Tom Watson calls me out for not discussing this story, and, quite frankly, I did not read Kirstof today. I have now, and you should.
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Blogs to the Rescue
In less than 24 hours, you’ve mobilized a small army on behalf of Mukhtaran Bibi, my personal hero and a symbl of courage to many millions. I’ll continue to update the main post below, but I wanted to comment briefly
Tom W.
Thanks John – it’s an incredible story all the way around, and it’s taken a turn for the tragic….great blog, btw. Daily read.
Gary Farber
Well, John, if you’d looked two posts below the one you were most recently kind enough to link to….
John Cole
Lol, Gary- I got distracted by the post you wrote, then must have gone off and done something else withouth seeing that.
Blogger ADD.
Thx, Tom. Good catch.
Gary Farber
“…and it’s taken a turn for the tragic….”
Myself, I wouldn’t say that the right word to describe the vicious choices of human beings to hurt others is “tragic.” “Evil,” maybe, or “despicable,” or “outrageous.”
Tom W.
Gary, quite right – no tragic….yet….let’s hope it doesn’t come to that – i’m 100% sure our government could prevent it.
Bruce Moomaw
(Since I just put this accidentally in the “New Book” thread, I’ll try again…)
Pakistan has multiple copies of the Bomb — and the reason Musharaf’s government is doing this sort of thing is because he’s teetering on the edge of losing control of the country to a bunch of suicidal/genocidal religious maniacs. Which is why, as I’ve said elsewhere, Pakistan is the one country on Earth that frightens me even more than North Korea — the latter, at least, is run by a bunch of by-and-large sane and non-suicidal psychopaths, with whom we may thus be able to make some kind of workable deal.
One can argue that Clinton’s worst failure was his failure to prevent these two nations from acquring nukes — by any means necessary. (His second-worst was his failure to back the balanced-budget amendment — but I digress.) But how many right-wingers did you hear uttering a peep about the fact that Pakistan had acquired the Bomb? And they didn’t even make that much of a fuss about his lackadaisical attitude toward North Korea doing so. If he HAD taken military action against either nation, the Winguts (Rightist Subdivision), would probably have spent the remainder of his term screaming about how he was trying to distract attention from Monica. (After all, they did just that when he bombed Iraq and thereby –according to captured Iraqi officials — put a final end to Saddam’s CBW program.)
At any rate, I do think there are two things we could do in regard to Pakistan. The first is to put as much diplomatic/economic pressure as possible on India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir conflict; that place now surpasses Palestine as the world’s most dangerous trouble spot. The second would be to lift our restrictions on Pakistani textiles — conditional upon their continued good conduct. But no Presidential candidate last time did anything but furiously oppose lifting the ban on Pakistani textiles under any circumstances — after all, they musn’t lose South Carolina’s electoral votes. Christ.
Slartibartfast
As strong as the temptation is to blame Clinton for, well, everything, the Pakistan and North Korean nuclear weapons programs rather predate him. There probably were things he could have done to put the brakes on North Korea, but Pakistan was well along the path to having nuclear weapons when Clinton took the Oath.
Slartibartfast
As strong as the temptation is to blame Clinton for, well, everything, the Pakistan and North Korean nuclear weapons programs rather predate him. There probably were things he could have done to put the brakes on North Korea, but Pakistan was well along the path to having nuclear weapons when Clinton took the Oath.
Jeff
Wow, Tom Watson plays on the Senior PGA tour AND finds time to blog?
Gary Farber
“… sane and non-suicidal psychopaths….”
“Sane… psychopaths.” Now, there’s a formulation you don’t see every day.
Gary Farber
“… sane and non-suicidal psychopaths….”
“Sane… psychopaths.” Now, there’s a formulation you don’t see every day.
J. Michael Neal
To emphasize what Slarti said, Pakistan and India have both probably had nuclear weapons since the 1970s or 80s, much as Israel has. What happened during the Clinton years is that they both made it official by actually testing a bomb and no longer ‘denying’ that they had them.
Slartibartfast
I wasn’t prepared to say it that strongly, J. Michael; what I had in mind was something more like “they had pretty much everything they needed to bootstrap themselves into nuclear arms”, whereas North Korea probably didn’t (although it, too, was making the effort).
Tony Alva
There are probably many more women out there who are suffering the kind of humiliation Mukhtaran Bibi’s is at the hands of rabid Islamics, but she seems to be exactly what Tom W. says she is: the embodiment of what we believe in as freedom. For her and all the other women of the world who suffer under archaic religious persecution and abuse I only hope we can put an end to it one way or the other.
Thanks John for helping keep this story alive.
Bruce Moomaw
Unfortunately, “sane and non-suicidal psychopaths” is not a contradiction. Psychopaths are quite rational; they’re just totally amoral and lacking in emotional sympathy for others. This still means that they can be reasoned with if you can present them with a good self-interested reason for behaving themselves. Which is the only possible way for us to deal with North Korea’s leadership.
As for the specific date at which Pakistan really acquired the Bomb: maybe. The fact remains that India first tested theirs all the way back in 1974, and promptly started rattling it now and then to threaten Pakistan about Kashmir. One would tend to assume that Pakistan, for obvious reasons, would also publicly reveal their Bomb almost as soon as they got it.
Of course, the Pakistani situation is further complicated by the fact that Pakistan acquired their Bomb in large part because they were afraid of India’s — and India, in turn acquired its Bomb in large part because it was afraid of China. Which would seem to confirm that any actions ever taken by any President to prevent Pakistan from acquiring a Bomb in the first place would have had to evolve around trying to resolve the Kashmir crisis, rather than placing pressure on them in any other way.
And as for my “blaming Clinton for everything”: I’m a Democrat, dammit, and therefore have no motivation to blame him for anything but the mistakes I think he genuinely did make. (By contrast, I would be strongly tempted to endorse an impeachment resolution against Bush for leaving the White House toilet seats up…)