Posted on 07/16/2005 11:15:55 PM PDT by MadIvan
Even if they seriously wanted to crack down on extremist activity, I doubt they could go to far with it. Musharraf's actions in support of the war on terror have already caused a great deal of backlash from Pakistan's fundamentalists.
It's a tricky balance, getting as much cooperation without causing his government to be overthrown by fundamentalists.
The last thing we want, I presume, is a bunch of maniacs who are functionally equivalent to the Taliban taking control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.
This is what Porter Goss meant in his interview....we know where Bin Laden is....Pakistan.....and if we moved on him in an operation....Mush's government falls.
What concerns me about the amount of money Iraq is costing is that it is such a small fraction of the muslim world. If we had to go into a place like Pakistan the costs would be an order of magnitude higher.
I think the strategy if Musharraf died, would be to back up the most pro-state next guy in line. Musharraf I really believe wants Pakistan to become a modern wealthier nation, but he is only so powerful.
As much as I hate our overbearing government sometimes, Pakistan suffers from no state in areas. And all the renegade people and groups head there, to thrive in the chaos.
I agree.
Pakistan was a terrible idea in 1948, and it has not aged well.
Pakistan was a radical Islam country from its founding. It is the melting pot where the Deobandist muslims of the Indian subcontinent mixed with the Wahhabi muslims of southern Arabia to form the current Taleban and the other radical islamic organizations.
All this happened with the cooperation among the ISI, CIA and British intelligence, under the delusional theory that they could use islamic radicals to destabilize the southern Soviet Union and western China without blowback in the rest of the world.
Pakistan is no friend to the West.
It also has the "Islamic bomb".
As long as they are rapidly growing stronger while we expend our strength, why should they do anything?
Perhaps, but the fact remains that we, and now the Brits, have misplaced trust in Musharraf. Pakistan's meager attempt to dismatle it's terror infrastructure is more attractive than anything India can be depended upon to deliver.
If India had its druthers, this would be the #1 item on the Indian PM's agenda in meetings with Bush - not the plea for support for membership to the SC of the disgraceful UN. If India has the aspirations and potential for a world power, I'd expect Mr. Singh to convince and obtain the support of Bush for a course of action that India can and will take against Pakistan. A shade of the single-mindedness of Indira Gandhi vis a vis East Pakistan, is probbably not misplaced here. After all, it suffers as much if not more from the terror emanating from Pakistan.
India's inability, diplomatically or otherwise, to thwart a thriving terrorist epicenter right on it's door-step, and failure in enlisting the support of the US and UK, isn't exactly the kind of stuff that world powers are made of.
We have plans to either take control of their nukes or destroy them.
Umm,that's not exactly as comforting as saying that they don't have nukes& besides planning & implementation are 2 distinct things.You honestly expect the Pakistanis to hand over their "crown jewels" without a fight(aka ie. a launch on India or US bases in Central Asia)?????????????
There is nothing comforting in the nuclear world. Pakistan has them. We have to deal with that. We have plans to control them or destroy them if islamists take control. It ain't pretty. I do not expect that pakistan would willingly hand over their "crown jewels" in the event of a coup. I don't think India would stand off if that happened either. I do think that the US would lightly scold India if they took care of the problem.
>>Let us gloss over the complicity of renegade sections of Pakistan's ISI
More damn stooopidity. "renegade sections" LOL!
But he's half right.
As we glossed, let's keep glossing over.
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