Pakistan; About to fall the militant Islam?

[tibilicus]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7921430.stm

As this latest bit of news clearly shows Pakistan is on the brink of failure.

It's central government is being openly humiliated by gunmen in the light of day by muslim extremists gunning down foreigners and those supposedly in charge in Pakistan are left helpless. Outstretched and loosing the battle with the Taliban on the Afghan border the question has to be asked what does the future hold for Pakistan?

More importantly can the rise of these extremists even be stopped? Or will this sort of ideology continue to spread like a disease and take root else where?


Edit: A mod couldn't by any chance edit the thread title to read "About to fall to militant Islam" Instead of "about to fall the militant Islam". My bad.

Cheers.

[lars573]

One word: India.

[Fragony]

Been like this forever, the Pakistani government has zero control over her border with Afghanistan, nothing new.

[tibilicus]

Been like this forever, the Pakistani government has zero control over her border with Afghanistan, nothing new.

Ah yes but Pakistan has never had zero control in other regions like it does now. It is also slowly loosing towns to the Taliban now which is also new. Fair enough it's the same story but it's getting worse..

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

nevermind

[Furunculus]

nasty combination of:
> fiercely independant pashtun tribes
> heavily federated northwestern provinces
> militant islamist ideology
> horribly corrupt pakistani gov't

if pakistan does go down the tubes then i sincerely hope Centcom is on standby with cruise missiles and special forces to permanently remove the problem of nuclear weapons in pakistan.

[Fragony]

Ah yes but Pakistan has never had zero control in other regions like it does now. It is also slowly loosing towns to the Taliban now which is also new. Fair enough it's the same story but it's getting worse..

Yeah it's pretty bad, and still people complain we fight the Taliban.

[LittleGrizzly]

How could we support the Pakistan goverment against these forces ?

Seems like a bit of a catch 22, if we intervene we give some great pr to the taliban to use for recruiting... it seems if we do nothing Pakistan may be lost anyway...

[Furunculus]

it may prove to be a failed state, i.e. a state that collapses from an inability to maintain internal or external security.

[LittleGrizzly]

As a carry on from my last post should we not try to keep Pakistan together and let it become a failed state... just as Furunculus says and secure the nuke's...

Aren't we risking Pakistan becoming another Afghanistan then though... ?

[Subotan]

The decision to partition India was a collosal mistake. Us British, in our infinite, pigheaded wisdom decided that Indians, rather than being divided by hundreds of different languages, cultures or colours, were instead either Muslims, or Hindus.
As a result, Pakistan is in a similar situation to Afghanistan. Many different ethnicities, languages and cultures linked together only by loose collection of fanatical through to cultural Muslims. Pakistan is an artificial entity, and it could never have worked.

[rory_20_uk]

The decision to partition India was a collosal mistake. Us British, in our infinite, pigheaded wisdom decided that Indians, rather than being divided by hundreds of different languages, cultures or colours, were instead either Muslims, or Hindus.
As a result, Pakistan is in a similar situation to Afghanistan. Many different ethnicities, languages and cultures linked together only by loose collection of fanatical through to cultural Muslims. Pakistan is an artificial entity, and it could never have worked.

Pakistan is an artificial entity, but I fail to see where keeping the whole lot together would have worked. East Pakistan gained independence all by itself.

Secure the nukes, and let the state collapse. Those at the edges of failed states should slowly absorb territory until it reaches another viable state. Ditto Afghanistan. The means don't justify the ends.

[Furunculus]

As a carry on from my last post should we not try to keep Pakistan together and let it become a failed state... just as Furunculus says and secure the nuke's...

Aren't we risking Pakistan becoming another Afghanistan then though... ?

how can we keep such a nation together against their will.

really the choice lies with pakistan, do they want to be air-striked* for the next 20 years as a result of a failed society that gives free-reign to a militant islamist ideology that likes to use broken countries as the launchpad for its global jihad?

the choice is theirs.






* and i mean really air-striked, not just a few predators blowing up the odd mud-hut in deepest godforsakistan every blue-moon.

[rory_20_uk]

how can we keep such a nation together against their will.

really the choice lies with pakistan, do they want to be air-striked* for the next 20 years as a result of a failed society that gives free-reign to a militant islamist ideology that likes to use broken countries as the launchpad for its global jihad?

the choice is theirs.

* and i mean really air-striked, not just a few predators blowing up the odd mud-hut in deepest godforsakistan every blue-moon.

Pointless waste of resources. You got shares in the military hardware manufacturers? Bombing industrialised countries eventually works. If you're destroying a failed state what targets are you after? Collections of people? The cure is worse than the disease!

Leave 'em to it. Let it be India / Iran / China / Russia's problem - they're far closer than we are to it. Monitor with satellite and intelligence services but in the main leave them to themselves. The only reason to intervene would be to get out the Uranium. Once that threat has been taken care of, it's a worthless, rocky area.

[Papewaio]

Attacking the Indian Parliament or Hotels might have won the splinter groups some support.

Attacking cricket might mean that this terrorist faction will have bitten off more then they can chew. I think they will have turned many against them in the process. Cricket is the national sport in Pakistan, right up there with field hockey. You don't win friends by slagging their sport, and you most certainly don't get recruits by attacking their favourite sport.

[seireikhaan]

Attacking the Indian Parliament or Hotels might have won the splinter groups some support.

Attacking cricket might mean that this terrorist faction will have bitten off more then they can chew. I think they will have turned many against them in the process. Cricket is the national sport in Pakistan, right up there with field hockey. You don't win friends by slagging their sport, and you most certainly don't get recruits by attacking their favourite sport.

If militant Islam is defeated by Cricket...

[Scurvy]

Attacking cricket might mean that this terrorist faction will have bitten off more then they can chew. I think they will have turned many against them in the process. Cricket is the national sport in Pakistan, right up there with field hockey. You don't win friends by slagging their sport, and you most certainly don't get recruits by attacking their favourite sport.

Exactly, it's interesting that the Pakistani authrorities (and the cricket world in general) seemed to think it was just about the only completely safe thing in Pakistan - although i'm sure the terrorists calculated the possible gain/loss potential

[Papewaio]

No just this splinter group will lose popularity. Which is very important, because at the end of the day they are just another political group who want power. Look at Sein Fein and compare with the Real IRA.

[Furunculus]

Pointless waste of resources. You got shares in the military hardware manufacturers? Bombing industrialised countries eventually works. If you're destroying a failed state what targets are you after? Collections of people? The cure is worse than the disease!

Leave 'em to it. Let it be India / Iran / China / Russia's problem - they're far closer than we are to it. Monitor with satellite and intelligence services but in the main leave them to themselves. The only reason to intervene would be to get out the Uranium. Once that threat has been taken care of, it's a worthless, rocky area.

well, i'd rather not bomb parts pakistan either, but whether i support that move or not depends on whether they decide to export the head-hackers.

democracies have to take responsibility for their actions, and that means the actions of their 'people'. if they cannot maintain a stable civil society to the point where lawlessness grossly impinges on other nations, they lose the legitimacy of the nation state and deserve to be subsumed by their neighbours.

[rory_20_uk]

First off the country has failed. There is no structure, no democracy, nothing but collections of people.

If "head hackers" leave the area how is indiscriminate killing going to help? Aside from showing that you are far more intolerant of life than the head hackers - there is no plan to export these people - they either decide to leave or are helped by specific groups of people.

Democracies have to take responsibility for all their people? Utter tripe - unless you are advocating almost complete destruction of civil liberties. People break laws all the time in their own country. These are not usually failings of the state, but the individual - buying a knife is not illegal, but stabbing someone is.

I agree that in the case of a power vacuum at the borders it would be best if the surrouding countries absorbed those parts that were amenable to being absorbed, thus reducing the lawless area.

[Furunculus]

Democracies have to take responsibility for all their people? Utter tripe - unless you are advocating almost complete destruction of civil liberties. People break laws all the time in their own country. These are not usually failings of the state, but the individual - buying a knife is not illegal, but stabbing someone is.

a neighbouring country has every right to expect the home country to make all possible efforts to exterminate terrorist groups that launch attacks against the neighbour from the territory of the home country.

failure to do so is a cassus belli.

[Subotan]

India and Pakistan's loathing of each other is a huge part of the problem. If both just calmed down, or Pakistan said "Look, we really nead help, but if you don't help us, prepare for unforseen consequences", then I think it ould have a chance of being solved.

[rory_20_uk]

a neighbouring country has every right to expect the home country to make all possible efforts to exterminate terrorist groups that launch attacks against the neighbour from the territory of the home country.

failure to do so is a cassus belli.

A texan shoots across the border - Mexico has causus belli? Again, without a police state there will always be nutters who break the laws. They, as private citizens are responsible for their actions.

Terrorist groups? Semantics.
All possible efforts? Meaningless that can be fudged to suit the situation.

[Furunculus]

now you're being far too literal.

it is in the eyes of the recipient to judge whether the host nation is tacitly complicit or otherwise incapable in stopping terror attacks that originate from within its own borders, and its it the eyes of the rest of the world to judge whether the recipient has been over-hasty in apportioning 'criminal' blame to the host nation.

we never invaded southern ireland over cross-border terror attacks from the ira.

but none of that changes the fact that a nation is reponsible for controlling the activities of its citizens in respect to their actions against a neighbouring country. casus-belli is the accepted response to such actions, it just calls for a little judgement, like whether or not a nation has any ability to stop such attacks, if not then can the recipient stop such attacks with military strikes against the terrorists or via regime change.

[Furunculus]

pakistan greater threat than afghanistan:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ghanistan.html

[aimlesswanderer]

Sadly I think that there is a good chance that Pakistan will indeed fall apart. The politicians seem to be unable to do anything besides argue with each other, while the local extremists move into the power vacuum. Corruption among the politicians seems to be rife, and the army is weakened, bleeding from offensives against militants and internally divided. It is sad that the politicians can't get themselves together, as the electorate voted overwhelmingly for secular parties....

I suppose if things get really desperate, the army might (if it hasn't broken under the strain), with the backing of most of the world, step in, and it would be a military dictatorship once again. Whether they can bring about some order in the country is debateable however, given what happened last time.

If the army does't take control, my uneducated guess would be that the country fractures into 2 main areas, with the PPP in the Sind and Sharif in the Punjab. The pashtun tribal areas in the NW might well be talibanised, and Balochistan will be some sort of tribal federation. If that does happen, gawd, it would be an enormous mess, with massive spillover effects in India and Afghanistan especially. Even the Chinese are worried (they have a small piece of Kashmir), the last thing they want is a terrorist haven near their restless Xinjiang region. Not to mention the nukes.

I don't think that the outrage over the attacts on Sri Lanka's cricketers will have much bearing on the downward spiral. The government just seems to be too ineffectual, and since the main political parties can't do anything but fight each other....

[Jango Fett]

The future of cricket or any sport held in Pakistan is not looking good at this moment. The Sri Lankan team was guaranteed safety by the Pakaistani government, after seeing the kind of security given to the team, I really doubt teams will tour there for quite some time unless security is greatly improved.

[Xiahou]

Someone give Musharraf a call. Apparently Pakistan isn't ready to rule itself without a strongman in charge yet.

[rvg]

Someone give Musharraf a call. Apparently Pakistan isn't ready to rule itself without a strongman in charge yet.

Amen , Brotha!

[Jolt]

The decision to partition India was a collosal mistake. Us British, in our infinite, pigheaded wisdom decided that Indians, rather than being divided by hundreds of different languages, cultures or colours, were instead either Muslims, or Hindus.
As a result, Pakistan is in a similar situation to Afghanistan. Many different ethnicities, languages and cultures linked together only by loose collection of fanatical through to cultural Muslims. Pakistan is an artificial entity, and it could never have worked.

Too true. Other examples how artificial states break up are aplenty around our recent century. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, URSS, Austria-Hungary, etc. One country I'm surprised hasn't collapsed in Indonesia. It has such a different historical background and geological separation that it is impressive they keep united. Belgium is on its way as well.