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2012-03-03 India-Pakistan

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Posted by trailing wife 2012-03-03 10:43|| || Front Page|| [1 views ] Top

#1 Believing everything you read in Stratfor is like believing everything you read in Debka...

I believe that. ;-) But, and it's a big but, can the Pakistanis, who believe as firmly in conspiracies as they do in Mohammed, and whose religion requires magical rather than logical thinking, afford to assume that anything revealed is in any way untrue? A leak among the new brigadier generals, Stratfor passing on to clients the idea that senior men in the army (and the ISI contains very senior army men, indeed) have been lying about knowing about Osama bin Laden... And if Hamid Gul was indeed connected with Stratfor, as either a source or a client, as is claimed elsewhere, that could make things even more interesting for the generals of the Army of the.Pure, whether from the troops, the Pakistani people, or the Americans.

The people of Pakistan loathe their corrupt politicians, as far as I can tell, and legitimately resent that nothing on the civilian side works even after paying the necessary bribes. But up 'til now at least the army could be trusted to take care of whatever it deemed within its area of responsibility -- except actually winning wars, but still. The Stratfor cache, however riddked with forgeries it may be, reveals for all to see that there are those within the leadership of the Army of the Pure who cannot be trusted by their peers.

Paranoia, conspiracy mongering, back stabbing, ass covering...it's going to get considerably more interesting within and without the Pakistani halls of power. I suspect the fallout will spread widely, contaminate many, and may well seriously degrade the ruling oligarchy, one way or another -- which could not happen to a more deserving bunch of miscreants, in my opinion. .

Posted by trailing wife 2012-03-03 13:37|| 2012-03-03 13:37|| Front Page Top

#2 "Believing everything you read in Stratfor is like believing everything you read in Debka."

I'll second that. Both pretty much make up plausible scenarios out of thin air but even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again. Stratfor was a bit less likely, though, to make stuff up and post it is "fact". They would label speculation as such more often than Debka does. Every time a carrier group is relieved in the Persian Gulf region, Debka has us ready to attack Iran. Maybe some day they will be corrrect, but not by any feat of intelligence, but simply through repeating the same thing often enough.

It is sort of like "predicting" a stock market crash every day. Eventually you will be correct. But nobody is going to pay much attention to it.

Posted by crosspatch 2012-03-03 16:17|| 2012-03-03 16:17|| Front Page Top

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