THE PAK CIVIL WAR

[Pete]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05012009...63.htm?&page=1


".....Although Pakistan's officer corps draws on all of the country's provinces and territories, the army's heart really has only two chambers. The senior officers who form the military's center of gravity come from Punjab, a populous east-of-the-Indus state with old martial traditions.

But a crucial minority of the army's top performers come from the tribal lands west of the Indus that have always produced warriors. They're Pashtuns. So are the Taliban.

We ignore such fundamental considerations, failing to note that the extended family of a general or colonel with a name such as "Afridi" or "Khattack" is rooted in the mountain valleys that always embraced fundamentalist Islam.
....."

[Pete]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...m-Taliban.html


"......However, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said last Saturday that It would be "unthinkable" that the Pakistani government of President Asif Ali Zardari would be toppled by the Taliban, adding: "Then they would have the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan, and we can't even contemplate that. We cannot let this go on any further."

The Wise One has spoken - So let it be.

[Ret10Echo]

Maybe Musharraf wasn't such a bad thing.....??

[dividebyzero]

Good article about Zardari by Nicholas Schmidle:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-a...ning-pakistan/

[Pete]

I was going to post this story for the information related to the title.

The more I read of the story the more I thought Dawn.com was pulling somebody's leg.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/...ani-govt-zj-01

There is no way in heck that Holbrooke said what this story said he did. No way. "...His mother worked there, she loved Pakistan....."?

Now what is interesting is pull down to the bottom of the paper and click on the "confusing signals" story.

This is what is going around in one of Pakistan's most widely read English papers.

[dividebyzero]

Originally Posted by Pete

This is what is going around in one of Pakistan's most widely read English papers.

Although I know this particular source isn't held in too high regard around here, the NYT had a good article about this from back in November. Relevant excerpts from here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/wo...a/23pstan.html

A redrawn map of South Asia has been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west.

That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some American neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with nuclear arms.

“One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan,” said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning, who insisted on anonymity as per diplomatic custom. “Some people feel the United States is colluding in this.”

Some commentators suggest that the United States is actually financing the Taliban. The point is to tie down the Pakistani Army, they say, leaving the way open for the Americans to grab Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Recently, in the officer’s mess in Bajaur, the northern tribal region where the Pakistani Army is tied down fighting the militants, one officer offered his own theory: Osama bin Laden did not exist, he told a visiting journalist.

Rather, he was a creation of the Americans, who needed an excuse to invade Afghanistan and encroach on Pakistan

I've posted this here before, but these assertions seem to dovetail with mainstream Pakistani public opinion from early 2008 as reported by this USIP study:
http://www.usip.org/pubs/working_pap...7_pakistan.pdf

8. Relations with the United States
Majority opinion toward the United States is negative. Large majorities say that the United States cannot be trusted to act responsibly and also believe that it has
extraordinary influence over Pakistan. US military presence in the region is viewed as a threat to Pakistan. A large and growing majority believe it is a US goal to weaken and divide the Muslim world. A plurality disapproves of how Pakistan’s government has handled relations with the United States. Only one in four feels that security cooperation with the United States has brought Pakistan any benefit.

10. Ranking of Perceived Threats
Asked to evaluate a series of possible threats to Pakistan’s vital interests, the
Pakistani public rates US military presence in the region as a critical threat by the largest percentage. Other threats regarded as critical by majorities include tensions with India and violence between Pakistani religious and ethnic groups. Slightly fewer regard the activities of al Qaeda, local Taliban, and jihadist militants as critical, or the activities of ethnic nationalist movements. Only half see the possibility of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons as threatening. A majority considers the rise of China to be no threat to Pakistan.

In any case, the full article and the full USIP study are worth reading in pursuit of a better understanding of the challenges faced in our overall strategy towards Pakistan.