The Emerging Sovereign Nation-State of TalibanPakistan

My Lede NYTimes Comment #72. April 24, 2009 5:16 pm Link

April 24th, 2009 8:56 am

The Emerging Sovereign Nation-State of TalibanPakistan

Pakistan has neither Motivation nor Reason to stop the Taliban. Why would they?

I analyze 3 reasons why Pakistan current leaders and civil society will accommodate and unite with the Taliban.

1. So long as the Taliban is perceived as a threat to Pakistan, MONEY and WEAPONS keep flowing into Pakistan from interested parties like the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran. This money and arms are used by feudal elites (this includes the ruling political leaders)to create cash liquidity, maintain power and control over land and other resources.

2. It is possible to envisage a scenario in which the Taliban rule Pakistan through a coalition with the feudal landowners who now rule Pakistan. That coalition will keep Pakistan securely within the fold of repressive nation-states like Saudi Arabia, who have the substantial longstanding support of the US. Everybody knows that Democracy is NOT a US export item.

3. Pakistan's very existence as a nation-state is entirely defined by its separation,in 1947, from India. mainly through Brit divide-and-rule imperial strategy. Pakistan can therefore continue to maintain its 60+ years of a nation-state political orientation in which India can continue to be portrayed to its civil society, as The Enemy, the Infidel, the Unbeliever. This view is wholly consistent with the Taliban's view of India.
The US can do virtually nothing to alter the Pakistan-Taliban dynamic. The US appears ready to consolidate and inflame that dynamic through additional troop deployment and ongoing drone strikes.
Let us also not forget that the US created, armed and trained the mujahideen who morphed into the Taliban.

The US policy in South Asia constitutes the gravest threat to the world's largest democracy, India. But India will likely rise to that threat, no thanks to the US.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice

The Emerging Misogynist Sovereign Nation-State of TalibanPakistan

The US policy in South Asia constitutes the gravest threat to the world’s largest democracy, India. The Taliban threat is nothing compared with the threat posed by the presence of US and US-led NATO troops.

To focus on the comment about white US female soldiers, is to give undue importance to the Taliban’s views on women which are already well known (they are proven arch misogynists), and to deflect attention from the Paksitan Govt’s role:

Pakistan has neither Motivation nor Reason to stop the Taliban. Why would they?

I analyze 3 reasons why Pakistan current leaders and civil society will accommodate and unite with the Taliban.

1. So long as the Taliban is perceived as a threat to Pakistan, MONEY and WEAPONS keep flowing into Pakistan from interested parties like the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran. This money and arms are used by feudal elites (this includes the ruling political leaders)to create cash liquidity, maintain power and control over land and other resources.

2. It is possible to envisage a scenario in which the Taliban rule Pakistan through a coalition with the feudal landowners who now rule Pakistan. That coalition will keep Pakistan securely within the fold of repressive nation-states like Saudi Arabia, who have the substantial longstanding support of the US. Everybody knows that Democracy is NOT a US export item.

3. Pakistan’s very existence as a nation-state is entirely defined by its separation,in 1947, from India. mainly through Brit divide-and-rule imperial strategy. Pakistan can therefore continue to maintain its 60+ years of a nation-state political orientation in which India can continue to be portrayed to its civil society, as The Enemy, the Infidel, the Unbeliever. This view is wholly consistent with the Taliban’s view of India.
The US can do virtually nothing to alter the Pakistan-Taliban dynamic. The US appears ready to consolidate and inflame that dynamic through additional troop deployment and ongoing drone strikes.
Let us also not forget that the US created, armed and trained the mujahideen who morphed into the Taliban.

Let me repeat: The US policy in South Asia constitutes the gravest threat to the world’s largest democracy, India. The Taliban threat is nothing compared to the threat posed by the ground and air presence of US and US-led NATO convoys, troops and drones. It will predictably get worse when US tr0ops are redeployed from Iraq to Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.

However, India will likely assess and overcome the Taliban threat, absolutely no thanks to the US. India overturned Brit colonialism now it will dismantle US neo-imperialism and defuse the Taliban reaction to US militarism, male and female, in their homeland.

Chithra KarunaKaran
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NYTimes copyright
U.S. Questions Pakistan’s Will to Stop Taliban
By CARLOTTA GALL and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: April 23, 2009
Taliban militants on Thursday outside a mosque where tribal elders and members of the Taliban met in Daggar, the main town in the Buner district of Pakistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/asia/24pstan.html
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/04/24/world/asia/24pstan.html
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The Lede NYTimes copyright
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/video-of-pakistani-taliban-in-buner-and-swat/?apage=3#comments
April 24, 2009, 7:43 am
Taliban Spokesman Blames American Women
By Robert Mackey

Cheney the Exceptionalist Individualist

My published NYT comment#151.
April 24, 2009 10:51 am

Link

April 24th, 2009 8:20 am
Cheney the Exceptionalist Individualist

US nation-state culture, from the perspective of the social sciences, can accurately be categorized as:

individualistic vs. collectivistic; independent vs. interdependent.

Such a nation-state culture can and does frequently produce individuals (whether Dick Cheney the statist or Charles Manson the sadist) who focus mainly on their own private, narrow, often violent and even pathological self-interest, to the exclusion of the collective and interdependent self-interest.

Cheney represents the most extreme, radical and self-absorbed example of US nation-state culture.

That personal and nation-state cultural orientation is a threat to the individual, the society and the world.

Is it possible for US nation-state culture to produce fewer Cheneys in the future?
This one still has a few more years of destruction left in him.

Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
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New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/us/24cheney.html?scp=1&sq=Cheney%20unapologetic&st=cse
Unemployed, Unapologetic and Unrestrained: It’s Cheney Unbound
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: April 23, 2009
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/04/24/us/24cheney.html?s=1&pg=7