Poor fella this country

As if Pakistan hasn't enough problems!
The Economist is reporting escalating ethnic warfare in Pakistan’s most populous city, Karachi.  This conflict is so bad that Karachi’s ambulance service now has to send out a driver matching the racial make-up of the destination district to pick up the victims of gang attacks. Otherwise, the district’s gunmen will not let the ambulance through.

Karachi’s ethnic wars have claimed some 1,000 lives this year, with more than 100 in the past week alone. By contrast the Taliban and other religious extremists kill tiny numbers in Karachi.

Read more here

The end of Osama

When we're fighting a war in Afghanistan to destroy terrorist training camps that are actually inside the land of Pakistan (our ally), it is only to be expected that the iconic terrorist Osama bin Laden will be captured near Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan and within cooee of an elite military academy and an important military base.   It is doubly ironic that he was captured and eliminated on the order of that well-known softie, Barack Obama, who (we're supposed to believe) wasn't really born in the USA and is, in fact, a secret Muslim!

Aftermath

When the tumult and the shouting dies, will the Egyptian people find their promised land? 
The demonstrations in Egypt this week brought back memories of the fall of the Berlin wall.  But Egypt faces enormous challenges to meet the aspirations of its people, especially its youth and its middle class.  Theirs will be a more difficult transition than that of Germany in 1989.
Compared with the problems of Pakistan, however, Egypt  seems more likely to come through its demonstration of people power to a better future.  Recent demonstrations in Pakistan have not been built on a strong middle-class base, do not propose a worthwhile future for the young and have ambivalent support from the army.  More often than not demonstrators have supported jihadist causes.
The aftermath of the Egyptian uprising may be uncertain, but it has dealt a death blow to the old entrenched regime, which is very likely to impact on the Arab Muslim world in general.   Unfortunately, however, it is not likely to provide a model for a better future for Pakistan.

Pakistan

In happier times before the Great Flood