parsuram wrote:
Your comments bring to mind what my brother, the doctor, was fond of saying - "kids grow up whether you do anything or not", well, in that vein, populations also survive whether there is a government to help them survive or not. So, the paki people will find ways to survive - though it might be more Darwinian than any civilized person may want to witness. As to whether the paki will have the ability to swallow Pakhtoon lands whole - if it came to that, and knowing the punjabi mussalman as I do, I would bet on the reverse, the pakhtoons swallowing the paki whole. Their brutal tactics will cause the kind of panic those pakjabi mussalmans have not experienced since 1947 in east Punjab cities. The pathans always had nothing but contempt for punjabi muslims(pathan foot soldier to pakjabi general:"you have never won a war, and we have never lost one"-anti soviet jehad, 1980s). The sikhs - now that is a whole different matter, and with very good causes that were enumerated a few pages back. Anyway, I cannot see the pakjabi army actually taking all pakhtoon lands by force. More likely that the paki population, in the brutal process of survival, will lead paki lands to anarchy, with masses of their inhabitants heading east as refugees, maybe with the looting, maurading pathans in hot pursuit.. Tough call then, on the borders. India better be prepared - particularly the BSF and assorted forces responsible for border security. It will be more than two guys on a camel requiring to be shot.
Interesting post. Absolutely no quibbles whatsoever. In fact that would explain the brutaliy with which the Paki army treats the Taliban who oppose them, And the US is helping them do that by keeping the Paki army healthy and well armed. That Pakis are pulling a fast one on the Pashtuns, telling them that the US wants to dominate them, and in doing so the Pakis are themselves dominating the Pashtuns with US aid.
If we look at the historic relationship between India, the area that is Pakistan, and Afghanistan, you find that when Afghanistan was being attacked, India was the strategic depth, and the option of retreating into what is India was always available in case of Pashtun counter attack.
The Paki military wanted to use Pakistan as base and try and use Afghanistan as strategic depth. In fact the five rivers are the physical boundary that invaders have to cross. Once those five rives are crossed and the defenders on the east of those rivers is defeated - the plains all the way up to Bihar can be overrun without any major geographical hurdle to cross. Pakistan holds only a thin strip of land east of the river. If they can conquer the plains of India they would have a great time. But if they fail and are pushed by by India they have nowhere to run. That is why they wanted Afghanistan.
But if the Pashtuns attack them they cannot run beyond the thin strip they hold on the east of the Indus. They will be running into waiting, loaded and cocked Indian "arms" Having tried and failed to conquer parts of India they were looking for security in the north west and managed to con the US into believing that they were sincere. The will be brutal with Pashtuns who oppose them as long as their "strategic depth" is America - with the US funding and arming them.
. This is per his own account in his book
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