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| The Alliance |
| Daily Jang: Pak's Aghanistan experiment was reckless |
| 2001-10-08 |
What can be conceded is that the US did reward Pakistan with the authority to make and break governments in Kabul. Pakistan after experimenting with two Islamic governments finally installed Taliban. Their politics has made Taliban the betes noirs of the whole civilised world. Within Pakistan except for the Rightwing, including a part of secular Right, nobody loves Taliban. Let no one forget that Pakistani people never gave all the religious (Islamic orthodox) parties more than 8 percent of their vote in six general elections. Taliban and the Mullahs were however the darlings of the Generals - for use as instrument of pressure on India to force it to negotiate which had been refusing to do so for 10 years and may yet go on being blind to Kashmiris' human rights. Pakistan's prowess is irrelevant to any worthwhile purpose. The simple and obvious point is that the Taliban experiment has proved to be even more of a grievous mistake. They have put Pakistan itself in jeopardy. If Musharraf had refused cooperation with the US - specifically aimed at Taliban - Pakistan would have been the first objective of the US-led war against terrorism. Even otherwise, it was mighty unwise to have done what Pakistan has been doing since 1973 in Afghanistan. Pakistan is an unstable third world country with a rickety economy. It had no business becoming one of the big boys in the renewed Great Game. An imperial role sites ill on an aid-addicted second rank third world country. If only, Musharraf would get off this hook - telling the truth as it is. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |