Pakistan warns against unilateral action against extremists

Pakistan is a defunct nation and needs to slip up like the former Soviet Union. The international community needs to safeguard its nuclear arsenal.

I did my time -- 11 years in the infantry.

 

Pakistan, among how many others?

Why safe guard the nuclear arsenals, why not abolish them altogether?

Fair play to you, honestly.

 

I agree with you. Elimination of nuclear arms and non-proliferation is a essential of the survival of man kind.

 

Pakistan is a U.S. ally. As such, there should never be any "unilateral" action by the U.S. in Pakistani territory. There should only be coordinated action.

It would be different if Pakistan were not a U.S. ally -- then our options would be much more open.

If the Islamists manage to take control of Pakistan, then the full force of the U.S. military will be able to be unleashed upon them.

As long as Pakistan is an ally, we can only help as much as Pakistan allows us to help.

Even in that regard, can we really say that we are doing everything that can be done in terms of military training and equipment for the Pakistani armed forces? I do not believe so.

 

Pakistan is a difficlult case. They are a US ally and at the same time responsible for nuclear proliferation and muslim extremism.

 

Yep. It's a real bitch because they are so many societies in one.

I remember the truckloads of Pakistani's who drove across the border to fight American troops in Afghanistan. We worked with the Pakistani government to stop them peacefully at the border. I remember thinking how much better off everyone would have been if we had let them all enter Afghanistan before creating a highway of death ala Iraq 1991.

Pakistan would be a whole lot more peaceful and prosperous now if we had used that opportunity to take care of that problem in 2001.

 

An interesting fact about Pakistan is that only 8% of the population are native speakers of the offical langaguage Urdu (Urdu by origin is a Persianized dialect of the Hindi language )

According to the census, Pakistanis identified the following languages as their mother tongues

Punjabi 44%,
Pashto 15%,
Sindhi 14%,
Saraiki 11%,
Urdu 8%,
Balochi 4%,
others 4%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Pakistan

 

Luckily, any Pakistani with good sense and an IQ above 80 is learning or has learned English.

 

A lot of Pakistanis use English.

You really have to wonder about Pakistan. It's the most unstable nuclear armed country in the world. Even North Korea is more stable.

 

Pakistan is like a functional alcoholic. It looks bad, but it keeps on going. I don't see it falling over any time soon.

The different power structures are fairly well entrenched in society. A major collapse would require the military to stand down while the Islamists murdered tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens. I don't see that as happening.

What do you think is the most likely scenario for a collapse? What am I missing?

 

In the last two days the Pakistani Army has been routed twice by militamts in the tribal areas. Militants now control the Swat Valley and there is little will for the Pakistani military to fight back.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=4151213&page=1

 

Nobody thought it would happen but the Red Army - the most powerful army in the world - gave up without firing a shot.