A grim trajectory
"PEOPLE killed in suicide bombings, people killed in a hail of bullets, people killed by remote-controlled IEDs — dead, dead, dead. At every step, at every turn, people are dying violent deaths in Pakistan. And there is no end in sight.
Are the militants and the terrorists winning?
The short, glib answer, yes, they are. The longer, more nuanced answer: if this keeps up, they will.
‘Winning’ here doesn`t mean toppling the state and running the place the Afghan Taliban in the ’90s.
Winning just means pulling the country into a low-level equilibrium: endemic violence and insecurity; low growth and few economic prospects; poor social indicators; a populace that is further under-educated and distanced from the modern world; the reign of intolerance, misogyny and misanthropy.
The parasitic state would still exist in this nightmare scenario, but it would be too worried about its own security and well-being to do anything for a frightened and defenceless population." |