Pakistan: the little I know

Target: Pakistan - Losing in the West, the jihadis hit Pakistan, with its nuclear prize.

Excerpt:

"In Pakistan there are two fault lines. One is dictatorship versus democracy. And one is moderation versus extremism." Thus did Benazir Bhutto describe the politics of her country during an August visit to The Wall Street Journal's offices in New York. She was assassinated yesterday for standing courageously, perhaps fatalistically, on the right side of both lines.

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Comment: Kathee and I were talking this morning about the little we know about Pakistan. What I know about Pakistan is from two major sources:

1. Long lost friends from Colorado: M Khan, B Khan, and their Father H Khan. (First names omitted for their privacy. Last name is common in Pakistan!). I met M while taking a C programming class. A friendship developed and we met on numerous occasions. We had dinner in his home, met his Father, met his Brother. We had M and B and H in our home as well. We met many Pakistanis and many Afghanistanis as well. M's parents arranged his marriage and I wanted to go to Pakistan for his wedding. It was more than a year before M's wife could come to the United States and join him. We had M and his bride in our home. I know a lot about Pakistan from M. M's wife had a pet monkey in Pakistan and I learned enough about pet monkeys to know I would never want one.
   
2. From Dr Viggo Olsen, author of Daktar. Dr Olsen was a Baptist medical missionary to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). His books provide a first hand testimony to the history of Pakistan and Bangladesh. We were privileged to meet him in a casual home setting when I was a Pastor in New Jersey.
   

Strangely the Pakistan that M Khan presented to me was a country friendly to the West, a country I wished I could visit. M brought a massive pictorial of Pakistan to our home and as we viewed page after page he spoke to me about his experiences growing up and living in Pakistan.

The tragic murder of Benazir Bhutto puts Pakistan in the forefront of the news. My hope for Pakistan is a moderate democracy. My fear for Pakistan is that Islamic fundamentalists will gain control of Pakistan's 60 some nuclear weapons!

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CT: Remembering Benazir - An Indian Christian mourns the charismatic Pakistani leader

Excerpt:

Pakistan stands at the center, geopolitically, for much of what is yet to happen between Islam and the rest of the Western world. More so, I believe, than the Middle East or even Iraq or Iran, not only because of its enormous Muslim population (more than 160 million), but also because of its growing brand of radicalism, which, due to Al Qaeda's influence, is gaining control of Islamic radicalism worldwide.

Newsweek: What About the Nukes? Despite its claims, Pakistan's nuclear weapons are vulnerable.


Excerpt:

Over the years I have had the opportunity to discuss the loose nukes issue with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on three separate occasions. On each he insisted that there is no possibility that corrupt custodians or terrorists could steal the country's nuclear weapons and materials. But in the third of these conversations, which occurred in December 2003, just a week after terrorists came within a second and a half of blowing him up, I managed to penetrate his standard defense. How plausible is it, I asked, that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is more secure than the president of the country himself? His answer: well, there you may have a point.

A witch's brew that includes political instability, a burgeoning Islamic insurgency, a demoralized army and an intensely anti-American population, puts Pakistan's nuclear weapons at risk.