about Pakistan

was listening to ultra-liberal KPFA radio on the way to work today. they did a good interview with an academic expert on Afghanistan. The Academic is Dean of some foreign affairs type department the the University of Nebraska. Believe it or not, the interview was informative in nature and not political.

Some facts: Since the US got out of Afghan politics the Taliban has received strong support from Pakistan in the form of Intelligence, military training and personnel. Pakistani Intelligence almost for sure knows exactly where bin Laden is. It should be easy to replace the Taliban government as many or even most afghans dislike him. The reasons for the weak Taliban government are 1) Afghanistan is essentially a tribal society and 2) Afghans have always disliked foreigners on their soil and the Taliban rulers are surrounded by radical Muslims from Pakistan and other Arab states. They really don't care for bin Laden as he is a foreigner and is now a pain in the ass. Basically it should not be that difficult to get bin Laden. It would be very easy to bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age because after 20 years of war the country already lives in the stone age.


A more sticky issue is that there are many radical Muslim Pakistanis in the Pakistani Military currently in Afghanistan to help the Taliban. Obviously they will be/are returning to Pakistan. This could be a problem because the Pakistani government is very unstable and Pakistan also has access to nuclear weapons. Draw your own conclusions but I think its very obvious that we are going to have to be much more involved with security in that neck of woods for years to come whether or not we are successful in nabbing bin Laden. We are already stirring the pot with India because in return for Pakistani support in getting bin Laden, we agreed to side with Pakistan in its dispute with India over the Kashmir. That's all for now.

... was chilling forty years ago. I was upset when France got the bomb. Now, of course, with Pakistan holding nukes, the stakes for us and the fundamentalists couldn't be higher. Maybe, just maybe, we can do both: emasculate the terror movement and preserve Pakistan as a (relatively) secular state.


The world is fraught with risk; we'll just have to do the best we can.

,.,.,

I heard that in return for assisting the USA, Pakistan had two requests from the USA:


1. Assist in removing certain trade sanctions etc. that were placed vis a vis Pakistan after they tested nuclear arms in 1998/1999.


2. Assist Pakistan in its conflict with India over Kashmir.


The report that I saw indicated that the USA has agreed to the first request but not the second although Indians generally see the USA as pro-Pakistan in the Indo-Pak conflict.

yes, I didn't mention the first point because IMO, its not that big a deal and should be done anyways.


It was my impression that we had agreed to the second point but I can not be sure. Will have to await more certain developments.


also, upon re-reading my post I may have left the impression that Pakistan is being run by radical Muslims. This is not the case. The current Pakistani government is moderate. The point of concern is the large faction of radical muslims in the Pakistani Military and Intelligence community.