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Catch up
January 11, 2009 | Posted by Londonstani - 6:44pm | 56 Comments
Yes, Londonstani feels guilty for letting AM do all the heavy lifting recently.. particularly since he well knows Eric Cantona's second biggest fan has an ascent to power to plot. (OK, if you watched that, you might as well watch this)
Londonstani's spent a lot of time looking at Pakistan recently. One of his areas of interest has been the country's nuclear weapons.. where they came from and, even more importantly, where they might go.
So, David Sanger's article in the NYT today proved an important read. One paragraph seemed particularly pertinent.
"“I have two worries,” one of the most senior officials in the Bush administration, who had read all of the intelligence with care, told me one day last spring. One is what happens “when they move the weapons,” he said, explaining that the United States feared that some groups could try to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India in the hope that the Pakistani military would transport tactical nuclear weapons closer to the front lines, where they would be more vulnerable to seizure. Indeed, when the deadly terror attacks occurred in Mumbai in late November, officials told me they feared that one of the attackers’ motives might have been to trigger exactly that series of events."
The whole article (all five pages) is well worth a read.
There isn't too much news reportage on this because it's one of those areas that falls through the cracks. Any serious information requires access to high-level officials dealing with one of the most contentious issues of the day and a lot of the "so what" part is all conjecture.
The books to read on the topic are Deception by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark and of course Ghost Wars by Steve Coll.
But Londonstani can't help wondering that if you want a solution and aren't just looking for material to scare the kids into eating their greens, you got to look at why Pakistan (as an entire nation) wants nuclear weapons, as well as the underlaying causes of its basket caseness.
Londonstani doesnt buy the Pakistani argument that all will be OK once the U.S. buggers off back home. In fact, he can think of at least one Pakistani military official who recently told him that although he thought the entire problem was of the U.S.'s making, Washington should NOT pull troops out and just leave. The reason being; "Who's going to pacify the place? There's only so many times we can change sides. We have no trust left there."
UPDATE: Another Pakistan issue that's been occupying Londonstani's limited brain space.
"Three-quarters of the most serious terror plots being investigated by UK authorities have links to Pakistan, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said."
Londonstani's spent a lot of time looking at Pakistan recently. One of his areas of interest has been the country's nuclear weapons.. where they came from and, even more importantly, where they might go.
So, David Sanger's article in the NYT today proved an important read. One paragraph seemed particularly pertinent.
"“I have two worries,” one of the most senior officials in the Bush administration, who had read all of the intelligence with care, told me one day last spring. One is what happens “when they move the weapons,” he said, explaining that the United States feared that some groups could try to provoke a confrontation between Pakistan and India in the hope that the Pakistani military would transport tactical nuclear weapons closer to the front lines, where they would be more vulnerable to seizure. Indeed, when the deadly terror attacks occurred in Mumbai in late November, officials told me they feared that one of the attackers’ motives might have been to trigger exactly that series of events."
The whole article (all five pages) is well worth a read.
There isn't too much news reportage on this because it's one of those areas that falls through the cracks. Any serious information requires access to high-level officials dealing with one of the most contentious issues of the day and a lot of the "so what" part is all conjecture.
The books to read on the topic are Deception by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark and of course Ghost Wars by Steve Coll.
But Londonstani can't help wondering that if you want a solution and aren't just looking for material to scare the kids into eating their greens, you got to look at why Pakistan (as an entire nation) wants nuclear weapons, as well as the underlaying causes of its basket caseness.
Londonstani doesnt buy the Pakistani argument that all will be OK once the U.S. buggers off back home. In fact, he can think of at least one Pakistani military official who recently told him that although he thought the entire problem was of the U.S.'s making, Washington should NOT pull troops out and just leave. The reason being; "Who's going to pacify the place? There's only so many times we can change sides. We have no trust left there."
UPDATE: Another Pakistan issue that's been occupying Londonstani's limited brain space.
"Three-quarters of the most serious terror plots being investigated by UK authorities have links to Pakistan, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said."
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