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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (50920)	9/7/2006 10:33:42 AM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

An interesting conversation yesterday with a Pakistani friend when I told him about the ABC misquote, Laz. It basically comes down to the old saying - all politics is local. The western talking heads think everything that happens in Pakistan (or anywhere else, for that matter) is either a victory or, more often, a failure for our side in the war on terror - that every event need only be evaluated in that context. With such a perspective, we simply can't understand how reports such as the "truce with the Taliban" can be anything but a stinging defeat for Bush and a victory for Osama Bin Laden. But it is really neither. My friend explained that in that region - Waziristan Province, what the western press refers to as "Taliban fighters" as if they were an organized army taking refuge there from Afghanistan is really nothing more than the religiously tradition-bound tribal inhabitants of a sparsely populated, inaccessible, region who are all armed because that's the way they have lived for many generations. The area is traditionally governed, including under the British, by local chieftains who the national government must respect and act through if they want any real control over the region. By sending in thousands of federal troops, trying to impose a degree of control (and disarmament) never before successfully imposed there, the Pakistani government broke with tradition and unsurprisingly met resistance. The so-called truce with the Taliban - which means nothing more than "student" to people there - is really just an agreement to return to the traditional mode of respecting local authority. It does not mean creating a safe haven for Osama or for the Afghani Taliban. He added, BTW, that there is much more to regional international politics there than we ever really consider here, including ongoing border disputes with Afghanistan, as well as India; distrust of some elements of the Afghani coalition that defeated the Taliban such as Northern Alliance leader Dostum, who was on the Soviet side of the fighting there until he switched sides in the late 1980s; obvious lingering distrust of Indian government motives; and blood relationships that know and respect no borders. None of this has anything to do with the war on terror, really, but we in the west treat it all as if it does. Again, all politics is local. Our press needs to learn that.

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (50920)	9/7/2006 4:11:21 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Pakistan is of course about cordial relations. Our friend there is India. Fortunately, India has more people in the military than the entire population of Pakistan. There are many similarities between Judaism and Indian self interest. Both groups have a strong sense of family and self interest. Both prefer power and influence through business and money rather than through violence. Both further Western values and mitigate the encroachment of alien values. So even though we cultivate alliance with Pakistan--it is superficial at best. They are trying to control Pakistan with economic carrots and sticks. The real deterrence to Pakistani hegemony, however, is our ally, India.