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Subject:
Pakistan Needs more Help not Critism!!!
TopGun
9/8/2006 2:55:28 PM
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| IMO, Pakistan a poor and impoverished nation itself is on the receiving end of considerable critism nowadays due to its recent cease-fire agreement with tribes in the region of Waziristan. A region representing less 250 kms of the 2400kms long border with Afghanistan, where with the exception of the immediate region of Kabul and small cantonments in other cities, little else of the country is controlled/patrolled. On my recent trip to Pakistan from Afghanistan, I realized one important fact. Pakistan is Afghanistan plus 40-50 years of development! It is a poor and impoverished nation, fighting a war/conflict with India, a country 4X its size, 8x its size vis-a-vis its population and having the 5th largest army in the world. On top of that, all of Pakistan's headwaters come from Indian Kashmir(which incidently is predominantly Muslim sharing cultural/linguistic traits with Pakistan) forcing it, wether any government/dictator likes it or not, to continually fight against this larger neighboor. Compound all this, with its low literacy rate <40%, and the war on terror against Al-Qaeda and militants(many of whom where funded and armed with CIA, M15, Saudi funds and military suppliers-->eg. Stingers!) who have more advanced weoponry and more money to throw around for potential supporters in the poorer areas than the Pakistani government can think of and you have one very volatile mix! While its easy to point fingers, especially when things are going wrong! one needs to look at the history of Pakistan, which has been a steadfast ally of ours since the 1950's. If I can heap a little personal critism, I would say it has been our US administration which has let this country down, time and again. One can easily point to the nuclear trail leading to Pakistan, but we fail to realize that it wasnt Pakistan which started this nuclear arms race in South Asia, but India, which detonated a nuclear device in 1974 a mere 30kms from Pakistans border. In fact it was Pakistan that tried to get all nations to sign a 'Denuclearization Treaty in South Asia' preventing the development/deployment of Nukes but this was shot down by india, and so was forced towards the back-alley path of procurement. I state all this, because I feel that much unnecessary finger pointing towards Pakistan has taken place where much more support(military, economic/financial and public) is required for this sincere ally. The US has always supported military dictators in Pakistan over democratically elected ones, and this needs to change. We must press for an immediate return to Democracy, and help this ally and re-earn the trust of its people and help establish it as a role model to other nations in the region. Only then, will the larger issue of the war on terror improve. |
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