Article

2003-04-18 India-Pakistan

U.S. Said to Be Frustrated With Pakistan

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Posted by Steve White 2003-04-18 12:08 am|| || Front Page|| [10 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Yes, after 55 years of alliance with Pakistan, I think we should probably be getting a little miffed. We have spurned democratic India in favor of the Paks for almost that entire time. In return, the Paks have been a singularly treacherous, duplicitous, and unreliable ally. They had to be bribed and threatened into supporting the war against the Taliban, an operation so manifestly justified that even Germany, France, and the UN backed it. Yet we are offended that Indian opinion is not wholeheartedly supportive of our policies in other areas. Indian opinion was wrong about Iraq, but Indians are human beings, and 61,000 dead weigh pretty heavily in the balance of public opinion. India can solve this problem themselves if we send them the right signal. I don't think it would hurt to remind Musharraf of that.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2003-04-18 01:49:38|| [www.nuclearspace.com] 2003-04-18 01:49:38|| Front Page Top

#2 Pakistan is a piece of garbage, posing as a country. The world would be a better place if that terror state was no more.

Posted by Anonon 2003-04-18 02:33:29|| 2003-04-18 02:33:29|| Front Page Top

#3 Atomic: "India can solve this problem themselves..."

You're referring to two very large smokin' holes in the ground where Pakistan and India used to be, I presume?

I have held the opinion for several years that the next use of nukes would be between the PakInd's - and, over that time, a varied range of thoughts on whether that would be good or bad.

I will be out of touch for a few days, but I'd like to see you be more specific regards your post. Your site doesn't reveal your precise position, unless it's buried out in the Message Board, or something. BTW, nice site - I'll be back to see what's up!

I definitely agree that we should, to the largest extent possible, be trying to get off this mudball and find another compatible with our delicate condition. You just know that, eventually, we will tip Mother Nature over onto her head and overtax her remarkable self-healing / self-regulating abilities - and ruin this one. I'm only semi-green and do not wish to go back to the trees - hat tip to Douglas Adams, may he RIP, a hero to thinking apes everywhere.

Based upon this, and the fervent wish that we might "cleanse" the Ark (A or B???) inhabitants of their superstitions and delusions (read: religion, etc.) during the trip, colonization of a new mudball seems rather important. As Dylan / Zimmerman said: "He not busy being born is busy dying."

Re: PakInd difficulties, they are all mired in the insoluble human condition: my superstitions are Truth - yours are mere superstitions or, worse, blasphemy... I must kill you...

My solution: take all of the children away from their parents by age 3. Send them all somewhere without adults - I guess this means we need some serious advances in AI. Unable to take these intellectually perfect little sponges and fill them full of stupidity and bias and hate and propagate the foolishness that passes for various societies, in approx 2.5 generations, all of the current idiocy would cease via simple attrition.

I think we should fill their heads with Douglas Adams and Buckminster Fuller and P.J. O'Rourke, but that's just another twisted man's opinion.

Posted by PD 2003-04-18 02:52:30|| 2003-04-18 02:52:30|| Front Page Top

#4 PD,
I agree,if the human race is to have a future we need to start expanding off"Dear Old Mother Earth".
But you certaianly startled me.First we have "Rabid Jihadis"now"Rabid Athiests"who'da thunk it,(lol).

Posted by raptor 2003-04-18 06:34:11|| 2003-04-18 06:34:11|| Front Page Top

#5 raptor - rabid atheists are nothing new - didnt we deal with that for over 70 years (1917-1991) (not holding that against all atheists - only rabid ones) Not interested in going back to that sort of thing.

Pakland and India - we have to put pressure on Pakland over J&K or we lose all credibility with India - terrorism against US is reason to change regimes by force in Afghan and Iraq, and terrorism against Israelis is reason to at least put pressure for new leadership in PA, but Islamic terrorism against India and we look the other way? If I was Indian id sure as hell be pissed. Not that i think nuke war is good idea, and we have other things on the table with Pakland, but we have to make it clear we take this stuff very seriously.

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-04-18 08:34:13|| 2003-04-18 08:34:13|| Front Page Top

#6 Liberalhawk - on the money re: J&K. We have to stop the Pak infiltrations into Afghanistan and Kashmir. My biggest worry is that if the fundo Paks get over on Perv (no choirboy himself, but the lesser evil there), they might force the Indians to take pre-emptive action. Nukes in the hands of two hostile groups, one believing in martyrdom, the other believing in reincarnation = no restraint. We need to isolate Pakland and support India

Posted by Frank G 2003-04-18 09:18:07|| 2003-04-18 09:18:07|| Front Page Top

#7 I remember Kissinger's famous "Tilt toward Pakistan" bit years ago. That was a mistake. Reading the last couple of postings on Pakistan gave me the beginnings of a headache, trying to keep track of all the maneuverings of parties. People are not working toward a consensus and it will not change in the near future, seeing how the younger generations are being "educated." I hate to bring up the "follow the money" bit, but it seems that this land of nutcases is being financed by either/both Saudi and US money. I would imagine that the the private sector is hurting because foreign money other than Saudi or US is scared away. What would the implications for the US AND Afghanistan be if we started pulling the plug? This is all a very complicated situation, but in effect we have become enablers for these jihad and spittle generators?

Posted by Alaska Paul 2003-04-18 11:08:16|| 2003-04-18 11:08:16|| Front Page Top

#8 Pakistan is on the edge. Its in our best interests to guide them in the right direction. To do that we need to help the General get rid of some of the psychos and getting them to go into Afghanistan where we can kill them is probably the best way to do it I can think of.

Posted by Yank 2003-04-18 11:52:42|| 2003-04-18 11:52:42|| Front Page Top

#9 "rabid atheists are nothing new - didnt we deal with that for over 70 years (1917-1991) (not holding that against all atheists - only rabid ones) Not interested in going back to that sort of thing."

In my opinion this is off a little. Communism is more like a religious cult than a political philosphy. The worshipers believe everything on faith, requiring no proof to justify their world view and easily discounting all evidence that their world view is incorrect. As a religion the believers aren't really atheists.

Posted by Yank 2003-04-18 11:56:15|| 2003-04-18 11:56:15|| Front Page Top

#10 Yank - yeah, like the jihadis arent real muslims, Kahanists arent real Jews, etc, etc. They didnt (and dont) believe god exists ergo theyre atheists. Your evidence that theyre not is simply evidence that theyre "rabid". Atheists who want to be taken seriously when condeming abuses of one religion or another need to acknowledge that atheism is subject to abuse as well, rather than hide behind a CAIR-like distinction of what is "real atheism". Atheism -the philosophy of peace - POP(TM)?

Posted by liberalhawk 2003-04-18 12:22:43|| 2003-04-18 12:22:43|| Front Page Top

#11 PD, the redoubtable J.N. Dixit has a very interesting discussion of the Indian pre-emption issue in today's Indian Express. He does not think the Iraq model is a valid precedent. Nevertheless, without minimizing the dangers, he does believe that it can be done without escalating to a nuclear exchange.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2003-04-18 14:02:57|| [www.nuclearspace.com] 2003-04-18 14:02:57|| Front Page Top

#12 My solution: take all of the children away from their parents by age 3. Send them all somewhere without adults - I guess this means we need some serious advances in AI. Unable to take these intellectually perfect little sponges and fill them full of stupidity and bias and hate and propagate the foolishness that passes for various societies, in approx 2.5 generations, all of the current idiocy would cease via simple attrition.
PD- have you ever read "Lord of the flies"?
I suspect your little human engineering experiment may turn sour.

Posted by DoDo 2003-04-18 14:06:02|| 2003-04-18 14:06:02|| Front Page Top

#13 Oops, forgot the link to the Dixit article: Linkage Politics

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2003-04-18 14:36:48|| [www.nuclearspace.com] 2003-04-18 14:36:48|| Front Page Top

#14 We allied with Pakistan originally because in the early stages of the Cold War we asked India if we could set up air bases in their country, and they said no. So instead we turned to Pakistan which said yes. In response India became a big member of the pro-Soviet Non-Aligned Movement.

Of course, the old alliances are a legacy of the Cold War. India would make a better ally in many ways, but not all. Pakistan is a problem in terms of anti-American terror, but Musharraf has certainly worked aggressively with the US. He's being undermined by many people who remain anti-US, but Musharraf's help is big. If we turn our back on him now, we're basically telling everyone that helping the US is for suckers. If not for Musharraf we'd probably have let India take Pakistan down. It's a very tricky situation because our long term interests definitely conincide more with India than Pakistan. But hey, this is why we have diplomats.

Posted by Chris Durnell 2003-04-18 15:52:24|| [thirdrail.blogspot.com] 2003-04-18 15:52:24|| Front Page Top

#15 DoDo - No. Half of a thought is all the credit you get. AI = Parental Substitute sans the superstitious BS. Lord of the Flies was: a) only a BOOK, not the "TRUTH" and b) they HAD MEMORIES of a system - a flawed system created by their parents back thru the ages of the British Isle - and they executed it to perfection. Just EXACTLY my point, in fact, as this is what the AI would specifically LACK and PREVENT.

Raptor: You chose the word. I just observe, look for the flaws, rethink without the bad gears / algorithms. I have a simple enough theory for you: children start out perfect. They are TAUGHT what to fear and hate. Corrolary: Once taught, it's too late... so if it's all grown up and it's broken, you're probably going to have to kill it... Even though most studies are incredibly biased toward hope of rehabilitation (that's how they get funding, doncha know) check out the undeniably abysmal stats - and recidivism rates (especially for violent crimes) for my reasoning.

liberahawk: My oh my what a skeered little primate we have here! What is the difference between your spew, Geo43's Faith-Based spew, Falwell's spew, the Pope's spew, and Ayatollah Khomeini's spew? Nothing but the favored flavor. You like Vanilla and he likes Chocolate. You're all simply following well-worn paths because it's comfortable (you were raised to it) and you don't REALLY have to think (you were raised to it) and it promises you a great thumbsuck in the sky to assuage your fears of dying and being wormfood. Poor, poor skeered litle primate. Sorry, but you're fucked and fucked-up. If you ever free yourself from the amber of your accidental bloodline's foolishness, c'mon back and we'll talk. Otherwise, if you can't see what I'm saying and hear the clear ring of truth in it, then you are "already all grown up and broken..." Waste.

Frank: PakIndiLaysian problems. All solutions in this arena are extremely limited in duration / scope. I've become convinced that you really NEED two smoking holes and have both of these mountains of incredible foolisheness removed from the pool. Those that emigrate to the US, UK, Canada, etc, collectively, drag the same insanity and mindless crap along with them. They clump / cluster in their new homes and, when they reach critical mass, become cancerous tumors of their new host. Look around and tell me what you see - maybe I'm not working without data... If I am, it's not going to work. Just like the Iraq Experiment is not going to work, IMHO. Noble idea, but wasted if we don't impose it with an iron fist and seal it off to keep it from being infected in its youth. Sad. Pathetic.

All: This isn't Rocket Science. People in weblogs like this are the most likely people on the planet (progressive, tech savvy, abstract thinkers, communicators, opposable thumbs for driving mice and building tractor beams, etc) to be able to shake off what you were taught from birth and think it through, one issue at a time, to build your own universal view from these pieces. The people in this venue are likely Children of Aristotle - at least to the degree that they are willing to submit their view (and each of its components) to rigorous Scientific Method scrutiny, and discard the pieces that fail the test. This can be done in the privacy of their own minds. Jerry Springer guests are specifically excluded. In other words hunt your own herd for the sacred cows, then have BBQ - as often as you find them - but do it in private.

I guess that some are not capable of actual dialog - too dogmatic and blind and full of the crap Mommy 'n Daddy believed. Sad - more minds wasted. More "B" Ark reservations...

Posted by Anonymous 2003-04-20 09:18:47|| 2003-04-20 09:18:47|| Front Page Top

#16 Oops - I'm in an Internet cafe and forgot to change Anon to PD. Sorry...

Frank - I squirreled a sentence badly:
"maybe I'm not working without data... "
SHOULD've been:
"maybe I'm not working with enough data..."

Sorry. I'm typing on the clock, now, so my fingers fly a tiny bit faster...

Posted by PD 2003-04-20 09:27:13|| 2003-04-20 09:27:13|| Front Page Top

09:54 PD
09:27 PD
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13:12 Ptah
09:57 raptor
08:47 raptor
08:03 raptor
06:44 Tony
04:35 Ben
01:42 Phil B
01:33 Scott
01:24 Phil B
01:15 Brew
01:07 Brew
22:42 Dishman
22:24 snellenr
21:37 Craig
21:15 anon1
21:13 Craig
20:48 Old Grouch
20:43 Douglas De Bono
20:41 anon1
20:16 anon1
20:13 Old Patriot