Pakistan Imploding
When Osama bin Laden escaped into FATA in December 2001, the place was so inviting that over the next few years he never strayed far. The seven tribal agencies that make up the Federally Administered Tribal Area adjoining the North-West Frontier Province became the new base area for al Qaeda. It was from there that the bomb plots in London, Madrid, Bali, Islamabad, and later Germany and Denmark were planned. While Mullah Omar's command structure in Quetta deliberately did not include Arabs or any non-Afghans, so they would not become a focus for U.S. forces chasing only al Qaeda, FATA became a multilayered terrorist cake. At its base were Pakistani Pashtun tribesmen, soon to become Taliban in their own right, who provided the hideouts and logistical support. Above them were the Afghan Taliban who settled there after 9/11, followed by militants from Central Asia, Chechnya, Africa, China, and Kashmir, and topped by Arabs who forged a protective ring around bin Laden. FATA became the world's "terrorism central". Descent into Chaos, Ahmed RashidPakistan, with its well-recognized, well-deserved reputation as a global base for Islamic jihad. Pakistan, whose national army and its secret intelligence agency formed, trained, armed and protected the Taliban and by extension Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. This is the country that presents itself as a staunch ally with the Western powers against global terror. This is the only Muslim country as yet, in possession of nuclear weapons.
This is also the country that, although it continues to deny it, has fomented vicious attacks against India, and Indian Kashmir, and the country as well that has encouraged and assisted the Afghan Taliban in their attacks against Afghanistan. Pakistan's national army was involved in giving cover to the Taliban escaping back over the border into Pakistan's tribal regions, after raids into Afghanistan.
And Pakistan is the country that has had its hand out for monetary assistance from the West, to help furnish it with needed capital. A country that traditionally has not seen its way through to offering a better life for its starving rural populations, existing on subsistence farming. A country that used scarce treasury to create its nuclear industry. A country that, taking billions from the United States, used the bulk of that funding to modernize its army.
And, coincidentally, of late, a country that has suffered a cataclysmic natural disaster. Disastrous monsoon rains that have managed to flood at least one-fifth of the country, including prime agricultural land. This is a country that has ignored the necessity to improve infrastructure as well as the ability of government to respond to disasters, oping instead for the ability to mount attacks on neighbouring countries.
Suicide bombers representing the Pakistan Taliban, which the government is finally attempting to subdue - while continuing to give a green light to the Afghan Taliban - are demonstrating just how powerfully capable they are of entering 'secure' government-controlled areas, to strike deep within the country. More latterly a suicide bombing in Quetta latterly killed 54 people, wounding hundreds of others.
Clearly, Islamist Pakistani fanatics care little about Ramadan, less about their fellow countrymen, and are quite obviously completely disinterested in the ravages caused by inundating floods and starving Pakistanis. Pakistan's Taliban find it great sport to attack their Shia brethren. "We take pride in taking responsibility for the Quetta attack" chirped Qari Hussain Mehsud, senior Pakistani Taliban.
"We will launch attacks in America and Europe very soon", said he. Wait for it. Canada may have had an intimation of that determination in fact, with the arrest of a handful of Muslim Canadians with just that agenda in mind. Pakistani officials in intelligence have, in fact, credited themselves, as reported by Pakistan newspapers, in alerting Canadian authorities to the plans of Pakistani-Canadians, now in custody.
Meanwhile, international humanitarian aid groups are finding it difficult to provide humanitarian aid to the millions of desperate refugees from flood struck areas of the country. In their rage at the lax response by their own government to their desperate plight, flood victims are reacting violently. The Pakistan charity Edhi Foundation has been exposed to violent reactions by raging victims.
Aid workers have had to flee violent outbreaks by survivors living in makeshift camps. Road closures have been forced by spontaneous eruptions of violence. Head of South Asia operations for IRCRC explained two distributions of aid had to be halted: "What we are detecting is a very worrying trend of areas where ... people are so in need, so resentful of not getting enough aid, that they turn understandably aggressive, and this is bad because it doesn't help in our efforts to reach more of them."
Once again, forgivingly accepting that those in need of aid are 'understandably' reacting in violence toward those proffering the aid, thus effectively cutting off their starving noses in service to their aggrieved victimhood.
Labels: Pakistan, Political Realities, Poverty, Technology, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, September 04, 2010
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