http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article628825.ece

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/bhutto.death/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/28/bhutto.dhs.alqaeda/index.html

In the 21st Century we’ll face continued challenges of dealing with the residue of 19th Century empires. It ain’t gonna be pretty. Tribes, factions, sects, and nationalists will fight for power and the ramifications will be dire.

Back in the 1970s, a geographer put forth a proposal to re-draw state borders in the United States. His logic was the exisiting borders were of a different time and different considerations. Rivers offered natural boundries in the 18th Century. The square states out west fit the technologies of the 19th Century.

But in the 20th Century, the realities of mass media and financial and agricultural and manufacturing interests and population dispersal complicated efficient government.

For example, Kansas City Missouri and Kansas City Kansas have far more in common than Kansas City Missouri and, say, Cape Gerardo Missouri. Wichita and Tulsa Amarillo and Oklahoma City comprise a region with common economic concerns and resources, far different than, say Goodland and Pittsburg Kansas.

If, somehow, we could redraw state lines in America based on commonalities of region and population centers, Mobile and New Orleans and Houston (for example) would be part of a single state based on petroleum and seaside economies. Omaha, Kansas City, and De Moines would be a thriving agricultural and transportation giant. Most of New England would be a single state. Georgia, Flordia, and the Carolinas could comprise a state with commonalities rather than the current patchwork of local biases. Denver and Salt Lake City and Wyoming and Montana would comprise a state that could deal with the unique economic resources of mountains and high plains. Western Pennsylvania and most of Ohio and Indiana and Illinois could combine their strengths rather than battle one another for economic advantages. San Francisco has far much more in common with Seattle and Oregon than with San Diego.

It’s never gonna happen, of course. Too many state-oriented power structures exist and the Missourians who’d be forced to live with and vote with Kansans would probably turn into a North American Iraq of factional fighting.

But maybe, just perhaps, the United States of America should back off from the hot spots on the planet and let the people of regions such as Asia, the Middle East, and Africa figure it out for themselves. Instead of trying to impose democracy at the point of a gun — the NeoCon model — perhaps we should let the European model work by example. The French and the Germans and the Hungarians and the Czechs and Scandinavians most certainly have their historical differences, but they’re slowly realizing they have more in common than not.

Would that the rest of the world might figure that out.

Me?I think Musharraf should use this event as an excuse to crack down hard on Al Queda and other radicals.

He would have much popular support for that effort.

The problem, as noted in my link, is that spies are everywhere, in the Pakistani government.

Tell him it’s crazy.

JR–

Check out the link above.

Benazir Bhutto sent Wolf Blitzer an e-mail in October asking him to read it if she were killed–she claimed that if she were assissinated, it would be Musharraf who was behind it.

Very doubtful, if we play our cards correctly. As I posted way upstream, supporting Musharraf is the only way we can tend to the short term interests of our country.

Is there truly a “Pakistani Nationalism” that any leader can draw upon, or will the fate of Pakistan be determined by its neighbors?

http://kids.mapzones.com/world/pakistan/pakistan.jpg

Or, worse, will the future of Pakistan be determined by OBL and Al Queda?

This is what real torture is:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2007/12/21/torture_and_the_democrats

Pakistan borders Afganistan. We can get all the equipment we need into Pakistan, at any time that we need to move.

This gives the Pakistani government cover to demolish the Al-Queda network, on the Afgan border.

Problem is, there are certainly spies in the Pakistan government.

That is how OBL escaped, when the Clinton State Department warned Pakistan before Clinton’s strike.—-Watch India.India will not let the Pakistani Nukes fall into radical Moslem hands.

Posted by: Roland | December 27, 2007 at 10:26 PM

Europe is still made up of distinct governments and varying cultures.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up for the European Union being nothing more than a brokerage pivot point for Economics and possibly some treaties.

World Power? Heck, Europeans can’t even agree on which or whose wine to drink at meals.

Damn that is a heavy one to disprove. Certainly he failed at the very least to provide her adequate security.

I blame bush and that will not surprise anyone.

If there was a nation that should have been worrisome to US security in the wake of 911? Well we KNOW now it was not Iraq. bush just made it a big mess.

But Pakistan had nukes. And we relaxed sanctions on them so they would help us get bin Laden who ends up IN…

PAKISTAN!

If it wasn’t so foreboding it would be comic.

On a side note, I’d say those who ridiculed Senator Obama for his remarks as to Pakistan aint singing any tune as to this anytime soon.

What to do?

Well the balance of our military is tied up in Iraq and elsewhere.

How convenient.

A whole region is plunged into unrest for the forseeable future.

Most call that a problem. But of course to some, it is an opportunity.

Damn I hate being right all the time.

Considering Al-Quida has bases in Pakistan, those of you worried about Iran someday getting nukes are barking up the wrong tree.

Might have been a BBC writer, don’t remember.

“If it’s not them, it’s certainly one of the groups that are sympathetic with them,” Riedel said. “They all work together and share a common antipathy to Bhutto because she’s a woman, an advocate of secularism, a supporter of democracy and everything they stand against.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17660659

Given the above, it does seem to me that Musharraf does share some blame in Bhotto’s death in that he 1) failed to thoroughly investigate the first assassination attempt, 2) failed to respond to her request for enhanced security, and 3) declined her request for police escort.

Take the nuke via cargo ship and sail up from South America nestled among the drug boats floating north to the US?

One Nuke would bring a lot of money to the table for some fanatical cause that needs a lot of money.

Not especially. They only have them because their arch rivals India has them.

She didn’t learn anything from JFK about riding in an open car.

Those who fail to learn history…

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/12/27/bhutto.photographer/#cnnSTCText