10 October 2005

Pakistan

Just in case you needed something to fret about today:

The earthquake in Kashmir may be a watershed event.

Half of Pakistan's citizens think Osama Bin Laden is the moral opposite of William Jefferson Clinton.
That half of Pakistan has already made at least three credible attempts to help Musharraf assume ambient temperature.

I've been listening to interviews of Pakistani citizens on the BBC.
The "Beeb" is portraying Musharraf's response to these events as less than satisfactory.

He has a political nightmare on his hands........
he needs to be visible, personally directing the emergency response to this catastrophe.
But he knows he'd likely be a target at every turn.........

The U.S. attacked Iraq because we suspected they MIGHT have Weapons of Mass Destruction at their disposal.
What should be our response if the Nuclear capable Pakistani government falls into the hands of radical Islamists?

We live in "interesting" times!

4 comments:

Mike Poole said...

After speaking to some brave soldiers just in from Abu Gharaib over the weekend, I feel that it is nearing time to introduce Dr. Strangelove to those that would harm us.

I talked to a young man in desert camo sipping on his first beer in a year. Between sips and glances at the scantily clad women in Terminal A at DFW, he explained the war in simple terms.

Vets talk about the thousand-yard stare... I saw it in his eyes.

This remarkable man, maybe 19 or 20, has seen things no man should ever see. The Master Sergeant sitting next to him listened quietly to my questions and the soldier's answers.

The young man politely summed up the entirety of the situation. He said that Iraqis welcome them, but none of them that are alive today have ever lived in a free society.

The concepts of Liberation and Freedom have no meaning to many of them. They simply cannot grasp what we want to provide them.

They don't want Cadillacs and polo shirts. They are happy we got rid of Saddam but the rest doesn't really make sense to them.

I broached the topic of the prison photos cautiously. The soldier told me the standard expectation among his buddies was that some of them will be murdered once the pictures are out. He calmly explained that he didn't expect all his buddies to be there when he returned from his scant 15 day leave.

When they got up to leave I thanked them. The soldier shrugged his shoulders and humbly said, "It's what we do."

I asked them what they would do first when they got home. The old sarge cracked a smile and spoke for the first time.

He said, "I will tell you what the SECOND thing is... "

For the rest of my layover I couldn't help but think of his loving and eager wife at home in Kentucky. Soon she would greet him and he could be free of the heavy burden of too many wars and too many stripes...

Anonymous said...

The good news may be that one of these days during cleanup from the earthquake, there might be a possiblity of finding some squashed bodies identified as Osama Ben Ladin and some of his henchmen.

Anonymous said...

Let's see -

 Katrina and Rita have left a mess that we may never get cleaned up. People are still homeless and out of work. Heck, they are still out of electricity, food and water!

 The Northeast is learning to tread water,,, but not learning fast enough

 California was on fire; mud slides will be next,,, unless the fault line shudders and then Arizona will be beach front property

 Mexico and Guatemala are suffering terrible loses from the last hurricane

 Africa is dying of AIDS

 The Amazon is in a draught and the Rain Forrest is having wild fires.

 An avian virus may give a whole new meaning to “I think I have the flu”

 Pakistan fell into an abyss and took about 35,000 people with it

 Iraq seems to be blowing up,,, one car at a time

And now I need to worry about nuts getting the nukes in Pakistan! :::sigh:::

Geez Louise, Greybeard!! It's just too much!
**************************
This just wasn’t a good day to stop sniffing glue, I guess. ;}

Infinitegtr said...

The solution to this problem is the same as all other problems...
1) Invade France
2) More Drag Racing

I remember, in the 80's, watching a video in high school civics produced in the mid 1950's, watch warned that if the scourge of Communism was not immediately wiped out of Europe, the children of the Eastern Bloc would forever and irreperably be die hard communists, never knowing or understanding what freedom meant. They would be our sworn life-long enemies.

Ten years later, in college, I dropped the beer bong long enough to watch the Berlin Wall get torn down. Communism was easy, because it was a cult of personality. The problems we now face are intertwined with religion and culture, putting this on the opposite end of the Enemy-o-Meter.

But you just gotta believe that someday, for some generation, if we put up the good fight, and if we individually and as a country live the positive example of freedom in a responsible, open society, that our children will grow up in a Post Berlin Wall, Post radical Islamic terror world. If you can't believe that, how can you even get out of bed in the mornings...