Article

2007-12-27 India-Pakistan

The Legacy of Benazir Bhutto: Pakistan's Proxy Wars, Islamic Jihad and the Taliban

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by john frum 2007-12-27 09:20|| || Front Page|| [17 views ] Top

#1 None of this is a problem anymore.

Oddly, I feel saddened by Morticia's departure. She was no gem. And yet, for a few fleeting weeks, it seemed as if Pakistan might duke it out at the polls instead of killing one another because of disagreements.

Foolish me.

Posted by Whiskey Mike 2007-12-27 10:19|| 2007-12-27 10:19|| Front Page Top

#2 Lemme get this expert Indian analysis straight. Bhutto was the Islamists' best friend. This must be why they had her killed. This is as fine as example of Indian logic as you will ever see.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-12-27 13:15|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-12-27 13:15|| Front Page Top

#3 Zhang Fei, logic has not much to do with it.

Lemme give an example:
Lefties are best islamists' friends. Yet, they will be the first, if islamists get into power, to have their height shortened by the height of their heads. Happened in Iran, and would happen again where islamists get their sway.

She courted islamist croc, fed him, and now with increased appetite, he had her for a snack.

Posted by twobyfour 2007-12-27 13:52|| 2007-12-27 13:52|| Front Page Top

#4 ZF, thinkig of it... you are not, perchance, biased against Indians, are you?

Posted by twobyfour 2007-12-27 13:54|| 2007-12-27 13:54|| Front Page Top

#5 TBF: ZF, thinkig of it... you are not, perchance, biased against Indians, are you?

I'm biased against Indian logic. And mythology.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-12-27 14:09|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-12-27 14:09|| Front Page Top

#6 TBF: Lefties are best islamists' friends. Yet, they will be the first, if islamists get into power, to have their height shortened by the height of their heads. Happened in Iran, and would happen again where islamists get their sway.

She courted islamist croc, fed him, and now with increased appetite, he had her for a snack.

This is another way of saying that whatever she previously did, Bhutto is no longer an ally of the Islamists. So they killed her. But the idea that Bhutto was bad because she previously cooperated* with the Islamists has, as an assumption, the Indian fantasy that anyone who cooperates with the Islamists in Pakistan is wilfully doing so. The reality is that in Pakistani politics, the population is our enemy, not the leaders. Any leader who does not take the interests of Islamists will soon be an ex-leader in short order. This is what every Pakistani leader since Zia has had to deal with.

But Indians persist in this fantasy that Pakistani leaders could just change course and resolve the whole Islamist problem. BTW, you're not prejudiced against Pakistani leaders, are you? I am personally prejudiced against the ideology of Muslims everywhere, but am sympathetic to the problems that Muslim leaders have in dealing with the animalistic ideologies of their citizenry. We have a Muslim population stateside that is not much different ideologically, but seriously hampered in carrying out what they'd like to see happen to Uncle Sam by their relative prosperity and lust for material possessions, and by their numerical inferiority.

* Note that just because an Indian (or an American commentator cribbing from Indian sources) says that Bhutto was cooperating with Islamists doesn't mean that she was actually doing so. Indians have this obsession with caudillos defining the course of their nations - and have applied this theory to Pakistan in particular, tarring every leader with the Islamist brush. If this were truly the case, why the heck has no one in Pakistan been able to hold on to the reins for any period of time without getting assassinated or ejected in a coup? Unfortunately for us, Pakistan's masses do have a man on a white horse - his name is Muhammad, he died 1300 years ago and the book written by his followers are the source of their ideology, not any Pakistani or Muslim leader.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-12-27 14:34|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-12-27 14:34|| Front Page Top

#7 We always hear and talk about the possibility of the whack job Muzzies getting their hands on a bomb and going after Israel or NYC. Assuming that the wakis win in Pakland might we not see the bomb heading south-east rather than west?

What would the Indian response be to a nuke going off say in Mumbai after it just kind of floated in on some anonymous ship?

Posted by AlanC 2007-12-27 15:01|| 2007-12-27 15:01|| Front Page Top

#8 ZF, Brillant explanation per usual.

The only issue I have is not so much with India logic but with the fact that in all cases accountability starts at the top. Nawaz, Bhutto, Hul, Musharraf, it doesn't matter. Pakistani's are still violently attacking India in Assam, Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. The ISI has a nexus with the Maoists/Naxalites as well as the MULTA and Manipuri muslim seperatists. Pakistani intel - the spy agency of their government still foments and supports this terrorism. Bhutto may have been the best civilian choice but is civilian rule even an option? I very much enjoyed your rant, I'm just not sold on Bhutto. I guess it doesn't matter now.

Posted by Rightwing 2007-12-27 15:12|| 2007-12-27 15:12|| Front Page Top

#9 Andrew McCarthy has an excellent piece up on NRO about the real Pakistan vs the fantasy Pakistan:

It is the new way of warfare to proclaim that our quarrel is never with the heroic, struggling people of fill-in-the-blank country. No, we, of course, fight only the regime that oppresses them and frustrates their unquestionable desire for freedom and equality.

Pakistan just wont cooperate with this noble narrative.

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence the symbol, however dubious, of democracys promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf as if he were the problem can camouflage that fact.

Like it or not, the Koran has this irresistible pull for hundreds of millions of Muslims, much as Das Kapital was holy writ and a call to arms for Communist revolutionaries everywhere. Most will not become active fighters, but many will provide financial support and shelter for jihadis. Until the war hits them directly and kills and maims so many of their friends and relatives that they finally cry uncle.

As is happening in Iraq today. Some people say the surge is what caused Iraqi guerrillas to stop fighting American troops. I think it was time and attrition. Time is what kills insurgencies and counter-insurgencies alike. The side that can stand the pain longer wins.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-12-27 15:20|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-12-27 15:20|| Front Page Top

#10 "Pakistan just wont cooperate with this noble narrative.

Whether we get round to admitting it or not, in Pakistan, our quarrel is with the people. Their struggle, literally, is jihad. For them, freedom would mean institutionalizing the tyranny of Islamic fundamentalism. They are the same people who, only a few weeks ago, tried to kill Benazir Bhutto on what was to be her triumphant return to prominence the symbol, however dubious, of democracys promise. They are the same people who managed to kill her today. Today, no surfeit of Western media depicting angry lawyers railing about Musharraf as if he were the problem can camouflage that fact."

So much BS. Doesnt jive at with election returns, or what actual informed people who have been there say.

Posted by Liberalhawk 2007-12-27 15:25|| 2007-12-27 15:25|| Front Page Top

#11 ZF, My comment was not much about Bhutto, but about the nature of islamst beast and what one can expect from it.

Not biased agains Paki leaders... They are individuals, and need to be weighed by their fruits. They are, no doubt, in a difficult position, ever since Zia opened the islamist pandora box.

I only tried to object, obliquely, to your sweeping generalization, "Indian logic" as it were, when we are talking, de facto, about author's logic. Maybe you did not meant it that way, but it came out as a major bias on your part.

Posted by twobyfour 2007-12-27 15:30|| 2007-12-27 15:30|| Front Page Top

#12 TBF: I only tried to object, obliquely, to your sweeping generalization, "Indian logic" as it were, when we are talking, de facto, about author's logic. Maybe you did not meant it that way, but it came out as a major bias on your part.

My personal view is that Indian commentators have two major blind spots - British colonial rule and Pakistan. The normal rules of logic do not apply in discussions of those two topics. That is all I meant.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2007-12-27 15:48|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2007-12-27 15:48|| Front Page Top

23:58 Seafarious
23:56 twobyfour
23:54 JosephMendiola
23:47 JosephMendiola
23:44 JosephMendiola
23:39 JosephMendiola
23:37 twobyfour
23:33 JosephMendiola
23:31 JosephMendiola
23:29 JosephMendiola
23:28 JosephMendiola
23:27 3dc
23:25 JosephMendiola
23:23 twobyfour
23:16 Barbara Skolaut
23:11 Frank G
23:07 trailing wife
23:02 trailing wife
22:59 trailing wife
22:55 twobyfour
22:54 Frank G
22:48 Frank G
22:45 twobyfour
22:37 Frank G