GreenwichJ:

. The Pashtun up in the North West see Punjabi government in Islamabad as almost as foreign as Nato forces in Afghanistan, and will happily kill Punjabis with impunity.

Not to belabour a cliche, but violence really is the only language they understand. To beat the Taliban we need to pour troops over the border, clear and burn the Pashtun tribes' towns and villages, and push them into the lowlands. Only then will you end the tribes' millennia of terrorising their lowland neighbours.

This sophmoric regional strategy towards Pakistan reveals that a segment of America knows only violence and turning people against each other in their relatinos with the world. Remember this: "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out"? Those who dont SUBMIT TO AMERICAN IMPERIAL HEGEMONY MUST BE FOUGHT UNTIL THEY DIE OR SUBMIT.

That's what this mentality reenforces: global American neo-imperialism.

But what this effort fails to identify:

Using the Pottery Barn metaphor: America has BROKEN and BOUGHT Pakistan over and over again for decades. See, America is the one that reenforced militarism in Pakistan. It goes back to the 1940s and 1950s when America armed the Pakistani military under the pretext of resisting Soviet incursion and supported Pakistan's wars with INC, Nonalignment Movement founder, Socialist India.

And just as America found Nawaz Sharif's administration uncooperative in 1999, America backed Musharraf's coup, then provided him with billions annually. America did with with Zia al Haqq, and others before him. See, this type of geo-strategic imperial interference- switching rulers of its vassal states when they dont do American bidding- creates a sick society. It creates a society that is NOT beholden to its people first, but the foreign power of America first. And then those foreign powers that follow in succession. And within Pakistan, the society turns to the interests of those who wield the most power, from the military, to the ministries, to the tribes and political parties, to the local crime lords, and then men, and then women. This sick heirarchy is born out of the sickness of oppression and injustice which America has reenforced for decades, generations even.

Is greater American intervention and interference the answer?

Invading and waging war on Pakistan would be a terrible move. Pakistan is not 27-30 million people who have endured 3 wars and 12 years of sanctions like Iraq.

Pakistan is twice the size of California. It has 171 million people, the median age is 20 yrs old. 1 million males reaching military age annually, with 39-42 million fit a/o available for military service. There are more males at the age of military service in Pakistan then the entire population of Iraq. As well, there are large Pakistani communities throughout America and Britain (sure to join an American war on Pakistan) with many Muslim Pakistani youth who are educated, including as engineers, and whom are frustrated.Would an American War on Pakistan push them over the edge, or make them feel warm and fuzzy inside for America?

Would an American War on Pakistan really make America safer?