Londonstani reports collection

[omarali50]

Moderator adds: This thread was called 'Londonistani reports from Pakistan' as he has now moved back to London, via Syria, it has been renamed and some recent posts on another thread have been copied to here. Jon Custis and I like his writing style. I think his views are important on the non-lethal aspects of 'small wars', so he has his own thread, which is rather unusual. (ends).


Londonstani is a correspondent for the CNAS blog "abu muqawwama" and has been sending in some great reports from Pakistan>
His latest is at:


http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawam....html#comments

My comment on it was: Great Job!
I would only add one more thing: Your psychoanalysis of the "common man's" confusions may be correct, but dont underestimate the layer of confusion ADDED ON by army psyops to whatever was inevitable and expected in ANY human society.

The army has been running the country in one form or the other since 1953, they have a lot of leverage in the media (much of it unrecognizable to the casual observer). They have a particular interest in trying to project foreigners/Indians/CIA/Jews as the cause of all our troubles. And that interest may not even be primarily ideological (meaning it may not be because the army is all jihadi). Some of the motivation may be more pragmatic: The army high command may be willing to change course on the jihadi issue and even kill its own creations but they are NOT willing to sit back and let bloody civilians run the country as they see fit. If they accept responsibility for this mess it wont take long for ordinary people to realize that the "corrupt civilians" have done much less damage to the country than the super-efficient smartly dressed military patriots, which means the bloody civilians may be giving orders to generals one day.....
I know this sounds too conspiratorial (maybe it is, maybe some bloody civilians have been blaming the army so long, they cannot think any other way), but I suspect that the high command is pretty shrewd when it comes to their interests in the power game. Bottom line: if the army wanted, it could actually demonize these talibans and terrorists much more. The problem is, they want them demonized, but not to the point where people start asking questions about "strategic depth"....Of course, they may actually believe their own propaganda. Its very easy to believe what is in the interest of your pocketbook..