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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Oh Great!

For my birthday I got a Kindle—the Amazon electronic book reading device.  The first book I downloaded was David Kilcullen's Accidental Guerrilla.  I am about 12% of the way through the book (I know that because, down at the bottom of the screen, instead of a page number, it provides a percent complete.

Now comes the same David Kilcullen being briefly interviewed by IBN, which I take to be Indian Broadcast Network (the first clue that it is India is that one of the tabs on the home page is for cricket). The interview can be found here.

The lede is Dr Kilcullen telling us that we are about three months from a governmental collapse in Pakistan.  Then the money quote:
The consultant David Kilcullen has warned that if collapse happens—"It will dwarf anything we've seen so far. Pakistan has a military intelligence establishment that refuses to follow the civilian leadership. Pakistan has 100 nuclear weapons, an army bigger than America's and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control.”
Now, there is a happy prospect.  We finally get the US Government focused on Mexico, from which it has been distracted since 9/11 by al Qaeda, and now a failed Pakistan rears its ugly head to again distract the US Government form Mexico . And, with 100 nuclear warheads and our supply line to Afghanistan, we have to be distracted. And, unfortunately, the ISI—the Inter-Services Intelligence organization is a rogue operation and is, or should be, of major concern. Some call ISI a state within a state and accountable to no one.  It is reported to have links to the Taliban and to al Qaeda.  Which way will ISI lean if Pakistan does collapse—Pakistan a state with 100 nuclear weapons.

Incidentally, Wikipedia isn't keeping up, in that it doesn't have Dr Kilcullen's latest book, the one I am reading, listed in his bio.

Regards  —  Cliff

PS:  See you down by City Hall at 1600 for the "Tea Party."

1 comment:

Craig H said...

It's frustrating to observe that polarizing Muslims and destabilizing and fracturing the Iraqi state via invasion has probably done more to destabilize Pakistan (and leave the US more exposed to terrorist threat) than any other factor. The further fact that Pakistani terrorists, unlike any others in the world, will possibly have opportunity to acquire nuclear weapons, is profoundly chilling.

Anybody want to start a pool about whether US nukes, or Indian, will be the first provoked into response? (I'm betting Indian to start, but not ruling out a larger party before it's over).