1. The core issue of instability and violence in South Asia is the character, activities and persistence of the militarized Islamist-fundamentalist state in Pakistan, and no cure for this canker can be arrived at through any strategy of negotiations, support and financial aid to the military regime, or by a ‘calibrated’ transition to ‘democracy’.
2. Footprints of Terror: The ‘footprint’ of every major act of international Islamist terrorism invariably passes through Pakistan, right from 9/11 – where virtually all the participants had trained, resided or met in, coordinated with, or received funding from or through Pakistan – to major acts of terrorism across South Asia and South East Asia, as well as major networks of terror that have been discovered in Europe.
3. The State as Suicide Bomber: Pakistan has harvested an enormous price for its supposed ‘cooperation’ with the US, and in this it has combined deception and blackmail – including nuclear blackmail – to secure a continuous stream of concessions. Its conduct is little different from that of North Korea, which has in the past chosen the pathway of nuclear escalation to secure incremental aid from Western donors. A pattern of sustained nuclear blackmail has consistently been at the heart of Pakistan’s case for concessions, aid and a heightened threshold of international tolerance for its sponsorship and support to Islamist terrorism. To understand how this works, it is useful to conce
RE:Pakistan: The Core Issue
by MKM GEN on Jul 29, 2008 02:03 PM Permalink
EXCELLENT ANALYSIS ! We need more people like you and less of self-delusional jerks like "secular" above, who says profoundly stupid things like " Secularism and Democracy is the best way to beat terrorism. Swords, Rifles and Bombs cannot bring peace." Where do you live, Secular? Cuckooland?
RE:Pakistan: The Core Issue
by Suraj Singh on Jul 29, 2008 01:53 PM Permalink
4. Nevertheless, whenever there has been sufficient international – and particularly US – pressure on Pakistan to act against this lobby, Pakistan has reluctantly cooperated, with no significant demonstrations of ‘public anger’ from the extremist lobby. In the process, the Musharraf regime, after taking some initial and token action against various Islamist extremist groups in the country – including the Jaish-e-Mohammed, the Lashkar-e-Toiba, and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, all of which are on the US list of international terrorist organisations – now allows each of these to function with complete freedom, albeit under changed names, though under the same leadership.
4. The ‘Other Face’ of Pakistan’s ‘Moderate’ Dictatorship: Pakistan has made a big case out of the fact that some of the top line leadership of the Al Qaeda has been arrested in the country with the ‘cooperation’ of the Pakistani security forces and intelligence. The fact, however, is that each such arrest only took place after the FBI and US investigators had effectively gathered evidence to force Pakistani cooperation, and little of this evidence has come from the Pakistani agencies. Indeed, Pakistani agencies have consistently sought to deny the presence of Al Qaeda elements in their country, and to mislead US investigators to the extent possible. This deception has been at the very highest level, and Musharraf himself, for instance, initially insisted that he was ‘certain’ that bin Laden was dead. When the
RE:Pakistan: The Core Issue
by Shyam on Jul 29, 2008 02:20 PM Permalink
I agree with you. The time is perhaps for changing the world map by erasing countries like Pakistan from it so that others can live in peace.
