Ballsy if true, wonder what the leftists on the blogosphere would think of that! :lol:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6168940.ece
QuoteApril 26, 2009
'Stop the Taliban now – or we will'
The US got tough with Pakistan as terrorists moved to within 60 miles of the capital
Christina Lamb in Washington and Daud Khattak in Buner
AMERICA made clear last week that it would attack Taliban forces in their Swat valley stronghold unless the Pakistan government stopped the militants' advance towards Islamabad.
A senior Pakistani official said the Obama administration intervened after Taliban forces expanded from Swat into the adjacent district of Buner, 60 miles from the capital.
The Pakistani Taliban's inroads raised international concern, particularly in Washington, where officials feared that the nuclear-armed country, which is pivotal to the US war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Al-Qaeda, was rapidly succumbing to Islamist extremists.
"The implicit threat - if you don't do it, we may have to - was always there," said the Pakistani official. He said that under American pressure, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency told the Taliban to withdraw from Buner on Friday.
However, reports yesterday indicated that the Taliban withdrawal was less than total. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people in the district were still at the mercy of armed militants and their restrictive interpretation of Islamic law.
American military and intelligence forces already run limited ground and air operations on Pakistani soil along the border with Afghanistan. But an overt military operation such as that threatened in Swat, away from the border, would mark a major escalation.
The official said last week's outspoken remarks by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, were "calculated to ramp up the pressure on Pakistan" to take action. Clinton warned that the terrorists' advance had created a "mortal threat" to world security.
She was one of several American political and military leaders to use unusually strong language about Pakistan's failure to curb the Taliban. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who visited Pakistan, said he was "extremely concerned" about the developments and that the situation was "definitely worse" than two weeks ago.
General David Petraeus, of US Central Command, which oversees Afghanistan - to which America is about to commit 17,000 more troops - said Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan posed an "ever more serious threat to Pakistan's very existence".
These remarks have stung Pakistan. Husain Haqqani, the ambassador to Washington, accused the Obama administration of making it harder for his country to fight the Taliban.
"The US needs to relate its comments to the ground realities in Pakistan instead of the mood in Washington," he said. "Most Pakistanis are not supportive of the Taliban way of life, but at the same time widespread anti-Americanism confuses many Pakistanis into having a conflicting view.
"We want to turn that view around but the US and its leaders must help us to do that."
The latest crisis stems from a controversial ceasefire the government signed in February to end months of vicious fighting between the Taliban and the army in Swat that caused significant loss of life and an exodus from what had once been a tourist centre. Some 500,000 now live outside Swat, a third of them in camps that used to shelter refugees from the fighting in Afghanistan.
In return for the imposition of sharia [Islamic law] in Swat, the Taliban agreed to disengage, disarm and stop menacing people. But it was from Swat last week that their fighters overran Buner with about 500 well-armed men under a hardline commander, Maulvi Khalil.
As in Swat, once his forces had established themselves, Khalil began to impose the movement's repressive rules on what had once been a peaceful valley. He ordered girls over seven to wear veils and directed men to keep their women inside and to grow beards. He banned music. In several villages the Taliban were snatching mobile phones on the pretext that they had musical ring tones or photos of women on them.
The Taliban stole livestock, took vehicles belonging to government officials and ransacked the offices of some local nongovernment organisations. In a phone call, Khalil denied the Taliban were terrorists. He said: "We've raised the arms to spread the message of Allah. This is the responsibility of each and every Muslim." But residents fear it is just a matter of time before their daughters are forced to marry Taliban commanders, a process that has begun already in Swat, along with public floggings.
On Friday, in a much publicised agreement with the government, Khalil agreed to withdraw. Local residents said the withdrawal was incomplete. He had left men behind to supplement local armed Taliban groups and newly recruited sympathisers.
"There is a collective holding of breath," said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International's Asia director, from Islamabad. "The Taliban edicts are still in force and the dismantling of the civilian infrastructure is still very much in effect, so a lot of doctors, midwives, civil servants have left and people are hunkering down because they fear an army operation."
The government sent a few hundred paramilitaries to Buner last week but they kepta low profile. It has not sent any troops. The Americans want the government to shift troops from the India-Pakistan border to meet the Taliban threat, but frightened residents of Buner fear an army operation would cause civilian casualties.
Isn't Iraq and Afghanistan enough? Just leave them alone and they will leave us alone. Just give peace a chance.
See the thing that I find worrying about that article is that the ISI is able to tell them to withdraw and, more or less, they do. The seniority, trust and level of contacts between the two must, surely, be high for that to be happening?
Although as I've said elsewhere I have no useful thoughts or suggestions as to what would be the best policy. All I can think is that it's time to refer to a PakAf strategy rather than an AfPak :mellow:
Atleast, that's a good reason unlike the Iraq operations.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 25, 2009, 05:19:41 PM
See the thing that I find worrying about that article is that the ISI is able to tell them to withdraw and, more or less, they do. The seniority, trust and level of contacts between the two must, surely, be high for that to be happening?
Apparently they really haven't though, an army convoy was turned back by the Taliban today.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkiMxbHNH0BqgpWA2ZG6VD6wVTmAD97PJIVG3
I don't think anyone reported that they had withdrawn from Swat. The ISI asked them to withdraw from Buner which is the neighbouring province that's only 60 miles from Islamabad. That article only says that around 100 of 1000 Taliban forces (I don't know what that means) hadn't withdrawn and that their success had led to more bold local militants.
Quote from: Grey Fox on April 25, 2009, 05:20:06 PM
Atleast, that's a good reason unlike the Iraq operations.
The whole world will help us out, let's go. :)
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 25, 2009, 05:28:36 PM
Quote from: Grey Fox on April 25, 2009, 05:20:06 PM
Atleast, that's a good reason unlike the Iraq operations.
The whole world will help us out, let's go. :)
:lol:
I am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.
Quote from: Tamas on April 25, 2009, 05:35:44 PMI am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.
I doubt if even that's possible.
Quote from: Tamas on April 25, 2009, 05:35:44 PM
I am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.
A pity there's no way we can get India onboard.
Quote from: Faeelin on April 25, 2009, 05:41:51 PM
Quote from: Tamas on April 25, 2009, 05:35:44 PM
I am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.
A pity there's no way we can get India onboard.
"We" have been trying to get India NOT to start a war since the Bombay terrorist attack.
Quote from: Viking on April 25, 2009, 05:49:16 PM
"We" have been trying to get India NOT to start a war since the Bombay terrorist attack.
Pff. If the US intervenes, it's inevitable it'll be a master clusterfuck leading to the collapse and Talibanization of Pakistan. That being so, why not let India go to town?
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 25, 2009, 05:41:36 PM
Quote from: Tamas on April 25, 2009, 05:35:44 PMI am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.
I doubt if even that's possible.
The Andorians will join the coalition:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.multileggedcreature.info%2FTrekker%2Fimages%2Ftn_babel_andorian.jpg&hash=4f79489d6ba3e4ab2b91173bb9c3e5f9a1d7f8ee)
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 25, 2009, 05:19:41 PM
Although as I've said elsewhere I have no useful thoughts or suggestions as to what would be the best policy. All I can think is that it's time to refer to a PakAf strategy rather than an AfPak :mellow:
Cut the Gordian Knot; have India give some concessions on Kashmir in exchange for improvement in relations and stability in Pakistan, relieving the ISI of the excuse for its excessive existence, have the Pakistani army moved to where it could actually do some good.
The best solution would be partitioning Afghanistan and Pakistan between India, Iran and an independent Baluchistan and Pashtunistan. That's impossible right now, and would only be possible after a fantastically destructive India-Pakistan or Pakistan civil war.
Quote from: Queequeg on April 25, 2009, 08:32:37 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 25, 2009, 05:19:41 PM
Although as I've said elsewhere I have no useful thoughts or suggestions as to what would be the best policy. All I can think is that it's time to refer to a PakAf strategy rather than an AfPak :mellow:
Cut the Gordian Knot; have India give some concessions on Kashmir in exchange for improvement in relations and stability in Pakistan, relieving the ISI of the excuse for its excessive existence, have the Pakistani army moved to where it could actually do some good.
and how would that look to ISI? It would look like their strategy of using barbarians works, and they'll be emboldened to do it again.
Holy Shit! :o
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/25/peter-goodspeed-taliban-noose-tightens-on-pakistan.aspx
QuoteThe Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are now established in a district that straddles two crucial targets.
Just 50 km southeast of Buner lies the Tarbela Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It provides central Pakistan with most of its electricity and the country's farmers with most of their water.
Thirty km further on is the Wah Cantonment, an army ordinance complex that produces almost all Pakistan's weapons and military supplies – including nuclear weapons – in 14 massive factories employing up to 40,000 people.
According to some reports, Wah is the chief storage and maintenance site for Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. It may also house a uranium enrichment plant built in the 1990s with assistance from China.
I'm sure the Vast Moderate Muslim Conspiracy will prevent any nuttery from happening.
Quote from: The Brain on April 26, 2009, 08:40:34 AM
I'm sure the Vast Moderate Muslim Conspiracy will prevent any nuttery from happening.
:yes: They always do.
Quote from: citizen k on April 25, 2009, 07:56:43 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 25, 2009, 05:41:36 PM
Quote from: Tamas on April 25, 2009, 05:35:44 PMI am pretty sure the original Iraq coalition of 2003 can be recreated and thus feature such military powerhouses as Hungary, Trinidad and Tobago and Andorra.
I doubt if even that's possible.
The Andorians will join the coalition:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.multileggedcreature.info%2FTrekker%2Fimages%2Ftn_babel_andorian.jpg&hash=4f79489d6ba3e4ab2b91173bb9c3e5f9a1d7f8ee)
Hehe...
How could the US lose, with such advanced allies?
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 26, 2009, 08:17:18 AM
Holy Shit! :o
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/25/peter-goodspeed-taliban-noose-tightens-on-pakistan.aspx
QuoteThe Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are now established in a district that straddles two crucial targets.
Just 50 km southeast of Buner lies the Tarbela Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It provides central Pakistan with most of its electricity and the country's farmers with most of their water.
Thirty km further on is the Wah Cantonment, an army ordinance complex that produces almost all Pakistan's weapons and military supplies – including nuclear weapons – in 14 massive factories employing up to 40,000 people.
According to some reports, Wah is the chief storage and maintenance site for Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. It may also house a uranium enrichment plant built in the 1990s with assistance from China.
It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.
QuoteBallsy if true, wonder what the leftists on the blogosphere would think of that! :lol:
:unsure:
The left is quite agreed on the taliban being a bad thing (tm)
Quote from: Tamas on April 26, 2009, 09:16:14 AM
It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.
Only the most extreme pinko peaceniks believe the Taliban can be dealt with in any non-military fashion.
The plus side is that Pakistan has been almost as much of a pushover with respect to the US as it has been to the Taliban, so talking them into allowing military action to protect the supply pipeline shouldn't be too difficult.
Quote from: Tamas on April 26, 2009, 09:16:14 AM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 26, 2009, 08:17:18 AM
Holy Shit! :o
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/25/peter-goodspeed-taliban-noose-tightens-on-pakistan.aspx
QuoteThe Taliban, backed by al-Qaeda, are now established in a district that straddles two crucial targets.
Just 50 km southeast of Buner lies the Tarbela Dam, the largest earth-filled dam in the world. It provides central Pakistan with most of its electricity and the country's farmers with most of their water.
Thirty km further on is the Wah Cantonment, an army ordinance complex that produces almost all Pakistan's weapons and military supplies – including nuclear weapons – in 14 massive factories employing up to 40,000 people.
According to some reports, Wah is the chief storage and maintenance site for Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal. It may also house a uranium enrichment plant built in the 1990s with assistance from China.
It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.
That's because major intervention in Pakistan can easily escalate into a full fledged war, not the relatively bloodless police action in Iraq. I'm talking a Vietnam scale bloodbath or worse.
Quote from: Tyr on April 26, 2009, 09:16:51 AM
QuoteBallsy if true, wonder what the leftists on the blogosphere would think of that! :lol:
:unsure:
The left is quite agreed on the taliban being a bad thing (tm)
And the left is also quite agreed that nothing should be done about it.
Quote from: Tamas on April 26, 2009, 09:16:14 AM
It's just too funny, that the one time the US shy away from military action, giving leeway to pinko peacenicks, is the time the whacko islamists grab themselves a nuke storage and a tool to keep an entire country hostage.
It depends what you mean by the US and military action. Most military action in Pakistan was meant to be carried out by Pakistan, they are an ally after all. Unfortunately the Pakistani military and intelligence services are rather linked to the Taliban, through their own Islamisation and also through their attempts to use them to control Afghanistan (the Iranians were similarly chummy with the Northern Alliance).
Also the US has been using some military force within Pakistan for at least 6-9 months, though not in the troops on the ground way.
The single greatest success of the US in Iraq was getting major tribal leaders and landowners to turn on al-Qaeda in Iraq and form their own militias that helped guarantee a sort of security there. The problem with Pakistan is that the Taliban aren't al-Qaeda. These aren't foreigners stirring up discontent, they are locals using the unpopularity of major tribal leaders and landowners to help their own cause.
I think the best hope would be if we could peel off from the Taliban those who are, effectively, Pushtun nationalists and who aren't keen on the whole 'exporting the revolution' mentality. I don't think we can get the tribes on side in the way we did in Iraq because, unlike in Iraq, the tribal leaders are part of the problem (they're unpopular feudal lords). If we could co-opt the sort-of bread-and-butter Taliban that would be useful. But I've no idea how possible it is.
This is also a wider threat because Pakistan's political parties are basically tied in to the feudal land-owning system, as Benazir Bhutto and her husband's success demonstrate. The old strategy of supporting a Colonel to stabilise the country strikes me as unlikely to work because the army and the intelligence services need confronting and it's not clear to me how someone whose popularity stems from the army and intelligence services could do that. At the same time we've got Zadari who's hugely corrupt and probably lacks the ability to effective confront the army or take on the Taliban while the main opposition party led by Sharif utterly lacks the will to do it.
Wouldn't the best solution be to convince India to go for reunification?
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 26, 2009, 11:17:42 AM
[snip]
Not too feasible. Even the "bread-and-butter" Taliban are intensely xenophobic.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on April 26, 2009, 11:33:22 AMNot too feasible. Even the "bread-and-butter" Taliban are intensely xenophobic.
That's exactly my point. We get the Taliban who are, in effect Pushtun nationalists, to come to our side. Basically we support land reform in Pakistan and let them do what they want in the tribal regions, while we help rebuild a Pakistani state, while encouraging them to come into the Afghan political society. We get those, who I believe can be (and probably have to be) accomodated within Afghanistan and Pakistan, to turn on those who want to turn their movement into a global revolution. I think we can separate the xenophobic, bread and butter Taliban from those who are al-Qaeda supporting Islamic Trotskyists. I think it would be similar to what happened in Iraq.
The Sunnis didn't like the Americans but they, ultimately, came to realise that the Americans didn't want a Shia dominated state and that their own tribes were being hurt by hosting al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and so on.
Quote from: Siege on April 25, 2009, 11:31:24 PM
Did you know that we almost got OBL 8 months ago?
[edited out how]
Damn, I hope this is not still OPSEC.
/I mean , come on, it was 8 months ago.
....
Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2009, 11:32:44 AM
Wouldn't the best solution be to convince India to go for reunification?
That would be like asking Spain to take charge of the mess that is Latinamerica. Why would India want to do that?
Sheilbh, how credible is this gentleman? Is the government really panicking behind the scenes?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/26/pakistan-taliban-nick-cohen
Quote
Will we need to close the door to Pakistan's dispossessed?
Our leaders are losing sleep over the Taliban's advance and what that could spell for Britain
* Nick Cohen
I would like to welcome Zahid Abdullah to Britain. He is a Pakistani student of English literature, rather than the snarling prose of the theocrats who threaten his country, and suffered the keenest blow a lover of books can take when he lost his sight. Undeterred, Abdullah divided his spare time between producing talking books for the blind and supporting the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives, a pressure group that campaigns for the classic liberal causes of human rights, freedom of information and freedom from "barbaric acts of terrorism".
He applied for a visa to visit disabled groups here and for no reason anyone can comprehend, the authorities turned him down.
The voice of Murtaza Ali Shah, London correspondent of Pakistan's Daily Jang, is incredulous when he asks how his friend could be a threat. It turns astringent when he moves on to the arrest of the Pakistani "terror suspects".
Shah was flabbergasted that politicians and the media could accuse them of planning mass murder when there was not the evidence to convict them or to bring them to court or even to charge them. That Britain will now deport the students, as if they were somehow guilty anyway, emphasises the precariousness of his own life.
To Shah, and other recent Pakistani immigrants, the arrests change the way they feel about Britain, makes them think they are becoming enemy aliens in their adopted country. The Daily Jang is a progressive paper and Shah has no time for Islamism, but he told his readers that "the scare of a terror attack is such a phenomenon in Britain that even a cracker on the street corner could go on to become headlines".
I did not have the heart to tell him that the paranoia will deepen as British politicians struggled to come to terms with a Pakistani civil war.
I do not know if the crisis is making a few of the sophisticates who used to jiggle their fingers and put postmodern quotation marks around the so-called war on terror think again. I know for a fact, however, that fear has been spreading through Whitehall ever since Pakistan paid its version of Danegeld and allowed the Taliban to tyrannise the 1.7m citizens of the Swat Valley in return for illusory promises of peace.
The government knows that the fates of Pakistan and Britain are entwined. If Hillary Clinton is proved right when she said that "by abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists" the Pakistani elite fuelled an "existential threat" to its own state, then the consequences for Britain will be extraordinary and not merely because of the effects on the Pakistani diaspora in British cities.
Most people understand that the danger of terrorist atrocities will rise as Islamists establish new training camps for jihadis from Britain and Pakistan. Politicians are as worried about waves of refugees from a civil war.
Of the figures I spoke to, only the former foreign minister Denis MacShane rejected hopelessness. As always, he was fizzing with social democratic responses to the crisis. We should end the use of "Af-Pak" to describe the war against Islamism in south Asia. Not only is it an ugly and faintly racist - would we call tensions between China and Japan "Chink-Jap?" - but it misses the true nature of a triangular conflict. The Pakistani elite is obsessed with the threat from India not Islamism. We should therefore put pressure on India to temper its hostile stance and give Pakistan the time to confront the internal menace. While we're at it, we should redirect the aid budget so it funded schools, particularly girls' schools, in Muslim countries and tackle the power bases of the religious far right in British universities so that moderate Pakistanis were not radicalised here.
On he went and I agreed with every word. Tellingly, though, he was the only senior figure who would speak on the record. Off the record, others concluded it was a little late to be building schools or making probably futile attempts to lessen Indo-Pakistani tensions.
One senior figure involved with terrorism strategy put it like this: "If Pakistan continues to descend into chaos, movement between our countries will slow extraordinarily quickly. There will be queues of tens of thousands waiting for visas. SIS [that's MI6] will stop trusting the information they get from the Pakistani intelligence services and we will not clear people for visits."
As most visitors from Pakistan are relatives seeing their families, the effect of a clampdown on everyday life for British Pakistanis would be severe, but it would be as nothing in comparison to the draconian system awaiting refugees. Without me attempting to put words in his mouth or asking a leading question, one influential figure began to muse on the possibility of closing the borders.
Women, Christians, Sufi Muslims and democrats are already fleeing the advancing Taliban. If war drives them to think of seeking asylum here, the government is considering the introduction of a discriminatory visa system to stop them reaching Heathrow. "We would have to amend the Race Relations Act and possibly opt out of the Human Rights Act if we wanted a special visa system that applied only to Pakistan but not other countries," said my source, who gave every impression he was considering doing both.
I thought it outrageous to contemplate stopping, say, a Pakistani women's rights campaigner from finding sanctuary from the most murderous misogynists on Earth and I am sure a part of him did too. I wondered what the Zahid Abdullahs and the Murtaza Ali Shahs would make of repression. He did not know the answer to that either.
All he knew was that Britain could not cope with either Swat-trained terrorists or hundreds of thousands of refugees. "Pakistan is what is keeping me awake at night," he said with a voice close to despair. He is not alone in that.
Nick Cohen's like a British Chris Hitchens. But I'd take what he's saying with a pinch of salt. He's an opinion columnist not a political journalist so I don't think he's got many sources. As a columnist he's not one that's known for having great sources in the government (like, say, Andrew Rawnsley).
It all sounds plausible though.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 26, 2009, 12:42:15 PM
Nick Cohen's like a British Chris Hitchens.
Isn't Hitchens British? :huh:
Quote from: jimmy olsen on April 26, 2009, 12:45:52 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 26, 2009, 12:42:15 PM
Nick Cohen's like a British Chris Hitchens.
Isn't Hitchens British? :huh:
Yeah. Maybe saying like a Westminster Hitchens would be better :blush:
Quote from: Iormlund on April 26, 2009, 12:20:06 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2009, 11:32:44 AM
Wouldn't the best solution be to convince India to go for reunification?
That would be like asking Spain to take charge of the mess that is Latinamerica. Why would India want to do that?
Given that Latin America isn't really much worse off than Spain, that probably wouldn't be very helpful.
Quote from: Iormlund on April 26, 2009, 12:20:06 PM
Quote from: Neil on April 26, 2009, 11:32:44 AM
Wouldn't the best solution be to convince India to go for reunification?
That would be like asking Spain to take charge of the mess that is Latinamerica. Why would India want to do that?
Because Islamic nutjobs with nuclear weapons would be an existential threat to India.
The scariest thing about it is that this flu is most dangerous to those of ages 20-40, just like the Spanish flu.
Quote from: DGuller on April 26, 2009, 01:21:07 PM
The scariest thing about it is that this flu is most dangerous to those of ages 20-40, just like the Spanish flu.
Wrong thread?
Quote from: DGuller on April 26, 2009, 01:21:07 PM
The scariest thing about it is that this flu is most dangerous to those of ages 20-40, just like the Spanish flu.
Has it come up against a real, first-rate health care system yet?
Quote from: Syt on April 26, 2009, 01:25:13 PMWrong thread?
No; "this flu" is Islamism, and the "Spanish flu" is Communism. Both strains mostly infect those in the 20-40 range.
Quote from: Syt on April 26, 2009, 01:25:13 PM
Quote from: DGuller on April 26, 2009, 01:21:07 PM
The scariest thing about it is that this flu is most dangerous to those of ages 20-40, just like the Spanish flu.
Wrong thread?
I hope confusion is not one of the symptoms. :unsure:
Quote from: Alcibiades on April 26, 2009, 12:15:52 PM
....
You didn't hear about it?
It seems that our guys in Eastern Afghanistan were too slow to react.
:bleeding: Fucking conspiracy theories.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/roundtables/whats-the-problem-with-pakistan
QuoteThere appears to be a pervasive belief in the army, among both mid-level and senior officers, that the United States and India are destabilizing FATA [Federally Administered Tribal Areas] and the rest of the country as a prelude to depriving Pakistan of its nuclear weapons. Officers who have served in FATA have told me that they face a U.S.-Indian combined offensive and that the local Taliban receive their funds from across the border. The army might inculcate such beliefs in order to motivate its soldiers, but they also connect to the military's larger worldview. For the generals, the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal is proof of an evolving Indo-U.S., or even Indo-U.S.-Israeli, strategic alliance -- not to mention American duplicity.
All muslims are devoted conspiracy-theories believers.
Its like their second religion, if I may say so.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 26, 2009, 12:11:54 PM
That's exactly my point. We get the Taliban who are, in effect Pushtun nationalists, to come to our side. Basically we support land reform in Pakistan and let them do what they want in the tribal regions, while we help rebuild a Pakistani state, while encouraging them to come into the Afghan political society. We get those, who I believe can be (and probably have to be) accomodated within Afghanistan and Pakistan, to turn on those who want to turn their movement into a global revolution. I think we can separate the xenophobic, bread and butter Taliban from those who are al-Qaeda supporting Islamic Trotskyists. I think it would be similar to what happened in Iraq.
The Sunnis didn't like the Americans but they, ultimately, came to realise that the Americans didn't want a Shia dominated state and that their own tribes were being hurt by hosting al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters and so on.
In sane terms, you're absolutely right. However, the combination of fundamentalism, extremism, and xenophobia makes them far more receptive to communication from the Afghan Taliban than to us. The Taliban's proclivity for martyrdom also makes it difficult for us to combat the Afghan sect's insurgency on an ideological basis- highlighting their own physical struggles in this world is just as apt to set them speeding on their way to the glorious afterlife, and why not take out a few infidels in the process?
Quote
You didn't hear about it?
It seems that our guys in Eastern Afghanistan were too slow to react.
Link?
Quote from: Alcibiades on April 26, 2009, 11:58:28 PM
Quote
You didn't hear about it?
It seems that our guys in Eastern Afghanistan were too slow to react.
Link?
Grapewine.
SSG Snuffy and SSG Joe Dirt, recently returned from the Afghan Front and newly assigned to a certain battalion.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 26, 2009, 11:17:42 AM
At the same time we've got Zadari who's hugely corrupt and probably lacks the ability to effective confront the army or take on the Taliban while the main opposition party led by Sharif utterly lacks the will to do it.
Sharif is another feudal magnate. His family got into politics b/c Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nationalized their steel mill and then confiscated some of their lands.
Quote from: Siege on April 26, 2009, 08:07:13 PM
All muslims are devoted conspiracy-theories believers.
Its like their second religion, if I may say so.
Yup :(
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/04/27/farrukh-rehan-denial-istan.aspx
QuoteFarrukh Rehan: Denial-istan
Posted: April 27, 2009, 11:54 AM by Marni Soupcoff
Farrukh Rehan
Every morning I roll out of bed and scan the papers on the net. Today, like most days, I find something distressing about Pakistan. As part of my new routine I call my younger brother in Lahore. The exchange is familiar to both of us: No, he wasn't near the suicide bombing/commando attack/ mammoth demonstration/drone fired missile. Yes he will be careful and will not visit fancy restaurants where he may be targeted in an attack against "Western" establishments, and yes, he agreed, he will not go to pray at mosques either, which perplexingly also seem to be a favoured target of the radical Islamic extremists who send the suicide bombers.
It is a devastating failure of state for any country when its citizens have to think twice before going to their place of worship. But the biggest failure of all is the utter inability of the leadership of Pakistan, both civilian and military, to unite the Pakistani people against this grave and imminent threat, and to explain to them what is going on, who is attacking the very core of the republic and what needs to be done to defeat this threat.
In the absence of national leadership or even basic coherence at the top, rumours and ideological punditry masquerade as reason. A television anchor insists that all the attacks are the handiwork of Indian intelligence agents. A talking head on another channel claims that the Taliban are misunderstood - all they want to do is to bring swift justice in the country. Another strategic expert assures viewers that everything happening in Pakistan is the US's fault. Drone attacks are creating anti-Americanism, and its only natural that those attacked will retaliate wherever they can. If the US were to simply stop the drone attacks on Pakistan, everything would be just fine. The fact that Pakistan was spinning out of control well before anyone had heard the term drone hamla, is left out of the conversation.
Some though, have a more sinister explanation for Pakistan's rapid descent into chaos. They whisper that the Pakistani army is orchestrating the bombings and ceding territory in Swat to ensure continued US attention and funding. How else can you explain the total capitulation of the vaunted 500,000 strong Pak army, which can't seem to battle a rag tag force of a few thousand militants? But a counter theory gaining currency is that it's actually the United States that is simultaneously supporting extremists on the one hand, and launching drone attacks with the other. The purpose of such dastardly duplicity? Well duh, to break up Pakistan into pieces so that the US could take over its precious nuclear weapons.
The net result of this mass confusion is that the people of Pakistan can't seem to diagnose what is apparent to any objective observer:
A. - that the process of acceeding to Islamist demands that started in the 70's has reached its logical conclusion, where the Islamists are now simply demanding that the whole country be handed over to them.
And
B. - the cancer of extremism, once foolishly used by the State for its own purposes, has metastized and is now spreading through the body of the nation.
But admitting this would be tantamount to admitting that we have been on the wrong path for a very long time. It would mean admitting that we have been wrong in our blind pursuit of Kashmir to the detriment of Pakistan, that we have been wrong in our meddling in Afghanistan for the sake of strategic depth, wrong in neglecting our people's education and development in favour of purchasing F-16s. And most of all, it would mean admitting that we have been wrong in changing ourselves from our founder's vision of a progressive, muslim majority but pluralistic Pakistan to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. No one has the courage to face these bitter truths. It is far easier to be in denial than to examine the core beliefs that form our national mythology. It is far easier to be indignant about the infringement of our sovereignty by US drones than to wonder how a nation could claim to be sovereign and yet be largely dependent on the generosity of other nations for paying its bills. It is far easier to keep blaming the USA for a thirty year old Afghan policy, rather than to ask why we chose to continue that policy once the Soviets had gone back.
And so it continues, every horrific incident, every injustice, every new low is justified and explained away. Mumbai attacks that trace back to Pakistan? Can't be Pakistanis because the attackers seemed to know their way around Mumbai too well. What about the daily bombings across Pakistan? Of course it's the work of India, perhaps the US, and maybe even Israel. What about the killings and beheadings in FATA areas? Well, those are unsettled areas, so what happens there doesn't really affect the rest of the country. And the handing over of Swat valley to the Taliban? Its what the people of Swat wanted – the Taliban will bring peace in exchange for territory. What about the flogging of a 17 year old girl in Swat captured on video? The first response: That was shameful, no ifs and buts. A few hours later: Maybe the video was a hoax to defame Pakistan? A further few hours later: Its definitely a hoax. How could the girl take 34 lashes and then be able to walk home? A few days later: People have forgotten about it and moved on.
As the body of the patient convulses on the operating table, and the doctors squabble over both the diagnosis and the treatment, the seeds sowed in past decades – seeds of extremism, seeds of disenfranchisement, seeds of misgovernance - have come to bear their deadly fruit. I can only surmise that this fruit is so bitter, the picture in the mirror so ghastly, the fate so clearly written on walls, that our minds cannot accept it and denial is the only refuge for us. After all, if Amerindia is responsible for all this, we are responsible for nothing. Neither for creating it, nor for fixing it.
I place another call, this time to my sister in law. She laughs at my concerns. "My dear brother, the media exaggerates everything" she tells me. "You people living abroad become paranoid. We're used to it. This is Pakistan. This is how its always been. People are going about their business and life goes on. It will all blow over in time."
"I gotta go now, we're going out to dinner" she tells me, and hangs up.
If our leaders and our people continue to keep their eyes wide shut, I'm afraid no amount of aid or drone strikes can prevent the coming calamity that will likely dwarf Iraq and Afghanistan.
— The writer is a Pakistani living in Montreal and writes on the Blogzine
QuoteDenial-istan
That'd be Egypt and Sudan?
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on April 27, 2009, 09:44:55 AM
Sharif is another feudal magnate. His family got into politics b/c Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nationalized their steel mill and then confiscated some of their lands.
Yeah, I read an article were he basically said that the Pakistani government's only option was to make more deals with the Taliban. Neither he nor Zadari feel me with confidence :(
Quote from: Siege on April 26, 2009, 08:07:13 PM
All muslims are devoted conspiracy-theories believers.
Its like their second religion, if I may say so.
My observations back this up. Sadly, the belief in conspiracy theories or the like does not seem to diminish with education.
Also on that blog is a (presumably, author claimed these were his real thoughts) call for the re-establishment of the Caliphate in Pakistan as it worked so well in the 8th Century. I think he is anti-taliban, but still, what a way to fight the fundamentalists; agree on everything and spend all your time ranting and plotting against the same EVIL WESTERN SECULAR-JEWISH COLONIALISTS!