Editorial note: If you have not yet read our mission statement above, please do so in order that you can put our blogs in context. 

 6 April 2012

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Tory politician, UK Prime Minister in war (1940-1945) and peace (1951-1955). The quotation is from a speech he gave at the White House in Washington on 26 June 1954.

Clearly, the message has still to get through to the Americans.

Take Pakistan.

There’s trouble up the Khyber.

Unruly tribes, ethnic factions, religious fundamentalists, Taliban, Kashmir freedom fighters, rebel warlords, village militias, al-Qa’ida – a patchwork of localised turbulence outside central government control.

The Pakistani Government wants to end the resulting internecine strife by talking to the dissidents.

The Americans, by contrast, want to bomb them.  Using pilotless drones. The fact that Pakistan is an independent country, a Member State of the United Nations, with its own borders and government does not seem to bother them.

Only it bothers the Pakistanis.

Which is why they have stopped the Americans funnelling supplies for the Afghan war through Pakistan.

Today’s Le Monde headlines an article on this subject “Pakistan rejects the fight against terrorism advocated by the United States”.

The newspaper says that the Pakistani Government wants an end to attacks by US drones on its territory, “a demand considered unacceptable by the United States”.

One wonders how the United States would react to a drone attack by Pakistan on Pennsylvania. Anyone remember 9/11 ?

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 You might perhaps care to view some of our earlier posts.  For instance:

 1. Why? or How? That is the question (3 Jan 2012)

2. Das Vierte Reich/The Fourth Reich (6 Feb 2012)

3. The shoddiest possible goods at the highest possible prices (2 Feb 2012)

4. Where’s the beef? Ontology and tinned meat (31 Jan 2012)

5. What would Gandhi have said? (30 Jan 2012)

Every so often we shall change this sample of previously published posts.

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