On the heels of the Bhutto murder, one has to wonder if democracy is possible or even something that should be pushed by the international community. With literacy at about a paltry 25% in the country and mullah run schools providing the majority of education, one wonders if a benevolent dictatorship such as the one Musharraf has employed, isn't the best choice.With radical Islam running rampant in a nuclear country, a democracy could possibly put these weapons in the hands of an extremist. Pakistan really needs to step up and take back control of the education of it's young. While under any other circumstance, I would be against this idea, it is evident that the mullahs are raising a population of extremist nuts.
If it does prove out that Islamic fanatics like Al Qaeda are responsible for Bhutto's death, the US and the rest of the world would do well to support Pakistan's President Musharraf and call for the proper education of the future generation of Pakistan. As a nuclear nation, the world has to hold Pakistan responsible to who holds power in that country. A 25% literacy rate is abysmal in a country with the potential for such destruction. It's about time the world makes an effort to educate the masses.
Or the mullahs will continue to generate new generations of suicide bombers and nuts. For the time being, I wouldn't mind seeing the UN and Pakistan cleaning out the tribal areas of Pakistan as a start.
8 comments:
Bluey:
I agree wholeheartedly, but the question is HOW? As I'm sure you noticed, Musharraf isn't exactly the most popular figure in Pakistan. I doubt he has the power to clean out the redicals along the Afghan border. If that was ever going to happen it would have occured in late 2002 when the US military and the Northern Alliance had pushed the Talis back into Tora Bora and they were able to escape into Pakistan. Meanwhile, we have been spending BILLIONS arming the Pakistanis since 9/11, but to what end? The country is less stable than ever and not getting any better. I fear that one day soon we will be looking at another Iran: a radical Muslin Country with nuclear weapons.
The answer isn't to turn tail and run either. Spending billions in Pakistan now is better than spending much more later in cash and lives, when their "democracy" elects some Islamic radical to run the country. This isn't like Iran where the mullahs run the show and control the government. Musharraf, right or wrong controls the government and the military. You take him out of there and the mullahs will run the show and they will have their hands on nuclear missles.
If the world does nothing to prevent that, it gets what it deserves.
I'm hearing nothing from democrats short of turning tail and "saving" money and American lives. That is incredibly short sighted. Again, we don't get any plans or answers but get a very isolationist message from them.
I'd argue that, that's what got us in trouble from the beginning. If you have a hands off foreign policy, you can't complain when the result is horrendous.
I think it's time to get the rest of the world on our bandwagon and off the sidelines. They all have problems with their own radical Islamic populations but choose to continually ignore it. Pakistan represents a crossroads. If we, as a world don't help stabilize that country, we are morons.
Do you honestly believe there is a difference between taking out Bhutto and countless others, 9/11, and launching a nuclear weapon towards a nation of infidels to radical Islam. These people are not afraid to die to destroy us.
We've seen them kill their own to merely destabilize our forces.
The head in the sand answer is a poor one. This is a battle that needs to be fought today. And by a lot more countries than just the US.
I wouldn't vote for one of the Democratic candidates if you dropped a million bucks at my feet. I am frightened of a world with a president who will let these extremists have time to regroup and rebuild their arsenals again.
Bluey, A couple things:
-by suggesting that Pakistan would be better off with a dictatorship instead of democracy, you espouse the same misguided policies that the US has followed over the years that tends to blow up in our face...the Cuban Revolution, the fall of the Shah, and yes, even our old buddy Saddam, who we backed in the 80's to fight the Iranians. He didn't seem like such a bad guy back then I guess. All of these were cases where the US backed unpopular dictators that fell to the will of the people..all have ultimately been sores in our collective sides. Telling people they can have a democracy only when it's convenient to us is the height of hypocrisy.
-I'm frankly depressed by the consistent lack of quality in ANY of the US candidates. And before you start slamming the Dems, don't forget that the incompetence of the current administration is largely responsible for the mess we are in.
-If we hadn't invaded Iraq in the first place, we would have a lot easier time enlisting the help of all these countries that you want to get to help clean up the mess in the middle east. As it is we unfortunately no longer have much credibility with anyone around the world. I DO NOT advocate a strategy of head in the sand, nor retreat, but we have to recognize that what we are currently doing and have been doing for years is not working and likely only making things worse.
-We also would have not unnecessarily degraded the readiness of our armed forces. As it stands, we don't have the troop strength necessary to clean out anything short of my trash without seriously eroding our strength in Iraq or Afghanistan.
-Back to Pakistani Leadership. With the Billions in dollars in aid we funnel to them, why havesn't they been able to beat the Talis and Al Queda yet? It's not like it's any secret as to where the Taliban are hiding (the mountains along the Afghan border). If Musharef was really serious about rooting them out and/or had the support to do, he would have by now. The reason is most of the money we are spending seems to be funding weapons (mainly F16's and advanced weapons systems) that are better suited to fight the Pakistani's traditional enemies: the Indians! The F-16 incidentally, is a strike fighter quite capable of delivering a tactical nuclear weapon with a cruising ranger of over 1400 miles. So now that the Pakis have nucs, we've neatly provided a delivery system capable of letting them strike targets in all of India, western China, and even into Russia. Hooray for us!
-Bottom line is I have very little faith in any of our "friends" in the middle east, the Pakistanis nor the Saudis. The people that run those countries are at best playing both sides against the middle. Unfortunately the current administration is too busy lining their pockets and playing but buddy with the house of Saud to notice.
-I hear a lot of rhetoric about enlisting other nations to help "educate the masses" from you, but no plan other on how to do it. We need to stop pussy footing around with these petty dictators and decide whether this is a battle worth fighting. Tell Pakistan we will provide the ONLY aid that helps with education of their people, and counterinsurgency weapons and training. No more F-16's.
-I have no problem with waging war to protect this country, I just wish we would fight the right people and not pussy foot around with half measures. All this does is waste the lives of our brave soldiers. If you are going to put our people in harms way then be prepared to MAKE WAR. Privately put the leadership of the Saudis and the Pakistanis on notice. Tell them if one nuke ever explodes in the US that we are prepared to nuke every Islamic city in the world. Short of that, I fear we will have to send troops over the border from Afghanistan into Pakistan to ever really wipe out the Taliban. To do that, we will need more troops. We will need a draft. Are you prepared for that? I hope we never have to find out,but I'm not optimistic
Don, I am going to make my last comment as short and sweet as possible. It is a real shame that you seemingly have been brainwashed my the democrats, who would like nothing better than for us to fail, so that they can gain office. After 9/11, Bush reacted swiftly and chose two targets for retaliation, Iraq and Afghanistan. We can argue right and wrong all day on those choices, but before both wars, "experts" predicted that we were going to get our asses handed to us. Russia spent 10 years in Afghanistan and achieved nothing. In a few short months and maybe a 100 casualties later, those countries were ours to do with what we wish. Barring genocide of both nations, we've done a great job maintaining as much control as possible.
Had somone offered a suggestion that we would suffer less than 3,000 troop casualties for BOTH wars, they would have been committed.
Of course the Democrats will cry about war mismanagement, torture of prisoners, issues with body armor, etc...but the simple fact is that what this Bush administration has done is awesome. I believe that despite popular opinion, Bush will go down in the history books as a great man who made huge inroads to solving the problem of radical Islam. No one liked Reagan in the 80's and now he is attributed to winning the Cold War.
I'm just saying that you should get ready to eat crow when our ridiculously short sighted American population stops playing politics and pulls their heads out of their asses.
I love Bush and he is my favorite president in my lifetime. He has balls and took swift action when called upon.
Making bold statements about nuking Arab cities makes no sense. You have to have the guts to smack a bully right on the nose.
We're kicking Al Qaeda's ass on their own homefield, which is preferable.
Maybe one of these days, the democrats and the rest on the non participating pansy ass countries will step up to the plate and help us do the dirty business of making the world a safer place.
Funny how the IRA doesn't bomb English targets anymore. Terrorists have been put on notice. And God knows they're praying for a Democrat in office in 2008. I wonder why that is?
Wow...just wow...
Bluey, you and I just could not be further apart on this issue. I really hope I do eat crow, because if I'm wrong then Bush won't have been the worst president of my lifetime. He won't have trampled upon the constitution, needlessly degraded the military, led the country out of an era of prosperity and into recession, all while seeing radical Islam strengthened on his watch.
One last thought..how are we kicking Al Queda's ass when the whole point of your initial post was in response to the assasination (by Al Queda) of one of it's most prominent an popular leaders in broad daylight?
I'm just stunned by your comments. But then again, someone had to vote for this Bush...hopefully your (and someday my) children won't still be paying for his mistakes.
Bluey: One last factual correction. The IRA doesn't bomb English targets anymore because they signed the Belfast Peace Agreement (Good Friday Accords) in 1998 (3 years before 9/11 and by the way Clinton was in office back then since you seem so worried about bad things happening with the Dems in office), which began a long, drawn out process that saw an eventual declaration of the end of violent means to attain their goals on July 28th, 2005. Even though we disagree on many points, I enjoy our debates, I'd just ask that you get your facts straight next time.
Happy New Year!
Mike
Wow, what utter nonsense. Do you really believe that we have the power to dictate democracy or prevent assassinations in a sovereign country? All we can do is support who we choose to. If you look back in your history books, you'll also find numerous accords and agreements between the IRA and Great Britain that did absolutely nothing. Are you really that naive to believe that the US stand against terrorism after 9/11 had nothing to do with the IRAs suspension of activity?
Maybe if we wish on unicorns and rainbows, the world's problems will all figure themselves out.
God, I love ya Don, but you are getting kookier by the day.
Bluey: The whole IRA issue is another discussion for another day. I don't ever recall much if any involvement by the Bush against the IRA. I don't remember Northern Ireland being held up there with the axis of evil. Maybe Bush threatened to invade Belfast and I just missed it? If you are going to try to credit Bush for this, I'd remind you that Clinton was actually instrumental in brokering the Good Friday accords (here are some links):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/1065913.stm
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/10/nclinton.ireland.api/
If you have facts to the contrary showing the same level of involvement by the current administration, I'm all ears, otherwise I believe we have sufficiently beat this into the ground.
No hard feelings here, as I'm sure you know. If we were arguing this in person I'm not sure whether it would have come to blows by now or whether I'd be laughing so hard that I would piss myself. I'd probably pop you in the mouth then piss myself laughing. It's your blog, so you get the last word without further argument from me, I promise.
Good day, my friend. I hope the color of the sky in your world is still blue, (or red) as would be more appropro in this case.
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