Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (31026)	5/29/2002 3:49:56 AM
From: frankw1900	Respond to of 281500

What, you want Musharraff to run an election in the middle of a war? The guy has acknowledged that the country will return to democracy, that's the best you can hope for in the middle of a crisis. Why not? Wartime leaders are traditionally popular. The Indians marched up their army because the Pakistani government would not send to them 20 - 30 people who aren't even attractive to the majority of Pakistanis, and whom the Indians claimed have commited crimes in India including the assault on the parliament. But gosh, in the face of this good judgement Mushareff and his supporters should win in a landslide. Let me make this more clear with an example from our own history. The US didn't assemble for a constitutional convention until the revolutionary war was over. And even then it took years before they got anywhere. Pakistan has a government and a constitution. Your example doesn't fit. Re: "Of course thay can. They're intimate with al Qaeda. They give as little as possible, grudgingly, and much of their officer corps and security agencies energetically attempt to sabotage the help and would love to find an opportunity to back shoot US forces. I said Pakistan is an ambiguous ally." Who exactly is this "they"? Governments are composed of complicated groupings of individuals, each with their own views and interests. "They" is Mushareff and his supporters. They ran the Taliban. They are the government. They appointed themselves. They removed the previous government overnight when it tried to wiggle out from the islamists and the ISI. Turned on a dime then, to use your felicitous phrase. After 9/11 Powell turned up and scared the hell out of Mushareff - told him to stop playing silly bugger with the Afghan adventure, (which was obviously a loser to everyone except the islamist members of the military), or the US would do both Afghanistan and Pakistan and be mighty friendly with the Indians. Once Mushareff changed his drawers he went from one end of the country to the other trying to sell the new dispensation - the twenty percent of the military who are whackos and who supported Mushareff's coup will have nothing to do with it. Ever since then he's been trying to play both sides of the street. The really absurd part of this is that the military is demonstrably unable to run the country - they've proved it several times. The islamist whackos have proved with the Afghan example they can't run a country, either. 80% of Pakistanis are sick to death of the violent islamists who hold so much power in the armed forces and security services and in their civilian form terrorize the general population. Both the Iranian and US examples you give are not applicable. The Pakistanis have already suffered twenty years of islamist-military nonsense. If Zia had not hijacked the military and security services for them, the islamists would have been marginalized years ago. Musharraf is about as good a leader as we're going to find right now He's as good a leader as the Pakistani military will allow themselves. But remember they can't run a country - they've proved that. My point when we started out on this thread was Pakistan is an unreliable ally. And this jackpot it's got itself into with the Indians because of the military's islamist obsession with Kashmir, and their willingness to be a cat's paw for the chinese, proves it. This is negligible compared to historic US supplies to Pakistan. 40 F-16s, for example, cost about $600 million. The US has not delivered the planes and it's not going to - they're sitting in Arizona waiting for another buyer.. But it will sell India artillery fire finder radars (otherwise known as take your best shot 'cause you only get one radars). What the US will sell or give to Pakistan is stuff that means no never mind when it comes to conflict with India. The radar is a hell of a tactical weapon and India could surely use it to great advantage.. The Phalcon AWACS system is something the Israelis felt it was advisable to talk to the US about selling to India. So, yes it's part of the US India defense relation. The US govt has to give permission to Raytheon or whoever to sell these systems - that's why I said it's the US that sells the stuff. The US defense contractors would like to sell anything they could to anybody which is why the gov't has to have a say. Profits are good; security is better.