GWOT Threat - Simple or Complex?

[George L. Singleton]

Stan:

I might add another dated 40 years ago observation.

1. I was a "freak" as Liaison Officer for our Peshawar base, me in Karachi.

2. I took the time and had genuine interest in knowing the educated elite as well as some, but not many, of the poorer, grassroots folks by both having them as my guests in my quarters and at local, native restaurants (where I ended up with two forms of dysentary, amoebic and bacillary, and a total of 7 attacks of both types, combined).

3. Conversely, my USMAAG shared housing buddies and all the State Dept. folks stuck (in Karachi) to behind the walls embassy parties among mainly Europeans and other US State and US business community types.

4. Result is I bluntly knew and know more, understand better, the uneducated, semi-literate, and of course the highly, mainly Sandhurst or Oxford/Cambridge/Harvard/Vasser (Pak gals from rich ruling families), etc. types, to know the mix and blend inside Pakistan, 1963-1965.

5. While some new hotels have been built both in Karachi and Peshawar (viewing K-2, the second highest mountain in the world, and a breathtaking view from any angle) it is my current opinion, and I have one Pakistani friend, age 70, living in Karachi who comes here every summer to Alabama to visit his businessman son, daughter in law, and granddaughter (all now US citizens, but still Muslims of the moderate Aga Khan type/variety), I do not think that Pakistan has progressed much nor changed it's thinking and ways much.

All this said, Pakistan in the interior is terrorist minded and thinking. Only on the coast in Karachi do you find, my view from here in the US, moderates.

The military of Pakistan and the local police and para-military use brute force to keep the people in line, otherwise, you would have constant blood baths and religious extremism would run rampant.

Madrass schools, nationwide, but particularly in Balochistan (Quetta), NWFP (Peshawar, Swat, etc.) is overrun with mad Mullahs creating terrorists, literally, who go in droves across the border into Afghanistan as I write this.

Cheers,
George Singleton