Pakistan's fragile state

[cali]

In the last few days nearly a hundred have been killed in two major errorist attacks and hundreds have been injured. The Swat valley is in the hands of the Taliban. The government ability to deal with it, seems very doubtful.

And no, I'm not cheering on American involvement. Simply noting Pakistan's increasing instability.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/30/AR2009033000098.html

http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/03/27/bombing-of-packed-pakistan-mosque-likely-to-further-inflame-region/

[JDPriestly]

1. I oppose the War in Iraq but have wondered whether

the reason Bush wanted to seize the oil fields in Iraq was to insure an oil supply for the long haul, the exhausting battle that will be waged to free Afghanistan and Pakistan of the Muslim extremists. Iran is Shiite and not allied with Al Qaeda, but Iran does not like us for its own reasons and might not cooperate in a struggle against the Al Qaeda Sunnis in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia, heretofore our ally, is a Sunni nation. Al Qaeda originated in Saudi Arabia and is supported by the religious fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia so I have heard.

With a sure supply of Iraqi oil, we should be able to fight an all-out war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I want to see the end of Al Qaeda and the threat posed by the religious fundamentalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. I'm not sure what is the best way to achieve the goal of ending that threat.

I am just thinking out loud about the strategy.

Unless this was the thinking, it is incomprehensible that Bush would have wasted so much of our resources, human and material, on Iraq when Afghanistan is such a difficult battleground and so much is at stake in Afghanistan.