Pakistan

[ZenGum]

We need a thread about Pakistan. There are probably some old ones, but they're dormant, so I thought I'd start a fresh one.

Why should we care about Pakistan?
Pakistan is probably more important than Iraq or Afghanistan. It's population exceeds the other two combined. They have nuclear weapons and an army that obeys the political government only when it feels like it. They have a history of political instability, corruption and violence. A significant portion of the country is not under the control of the central government, and in many cases, is held and run by Taliban-like Islamists. It's right next door to Afghanistan.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who are very active in support of civil justice and rights, who will protest loudly sometimes effectively, and they do have elections from time to time. And I have a friend from there, and he is cool.

More recently, Pakistan was probably a staging point for the mass shootings in India, and saw a team of gunmen attack the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team. Very recently, a police academy in Lahore was stormed by a small group of fighters and held for about 8 hours.

This (Northern) spring is looking "interesting" in Afghanistan. It is expected that the coalition will step up efforts do drive their enemies out of the mountain strongholds. My worry is that this will simply drive them, at best, into other places in Afghanistan or, much worse, into Pakistan. This would destabilize Pakistan further. Do we interfere inside Pakistan?

So I thought I would start a thread about Pakistan, and we can update and discuss as things happen.