Hell In A Nuclear Laboratory

The world can point an accusatory finger of damnation at Pakistan for the proliferation of nuclear weaponry. A country that has never been economically secure, with a vast population of marginally-productive people, many of whom live close to malnourishment, it was maladaptive to pursuing the political advantages of achieving a nuclear breakthrough with the intention of building a nuclear arsenal, when it should have been attempting to feed its masses.

The country was so signally fixated on its hatred of India and its determination to match India's nuclear success that it abandoned responsibility.

Incapable of adequately governing its entire territory, it sought instead to build its malevolent intention toward India through the encouragement of tribal fanatics for whom India became a common goal for military defeat. Out of this sordid history of human hatred and an unwillingness to see others as like oneself, was born a trajectory of nuclear-knowledge distributed among failing states, countries whose leaders were corrupt, tyrannical, human-rights-abusing fascists.

Pakistan, so long conflicted between wanting to become an advanced social, technological and political nation, yet irresolute in its determination to achieve that state because of its all-consuming antagonism toward India, nourished a veritable viper to its bosom, one which has now threatened its very existence. The Islamist jihadists, the hard-core Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliates sheltering in Pakistan simply decided to take over the country.

Pakistan attempted to forestall that hostility and intent by forging casual agreements not to intervene in the rugged and alien territories it had no control over, run by tribal chieftains loyal to Islam, but with no loyalty to the country itself. From among whom, nevertheless, agreements could always be achieved to attack India and Indian interests.

In the final analysis, Pakistan outdid itself, creating its own impending disaster because of its inability or unwillingness to confront the religious radicals that infiltrated its military and secret service.

The result of which was the Taliban reaching down from their hill territories toward a geography close to the country's capital and beyond. In their initial success in swarming down upon and overcoming the weak resistance of police and government militias, the Taliban came too close for comfort to Pakistan's weapons depots and nuclear installations.

In the course of which one terrorist commander boasted they would use Pakistan's nuclear weapons against the United States whose influence in the country and the world of Islam infuriated them beyond endurance to a white-hot rage of jihad unleashed.

And at present, while Pakistan's armed forces are besieging the Taliban and reclaiming the cities, towns and villages and the mountain redoubts that the Taliban had taken, al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri insists that "American crusaders" are planning to "manipulate Pakistan's destiny", by obtaining control of the country's nuclear systems, and taking possession of their weapons.

The good story is that Pakistan has instituted extremely effective safety mechanisms in protection of their nuclear infrastructure and weaponry.

The bad news is that no amount of sophisticated safety protocols and technical equipment and human intelligence is a guarantee that they will not be breached at some time by some agents skilled enough and determined enough to break codes and resistance and obtain the advantage they seek.

There are no assurances that such threats can be effectively and finally neutralized. There always remains the potential and the prospect for equipment and for devices to fall into dangerous hands. In Pakistan that possibility is more real than anywhere else on Earth.

Other nuclear-possessing countries carefully store and protect their dread weapons of mass destruction beyond the reach of viciously militant fanatics of any stripe. Most other nuclear countries aren't coping with the immediacy of violent insurrection on their own territory.