Wow. There are times when I'm still mildly surprised that I can still be stunned. But, there you have it.
What makes the Taliban powerful is the fact that people think they NEED military organizations like the Taliban.
Which would be so unlike, oh, China, or the USA? Seems to me both think they need some pretty powerful military organizations, with very powerful weapons, and the ability to project that power anywhere in the world at any time.
the best entity for dealing with Pakistani tribespeople would be the Pakistani government. I am sure the government of Pakistan could be persuaded as to the soundness of this strategy
That would be the military junta that holds power in some parts of the country, oversaw the assassination of its chief rival to power, and has so little control over other areas that some parts of the country seem to be in a state of civil war. But, the same government that has not only nuclear weapons, but delivery systems and pretty much hates us because they thing (truthfully to be sure) that we tend to side with India over them? That government? What little I am sure of is that its a hard road to convince a military junta in the midst of a civil war of anything resembling sharing power.
besides making sure they have the IDEA to actually DO this, would be to keep any would-be nuisances out of the way.
Like the Indian Army is to Pakistan, or like our army is in Afghanistan?
Remember, the original idea behind the CRIPS was to bring a sense of order to the streets in a part of the USA where there was NOT a valid or trained police force in the area.
They started out as what they are now, a capitalist organization set to control trade in a specific item, in this case, drugs.
It's kind of hard to stand up for yourself when the other person has an assault rifle and you have nothing, unless you have a death wish.
Or when you nation is under occupation (again) by an empire that uses an incredible array of weapons to subjugate the population? It's hard to stand up to attack aircraft and helicopters with only some assault rifles too, but you know what? They did it against the Soviet Union, and they are doing it against us too.
It's like they worship assault weapons or something.
Unlike, oh, say, us?
No, what would turn the tables on the Taliban would be to get the message to the people that true power comes from the heart, not from a weapon or any other outside source. The British police have mostly done without weapons for a long, long time.
Odd reading of history. And wrong. Power come from the barrel of a gun as Mao Zedong said. And the Brit police now are armed. And they never shied away from using weapons to subdue foreign populations in the name of empire, as they too, tried, unsuccessfully in Afghanistan.
My Saxon ancestors had brains, too, but they never thought of these ideas, either. They were too busy beating each other with swords and getting drunk. It took the human race thousands of years and a lot of shot-in-the-dark, chance-in-hell coincidences to even come up with these ideas at all.
Not true. The Greeks and Romans had theories of power and government back when the Saxons were still living in caves. Other older civilizations had similar concepts too, even before Greece and Rome.
