One of the world’s great statesmen weighs in on the future of the US and its allies. He has built a world power, albeit second class, from a tiny city state and his words should be taken seriously. A presidential candidate has made some ignorant comments about Pakistan. What does Lee advise ?
Asked about the “Pakistan-terrorist nexus,” Lee Kuan Yew — “Harry” to his close friends — replied, “We should learn to live with it for a long time. My fear is Pakistan may well get worse. What is the choice? Musharraf is the only general I know (there) who is totally secular in his approach. But he’s got to maneuver between his extremists who are sympathetic to Taliban and al-Qaida and moderate elements with a Western outlook. … There is an interesting study of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency that says 20 percent of the Pakistani army’s officer corps is fundamentalist (and therefore pro-Taliban, an organization that was originally organized and subsequently controlled by ISI until Sept. 11).”
We should take heed but an election is coming and, I fear, the course of history may not take the path we would choose. The failed public school system of the US, which provides almost no basis for intelligent decisions by the electorate, is going to be the end of us. Demagogues led to the downfall of Athens in the Peloponnesian War. We may be seeing something similar today.
His thoughts on China going forward were pretty much point by point what I’ve reasoned out over the last couple of years watching from the market side of things. They are not afraid to barge ahead, and then circle back to fixed what they got wrong. The US is bound up with bureaucracy and the legal establishment. Those two factions will not get out of the way, and they are too ensconced in the fabric of the nation to be pushed out of the way.
His framing of Pakistan is worse than I thought. Scarier than Iran, in that Iran does not have so many loose cannons. And the nukes are already in play.
And my compliments on how your site is advancing. Quite thought provoking pieces you put up consistently.
The worthlessness of NATO is pretty well complete. The Netherlands is listed as one of the few conducting offensive operations, but from what I read that is a joke: they just walk around safe areas, and if there is any whiff of conflict, they withdraw.
Europe made a point to keep trading with Iraq and Iran when we were trying to apply sanctions, so they are less than useless.
On Pakistan, I’m wondering now if we should have encouraged India to go to war circa 2002. Pop the zit, so to speak.