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With friends like Pakistan...

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by jgmacg, Nov 4, 2007.

  1. Cansportschick

    Cansportschick Active Member

    Wonder what the Diwali celebrations will be like there....

    Fireworks indeed :p
     
  2. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    At the gym this morning, exerting on the elliptical, I watched CNN and the report on Pakistan and sort of rolled my mind's eye. Why are they such monkeys over there?

    Then during the drive to where I am now, Ox Val Mall, I was getting the green lights, and grooving to soul-smooth songs like Al Green's Let's Stay Together and Chaka Khan's Feel For You, and smoking a butt, window down, volume up, cool breeze against my face on a beautiful sunny day, and I thought again to Pakistan. And I wondered if they ever can live a day in peace. Do they ever want to live a day in peace? Isn't there ever a moment of relaxation? Must every day be a goddamn riot zone? What ever happened to just, you know, living a normal existance?

    Just a whole lotta monkey fucking over there.

    But here ... over here it's a beautiful fucking day to be living.
     
  3. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    What do you do with a bad monkey?
     
  4. markvid

    markvid Guest

    Spank it.
     
  5. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Three possibilities:

    -- With the country (and its nukes) in the control of the Taliban/extremists if order does not prevail and anarchy ensues;
    -- With the country in the control of secular moderates if order prevails and elections are held expeditiously;
    -- With a grim future of civil unrest bordering on civil war (aka, the status quo) if order prevails and elections are postponed.

    The U.S.'s interests would be best served if (with the help of Bhutto) it can broker a gradual emergence from martial law that results in elections sooner rather than later. The next goal would be to somehow weed out the extremists from the military, which obviously carries a high degree of difficulty since about 25 percent of the Pakistani troops come from the tribal areas in which they've been ordered to track down al Qaeda and the Taliban.

    Peace o' cake.
     
  6. ATLienCP

    ATLienCP Member

    How confident are you in the election scenario that secular moderates will be put in power?

    Apples to Oranges but pushing for elections didn't go so well in Palestine.

    Personally I see a high probability of extremist groups and current power holders attempting to influence elections through intimidation. It could be a bloody test of Pakistans moderate majority.
     
  7. andyouare?

    andyouare? Guest

    Movie also featured a young Cynthia Nixon, making out on a hotel bed. Who knew all you needed in infiltrate a nuclear power plant was some frisbees and a rain storm?
     
  8. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    I'm not confident of anything in Pakistan. I personally think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
     
  9. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    General consensus is that the Islamist extremists are a distinct (albeit pernicious) minority in Pakistan. They wouldn't be the big winners in open elections. Palestine was slightly different in that you had one monolithic party (Fatah/PLO) that had been in charge for so long, and people protested its incompetence/corruption by choosing Hamas. There are more choices for moderate Pakistanis than simply falling into the arms of radical Islamists (which isn't to say that Musharraf and Bhutto lack incompetence and a penchant for corruption).
     
  10. Beaker

    Beaker Active Member

    I would agree, but my fear would be that the extremist Islamist elements have infiltrated the military which is still the strongest arbiter of power in Pakistan.
     
  11. ATLienCP

    ATLienCP Member

    My fear is that the extremists will bully their way into a larger piece of the pie than their numbers actually represent. This will put them in a position to take advantage of the inevitable corruption of any elected moderates. Extremists are good at getting more attention then they deserve.

    Not knowing much about the politics of Pakistan if it is has 234114ish different parties trying to get elected it will only make it that much easier for extremists to bully their way around.
     
  12. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    Excellent point, and one that significantly complicates matters.
     
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