The Back Alley Archives

How do y'all see this playing out?

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan began moving thousands of troops away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday amid tensions following the Mumbai attacks, intelligence officials said.

The move represents a sharp escalation in the stand off between the nuclear-armed neighbors and stands to weaken Pakistan's U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and Taliban close to Afghanistan.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28389772

I see bloodshed in their futures.

Sounds like fun....nothing like a war between nuclear powers. I wonder if India is truly justified in stepping up their rhetoric or if they've been duped.

This article seems to be skeptical of Pakistan's responsibility, wondering if the attackers could have been domestic terrorists:
[quote]Why should it be such a surprise if the perpetrators are themselves Indian Muslims? Its hardly a secret that there has been much anger within the poorest sections of the Muslim community against the systematic discrimination and acts of violence carried out against them of which the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom in shining Gujarat was only the most blatant and the most investigated episode, supported by the Chief Minister of the State and the local state apparatuses.

Add to this the continuing sore of Kashmir which has for decades been treated as a colony by Indian troops with random arrests, torture and rape of Kashmiris an everyday occurrence. Conditions have been much worse than in Tibet, but have aroused little sympathy in the West where the defense of human rights is heavily instrumentalised.

Indian intelligence outfits are well aware of all this and they should not encourage the fantasies of their political leaders. Its best to come out and accept that there are severe problems inside the country. A billion Indians: 80 percent Hindus and 14 percent Muslims. A very large minority that cannot be ethnically cleansed without provoking a wider conflict.

None of this justifies terrorism, but it should, at the very least, force India’s rulers to direct their gaze on their own country and the conditions that prevail. Economic disparities are profound. The absurd notion that the trickle-down effects of global capitalism would solve most problems can now be seen for what it always was: a fig leaf to conceal new modes of exploitation.[/quote
http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq11272008.html

Hopefully it will be one more nail in the coffin of offshore outsourcing.

I think it will allow us to be a bit more 'active' and 'free' in our pursuit of taliban and raghead forces on the pakistan/afganistan border area.

I think those two nations are fanatical enough to nuke each other.

They haven't done it, yet.

The key word in your sentence is yet.

Let's not forget China in this neighborhood. India and China have already fought a war. I don't think they will take a nuclear exchange in their backyard lying down.

The real danger to us is what happens if the government in Pakistan loses control of its nukes.