India-Pakistan: The War for Social Justice Against Women

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June 5, 2007: In Kashmir, Indian border guards, equipped with more sensors and night vision devices this year, appear to have stopped most infiltration attempts from Pakistan. At least six such attempts were stopped, with many casualties, in the past week. The terrorists will flee back into Pakistan, if they can. The infiltrators come across a border covered by mountainous forests, and even with most of the snow gone, skilled trackers can spot the trail left by the infiltrators. The few hundred active Islamic terrorists inside Kashmir present India with a situation similar to that encountered by NATO and American forces in Afghanistan. Lots of low level terrorist attacks, against civilians as much as against the troops, and a low casualty rate for the troops. However, the violence has been going on for nearly twenty years, and most Kashmir is wish it would just stop. Meanwhile, despite the lack of anyone attempting to sneak into Pakistan, some 200 new bunkers, observation towers and guard houses have been built on the Pakistani side of the Kashmir border. It's unclear why this has been done. There has been a ceasefire on this border for over three years. Before that, Pakistani border troops would often fire into India to make it easier for Islamic terrorists to get into Indian Kashmir.

June 4, 2007: In what was largely a PR stunt, a Pakistani frigate (a former British Amazon class ship) and a supply ship arrived in Shanghai, China, to show the flag. China has long been a major supplier to Pakistan, of weapons and military technology (including nuclear weapons secrets).

Over the weekend, Maoist rebels in central India destroyed six electricity network towers. The chief source of income for the Maoists is money from companies, who pay to not be attacked. When a company does not pay, or does not pay enough, their operations are attacked. The Maoists are fighting for social justice, and the establishment of a communist dictatorship in India.

June 3, 2007: In Pakistan's capital, a radical mosque militia has shut down a nursing school, based on a rumor that someone at the school had defaced the Koran. Islamic conservatives do not believe in education for women, and girls at the mosque school are mainly taught to recite the Koran and hate non-Moslems. The nursing school was shut for fifteen days before negotiations allowed it to re-open. As a result, three Christian instructors (and four Moslem ones) were suspended. About 60 percent of Pakistani women are illiterate, and efforts to change that have run into opposition from Islamic conservatives, who believe girls and women should never leave the home, except to be married or buried.

June 2, 2007: The Pakistani government is be pressured by the U.S., Britain and NATO, to crush Taliban power in Pushtun tribal areas in the northeast. The pro-Taliban tribesmen are attacking video stores and girls schools, and publicly executing adulterers. There are over 100,000 troops and police deployed near the border, and these are subject to attacks via roadside bombs, or rockets and mortars fired at their camps. The government has forbidden the troops from retaliating against known Taliban sympathizers, while trying to convince the tribal chiefs to crack down. So far, many tribal chiefs, who tend to be quite conservative and old school themselves, are content to let the Taliban do as they wish, as long as the tribal leadership is not threatened.

June 1, 2007: In Bangladesh, the interim military government has arrested 170 corrupt politicians so far, continuing its popular anti-corruption drive. This has upset the politicians greatly, and they are accusing the military of trying to destroy democracy.

May 31, 2007: In Pakistan, critics of the military are getting nasty, and making a big deal of the business empire the military has built up over the last half century. Worth about $10 billion, the 250 businesses are controlled by five cartels, and exist mainly to provide jobs for retired military personnel, and extra cash for senior officers. Meanwhile, eleven died when a group men made an unsuccessful attack on the compound of a tribal leader near the Afghan border.

 

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