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Old 04-17-2009, 01:49 PM   #4 (permalink)
Slims
Eccentric insomniac
 
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Location: North Carolina
If the Taliban had been strong enough, they would have assumed control in PK as well as Afghanistan.

They have always been competing against (sometimes violently) the PK government.

If the theater has shifted, it is only because the US is actually providing a strong presence in Afghanistan while PK is growing weaker due to all the recent political turmoil.

I know you feel I am a bit of a statist/nationalist so my opinion may be no surprise to you, but I feel the turmoil in PK was inevitable. As soon as the Taliban were strong enough they would have begun to do what is taking place now.

PK also shot themselves in the foot by bulldozing refugee camps in SWAT and NWFP, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. The average fighter is not politically/religiously motivated over there (at least it isn't the primary reason they fight). Rather, your average rank and file 'insurgent' is simply some poor bastard who agrees in principle with the TB and who really needs money. By bulldozing those refugee camps PK forced a lot of people to make some really hard choices about where their next meal would come from, and additionally motivated them against the PK Gov. by destroying their 'houses.' The money in PK and AFG IS controlled primarily by religous groups, so it is no wonder that people who fight (for money) do so under the banner of radical Islam.


On a side note, I recently read a book titled "The Accidental Guerilla" and I think you would find it illuminating and not-distasteful in it's presentation. It attempts to show how complex this situation really is as well as why different groups in AF/PK are behaving as they are.
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