A sobering analysis from Richard Fernandez;
The same people who argued Iraq was “lost” because a Saddam was toppled will now argue that Pakistan is about to be lost because we won’t help ease Musharraf out of power. Frederic Grare argues that a Pakistan without Musharraf will make a semi-soft landing under the aegis of some other more legitimate miltary strongman. That may well be true, but we have nothing but Grare’s word for it. Iran was “lost” in weeks — because we eased the Shah out of power — though Carter did not think it would end that way. Realistically, once a power struggle erupts in Pakistan, it will take an Old Testament prophet to anticipate how it will finally play out. It’s a dilemma, and I will pose no answer to it. However that may be, the crisis may now be upon us if the Red Mosque incident has provided the match to the powderkeg.
Well put.
rgr
The comments at the Belmont Club are as qualitative as Richard Fernandez’s brillant analysis.
This one stood out for me, a future scenerio after we are hit with a nuclear bomb, it sums up the craven left and the two enemy war we are engaged in, the WOT and the war with the left:
“The Left, in its rabid commitment to ruining everything in which George Bush is involved, may very well open the window of opportunity for a nuke on the Hudson… and instead of suffering losses of 5 to 10k overseas to go with the 3,000 lost on 9/11, we might lose 100k in Manhattan alone… along with how many thousands upon thousands of muslim children who have nowhere to flee as a MIRV pops open high over Medina….”
If the Democrats are stupid enough to hasten the demise of pro-Western Musharraf, like Carter did to the Shah, we will be in deep trouble. The devil you know is a safe bet then the devil you don’t. Assuming that a democratic election in Pakistan wouldn’t produce another rabid theocracy of deranged imams like Iran would be a mistake. Democratic elections brought Hamas, Chavez and Putin into power. There are areas of the world where the electorate are stupid and dangerous.
…speaking of Old Testiment prophets.
For Israel to be attacked, the US has to be out of the way or neuter, err, neutralized.
This is very close to happening. A couple of Islamic dirty nukes in NYC, LAX and so on, Democratic leadership and the US is open to China attacking.
Ah, what do I know, makes for good science fiction movie eh?
Unfortunately life is stranger than fiction.
Primitives with nuclear capability is a bad scenario. Best if we just whack them all up front. Pour le education d’le autres.
I think this fight in Pakistan is internal and was inevitable. Pakistan has to face up to its future; is it going to regress to the 7th century or move into modernization?
The Islamists/Al Qaeda are after power, total power over the people, to repress and enslave them within fascism. And notice, they aren’t seeking power by appeals to the people, but with guns, rockets, machine guns, bombs.
I don’t think it has anything, really, to do with Musharraf ‘as himself’ but has to do with the split within Pakistan. This conflict is occurring all over the ME – and it HAS to occur there, it has to be fought out by them – and at the same time, and afterwards – debated and discussed. It can’t be hidden as it has been for decades.
Al Qaeda will try to externalize the conflict to prevent the West from both assisting modernization in the ME, and – from existing as modern. They will try for highly visible attacks on the West. But – in the long run, it won’t work. Time doesn’t move backwards.
Mojo said,
** Best if we just whack them all up front. Pour le education d’le autres.**
The idea is OK, except for the,** whack them all** part.
Most all the small folks are decent people, it*s the power mongers and their mad gangs you have to whack with precision.
Much Better to help the Iranians who want to take back their Iran from Acmahdinejad and the * Mad Mullahs*.
Do that and you deflate Muqtada al Sadr and his cuttthroat blackshirts in Iraq.
I have met ordinary Russians on their ships and they are good natured, generous and laugh easily. Nothing like Putin and his gang.
You can get the same vibe from Iraqis and Kurds on MichaelTotten.com
= TG
penny wrote, “There are areas of the world where the electorate are stupid and dangerous”. Unfortunately, I think that description might include Canada!
(penny, I say, “God bless America!” We’d be in more hot water than we already are without you. Cheers;-)
lookout – don’t praise us too fast. We still have the ’08 election to get through. We have our fair share of mindless sheeple that swallow whole the garbage that the lefty MSM spews.
TG – those affable Russians in electing Putin have rolled back democracy in Russia. All of the private tv stations are gone now, the opposition is denied access to the public, lots of other bad stuff happening, and, Putin has a 70-80% approval rating. Like habituated zoo animals offered freedom finally they preferred the assurances of subsidies rather than taking risks.
It’s total naivete to assume that in many parts of the world people will make wise choices, you can count on the great unwashed in the Islamic world to choose badly.
With regards to Canada and all this. The King of Jordan is coming to Canada, to talk trade and Mid East stuff, specifically the first visit to Israel from the Arab League on peace in the region and it is because this current Canadian government has added honest to its role as a possible broker in the mess. See Harper’s comments regarding Hezbollah last summer. Now we call a spade a spade, before under the Liberals we called it a possible card from a possible deck of cards that may be in play here, but don’t quote me. You can’t be an honest broker without the truth.
We lost VIETNAM becuase of the lying liberal left-wing news media like WALTER KRONKITE and HANOI JANE
Yes, it’s a dangerous situation in Pakistan, I just hope we don’t have to send troops to a war there.
On that link, I noticed Al-Quaeda, or other Islamic freedom fighters, killing people in the Phillipines, Algeria, and Indonesia. Add the Tamils in Sri Lanka,Sudan, Somalia and there are plenty of little wars to get involved in. The “death of a thousand cuts” phrase comes to mind here.
what amazes me is their (Muslum) sheer numbers, we are a small population spread about a vast region, it’s cold and not conducive to dictatorship…
Islamo-fascism taken to its logical conclusion. The glorification of death results in death.
No big surprise here, although it could have been a lot messier.
Where have we heard the no surrender, no retreat gospel before?
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht BGS, PDP, CFP
Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden (Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Musharraf needs to stay in power at least 4 more years to continue to stabilize Pakistan. He realizes this and is pushing to somehow (by hook or by crook) get re-elected as President (even though he said he would only stay 8 years). I think he better than anyone knows this.
I actually believe that India is going to emerge as a huge power broker in this region. I can’t see India allowing Pakistan (or even Iran) to screw around any more and jeopordize the Indian people or their unbelievable drive towards modernity.
India has its own nationalists and religous chauvinists….It is a soiety that does have splits within it, based on religon.
PAkistan was formed as a state for Muslims, where is the equivalent criticism of that home for jews = racism, home for muslims = ???
Anyway, Pakistan is split largely on class lines, old tribal lines. Religous committment gets used to reinforce those other fault lines.
I wish we didnt have to support Mush, but for the moment we do. Need to drive him to do more.
In the meantime the West needs to build the secula democratic alternative. You get to Karachi and they are wanting to be like india, modern, secular. It is the poor rural north where religon is abused to create dreams of something else.
The outcome wont take an old testamentet prophet to guess at. The islamofascists will terrorize their way to power in Pakistan..provoke a battle with india to keep themselves in good standing with the pop…consolidate domestically and then go after afghanistan, its backyard. Then you have a solid arc of friendly islamists from the indian border, to the indian ocean to the border with the former soviet union to to, well maybe the border of saudi maybe half of iraq.
Then it is continual pushing against the neighbours to either nuetralize or expand.
Ugly scenario. Very old testament in how it plays out and resolves. WOnt be done without major violence.
All it takes is mushy to be deposed and and the US to abandon iraq….the west cant hold afghanistan and oops, islamic empire….with nukes, oil and contiguous geography, ocean access, mfg capability and lots of population.
Yikes, scaring myself
Well, rather than going “Old Testament” about the situation, go “New Testament” and consider Revelations…Israel is attacked by a dragon with ten crowns, which theologians assumed was Europe, but maybe it actually ends up being the Arab League or Islamic Empire. How many countries do they have joined together now?
Not that I believe, mind you…but the best guess for the site of a future armaegedon IS the Middle East, so its at least plausible still.
Spurwing Plover: You didn’t lose Vietnam because of the “lying left-wing media.” You got run out of there, after that disgusting war-criminal Henry Kissinger authorized the resumption of bombing on Hanoi, on CHRISTMAS DAY!
(And you didn’t learn anything from it, either)- go crawl back under your rock!
Yo, sheik yeridiot. Vietnam was lost because bleeding heart leftard morons would not allow the US to do the job properly. Yet, the irony here is that the whole mess was intitiated by the darling of the moonbat crowd, JFK. You know, the pill popping, womanizing alcoholic democrat! Mr hero of the anti-war set was actually the one who escalated the conflict in the first place. And a good thing he did, for if not for standing up to those commie pinkos, it is quite possible that the red hoarde might have won the cold war. One of my best friends (a Canadian volunteer) did 2 tours in Nam(he is a hero to me), and the biggest obstacle he faced was the lies and misinformation coming from the home front. Get yer facts straight, moron!
Yo, sheik yerself,
I’m sure everybody here would say, given that slimeball trolls don’t belong here, that you should take your own advice – but rather than a rock, go crawl under your bridge.
BTW, did you read the whole post with it’s reference to leftards?
Eeyore, first of all it is Revelation, not plural. Secondly you don’t know about which you speak.
Revelation teaches that the anti-christ will come out of the european union. A peace treaty will be made in the middle east. After three and a half years Russia and it’s arab islamic allies will attack Israel and break the treaty. Russia will be destroyed, but then China will march on Israel. The final bloody battle. Christ will return to put a stop to the killing, which left unchecked will destroy civilization. That’s the condensed version.
You say you don’t believe this stuff. Watch and wait. We are now in what Jesus referred to as the ‘beginning of sorrows’. Maybe you should actually read the New Testament before making your comments on it.
Yo, “A Storm is coming”, I HAVE read the New Testament…granted only three times…so I know that the Book of Revelation (commonly referred to as “Revelations”…bugger off) does not contain the words “Russia”, “China”, “European Union”, etc.
Revelations makes reference to Gog and Magog and the like, which theologians have deemed to be whatever they have deemed it to be. The prevailing theory is similar to what you have described, but it is an inherently imperfect interpretation only.
As for my belief, I’m agnostic…I don’t discount the possibility of the truth of the Bible, but I can’t accept it wholeheartedly, either. This is based on my reasonably in-depth study of the Word over a number of years…I know enough to say that I don’t know for sure…whereas others discount Christianity without any knowledge of it at all. As the saying goes “The beginning of wisdom is the ability to say ‘I don’t know”.
Anyway, my first comment was partially off-topic and this one is fully off-topic. Sorry Kate et al.