The Crisis-Slumber

How is it possible that a society priding itself on its secular democracy within an Islamic state could be immune to recognizing the rabidly creeping corruption within, the descent into political anarchy? The Taliban within Pakistan give shelter to the leaders of al-Qaeda, just as the Taliban within Afghanistan once did, before American intervention. Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribal areas have now been completely destabilized; conventional control has slipped from tribal elders to Taliban terrorists.

Who have felt sufficiently free of government control to institute terrorist training camps for international conscripts, to wage lightning-strike bomb attacks and suicide missions and assassinations anywhere within the country they feel inspired to demonstrate their dedication to Islamist mayhem. The government of Pakistan, through all of this, waged an inadvertent, lackadaisical response, hardly worth the effort of managing a growing insurgency.

Culminating in another 'peace-agreement' between the government and the Taliban; in trade for a cessation of attacks against police stations and government troops, the Taliban would have official sanction to impose Sharia Law. The government handily overlooking their obligation to protect and secure the lives of those unwilling to live under the Taliban. Who had already imposed their will through beheadings of opponents, destruction of hundreds of schools, and threats of more.

Occasioning as a result the hasty migration of thousands of fearful Pakistanis, loathe to leave their homes, but prizing their lives and those of their dependents more highly. Now the Taliban, al-Qaeda operatives in their wake, are establishing themselves a trifle further afield. To the point where they not only threaten Islamabad, but critical infrastructures like the largest earth-filled dam in the world. Providing central Pakistan with its electricity, farmers with irrigation.

Not far from there also, the Wah Cantonment containing an army ordinance complex of 14 massive factories employing some 40,000 people churning out Pakistan's weapons and military supplies, inclusive of nuclear weapons; chief storage area of the country's nuclear arsenal. The Wah Cantonment was breached by two suicide bombers last year. The death toll from that was 70; wounded 1,000.

Pakistani newspapers now report that security personnel at the Tarbela Dam have been placed on alert; Taliban had installed themselves at nearby Buner. And a month earlier a similar alert had gone out in India, for two of their dams. The head of the pro-Islamist Islamic Party of Religious Leaders complained in parliament the country risks completely being submerged in terror - resulting from its support of the United States.

As for other interpretations of the country's trajectory into complete failure and the fount of critical enablement of the world's most dangerous terrorist groups, a South Asian specialist with the Council on Foreign Relations reveals his opinion: "If present trends persist, the next generation of the world's most sophisticated terrorists will be born, indoctrinated and trained in a nuclear-armed Pakistan."

Bringing joy and comfort not only to those within Pakistan who fervently wish for the means by which they can extricate themselves from this growing disaster, and the world at large for whom the emerging disaster may equal potential catastrophe.