"Las Vegas" is Pakistan

[Russell Sova]

They said that much of the terrorist chatter in early December mentioned hitting Las vegas. Then about a week before Christmas two car bombs in a few minutes tried to kill President Musharaf of Pakistan. Now if you were a terrorist and all of the money, via Bin Laden, was located in Pakistan what would your code word for Pakistan be? I'll bet our side already knew that and put us on high alert anyway. Or maybe no one will read this because they went back in their millenium bunkers. In the world of terrorism/anti-terrorism I'll bet this kind of parlaying over words goes on all the time. If President Musharaf were killed and most of that country is radical Islam and Bin Laden as well as the Taliban are there.... well they have nuclear weapons don't they? No, Syria and the threats against it are a ruse, we're going after Bin Laden next, have to have him before November.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

One country that is NOT going to become a "radical Islamic" state any time soon is Pakistan. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can afford a radical Islamic Pakistan, not India, not China, not Russia, not the USA.

Pakistan is an awful mess of a country, but there is common interest in not allowing the loonies to take control there. As with other nations where this rule is applied, the upshot is that a corrupt and venal elite remain in power, but the loonies never make it.

[LeeG]

Andrew,, could you flesh out the argument that the fundamentalists "loonies" could never get power in Pakistan?

[High C]

Pakistan is the epicenter of the whole struggle. Pakistan is VERY unstable, loaded with Islamic extremists, and armed with nukes. If the nuts gain control of Pakistan, which doesn't seem so far fetched to many, it would be tremendously dangerous. Some analysts think India would panic and vaporize the place.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

There are internal and external reasons why Pakistan will not be taken over by "fundamentalists".

Here are some internal reasons:

Firstly, not all Pakistanis are religious zealots. Many of the conflicts in Pakistan (some of then very serious!) have nothing to do with religion. Most Pakistanis live in cities, not in the wild and wooly Northwest Frontier Province which borders Afghanistan. City dwellers and lowland farmers don't have much in common with the men of the mountains who have a traditioon of Islamic nuttiness. The lowelanders are good Muslims, of course, but that is not the same thing at all.

Probably the biggest cause of violence is the conflict between the descendants of those who were in what is now Pakistan before Partition, and the descendants of those who arrived at Partition. This is an ongoing, bloody conflict between Muslims.

Secondly, Pakistan is run by a cultured, wealthy, elite, whose interests are sometimes served by fomenting violence, but who have no interest at all in losing power to a bunch of semi-literate mullahs. Think of the Philippines, or Egypt as other examples. The members of the elite fight between themselves, often using proxies, but they don't want outsiders running the place.

Thirdly, the most powerful force in Pakistan, by a country mile, is the Army, which is a descendant of the British Army, with many of the same traditions. The most powerful element in the Army is the Intelligence Service, which has its fingers in almost every pie, which was certainly responsible for creating the Taliban in the first place, and which has long been involved in fomenting Islamic extremeism of one sort and another, but which has no, repeat no, intention of being taken over by it. The Intelligence Service brought Musharraf to power, just as it has brought every previous military dictator to power.

Externally, as noted above, it's in nobody's interest.

[High C]

I hope you're right, ACB. I'd like to see the US and europe do more to help stabilize Pakistan, how, I don't know. It's a critically important spot at this point in history.

[Eric Sea Frog]

Originally posted by High C:
I'd like to see the US and europe do more to help stabilize Pakistan, how, I don't know. It's a critically important spot at this point in history.Big deal. Swing all forces there, from Iraq and other places. Still not sure to win.

[Meerkat]

We'll never let Pakistan get out of control. We need her seaport for the terminus of the central Asian oil pipeline busily being built across Afghanistan.