General Musharraf of Pakistan announced a state of emergency today.
I can't claim to understand all the nuances of the issues in Pakistan. This country is not at war, but it wasn't the calmest place in 1998 when I went through it in a Dragoman truck, on an 8-week overland trip called "The Great Asian Journey." There were plenty of security problems then, and that was before 9/11.
Terror wars, drug wars, the former British Empire, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan--this is right next door to the front lines. Throw in economic, educational, urban vs. rural, and religious disparities. Mix with government trying to strike a balance between domestic factions and international demands and it gets complicated indeed.
I was inspired to scan in some of my Pakistan photos this morning, since I assume it's off-limits for touring for now. Have a look.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing the photos. I thought the photos of the Tomb of Bibi through the hole and of Khyber Pass were especially gorgeous.
I spend a lot of time reading political commentary on liberal blogs; that commentary necessarily involves foreign affairs. I wish to God there was some solution to the whole Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan-and-the-rest-of-the-Mideast mess that simply required intelligence to develop, but there isn't. Any solutions will require that groups of people who passionately hate each other, passionately enough to kill each other virtually on sight, learn to live peacefully within miles of each other.
I spend time during my weekend (Thursday-Friday) on comics commentary, and I discovered this weekend via Google searches, that I've gotten good enough rhetorically so that some people are looking specifically for my posts at one forum. That's not much fame, but I'll take what I can get.
SRS
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