America and Pakistan

It's tempting to think that if the Pakistanis can't govern themselves, they are doomed to the evils of oligarchy and gangster rule. It's especially tempting because it lets us off the hook for our role in creating this disaster.

The Pakistanis might very well have that good government, if we hadn't stepped in along the way to support military dictatorships. The Pakistani-Indian rift might well be healed if we had not exploited those differences to challenge the Russians in the Indian Ocean.

It's not an accident that a large border area of Pakistan-Afghanistan serves as a terrorist base area- that was our plan. That was also "fighting the Russians".

And it's not an accident that timber cutting in Pakistan by timber poachers denuded hillsides and unleashed the floodwaters of a globally-superheated storm. Stealing the natural resources by dealing with local thieves is what "free trade" is all about.

Like the US-Mexico border, we've created a problem in Pakistan. Kinda makes you wonder- could there be even more of these problems coming in the years ahead?