Article

2005-04-19 Afghanistan/South Asia

Extremism threatens foundations of Pakistani state: ICG report

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Posted by Fred 2005-04-19 00:00:00 AM|| || Front Page|| [8 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Nice comments, Fred.

At this point I think Pakistan is a deadend; the scary thing is that it's disastrous mix of Jihadi militias, Pious Holy Men leading the cannon fodder, and military/intelligence services with the hands in all sort of dirty dealings has become increasingly prevelent in other countries like Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Hopefully something can still be done to arrest the slide in those countries, and many of the ICG's recommendations are easily transferrable to other countries.

Posted by Paul Moloney 2005-04-19 12:35:54 AM|| 2005-04-19 12:35:54 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 Not to mention the Pak legislators don't know each other by face; they see each other only from behind as they walk out on the sessions day after day after day...

Posted by Seafarious 2005-04-19 12:45:17 AM|| 2005-04-19 12:45:17 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Most of them need all the exercise they can get

Posted by Paul Moloney 2005-04-19 12:49:17 AM|| 2005-04-19 12:49:17 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 Minor edit, then:

they see each other only from behind as they waddle out on the sessions day after day after day...

Posted by Seafarious 2005-04-19 12:59:41 AM|| 2005-04-19 12:59:41 AM|| Front Page Top

#5 The Pak legislators have wintered well. They are big enough to burn diesel.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-04-19 2:04:11 AM|| 2005-04-19 2:04:11 AM|| Front Page Top

#6 I thought extremism was one of the foundations of the "land of the pure".

Posted by Robert Crawford 2005-04-19 7:42:02 AM|| [http://www.kloognome.com/] 2005-04-19 7:42:02 AM|| Front Page Top

#7 One reason it's important to cultivate India.

Posted by too true 2005-04-19 8:45:50 AM|| 2005-04-19 8:45:50 AM|| Front Page Top

#8 What about my man, Akbar Bugti? Isn't he worth wasting too? (please?)

Posted by Spot 2005-04-19 8:47:06 AM|| 2005-04-19 8:47:06 AM|| Front Page Top

#9 Foster Brooks? He's part of the feudal setup, a slightly different flavor of repression. He'd be on my second-string kill list. The sardars are part of Pak's problem, but a separate part; they'd probably eventually be controllable, if the other parts weren't there. As it is, they're just one string in the Gordian knot.

Because of its peculiar evolution, Pakland may be the most screwed-up country in the world. What theoretical prescriptions like this one miss is that the holy men enforce and maintain their power only secondarily through their influence on the devout. Their primary instruments of influence are their fascisti. Banging heads with them are other bands of fascisti, of course, like the MQM. This leads to one of those chicken and egg situations, where you can't quite make out whether the holy men rely on the brownshirts because everybody else has them, or everybody else has brownshirts because the holy men are so free with their use. But every time you see the word "activist" you can translate it to "brownshirt."

Posted by Fred 2005-04-19 9:31:33 AM|| 2005-04-19 9:31:33 AM|| Front Page Top

#10 so what's the answer? Hope for a losing nuke exchange with India? A plague that strikes turban-wearers? What a shit hole

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-19 9:54:28 AM|| 2005-04-19 9:54:28 AM|| Front Page Top

#11 Prob'ly the best solution would be a sustained program of destabilization, since stabilization seems to be out of the question. If Perv falls off his tightrope that would seem to be the only solution -- to set them all to fighting among themselves and then deal with any survivors once they've gotten it out of their system. The danger there is the Islamic nukes. Hafiz Saeed wouldn't hesitate to use them, would in fact look for an excuse. But the right pushes, in the right places, would break the country into five or six pieces, with at least three or four of them having much the same aspect as Somalia.

Posted by Fred 2005-04-19 10:09:29 AM|| 2005-04-19 10:09:29 AM|| Front Page Top

#12 We dealt with Pakistan because we needed the access to Afghanistan. Dealing with them since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan has been a pain in the butt. It is like dealing with a person with multiple personalities (that has them all activated at the same time). Our big concern is with the nukes. Nuke, nuke, who has the nuke? If it was not for the nukes, this land where reason and logic was forgotten could rot, as long as we could make a deal with the local warlord for access to good olde Afghanistan.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2005-04-19 11:48:57 AM|| 2005-04-19 11:48:57 AM|| Front Page Top

#13 ahhh but think of the crash in the world's supply of forged documents should Pak disappear...

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-19 12:07:14 PM|| 2005-04-19 12:07:14 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 âInstead of empowering liberal, democratic voices, the government has co-opted the religious right and continues to rely on it to counter civilian opposition.'

I was wondering where Chuck Schumer got his talking points...

Posted by Raj 2005-04-19 12:24:42 PM|| 2005-04-19 12:24:42 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 Frank, I thought all the passports in Pakiwakiland had to have a religion column...

Posted by Spot 2005-04-19 3:39:15 PM|| 2005-04-19 3:39:15 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 just the small percentage that are real

Posted by Frank G 2005-04-19 3:42:38 PM|| 2005-04-19 3:42:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Hmmmmmm.... realpakipassports.com is available. I see an RB growth industry.

Posted by Shipman 2005-04-19 4:56:48 PM|| 2005-04-19 4:56:48 PM|| Front Page Top

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