Terry Glavin: If Pakistan didn’t scare you before, it should now
August 18, 2010 – 11:01 am
The Sound of Pennies Dropping:
1. Pakistan’s main spy agency says homegrown Islamist militants have overtaken the Indian army as the greatest threat to national security, a finding with potential ramifications for relations between the two rival South Asian nations and for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. A recent internal assessment of security by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s powerful military spy agency, determined that for the first time in 63 years, it expects a majority of threats to come from Islamist militants, according to a senior ISI officer.
2. Much now depends on the ability of the government and its foreign allies to bring relief to flood victims. Tens of thousands of Pakistani troops and virtually the army’s entire helicopter fleet are now involved in the effort. But its resources are way overstretched, and for months to come the army is unlikely to be in a position to even hold the areas along the Afghan border that it has recently won back from the militants, let alone initiate any new campaigns against the Taliban. That means the war in Afghanistan is about to become even more bloody.
2. Much now depends on the ability of the government and its foreign allies to bring relief to flood victims. Tens of thousands of Pakistani troops and virtually the army’s entire helicopter fleet are now involved in the effort. But its resources are way overstretched, and for months to come the army is unlikely to be in a position to even hold the areas along the Afghan border that it has recently won back from the militants, let alone initiate any new campaigns against the Taliban. That means the war in Afghanistan is about to become even more bloody.
3. Pakistan has taken an awfully long time to understand that it faces an unprecedented terrorist threat that is not a result of conspiracies hatched in Washington, New Delhi or Tel-Aviv, as many in the public believe, but that is the result of the Pakistani state’s nurturing of extremist groups since the 1970s.
4. There appears to be a deeper reason that the global community is not responding as generously to Pakistan today: that country’s rampant corruption and links to Islamic terrorism. Quite simply, there is grave suspicion that aid will end up in the wrong hands: those of the Taliban.
4. There appears to be a deeper reason that the global community is not responding as generously to Pakistan today: that country’s rampant corruption and links to Islamic terrorism. Quite simply, there is grave suspicion that aid will end up in the wrong hands: those of the Taliban.
......National Post
Journalist, author and blogger Terry Glavin is an adjunct professor of creative writing at the University of British Columbia and editor of Transmontanus Books. He was awarded the 2009 B.C. Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.
Posted in: Full Comment, World Politics Tags: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Terry Glavin, Terrorism, India, International Security
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