal for alternative law in various (and maybe an increasingly amount of) provinces, that Pakistan is actually MAKING itself a failed state, as it recognises areas defined as Pakistan, even areas that were controlled by it at some stage as now being autonomous under what effectively amounts to a seperate form of government, and does nothing when it's own policemen are executed for trying to uphold its law.

The Irony (and it seems like Pakistan is full of really idiot ironies and double standards) is that it is a nuclear armed state, with a large army, that has spent most of it's time chest thumping on the Indian/Pakistani border, instead of getting thier own house in order. The pathetic fighting over Kashmir is a prime example. Pakistan has lost such a huge swathe of it's land, it makes Kashmir look like childs play.

The only thing that matters to Pakistani's seems to be thier ego's. Churchill wrote as such when he visited the Northwest Territories when he was a journo. One thing really stuck with me about those writings is was a story of a tribal area claim, where two men would face off against each other in very hostile terms, although one had clearly had it for years and years, the other would stand on it, claiming it as his. Taking off his shoes, they were filled with soil from his plot, & hence this was the circumvention of his religeon. He was technically 'walking on his dirt'. These antics would go on & on & on. Resulting in bitter fueds and many deaths. At that time it was the wests only insight to the area.

I don't think the Taliban would ever be able to take over the government, precisely because of the ego issue. The military wouldn't let it to happen. It may have been that those holding real power in the government, didn't have any affinity with the regeons conceded anyway, having no connections to the people in those regeons, thus found it acceptable. It makes me think of the Mumbai terror attacks. Everyone knew they were Pakistani's, and Islamabad was denying it because of the political fall out. Thier foreign minister says the evidence points to thier Pakistani origin, and he gets dismissed, by Benzair Bhutto's Husband, who is the PM. The new foreign minister comes in and says 'If India wants a war over this we will give them one, we don't want to, but we will give them one' ANYTHING but be very remourseful about what happened, ANYTHING but being fully co-operative to apprehending suspects, FULL of animosity. Only willing to start co-operating when the west's intelligence agencies put pressure on them and said 'look, these guys, they are from Pakistan, we know they are', stop postulating - They were actually willing to talk about war before talking about finding those responsible for the tradgedy.

Ego seems to matter to Pakistani's, still caught up in a religeous upheaval half a century ago, with a country which poses no threat to them. Maybe it will be a wake up call, or maybe Bhutto's other half is looking to save face to maintain his ego...

Originally Posted by Hitman817

I think Pakistan just needs more financial support from the western nations.

I think we should get a refund for all the money we dumped into Pakistan over the last decade.